Letters, Papers, and Addresses 1815-1902
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: DNS; History; Year 10

LETTERS, PAPERS, AND ADDRESSES

1815-1902

The Holy Alliance Treaty

September 26, 1815

This treaty, drawn up by Tsar Alexander, reflects the return to conservative politics in Europe after the long struggle against Revolutionary and Imperial France. It was subsequently acceded to by all the monarchs of Europe except the King of Great Britain, who declined to sign on constitutional grounds, Pope Pius VII, who refused to treat with Protestant monarchs, and the Sultan of Turkey. Both Castlereagh and Metternich dismissed the wording of treaty as largely meaningless, and it had little influence on the policies of the signatories. Liberals and nationalists hated the Alliance as a symbol of the reactionary Restoration.

TREATY between Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

Signed at Paris 14 / 26th September 1815.

(Translation)

In the name of the Most Holy and Indivisible Trinity.

THEIR Majesties the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of Russia, having, in consequence of the great events which have marked the course of the three last years in Europe, and especially of the blessings which it has pleased Divine Providence to shower down upon those States which place their confidence and their hope on it alone, acquired the intimate conviction of the necessity of settling the steps to be observed by the Powers, in their reciprocal relations, upon the sublime truths which the Holy Religion of our Saviour teaches.

They solemnly declare that the present Act has no other object than to publish, in the face of the whole world, their fixed resolution, both in the administration of their respective States, and in their political relations with every other Government, to take for their sole guide the precepts of that Holy Religion, namely, the precepts of Justice, Christian Charity, and Peace, which, far from being applicable only to private concerns, must have an immediate influence on the councils of Princes, and guide all their steps, as being the only means of consolidating human institutions and remedying their imperfections. In consequence, their Majesties have agreed on the following Articles:

Article I.

Conformably to the words of the Holy Scriptures, which command all men to consider each other as brethren, the Three contracting Monarchs will remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity, and considering each other as fellow countrymen, they will, on all occasions and in all places, lend each other aid and assistance; and, regarding themselves towards their subjects and armies as fathers of families, they will lead them, in the same spirit of fraternity with which they are animated, to protect Religion, Peace, and Justice.

Article II.

In consequence, the sole principle of force, whether between the said Governments or between their Subjects, shall be that of doing each other reciprocal service, and of testifying by unalterable good will the mutual affection with which they ought to be animated, to consider themselves all as members of one and the same Christian nation; the three allied Princes looking on themselves as merely designated by Providence to govern three branches of the One family, namely, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, thus confessing that the Christian world, of which they and their people form a part, has in reality no other Sovereign than Him to whom alone power really belongs, because in Him alone are found all the treasures of love, science, and infinite wisdom, that is to say, God, our Divine Saviour, the Word of the Most High, the Word of Life. Their Majesties consequently recommend to their people, with the most tender solicitude, as the sole means of enjoying that Peace, which arise from a good conscience, and which alone is more durable, to strengthen themselves every day more and more in the principles and exercise of the duties which the Divine Saviour has taught to mankind.

Article III.

All the powers who shall choose solemnly to avow the sacred principles which have dictated the present Act, and shall acknowledge how important it is for the happiness of nations, too long agitated, that these truths should henceforth exercise over the destinies of mankind all the influence which belongs to them, will be received with equal ardour and affection into this Holy Alliance.

Done in triplicate, and signed at Paris, the year of Grace 1815, 14/26th September.

(L.S.) Francis

(L.S.) Frederick William

(L.S.) Alexander

Catholic Emancipation

Following the Reformation in England and the establishment of the Church of England, the Test and Corporations Acts were passed which prevented all non-Anglicans from holding public office. Only Anglicans were allowed to vote and sit in parliament. These laws also applied in Ireland even though some 80% of the population were Catholics. Although a number of Catholic Emancipation Bills were passed by the House of Commons in the 1820s, they were always rejected by the House of Lords. The Anglican ascendancy in the British parliament opposed any concessions to Catholics, as Lord Liverpool said in a speech in 1819:

The main objects of the Catholics were to be allowed to sit in Parliament, in the privy council, and to be eligible to the great offices of the state… The principle of the constitution as established in 1688, was essentially Protestant; the connexion of a church and a limited monarchy was absolutely essential to the existence of civil liberty and of constitutional government; and in deciding the question that the King must be Protestant, they had also decided that the government must be Protestant likewise… The Roman Catholic not only brought a qualified allegiance, but differed from other dissenters in this, that he not only questioned the King’s supremacy, but acknowledged a foreign one… It was not true … that the church of Rome exercised no power except in matters purely ecclesiastical… There could be little doubt that if the Catholic Hierarchy possessed the power, they would use that power in pursuit of farther objects, namely, for the attainment of at least a participation of the property enjoyed by the clergy of the established church…

It was said that the grant of such power as was at present required would serve to produce tranquillity and harmony in Ireland. In his opinion, however, he could not acquiesce. For he could not comprehend how the Catholics were to be contented with merely that quantum of power which their advocates at present demanded… Instead of producing harmony and peace, the proposed concession would rather serve to give birth to a perpetual contest between the Catholic population and the priesthood on the one hand, and the Protestant proprietors and friends of the Protestant establishment on the other, especially with regard to the possessions of the church. (Parliamentary Debates, 1st Series, vol.40, (1819) cols.433-438)

Until 1823 the campaign for Catholic Emancipation in Ireland was mainly the preserve of an intellectual minority and there was no informed public opinion on the subject.

In 1823 Catholic Emancipation was taken to the people by Daniel O’Connell as their concern and as a popular campaign when he established the Catholic Association. O’Connell was a democrat and a Dublin lawyer who had close contact with the social and economic problems of the Irish through his work in the minor courts. He had seen the effects of English rule on the Irish. He decided to crusade to liberate the Irish socially, economically and politically by taking one step at a time within the system. His ultimate aim was Home Rule. Catholic Emancipation was the first step because it already had support in the House of Commons. O’Connell thought that once there were Catholic MPs in the Commons they could use their influence for Home Rule.

His tactics were adopted from American and French examples of agitation and pressure from the majority towards a single objective. His organisation was so successful that later English movements used the Catholic Association as their model. The Political Unions of the early 1830s and the Anti-Corn-Law League of the late 1830s and early 1840s both asked O’Connell for advice and help.

In 1828 William Huskisson, the President of the Board of Trade, proposed a sliding scale on corn and after a disagreement with Wellington, resigned. This disagreement had nothing to do with Ireland but its results were startling. Wellington appointed Vesey Fitzgerald as his new President of the Board of Trade, but Fitzgerald had to stand for re-election because the post carried a salary. This precipitated the County Clare election. O’Connell, who was a Catholic, decided to stand against Fitzgerald: he could do so, but would not be allowed to take his seat if he won. Fitzgerald was an English Anglican who happened to be in favour of emancipation. O’Connell’s aim was to present parliament with a fait accompli, to provoke a crisis and force parliament to do something. He was elected in what Peel called “an avalanche.”

The opponents of Catholic Emancipation (Lord Eldon, the Duke of Cumberland and the Duke of Newcastle) are on the right of the cartoon. Wellington and Peel are on the left, ridiculing the fears of their colleagues over the potential dangers of Catholic Emancipation.

In 1828, the Annual Register (vol.70 1828 pp.105-106) advocated the passing of a Catholic Emancipation Act:

The removal of the disabilities was claimed as matter of right, unless some strong ground of expediency could be established against them, and the existence of any such ground of expediency was denied. They had been originally imposed when everything was to be dreaded from a Catholic prince concealed or avowed; nothing was now to be dreaded, from a royal family which, by the necessity of the Constitution, must be Protestant. They had been imposed to guard against danger from the Pope and a pretender; now a pretender no longer existed, and the Pope was impotent. There was nothing in the Roman Catholic religion, to disqualify its professors from holding power in a Catholic country; for their allegiance to the Pope regarded only their faith; to persecution they were not inclined, for the spirit of popery had changed and been mitigated; and, even if they should attempt to persecute, the attempt would be futile in a Protestant country.

Above all, it was absolutely necessary to grant the demands of the Catholics; because otherwise the Catholics would not allow Ireland to enjoy a moment’s repose, and, exposing us every moment to the danger of rebellion, would render that part of the United Kingdom—what, indeed, it already was—the source of alarm, of discord, of expensive compulsory government in peace, and, in war, a source of positive weakness. It was added, that the concession was due, as being the consummation in the hope of which alone the people of Ireland had been brought to consent to the Union.

This is an anti-Catholic cartoon: Peel and Wellington are the “gravediggers” of the Constitution, Daniel O’Connell and the Pope are taking over St. Paul’s Cathedral (renamed St. Patrick’s) and the King is heading out of the picture (right)

After the Clare election, Wellington had two choices. Either he could pass a Catholic Emancipation Act and let O’Connell take his seat or he could declare the election null and void. Here he ran the risk of violence in Ireland, and possible civil war. Wellington did want to avoid bloodshed. He knew the majority of MPs favoured emancipation and that they were against the use of force in Ireland. He could not resign because that was no solution, and only a Tory ministry could get the Bill through the Lords and get George IV’s consent. The crisis was provoked; the threat of violence existed and the Irish got their way.

In April 1829 the Catholic Emancipation Act was put through parliament by Wellington’s ministry with a great deal of support from Lord John Russell and the Whigs. Peel put it to the House of Commons, and arguably spent the rest of his political career attempting to live down his ‘ratting’ on the Constitution in 1829. The Act said that

- Catholics could sit as MPs at Westminster. This destroyed the Protestant Constitution because any Catholic could become an MP.

- Catholics were eligible for all public offices except those of Lord Chancellor, Monarch, Regent, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and any judicial appointment in any ecclesiastical court. This lifted most civil restrictions.

- In Irish county elections the 40/- freehold qualification was to be raised to £10 householder, which minimised the number of peasant voters. It was emancipation at a price because the Irish electorate was cut drastically.

O’Connell accepted the Act although the majority of members of the Catholic Association were 40/- freeholders. It was political reality—he had achieved his aim. However, the peasants saw O’Connell as a traitor and William Cobbett identified the major flaw in the legislation:

The measure of Catholic Emancipation, as it has been ridiculously, and still is ridiculously, called, has really made the state of the county worse than it was before, and worse than it would now have been, had not that measure been adopted… Every man of sense will ask, how several millions of wretched people, several millions of creatures half-naked and half-starved, should be raised into comfort and content by a mere sharing of the lay, legislative and executive powers between Protestants and Catholics, without any change whatsoever in the principles upon which those powers are executed, or in the manner or price of the execution? (Political Register, 29 August 1829)

A Bill for the Relief of His Majesty’s Roman Catholic Subjects

13 April 1829

[The technical exclusion of Roman Catholics from parliament derived from the compulsory oaths of allegiance and supremacy, as reformulated at the Revolution, which denied the spiritual and ecclesiastical supremacy of foreign princes and prelates, and from the compulsory declaration against transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the Mass. The oaths of allegiance and supremacy which could be required from parliamentary electors also operated as a theoretical, if not necessarily as an actual, bar to the exercise of the franchise by Roman Catholics in England, though by an act of 1794 the omission of the oaths was permitted unless demanded by the candidates. In Ireland Roman Catholics had since 1793 been allowed to vote for but not to sit in parliament. Roman Catholics had also been excluded from civil office and in England from commissions in the armed forces (though there was considerable confusion about the state of the law with regard to the latter category) by the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. As can be seen, the act repealed these technical disqualifications and formally permitted Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament, vote at elections and hold civil and military office subject to the new compound oath which replaced for these purposes the old oaths of allegiance, supremacy and abjuration.]

Whereas by various Acts of Parliament certain Restraints and Disabilities are imposed on the Roman Catholic subjects of His Majesty, to which other subjects of His Majesty are not liable: and whereas it is expedient that such restraints and disabilities shall be from henceforth discontinued: and whereas by various Acts certain Oaths and certain Declarations, commonly called the Declaration against Transubstantiation, and the Invocation of Saints, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as practised in the Church of Rome, are or may be required to be taken, made and subscribed by the subjects of His Majesty, as qualifications for sitting and voting in Parliament, and for the enjoyment of certain offices, franchises, and civil rights; Be it Enacted by The King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, that from and after the commencement of this Act, all such parts of the said Acts as require the said Declarations, or either of them, to be made or subscribed by any of His Majesty’s Subjects as a qualification for sitting and voting in Parliament, or for the exercise or enjoyment of any office, franchise, or civil right, be and the same are (save as hereinafter provided and excepted) hereby Repealed.

And be it Enacted, That from and after the commencement of this Act, it shall be lawful for any person professing the Roman Catholic religion, being a Peer, or who shall after the commencement of this Act be returned as a member of the House of Commons, to sit and vote in either House of Parliament respectively, being in all other respects duly qualified to sit and vote therein, upon taking and subscribing the following Oath, instead of the Oaths of Allegiance, Abjuration, and Supremacy.

“I, A. B. do sincerely promise and swear, That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George the Fourth, and will defend him to the utmost of my power against all conspiracies and attempts whatever, which shall be made against his person, crown or dignity; and I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to His Majesty, His heirs and successors, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which may be formed against him or them: And I do faithfully promise to maintain, support and defend, to the utmost of my power, the succession of the Crown, which succession, by an Act, entitled, “An Act for the farther Limitation of the Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject”, is and stands limited to the Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants; hereby utterly renouncing and abjuring any obedience or allegiance unto any other person claiming or pretending a right to the crown of these realms: And I do further declare, That it is not an article of my faith, and that I do renounce, reject and abjure the opinion, that princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any other authority of the see of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or by any person whatsoever: And I do declare, That I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, person, state or potentate, hath or ought to have any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm. I do swear, That I will defend to the utmost of my power the settlement of property within this realm, as established by the laws: And I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment as settled by law within this realm: And I do solemnly swear, That I never will exercise any privilege tod which I am or may become entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in the Unitedk Kingdom: And I do solemnly in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, That I do make this Declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of this Oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever. So help me God.”

Provided always, and be it further Enacted, That no Peer, professing the Roman Catholic religion, and no person, professing the Roman Catholic religion, who shall be returned a Member of the House of Commons after the commencement of this Act, shall be capable of sitting or voting in either House of Parliament respectively, unless he shall first take and subscribe the oath hereinbefore appointed and set forth, before the same person, at the same times and places, and in the same manner as the Oaths and Declaration now required by law are respectively directed to be taken made and subscribed; and that any such person professing the Roman Catholic religion, who shall sit or vote in either House of Parliament, without having first taken and subscribed in the manner aforesaid the oath in this Act appointed and set forth, shall be subject and liable to the same penalties, forfeitures, and disabilities, and the offence of so sitting or voting shall be followed and attended by and with the same consequences as are by law enacted and provided in the case of persons sitting or voting in either House of Parliament, respectively, without the taking making and subscribing the Oaths and the Declaration now required by law.

And be if further Enacted, That it shall be lawful for persons professing the Roman Catholic religion, to vote at Elections of Members to serve in Parliament, and also to vote at the elections of representative Peers of Scotland and Ireland, and to be elected such representative Peers, being in all other respects duly qualified, upon taking and subscribing the Oath hereinbefore appointed and set forth.

And be it further Enacted, That the Oath hereinbefore appointed and set forth shall be administered to His Majesty’s subjects professing the Roman Catholic religion, for the purpose of enabling them to vote in any of the cases aforesaid, in the same manner, at the same time and by the same officers or other persons as the oaths for which it is hereby substituted are or may be now by law administered;

And whereas by a certain Act of the Parliament of Scotland made in the eighth and ninth Session of the first Parliament of King William the Third, entitled, “An Act for the preventing the growth of Popery”, and a certain Declaration or Formula is therein contained, which it is expedient should no longer be required to be taken and subscribed; Be it therefore Enacted, That so much and such parts of any Acts as authorise the said Declaration or Formula to be tendered, or require the same to be taken, sworn and subscribed, be and the same are hereby Repealed;

And be it further Enacted, That no person in holy orders in the Church of Rome, shall be capable of being elected to serve in Parliament as a Member of the House of Commons; and if any such person shall be elected to serve in Parliament as aforesaid, such election shall be void; and if any person, being elected to serve in parliament as a Member of the House of Commons shall, after his election, take or receive holy orders in the Church of Rome, the seat of such person shall immediately become void;

And be it Enacted, That it shall be lawful for any of His Majesty’s subjects professing the Roman Catholic religion, to hold, exercise and enjoy all civil and military offices and places of trust or profit under His Majesty, His heirs or successors, and to exercise any other franchise or civil right, except as hereinafter excepted, upon taking and subscribing, at the times and in the manner hereinafter mentioned, the Oath hereinbefore appointed and set forth.

Provided always, and be it Enacted, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to exempt any person professing the Roman Catholic religion from the necessity of taking any Oath or Oaths.

Provided also, and be it further Enacted, That nothing herein contained shall extend or be construed to extend to enable any person or persons professing the Roman Catholic religion, to hold or exercise the office of Guardians and Justices of the United Kingdom, or of Regent of the United Kingdom, under whatever name, style or title such office may be constituted; nor to enable any person, otherwise than as he is now by law enabled, to hold or enjoy the office of Lord High Chancellor, Lord Keeper or Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal of Great Britain or Ireland; or the office of Lord Lieutenant, or Lord Deputy, or other Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland, or His Majesty’s High commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

And be it Enacted, That every person professing the Roman Catholic religion, who shall after the commencement of this Act be placed, elected or chosen in or to the office of mayor, provost, alderman, recorder, bailiff, town clerk, magistrate, councillor or common councilman, or in or to any office of magistracy or place of trust or employment, relating to the government of any city, corporation, borough, burgh, or district within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, shall within One calendar month next before or upon his admission into any of the same respectively, take and subscribe the Oath hereinbefore appointed and set forth, in the presence of such person or persons respectively as by the charters or usages of the said respective cities, corporations, burghs, boroughs or districts, ought to administer the Oath for due execution of the said offices or places respectively.

And be it further Enacted, That from and after the passing of this Act, no Oath or Oaths shall be tendered to, or required to be taken by His Majesty’s subjects, professing the Roman Catholic religion, for enabling them to hold or enjoy any real or personal property, other than such as may by law be tendered to and required to be taken by His Majesty’s other subjects; and that the oath herein appointed and set forth, being taken and subscribed in any of the courts, or before any of the persons above mentioned, shall be of the same force and effect, to all intents an purposes, as, and shall stand in the place of, all Oaths and Declarations required or prescribed by any law now in force for the relief of His Majesty’s Roman Catholic subjects from any disabilities, incapacities or penalties; and the proper officer of any of the courts above–mentioned in which any person professing the Roman Catholic religion, shall demand to take and subscribe the Oath herein appointed and set forth, is hereby authorised and required to administer the said Oath to such person, and such officer shall make sign and deliver a certificate of such Oath having been duly taken and subscribed as often as the same shall be demanded of him upon payment of One shilling, and such certificate shall be sufficient evidence of the person therein named having duly taken and subscribed such Oath.

And whereas the Protestant Episcopal Church of England and Ireland, and the doctrine, discipline and government thereof, and likewise the Protestant Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the doctrine, discipline and government thereof, are by the respective Acts of Union of England and Scotland and of Great Britain and Ireland established permanently and inviolably: And whereas the right and title of Archbishops to their respective provinces, of Bishops to their sees, and of Deans to their deaneries, as well in England as in Ireland, have been settled and established by law; Be it therefore Enacted, That if any person after the commencement of this Act, other than the person thereunto authorized by law, shall assume or use the name, style or title of Archbishop of any province, Bishop of any bishoprick, or Dean of any deanery, in England or Ireland; he shall for every such offence forfeit and pay the sum of One hundred pounds.

And be it further Enacted, That if any Roman Catholic Ecclesiastic, or any member of any of the orders, communities or societies hereinafter mentioned, shall, after the commencement of this Act, exercise any of the rites or ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion, or wear the habits of his order, save within the usual places of worship of the Roman Catholic religion, or in private houses; such ecclesiastic or other person shall, being thereof convicted by due course of law, forfeit for every such offence the sum of Fifty pounds.

And whereas Jesuits and members of other religious orders, communities or societies, of the church of Rome, bound by monastic or religious vows, are resident within the United Kingdom; and it is expedient to make provision for the gradual suppression and final prohibition of the same therein; Be it therefore Enacted, That every Jesuit, and every member of any other religious order, community or society of the church of Rome, bound by monastic or religious vows, who at the time of the commencement of this Act shall be within the United Kingdom, shall within Six calendar months after the commencement of this Act, deliver to the clerk of the peace of the county or place where such person shall reside, or his deputy, a notice or statement, in the form and containing the particulars set forth in the Schedule to this Act annexed; which notice or statement, such clerk of the peace, or his deputy, is hereby required to preserve and register amongst the other records of such county or place, for which no fee shall be payable, and a copy of which said notice or statement shall be by such clerk of the peace, or his deputy, forthwith transmitted to the chief secretary of the Lord Lieutenant, or other Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland, if such person shall reside in Ireland, or if in Great Britain, to one of His Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State; and in case any person shall offend in the premises, he shall forfeit and pay to His Majesty, for every calendar month during which he shall remain in the United Kingdom without having delivered such notice or statement as is hereinbefore required, the sum of Fifty pounds.

And be it further Enacted, That in case any Jesuit, or member of any such religious order, community or society as aforesaid, shall after the commencement of this Act, within any part of the United Kingdom, admit any person to become a regular Ecclesiastic or brother or member of any such religious order, community or society, or be aiding or consenting thereto, or shall administer or cause to be administered, or be aiding or assisting in the administering or taking any oath, vow or engagement, purporting or intended to bind the person taking the same to the rules, ordinances or ceremonies of such religious order, community or society, every person offending in the premises in England or Ireland, shall be deemed guilty of a Misdemeanor, and in Scotland shall be punished by fine and imprisonment.

And be it further Enacted, That in case any person shall after the commencement of this Act, within any part of this United Kingdom, be admitted or become a Jesuit or brother or member of any other such religious order, community or society as aforesaid, such person shall be deemed and taken to be guilty of a Misdemeanor, and being thereof lawfully convicted, shall be sentenced and ordered to be banished from the United Kingdom for the term of his natural life.

Provided always, and be it Enacted, That nothing herein contained shall extend or be construed to extend in any manner to affect any religious order, community or establishment consisting of Females bound by religious or monastic vows.

Extract from Sir Robert Peel’s final ministerial speech in the House of Commons

29 June 1846

Sir, I have now executed the task which my public duty imposed upon me. I trust I have said nothing which can lead to the revival on the present occasion of those controversies which I have deprecated. Whatever opinions may be held with regard to the extent of the danger with which we were threatened from the failure in one great article of subsistence, I can say with truth that Her Majesty’s Government, in proposing those measures of commercial policy which have disentitled them tot the confidence of many who heretofore gave them their support, were influenced by no other motive than the desire to consult the interests of this country. Our object was to avert dangers which we thought were imminent, and to terminate a conflict which, according to our belief, would soon place in hostile collision great and powerful classes in this country.

The maintenance of power was not a motive for the proposal of these measures, for, as I said before, I had not a doubt, that whether these measures were accompanied by failure or success, the certain issue must be the termination of the existence of this Government. It is, perhaps, advantageous for the public interests that such should be the issue. I admit that the withdrawal of confidence from us by many of our friends was a natural result. When proposals are made, apparently at variance with the course which Ministers heretofore have pursued, and subjecting them to the charge of inconsistence—it is perhaps advantageous for this country, and for the general character of public men, that the proposal of measures of that kind, under such circumstances, should entail that which is supposed to be the fitting punishment, namely, expulsion from office. I, therefore, do not complain of that expulsion. I am sure it is far preferable to the continuance in office without a full assurance of the confidence of this House. I said before, and I said truly, that in proposing our measures of commercial policy, I had no wish to rob others of the credit justly due to them. I must say, with reference to honourable Gentlemen opposite, as I say with reference to ourselves, that neither of us is the party which is justly entitled to the credit of them. There has been a combination of parties generally opposed to each other, and that combination, and the influence of Government, have led to their ultimate success; but the name which ought to be associated with the success of those measures is not the name of the noble Lord [Lord John Russell], the organ of the party of which he is the leader, nor is it mine. The name which ought to be, and will be, associated with the success of those measures, is the name of one who, acting, I believe, form pure and disinterested motives, has, with untiring energy, made appeals with an eloquence the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned; the name which ought to be chiefly associated with the success of those measures, is the name of Richard Cobden.

Sir, I now close the observations which it has been my duty to address to the House, thanking them sincerely for the favour with which they have listened to me in performing this last act of my official career. Within a few hours, probably, that power which I have held for a period of five years will be surrendered into the hands of another-without repining-without complaint on my part -with a more lively recollection of the support and confidence I have received during several years, than of the opposition which during a recent period I have encountered.

In relinquishing power, I shall leave a name, severely censured I fear by many who, on public grounds, deeply regret the severance of party ties —deeply regret that severance, not from interested or personal motives, but from the firm conviction that fidelity to party engagements-the existence and maintenance of a great party-constitutes a powerful instrument of government: I shall surrender power severely censured also, by others who, from no interested motive, adhere to the principle of protection, considering the maintenance of it to be essential to the welfare and interests of the country: I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist who, from less honourable motives, clamours for protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit; but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense of injustice.

A NEW RESULT OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION

The Illustrated London News, No. 497 (vol. xviii), Saturday, 28 June 1851

The Great Exhibition has passed its evil days. The voice of adverse criticism has been silenced. Those who predicted that it would lead to insurrection, if not revolution, have been disappointed—let us hope, to their satisfaction. Those who imagined, that, in default of a Red Republic, nothing less than a Black Pestilence would issue from it, have also been deceived—let us hope, in like manner, to their personal comfort. Even the gallant and eccentric Colonel, who uttered his fervent wish that the hail and storms of heaven might batter and overthrow the Building, has relaxed in his hostility, and condescended to visit the beautiful abomination. Shopkeepers, who formerly blamed it for depriving them of business; caterers for the public amusement, who foresaw their own bankruptcy in no dim or shadowy distance, but in clear and well-defined proximity, if this giant place of amusement were much longer kept open, have become consoled and appeased; and growlers of all kinds have finally admitted it as a great, and, all things considered, a rather pleasurable fact. If there be any exception at all to the general acquiescence, it is to be found chiefly among lodging-house keepers and others, over-hasty to get rich, who expected to make their fortunes in one season by inordinate charges, and who find at the last moment that they very greatly over-rated their own chances, and the capabilities of foreigners and strangers for being “fleeced.” And while opponents have thus been very generally converted into friends, friends have every day discovered and proclaimed some new benefit or advantage—social or political, national or international—which has resulted, or is likely to result, from the great gathering of the nations in 1851. The Exhibition has been shown to be a great Peace movement, a great moral movement, and a great industrial movement—all of which it most undoubtedly is. Within the last few weeks, a novel and unexpected result has been witnessed, not less gratifying than any other of the more prominent and obvious ones which preceded it.

The classes who could afford to pay for their admission having had their turn, from the holders of season tickets, and the more aristocratic and exclusive visitors who love elbow-room in their amusements, down to the five shilling Saturday people, the half-crown Friday people, and the great bulk of the independent in somewhat humbler circumstances, who congregate on the shilling days, the turn of those who are too poor to pay for such an amusement has come also. Without any infringement of what we must consider the wise and judicious rule of allowing no gratuitous admissions, the doors of the Crystal Palace have been opened to many thousands of industrious, grateful, well-behaved, and admiring people, without cost to themselves. Parties of humble emigrants have come to Hyde Park, in order that they might not take their last look of England without seeing the wondrous Exhibition; and their expenses have been paid by the philanthropic individuals by whose assistance they were enabled to leave the old world for the new. Clergymen and landed propietors in remote rural districts have organised plans by which whole troops of agricultural labourers, with their wives and children, have been enabled to visit London once in their lives, and to see the marvels of art, skill, and industry congregated together in a building so novel in construction, and so imposing in appearance; and not among the least pleasing of the episodes in the history of the Exhibition has been the appearance of these bucolic or agrarian groups, staring with mute admiration at the splendours of so unusual a spectacle. Manufacturers in the provincial towns, and extensive employers of labour in the metropolis and its environs, have not only given their workpeople a holiday to enable them to visit the Exhibition, but have innumerous instances paid the expenses both of the trip and of their admission. Wholesale and retail traders have imitated the admirable example. Public companies and schools have done likewise; and bankers, solicitors, and others have remembered the services of their clerks and employés, and afforded them both time and the means to partake in the general jubilee. In the case of large companies of workpeople, from cotton or paper-mills or other factories, or of schools and rural parties, it has been easy to distinguish them among the crowds in the long avenues and galleries, or remoter courts of the Building; and their appearance has tended greatly to enhance, in the estimation of all right-minded spectators, the pleasure of the Exhibition. But a large class of visitors, not so easily distinguishable, and whose presence is not less gratifying, must be added to the numbers of those who within the last few weeks have been enabled to participate in the enjoyment of the scene. These are the domestic servants of the metropolis, the female portion of whom are so numerous, and in many cases so scantily remunerated for a life of incessant toil. It has often been made a matter of severe, and we fear not altogether unmerited reproach, that the upper and middle classes of the English know but little of their domestic servants; that they do not sympathise in their joys or sorrows; that they are harsh towards them for slight faults; that they are careless of their mental and moral improvement; and that they too often hold themselves as much aloof from them, as if they were beings of another species. The Great Exhibition, if ever there were any real foundation for these charges, has been the means of breaking down the barriers between the employers and the employed in this respect; or, if it be admitted that the charge is wholly unfounded, the Exhibition has not the less been the means of extending and consolidating the kindly feeling that may have previously existed between the wealthier classes and their dependants. We believe it may be said with truth, that there are very few respectable families in London, of which the domestic servants, male or female, have not received an extra holiday from their masters or mistresses to visit the “World’s Fair,” and the price of their admission besides; or who, if they have not yet done so, have not made arrangements for the purpose. So generally do the masters and mistresses of households enter into the spirit of the time, and so thoroughly do they feel the necessity of not allowing such an opportunity to pass over without giving their humble assistants—very often their true friends—the benefit of it, that in numerous instances they have provided them with the means and the leisure, not only for one, but for several visits to the Exhibition. We rejoice to see such examples of kind feeling. They tend to obliterate their jealousies, that to a greater or less extent, exist between the rich and the poor, and to the fusion of society into one homogeneous and contented mass of mutually related and mutually dependent people. The sympathy manifested by employers for their workpeople throughout the whole country, as well as in the metropolis, has been too general not to have been the spontaneous growth of the national character. We trust that the good understanding will be of long continuance, to the mutual advantage of employer and employed, of master and servant, and that each will learn from it more thoroughly to appreciate the duties and responsibilities, and to respect the merits of the other. This was a result which, like many others working together for good, the founders of the Exhibition could scarcely have anticipated, and which leads to the hope that latent in the heart of society are yet many others of equal significance and utility which may be expected to flow from it.

To His Soldiers

Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–82)

(1860)

Born in 1807, died in 1882; exiled in 1834, he went to South America, and in 1850 came to the United States; commanded an independent corps in the war against Austria in 1859; organized the expedition against Sicily in 1860; expelled Francis II. from Naples; organized expeditions against Rome in 1862 and 1867, but was defeated; commanded a French force in 1870 against Germany.

WE1 must now consider the period which is just drawing to a close as almost the last stage of our national resurrection, and prepare ourselves to finish worthily the marvelous design of the elect of twenty generations, the completion of which Providence has reserved for this fortunate age.

Yes, young men, Italy owes to you an undertaking which has merited the applause of the universe. You have conquered and you will conquer still, because you are prepared for the tactics that decide the fate of battles. You are not unworthy the men who entered the ranks of a Macedonian phalanx, and who contended not in vain with the proud conquerors of Asia. To this wonderful page in our country’s history another more glorious still will be added, and the slave shall show at last to his free brothers a sharpened sword forged from the links of his fetters.

To arms, then, all of you! all of you! And the oppressors and the mighty shall disappear like dust. You, too, women, cast away all the cowards from your embraces; they will give you only cowards for children, and you who are the daughters of the land of beauty must bear children who are noble and brave. Let timid doctrinaires depart from among us to carry their servility and their miserable fears elsewhere. This people is its own master. It wishes to be the brother of other peoples, but to look on the insolent with a proud glance, not to grovel before them imploring its own freedom. It will no longer follow in the trail of men whose hearts are foul. No! No! No!

Providence has presented Italy with Victor Emmanuel. Every Italian should rally round him. By the side of Victor Emmanuel every quarrel should be forgotten, all rancor depart. Once more I repeat my battle-cry: “To arms, all—all of you!” If March, 1861, does not find one million of Italians in arms, then alas for liberty, alas for the life of Italy. Ah, no, far be from me a thought which I loathe like poison. March of 1861, or if need be February, will find us all at our post—Italians of Calatafimi, Palermo, Ancona, the Volturno, Castelfidardo, and Isernia, and with us every man of this land who is not a coward or a slave. Let all of us rally round the glorious hero of Palestro2 and give the last blow to the crumbling edifice of tyranny. Receive, then, my gallant young volunteers, at the honored conclusion of ten battles, one word of farewell from me.3

I utter this word with deepest affection and from the very bottom of my heart. To-day I am obliged to retire, but for a few days only. The hour of battle will find me with you again, by the side of the champions of Italian liberty. Let those only return to their homes who are called by the imperative duties which they owe to their families, and those who by their glorious wounds have deserved the credit of their country. These, indeed, will serve Italy in their homes by their counsel, by the very aspect of the scars which adorn their youthful brows. Apart from these, let all others remain to guard our glorious banners. We shall meet again before long to march together to the redemption of our brothers who are still slaves of the stranger. We shall meet again before long to march to new triumphs.

↑1Delivered late in 1860 on his departure from Naples after having relinquished into the hands of Victor Emmanuel his dictatorship over the Neapolitan provinces. Given here as reported in the London Times.

↑2A village of Northern Italy where in 1859, between the Battles of Montebello and Magenta, the Sardinians, under Victor Emmanuel, and aided by the French, defeated the army of Austria.

↑3Francis II. was besieged at his stronghold of Gaeta early in 1861, and on February 13 surrendered to Victor Emmanuel.

Contemporary
Newspaper Articles and
Illustrations from the

GREAT HUNGER IN IRELAND

1845-52

THE GALWAY STARVATION RIOTS

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[June 25, 1842.]

The foregoing illustration is intended to convey an idea of the state of desperation to which the poor of Galway have been reduced by the present calamitous season of starvation; and although, according to present appearances, there is every reason to rely on the goodness of Providence for an abundant and early relief, yet it is calculated that more than another month of suffering and privation must elapse before succour arrives. The scene represented above is an attack upon a potato store in the town of Galway, on the 13th of the present month, when the distress had become too great for the poor squalid and unpitied inhabitants to endure their misery any longer, without some more substantial alleviation than prospects of coming harvest; and their resource in this case was to break open the potato stores and distribute their contents, without much discrimination, among the plunderers, and to attack the mills where oatmeal was known to be stored. During the entire of that day the town was in the possession of a fierce and ungovernable mob, led on apparently by women and children, but having an imposing reserve in the rear of the Claddagh fishermen. The Sheriff, with a strong force of police and the depôt of the 30th Regiment, which constitutes the garrison, vainly attempted to restrain them. They assailed him and his armed bands with showers of stones, which wounded the commanding officer of the military party in the head, and hurt several of the men. But, with singular forbearance and humanity, the gallant Thirtieth held their fire, and, as it was impossible to disperse such a mob without firing amongst them, the millers were induced to promise that meal should be retailed on the following morning at 15d. a stone.

The discontent of the sufferers had been aggravated by the unfeeling, and, there was some reason to suspect, the dishonest artifices of those who had food to sell. Farmers, known to have abundant supplies of potatoes, had not only refused to part with any portion of them at the present high prices, but had actually sent into the markets and made purchases, in order to augment the scarcity. Numbers of dealers also, speculating on a rise, had stored quantities of provisions, which they refused to give out at a fair profit; and in several instances these persons had cleared out the markets the instant they were opened, and left the poor famishing housekeepers, with their money in their hands, in the midst of apparent plenty, unable to procure even the supply of a single day.

To this cause is to be attributed the various disturbances which occurred at Loughrea and Galway; the people insisting upon the farmers retailing provisions to them out of the sack, instead of disposing of its contents wholesale to huxters and forestallers; and the magistrates generally, with proper discretion and humanity, enforcing the reasonable demands of the people.

The Claddagh fishermen, to signalise their victory, insisted upon a general illumination of the town, and ordered the joy-bells of the collegiate church to ring out a merry peal. Their requisitions were complied with in both cases. The joy-bells tang out a merry peal, and the inhabitants in general put lights into their windows. Thus, for several hours, the capital city of Connaught remained in possession of a lawless rabble, while the armed authorities of the country retired before them.

The following is the latest account from this distressed district:—“Galway, June 20. (From our own correspondent.) Since the disturbance of Monday last this town has been perfectly tranquil. The fishermen took to their boats and went to sea early in the week, and provisions having experienced a seasonable reduction in price, no further commotion is apprehended. It was feared that the country people, hearing of the violence committed on Monday, would not bring their goods into the market; and on Wednesday the supply was scanty from that cause. But an abundance of potatoes was brought in on Saturday, and sold a fourpence a stone. This is not an extravagant price, though a fraction over threepence always pinches the poor man; but in the present dearth of employment any price at all must distress him. Of the scarcity of money you may judge from this fact, of which I can assure you from personal observation, that at Loughrea, in this county, when the famishing people were riotously assembled to oppose the forestallers in the potato market, eggs were offered for sale at five for a penny, and chickens, quite fit for the pot, were sold for sevenpence a couple.

After a long drought we have been visited with seasonable and refreshing rain, which only seemed wanting to confirm our anticipation of an abundant and early harvest.

IRELAND AND THE IRISH

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Aug. 12, 1843.]

Our attention having been repeatedly drawn of late, by several correspondents, to the social condition of the sister country, with a view to the pictorial illustration of its multicoloured phases, we have procured the annexed series of sketches, which, we are persuaded, will be equally interesting to our English and Irish readers. Before proceeding to their details, we should observe that the several sketches, graphic and descriptive, are the result of recent tours made by the artists and authors.

First, stands impersonated before you in the rags, wretchedness, and recklessness of

IRISH POVERTY!

Do not say “hence,” but look her straight in the face, and hear her tale, whilst she tells it in the meek sadness of a breaking heart. The time is come for you, Christian England, to do so, for she is beginning to appeal not so much to your pity as to your peace of mind.

The Irish beggar-woman! Who that has ever seen or heard ever can forget her? Wan, wasted, wobegone, squalid beyond description, she says not unto Jacob, “Give me children, or I die!” And how many of the rich Rachels of womankind would not give half of what they are worth in this world for even one of those dear suffering infants—one on poor Molly’s back, and the other at her breast—her first and tenderest care, who are, as she tells you, “crying with the hunger, and coaxing their guardian angel to soften your heart.” Look at Molly’s firstborn. He seems half sad, and yet “he’s a droll boy, every inch of him.” He, poor fellow, is addicted to a remarkably spare style of regimen. Give him a potato, and if he is not happy, he is at least content. He once had the audacity to suggest to his mother that a grain of salt would be, in his opinion, a great improvement to the national esculent, “if he could only get it.” “Cock you up with dainties, you young vagabond; is it after earning the gallows for yourself you’d be?—the next you’ll be after wanting is a glass of whisky to wash it down!” Padyheen (little Paddy) bears this and every other species of rap and repartee with philosophy. Throw a copper coin down there on the road side, and he’ll go through an Irish jig or a hornpipe that would make Perot bite his lip; or twitch the delicate nerves of Taglioni, and beat the Polonaise, the Pas de Basque, the Pirouette, or the Bolero, for it is a wild essence of them all confounded together. Padyheen’s is literally the power, if it be not the poetry, of motion. He does not require your music or your foreign airs. He is his own piper—a sifleur of surpassing sweetness, with a wild curl in his little whistle as he gives you one of his wildest airs that you may in vain try to equal, although you have in your day and in any part of England whistled at the cart’s tail or in the shafts of a plough. Dancing through his destiny, therefore, not wrestling with his lot, till the “prima lanugo,” first down of manhood appears upon his chin; take care he don’t then dance to another tune and make somebody pay the piper. Rock or Spartacus, a midnight legislator, or a rebellious slave in the open day—look to him in time, especially you Irish landlords, whose very existence now depends on his moral and social amelioration. His condition, as the Premier of England has said, is “a question of morals, not of laws;” and a late Under-Secretary for Ireland said not long ago that “property has its duties as well as its rights.” Do you deny the truth of the appeal, and dare you still call on English power and the majesty of the laws to keep up your system? Where is the husband of that wretched, houseless wanderer from door to door—the father of those “young barbarians”—where is he? He is in England, reaping and mowing to earn you seven times the value of his little patch of ground that he may keep the hovel of a homestead which is upon it over his family during the hard winter. This must be given up, if whilst away his wife and children cannot get enough to support life, and should present themselves at the gates of the union workhouse. Not a penny of outdoor relief! And, if they give up their little all, what a fate awaits them within those places of sighs and tears! Two scanty meals of potatoes; milk at one of them, and not a spoonful of broth (meat would set the wretches mad, according to the Poor-law Commissioners) from the 1st of January to the 31st of December. Twopence in the shilling to the poor, and tenpence to the officers—there’s the Irish Poor-law for you in one short sentence; and that’s a grievance that needs no ghost from the grave to discover, no demagogue to dwell upon its enormity. No wonder, then, that, whilst the poor husband is away in England, the wife puts the padlock on the cabin-door, and presents, with her poor little ones, the melancholy picture before you:—

“Some natural tears they drop, but wipe them soon;

The world is all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:

They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,

Through Erin take their solitary way.”

Those peasant girls, and the Connemara cabin are features in the same picture of Irish poverty. The latter is on the same scale of comfort as the hut of the Esquimaux, or the wigwam of the North American Indian. To have a regularly-built chimney instead of a hole in the roof, would be to let all the smoke out, which is not the object of the inmates; or, in other words, it would not suit their purpose. They require a portion of it, at least to warm the cabin, to keep out the cold air from the chinks in the mud walls, and to season their flitch of bacon. In that familiar-looking porker, which seems “hail fellow, well met!” with the little boy who is driving him in out of the cold, behold the “spem gregis,” the real hope of the family: the bonneen (pig) is the Irish peasant’s mainstay. He goes far, if not the whole way, to pay the rent. When we mentioned a flitch of bacon, let not the English reader imagine that the miserable occupants of the cabin “live up” to such luxury. The most they do is to hang it in the chimney, and let it drip on their potatoes, each poor creature in turn pointing a potato to receive the dropping grease. This meal is called “potatoes and point.” Poor Power! how admirably he used to give that droll scene in “The White Horse of the Peppers,” where Gerald Pepper describes this charte à manger to the Dutchman, who wondered how a whole family could feed for so long a time on a small herring. “You may rub your pratye on the skin of the fish,” said he, “if you wish to make a baste of yourself!”

The blue-eyed, fair-haired, laughing girls, whom you perceive, one a drawer of water like Rebecca, and the other returning home from market like any female character that suits your recollections, from the works of any of the great masters, except those of the Flemish school—for Sheela Maguire is spiritually contradistinguished to gross nature—are both of them “parties” (as the attorneys say) of no mean consequence in their own and in their sweethearts’ estimation. Fine fellows these sweethearts are too, and their intentions are honourable and pure, as ever were offered up at the shrine of beauty. Nora may return home across the fields from the fountain, Sheela along the road with the produce of her eggs and butter, at any hour of the night they like. The one need not be afraid of having her pitcher broken, or the other of having her basket crushed by anything like an attempt at felonious gallantry.

“Lady, dost thou not fear to stray

So late and so lone by the bleak way?

Are Erin’s sons so dead or so cold,

As not to be tempted by woman or gold?

Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm,

No son of Erin shall offer me harm;

For tho’ they love woman and golden store,

Sir Knight, they love honour and virtue more.”

The contrary has turned out, of course, now and then of—

“Blessed for ever was she who relied

On Erin’s honour and Erin’s pride.”

That Connaught man, with the bonnet-like caubeen, the short pipe, curly whiskers, and over-hanging brow, is a dangerous-looking Lothario to trust in your meadows or corn-fields after dark, and looks very like a gay deceiver.

The cottage, in the doorway of which an old woman is spinning, and around which are pigs, poultry, and goats, or cabin it still must be called, when we recollect the general cleanliness and comfort of the cottage homes of England, may supposed to be in one of the best districts of Leinster, the metropolitan province of Ireland. It is of the same structure and economy now as the cabins were upwards of thirty years ago when Mr. Wakefield visited Ireland. In his work, one of the most comprehensive and impartial ever written on the state of the sister country, he describes the roofs of the cabins in Westmeath without ceiling, supported by two or three props. “The walls,” he adds, “were constructed of mud or stones, and sometimes of a mixture of both. The roof is formed by two or three couples, over which are laid, in a cross direction, the boughs of trees not stripped of their leaves. These are covered with turf, which is protected by the effects of the weather by a thatching of straw. A hole in the roof gives venting to the smoke, and the bare ground is the floor and the hearth. A hay-band so neatly twisted as to be almost equal to a tow-rope, is stretched across the cabin, nearly over the fire-place, for hanging the linen to dry; but as the place is generally involved in thick smoke, it may be readily conceived that it will acquire little improvement in colour. A cat and two or three dogs are commonly lying round the fire. An iron pot, two or three stools of the rudest workmanship, a bad deal table, a dresser with a few plates and dairy vessels, are all the utensils and furniture of the family.”

Thompson, in his “Survey of Meath,” remarks that the clay for the walls and roof is taken from the spot on which the cottage is raised, leaving the surface of the floor and the ground immediately about the walls the lowest part, and of course subject to receive all the surrounding damp; “so much so,” he says, “that I have often gone into a cabin and seen a hole dug in the floor to receive the water coming in at the door or under the foundation, from whence it might be baled with greater ease when collected. On this damp floor the family most commonly sleep, generally without a bedstead, none of them having a loft except in town cabins, where the ground for building on is more valuable.”

The goat is found to be of profit to the poor cabin-keeper in some districts of Ireland, especially in the north. Sir Charles Coote, in his “Survey of Armagh,” states that the milk of the goat, whose food is never taken into account, is equal to one-fourth of a cow’s, and that it is richer and exceedingly wholesome. Mr. Tighe, in his “Survey of Kilkenny,” states that these animals are kept by many small farmers, but not in flocks, and that a few were to be found among the dairies in the Welsh mountains (a district in that county); and he adds that “the milk of six goats is said to be equal in quantity to that of one cow.” Mr. Sampson, in his “Survey of Derry,” ways with respect to that county, that “there are no herds of goats in the mountains, but they are found individually among the habitations of the lowland poor. You frequently see the milch-goat tied by the head while she browses on the quickset of a neighbour; her owner has no hedge—no land! He has a friend, however, for his little ones when he has the shegoat. The milk is divided for five weeks with the kid; the kid is sold as venison, and the goat remains the best succour under Heaven. Where there are many the custom is to fold them at night and keep off the kids, then milk them in the morning, and admit the natural client for the rest of the day. In high pastures much must be made of their milk, and their browsing costs nothing.”

The cottage of the better class of Irish peasants is to be seen here and there through the provinces of Munster and Leinster; very rarely, indeed, in Connaught, but chiefly in the north of Ireland. Do not let us be carried away by the usually accepted notion that the more comfortable appearance of the peasantry in the northern province is owing to difference of religion, it being called Protestant Ulster. The reason is, simply, because they have better landlords. The Irish society, for instance (certain guilds of the London corporation), to whom James I. gave the territories of the O’Neals, O’Donnells, and other attained northern chieftains for the propagation of protestantism, have ever been justly considered the best landlords of Ireland. Independently of this consideration, the greater part of the lower orders certainly are of the old faith of their country. Fifty years ago there was not a Catholic inhabitant within the walls of Londonderry, called the maiden city, from the gallant and triumphant defence which Governor Walker and the “‘Prentice Boys” made against James II.’s besieging force. The majority of the inhabitants are now Roman Catholics, including, all those who live in the streets built beyond the walls and ramparts in later years. The small farmer or better class Irish peasant in the better districts—such as the north, to which we have thus made especial allusion, or elsewhere, in Meath, Westmeath, Kildare, Kilkenny, some parts of Limerick, Cork, &c.—is a shrewd, hard-working, sober, honest being; high spirited, hospitable, and happily and peaceably inclined, so long as he considers himself treated. If you treat him with particular kindness you may command his life. From the class of small farmers not a few of the Catholic clergy of Ireland have sprung; and their constant and kind intercourse with it, independently of the old feeling of veneration which attaches to them, is the main reason of their popularity and the main spring of their power. O! ye wretched absentees—you clearers of the soil by whole families and tribes—ye moral exterminators—for the time is come for all parties in England to call you by your proper name—if you knew the affections you trample on and destroy, the rich worth you throw away to add a hundred or two to your incomes; or to purchase an artificial importance, you would alter your plan, and try the soothing system. You—and remember that property has its duties as well as its rights—you are now finding out that it has its real interests also. You would imitate the “live and let live” system which is acted up to between the English landlord and tenant. You would go amongst those by the sweat of whose brow you live. You would administer to their wants, and contribute to their happiness. You would learn the pleasure of doing good. You may even learn a wholesome moral lesson by going amongst the poor sometimes; they have rugged virtues which you might imitate sometimes with advantage. In their simple and touching stories your hearts may be softened, and your better nature drawn out:—

“Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

The short and simple annals of the poor.”

GROUP OF CHILDREN.

The group of children claims particular attention. The description we have given of Padyheen, the beggarwoman’s son, may do for the boys, and yet we cannot chuse but look for an instant at the chief figure in the foreground. Nothing can be more spirited—“rollicking” the Irish call it—more free from embarrassment, or more graceful. He stands and looks every inch of him a little man. His shirt, which in its best days was of a rough description, has grown rather fine-drawn by the wear and tear of experience. Its collar is flung dashingly open, as if to say, “there’s a neck for you, my darlings.” No white cravat, prim and starched, á la jeune Angletere, stiffens that neck; no tie á la Byron—the disgusting appendage, in general, of our English hobbledehoys—trains it prematurely to effeminate tenderness. His nether habiliment, like those of Rip Van Winkle’s boy is, in all probability, cut out of a pair of his father’s cast-off galligaskins. Full of holes are the young rapparee’s indispensables, not for any purpose whatever, not even for ventilation, as some town bloods bore the roofs of their night hats to let out the ascending fumes of their wine;1 and rent to the very verge of decorum; “torn and flying,” like “Freedom’s banner,” described by Byron; but the young patriot does not “nail his colours to the mast,” as Scott describes Pitt to have done; for he has lost his gallowses2 in his last scrimmage by the river’s marge, or the edge of a bog-hole; and his right hand is obliged to pay obeisance to the conventionalities of society. The wit of the Irish peasant urchin is proverbial, and his talent for waggery and mischief is one of the “gamin de Paris” kind, and something more. He is of merry blood, and was born a farceur. “I’ll be up to that thief of a magpie,” said a young rogue of this description, on finding out that the “gazza ladra” of his father’s garden had taken away some of his marbles and certain of his little sister’s playthings. He watched his opportunity, and when the bird next left her nest on which she had been hatching, he climbed up the tree and took her eggs away. These he very quickly boiled, and climbing up again, replaced them in the nest. As magpies, although clever birds in their way, and up to a thing or two, do not carry three-minute time glasses about them, nor patronize egg saucepans, the one in question was totally unconscious, on her return, of the fatal blow which had been given to her philogenitive expectations. “They’ll be fine birds when they’re hatched,” the little chuckler used to say, for many a day, as he watched the poor unconscious bird patiently endeavouring to bring about which was not to be. There is an anecdote told somewhere of Voltaire that, when very young, he wrote the following epigram on a statue of Idleness, a little boy with a piece of bread to his mouth, which stood in the school-room:—

“Tu qui semper edis

Dic mihi quando bibes?”

Which we translate:

Thou that art always eating, tell

When you’ll have something to drink as well?

Padyheen eats and drinks whenever he can, and as well as a hand-to-mouth existence will let him; but if you ask him when he works or goes to school, his answer is “when he can’t help it.” That is not his fault, however. Change the system you have long observed towards him, and his country and his condition will be changed. If he appears the portrait of idleness at ease, his sister, poor child, with the basket of turf on her back, under which she bends, is the reverse of the picture. She does not get much hard work, however, although she does something to earn her potatoes. Her mother works hard at field work, but she has a greater tenderness for her child than the parents of our manufacturing and mining districts. Little Kathleen is innocent wildness itself—not innocence run wild. Unwashed as she may be, you may venture to put her sitting in the wash-tub with much more triumphant effect than attended the experiment tried upon Æsop’s blackamoor. She may not walk out a little Venus from the soap-suds all whiteness, like Aphrodite herself, rising up from her parent foam of the ocean, for heaven’s canopy in all weathers being her covering by day, and by now and then by night too, “for the want of a better;” she will turn out at best, either now or hereafter, but a simple blue-eyed nut-brown maid. Unlike brunettes of cold climates, however, she is literally thin-skinned in her physical as well as her moral nature. The reason why she lives almost exclusively on vegetable diet, and as she will tell you herself, “Not a mighty deal of that same.” Nothing gross is there in her habits of body to generate a coarsely cutaneous exterior; no phlegmatic or dyspepsical visitings to stop the free current of blood and digestion. Take a hint from this all you that labour, and are in pain from the plethoric effects of your hypercarnivrous propensities; not you alone who try, not even to propitiate injured nature by healthful bodily exercise, lolling and lounging as you do your short hour of fresh air before dinner, in softly-downed soft-rolling carriages in the park; but all your children, young and old, and of both sexes of the hard-working middle classes, who eat mutton chops for breakfast, cold fowl for your luncheon, fish, flesh, and fowl for your dinner, a slice of ham or two with your tea, and meat again for your supper. This is the true statement of the case, worth all the magnostics of the faculty. Take a hint from little Kathleen.

IDIOT BOY

The wretched mendicant, with her idiot boy, is an object of deep commiseration. Mother and son are looked upon with extreme kindness by the neighbours; and the poor youth to whom this world is a blank is deemed the heir of blessedness in the world to come, which causes a sort of religious feeling to be observed towards him. The poorest wretch to whom his mother appeals in his behalf would be almost afraid, in the sight of Heaven, to refuse to divide a handful of meal or potatoes with him. From morning till night his eternal “pal, la! pal la!” is heard, unless when he stops the cravings of hunger with the offals that are thrown to him by the hand of poverty-stricken charity. Our artist has drawn him from the life, whether the phrenology or the physiognomy of the animal be taken into consideration. The forehead goes suddenly and pointedly back, like that of Thersites, so masterly described in the Iliad by the great father of poetry; and in the blank stare of his vacant countenance may be seen the verification of the distinction made by one of our philosophers between madness and idiocy—namely, that the former drew right conclusions from wrong premises, whilst the latter drew from to premises—that is, had no thought at all.

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Oct. 7, 1843.]

We resume, from page 101, our characteristic illustration of Irish life and manners; and shall merely premise that there has scarcely been a period at which it was more important to obtain a precise view of the people of Ireland than at the present moment. Our present sketches, as heretofore, have the guarantee of being the results of recent tours of the artists and authors.

OLD BEGGARMAN.

That poor old beggarman, crippled and bedridden, is one of the most powerfully-drawn pictures in our collection. He is carried about on a half “settle,” half stretcher, by neighbour to neighbour, and from door to door. If people have nothing to give him, for ’tis hard to give to al that plant themselves or are dropped down at your door in Ireland, you can at least send him on. Good feeling as well as convenience prompts the suggestion. The old man has his hands closed, and the fingers elevated as if in supplication; and he can say prayers by the yard of the column for the souls of all that ever died of your “kith and kin,” if they chance to belong to the faithful departed. Woe betide you if you talk to him about poorlaws and political economy, and drive him away in anger. You will have his curses, in such cases, both loud and deep. The beggar’s curse in Ireland is deemed as bad as Kehama’s, or the excommunication of the church; and before the gate where he drops it the grass is expected to grow before a twelvemonth shall have passed away.

IRISH CAR DRIVERS AND CARS.

Those gentlemen with the dudheens in their mouths are out and out Repealers, you may rest assured. They do not drink whiskey as of yore; so far they have been de-nationalized for the better by Father Mathew. The great apostle of Temperance would find it very difficult, however, to get the lower orders of the Irish to give up the use of tobacco. At home or abroad, in the field or on the road, Paddy cannot get on without “the blast of the pipe.” In we weather it warms, in hot it cools him, and in both it sends comfort home to a heart which has not got much to cheer it otherwise. The Irish carman or carrier goes through a deal of hardship, and has many a severe night on the road. When he puts up for the night, however, at the Carman’s Stage, a name given to “his inn” in Ireland, he forgets the labours of the day in the merry songs and stories that circle round the cheering fire of the common room. His frieze coat is a well-tried and constant friend. In winter, like all great coats, it is of the greatest advantage; but he also finds use for it in summer, when he goes to mass, to fair, market, wedding, and wake, with it tucked up behind on his back, not occupying as high a position as a soldier’s knapsack, but considerably lower down, like a Frenchwoman’s bustle, and looking just as natural. In the warmest day in July he presents this picturesque appearance. In fact, take Paddy in his frieze great coat, and you have him in full dress, as “nate and complayte” in his own opinion, as if he walked out of the last book of the fashions. The Irish jamming-car, which appears in the background, merits particular attention. The following is Inglis’s description of the national vehicle, on which, no doubt, our traveller’s bones got many a hearty shaking during his tour through Ireland in 1834:—

Although there are carriages of all description in Ireland, and coaches too on all the public roads, the jaunting car is the national vehicle; and Ireland would scarcely be Ireland without it. It may be said completely to supersede, as a favourite vehicle, the whole of the gig tribe—dennet, tilbury, cabriolet, &c.—and to be a formidable rival to the coach, as a public conveyance. Throughout the whole of the south, and a great part of the west of Ireland, the public as well as the mails are chiefly conveyed by cars; and it is no small convenience to the traveller that he may travel post, by a car, at eightpence, and in some parts at sixpence per mile throughout Ireland, as expeditiously, and in fine weather far more agreeably, than in a post-chaise. But to return to its peculiarities and pros and cons, everybody has no doubt seen an Irish car; for a stray specimen now and then makes its appearance across the channel; and I need not therefore tell that an Irish car is a vehicle generally drawn by one horse, and that two, four, or six persons sit back to back. How anything so unsociable should at first be thought of, it is difficult to understand; but it is fair to admit that, when but few persons are seated on a car, there is an easy lounging way of sitting not absolutely prohibitory of social intercourse. The great advantage of an Irish car is the facility of getting up and down, which in travelling on a hilly road is very desirable.

There can be no doubt that in a hilly country the car is a great advantage, and in hilly or flat, equally so during the summer months. In Dublin, however, where you can get a “jaunt” and a “set down” in any part of it for a shilling, the advantage does not seem quite so clear, on account of the crowded thoroughfares through which you have to pass. An Englishman seated on one side and the driver on the other, which the latter takes when driving a single fare, instead of the front dickey, to preserve the balance, feels instinctively alarmed for his personal salvation when he observes another car coming up to him from an opposite direction, at a similarly furious rate at which he is going a-head. He transfers his legs rapidly from the foot-board to the cushion, and whilst he is in the act his opponent has passed like a flash of lightening at a close shave. Should the foot-boards meet, the shock is irresistible as a first-rate charge in the lists of chivalry. Both chargers—we mean the Dublin hacks—are on their haunches; perhaps the girths are broken. The two unfortunate wayfarers are in the air, or tossed, perhaps, into the wells—a neutral space between the seats of their respective vehicles; and the drivers are slashing and swearing at each other with all the fecundity of the national genius, and all the fervour of the national character.

The Dublin carman is quite unique in his way, and may be looked upon as the most witty of the lower orders in Ireland. Everybody who has seen the late lamented Mr. Matthews “at home,” remembers his description of this most particular Irishman. A large three volume budget of fun might be published of the sayings and doings of this extraordinary race of beings; but in the absence of such a desideratum to the mirth-loving traveller in Ireland, we should advise, whilst in Dublin, to step some morning into the police-office which is exclusively dedicated to the litigations of the carmen and their customers. The Dublin carman is exceedingly rejoiced when employed by an Englishman, and for an additional sixpence or shilling to his fare he will afford five times the value in downright drollery, and wit of the sharpest description. The best part of the fun is, that when you think you have caught him in an absurdity, and are about to pin him into a corner, ten to one if he don’t “sell you.” A traveller was once passing the post-office in Dublin on one of those cars, during a shower of rain, and turning round to the driver, inquired of him what characters the three figures in front, over the portico, were intended to represent? “The twelve apostles, your honour.”—“Why, how can that be, they are only three?” —“May be the other three are gone out of the rain.” —“That’s only six.” —“And may be the rest are helping St. Patrick to sort the letters!”

The origin of the Irish car is unknown, and must remain so until some future Henry O’Brien shall rise up and delight the antiquarian world with an essay on it, as learned as that upon the Round Towers of Ireland. Some say that it came originally from Britain, but it seems just as probable that it was on a jingledycooch3 Caractacus or Boadicea charged the Romans, as that it was patronised by any of Homer’s heroes. An extraordinary esprit du corps, or fellow-feeling, exists amongst the carmen, and especially those of the metropolis. If one of the body is to be married, an immense number of them turn out in grand procession to do honour to the wedding; and if a carman die, or his wife, or any of his relatives, the cavalcade at the funeral, in which the women and children form the chief feature, is still more numerous.

TURF-MARKET, DUBLIN

Turf is retailed for lighting fires, &c., in which mode considerable quantities are used. Those two gentlemen who form the principal figures in front of the turf-market claim particular attention. They are regulating the knotty point of how many sods a penny, with as much importance and effect as if they consulted about the price of stocks on the Bourse or the Stock Exchange. The chief turf-markets are near the banks of the Grand and Royal Canals, whither the turf is transported from the Bog of Allen in kishes or kreels (large baskets) placed on low-backed cars.

COTTAGE, OR CABIN

The other cabin, into which the young female is driving one “de grege Epicuri” is a degree removed above the miserable hovel which we described and engraved at page 101. The smoke escapes through a hole in the roof. There is a dunghill on one side of the doorway, and a green pool on the other. The children are sitting before the cabin, enjoying the air and the sun after their meagre meal of potatoes; and the pig is under orders to clear the floor of the peelings which they have scattered about. Pigs, in Ireland, are, in many cases, fed to an enormous size; to effect which, in England, would not pay for the outlay in provisions, tending to the animals, themselves, and other incidental expenses. In Ireland “they are made to pay” on account of there being no separate provision made for their keep. As to bed and board, the pig takes “pot-luck” with Paddy, and lies down with the family, of which he is the recognised companion and benefactor.

↑1 Full of holes: A good hint for apoplectic bacchanals. Tipplers of sparer habit find the hat-punching system a good substitute for cigar-cases.

↑2 gallowses: Suspenders.

↑3 jingledycooch: The old French term jingle-de-couche, a car with a bed or cushions on it, otherwise a litter on wheels, which is a comfortable sort of affair when driving over the stones.

THE POTATO DISEASE

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Oct. 18, 1845.]

Accounts received from different parts of Ireland show that the disease in the potato crop is extending far and wide, and causing great alarm amongst the peasantry. Letters from resident landlords feelingly describe the misery and consternation of the poor people around them, and earnestly urge the imperative necessity of speedy intervention on the part of the Government to ascertain the actual extent of the calamity, and provide wholesome food as a substitute for the deficient supply of potatoes. Mr. John Chester, of Kilscorne House, in Magshole, in the county of Louth, in a letter to the Dublin Evening Post, states that he has a field of twenty acres of potatoes, which, up to the 3rd instant, had been perfectly dry and sound, when they were attacked by the blight, and three-fourths of them are so diseased and rotten that pigs decline to eat them. This, he says, is the case all through the county of Louth. The Belfast News Letter has a still more lamentable account. It says, “We have abstained from occupying our space with the accounts of the prevalence of this calamity in various places, for this reason, that it may be here stated, once for all, that there is hardly a district in Ireland in which the potato crops at present are uninfected—perhaps we might say, hardly a field.”

INDIAN CORN IN CORK

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Apr 4, 1846.]

On Saturday last, the Government Sales of Indian Corn and Meal commenced in Cork. Immediately on the depôts being opened, the crowds of poor persons who gathered round them were so turbulently inclined as to require the immediate interference of the police, who remained there throughout the day. Among the poor, who were of the humblest description, and needing charitable relief, the sales were but scanty. The occasion had become of necessity; for potatoes have risen to 11d. market price for 14lbs.; and, some of the leading commercial men in Cork have made a calculation, which shows that the Government can afford to sell the Indian Corn at a much cheaper rate. Our artist at Cork has sketched the crowd immediately on the opening of the store.

We feel gratified to learn that a steamer has been despatched from Cork to Dublin, laden with 600 sacks of Indian meal.

One half, by the orders, is to be despatched by the Royal, and the other by the Grand Canal, to the interior. It must be acknowledged that her Majesty’s Government are executing their duty promptly and with energy.

The Cork Examiner of Tuesday, contains the following account of the sale:—

“The bakers in Dublin are selling India meal bread in large quantities to the better classes, as well as to the poor, and all consider it more palatable than the ordinary whole-meal, or brown bread.

“The price fixed on it was one penny per pound. The result of the day’s sale is sufficient to dissipate all further doubt, and to demand the most serious attention of the citizens of Cork.

“We understand that 4480 lbs. of the corn meal were sold on Saturday, at one penny per pound.

“The committee waited this morning on Mr. Hewitson, to grant them a further supply, they, of course, offering to pay the full price for it; but Mr. Hewitson was compelled to refuse the request, he having no orders from the Government to that effect.

“The people, supposing that the supply would be continued, assembled in hundreds round the depôts; but were informed of the fact of there being no more for sale. Considerable excitement was occasioned by the announcement, and the Mayor, fearing that a disburance might arise in consequence, published a public notice, stating that when the order, which was daily expected, should arrive, further supplies would be distributed.”

THE LATE FOOD RIOTS IN IRELAND

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Nov. 7, 1846.]

Annexed is a pair of melancholy sketches of the localities of the late Food Riots in the south of Ireland—Youghal and Dungarvan; the afflicting details of which have been duly reported in our Journal. The Artist has refrained from heightening the picturesqueness of these scenes; but they are stern and striking realities of the sufferings of the people, and must bespeak the sympathy of every well-regulated mind.

One of the Illustrations shows the Mall and Mall-house, or Town-hall of the seaport of Youghal, which, though merely a creek to Cork, has a considerable trade, for the accommodation of which there are extensive and commodious quays and a Custom-house. The Mall-house was erected in 1779; balls and concerts are held in it, and here, prior to the dissolution of the Corporation, were held the Borough Courts.

Youghal was the grand centre of the late Food Riots and turn-outs for wages. Our Artist was received somewhat roughly whilst he was sketching in the street, because he would not promise the mothers that their children, then working on the part of Government, should have an increase of wages over five or sixpence, which was insufficient to support them with Indian meal at 1s. 8d. per stone.

The Mall-house is a large, plain, whitewashed building: its situation and the open space which surrounds it, are well calculated to attract crowds; as well as from its large rooms affording accommodation to the Relief Committees. To the right is seen a portion of the Harbour, with the distant hills of the county of Waterford.

The other Sketch shows the Old Chapel-road, Dungarvan, on the road to Youghal, the scene of the late conflict between the military and the “food rioters;” one of the men shot was standing on the spot behind the cart in the sketch.

The distress, both in Youghal and Dungarvan, is truly appalling in the streets; for, without entering the houses, the miserable spectacle of haggard looks, crouching attitudes, sunken eyes, and colourless lips and cheeks, unmistakeably bespeaks the sufferings of the people.

We add a few descriptive notes from a Correspondent:—

“Dungarvan, the scene of the late riots, is the second town in the county of Waterford, and was, from an early period, a place of some importance. Although well situated for carrying on an extensive trade, large vessels being able to come up to the quay, unfortunately, like other Irish towns equally well placed, it presents to the eye of the stranger, an appearance of want and untidiness: yet the Duke of Devonshire, to whom the manor belongs, has spent much in various improvements—amongst others, a fine bridge has been erected by him across the river, the stone for which was actually all brought from England! This bridge consists of a single arch of 75 feet, in addition to a causeway of about 1000 feet in length, and is justly admired for its fine proportions.”

The Quarter Sessions commenced at Dungarvan on Monday week. There were prosecutions entered against fifty-one persons, alleged to have been engaged in the late Food Riots in the neighbourhood. Mr. Hatchell, Q.C., was sent down especially by the Crown to prosecute the fifty-one persons alluded to. A farmer named Quinn refused to prosecute some of those poor fellows. He said “Whatever would be the consequence he never would prosecute hungry people who offered no harm or violence to person or property.” Quinn had been sent to Waterford gaol for refusing to prosecute. Fleming, the poor lad that was shot in the knee by the 1st Royals in Dungarvan, on the 28th of September last, died on Tuesday night in the workhouse here, after suffering much pain from the effects of his wound. An inquest was held on the body on Sunday evening. Dr. Christian made a post mortem examination of the body, and a verdict was returned, “that the deceased had come by his death from the effects of a gun-shot wound in the knee, inflicted on him by the 1st Royal Dragoons on the 28th of September last in Dungarvan, whilst in discharge of their duty.”

The prisoners stated to be engaged in the Food Riots, arrived at Dungarvan, guarded by a large force of military and police. “Never,” says the Cork Southern Reporter, “have I witnessed any scene so affecting as the meeting of the prisoners and their poor hungry wives and children.”

On Tuesday, the trial commenced, when fifty of the prisoners pleaded guilty; but through the wise and merciful conduct of the Crown, were discharged, on finding securities to keep the peace; but, the ringleader Patrick Power, was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment, with hard labour.

FAMINE AND STARVATION IN THE COUNTY OF CORK

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Jan. 16, 1847.]

Very lamentable accounts are given from various parts of the county of Cork. From gantry, Skibbereen, Crookhaven, Castletown, and Tracton, the reports present the same gloomy features. The intelligence from these scenes of misery is summed up by the Cork Examiner as follows:—

“Skibbereen.–In the parish of Kilmoe, fourteen died on Sunday; three of these were buried in coffins, eleven were buried without other covering than the rags they wore when alive. And one gentleman, a good and charitable man, speaking of this case, says–‘The distress is so appalling, that we must throw away all feelings of delicacy;’ and another says–‘I would rather give 1s. to a starving man than 4s. 6d. for a coffin.’ One hundred and forty have died in the Skibbereen Workhouse in one month; eight have died in one day! And Mr. M’Carthy Downing states that ‘they came into the house merely and solely for the purpose of getting a coffin.’ The Rev. Mr. Clancy visits a farm, and there, in one house, ‘he administered the last rites of religion to six person.’ On a subsequent occasion, he ‘prepared for death a father and a daughter lying in the same bed.’ Dr. Donovan solemnly assures a public meeting that the people are ‘dropping in dozens about them.’ Mr. Marmion says that work on the public road is even more destructive than fever; for the unfed wretches have not energy enough to keep their blood in circulation, and they drop down from the united effects of cold and hunger–never to rise again.

“In Tracton, deaths, it appears, are occurring too. Mr. Corkoran, P.P., in a letter to Mr. Redington says: ‘Over sixteen deaths occurred in my parishes for the last ten days. I am morally certain that each and every one of them was occasioned and accelerated by want of food and fire. Buckley, of Ballyvorane, and Sullivan, of Oysterhaven, died suddenly. Buckley dropped dead on the works, after a journey of three miles before day. His wife will make affidavit, that he had not sufficient food the night before he died, and that she and the rest of her family lived thirty-six hours on wild weeds to spare a bit of the cake for him. (In this case, a Coroner’s verdict was given without sight of the body.) This horrifying economy is practiced by scores of families in this district. Similar effects must be expected from similar causes. I fear we must bury the dead coffinless in future. My God! what a revolting idea! Without food when alive, without a coffin when dead.’”

The Rev. Robert Traill, chairman of the Schule Relief Committee, county Cork, states that 15,000 persons in that wide district are destitute; of this 5000 are entirely dependent on casual charity; fifty deaths have resulted from famine and “hundreds” are so reduced that not food or medicine can restore them! The deaths, he adds, now average 25 daily!!

Ten additional deaths by starvation have occurred in the barony of gantry. The Jury at the inquests at Bantry handed in the following remonstrance, by their foreman, Mr. E. O’Sullivan:—“That we feel it our duty to state, under the correction of the Court, that it is our opinion that, if the Government of the country shall persevere in its determination of refusing to use the means available to it for the purpose of lowering the price of food, so as to place it within the reach of the labouring poor, the result will be a sacrifice of human life from starvation to a frightful extent, and endangerment of property and of the public peace …

The Illustration shows a benevolent attempt to mitigate the suffering in the city of Cork, viz., the Society of Friends’ Soup House. There are many similar establishments in operation through the county; but, we prefer the annexed because the idea originated with the Society of Friends. The funds for its support are chiefly raised among this charitable class; and we are happy to state that the establishment is now in a position to supply 1500 gallons of Soup daily, at a loss, or rather cost, of from £120 to £150 per month to the supporters of the design. The present calls are for from 150 to 180 gallons daily, requiring 120 pounds of good beef, 27 pounds of rice, 27 pounds of oatmeal, 27 pounds of split peas, and 14 ounces of spices, with a quantity of vegetables. Tickets, at one penny each, are unsparingly distributed, on presenting one of which, each poor person receives one quart of soup, with half a small loaf of bread; and both are of good quality.

In the making of the Soup, the greatest possible cleanliness is observed; attention is paid to the poor, who throng the place daily, for their cheap supply of food; as well as to the visitors, who go to see the soup made, and who are requested to test its quality, and suggest any improvement. The vats, which are shown in the Sketch, are worked by a steam-engine, in an adjoining house; and, to ensure cleanliness, as well as sweetness, they are used alternately. Too much credit cannot be given to this establishment, and to the exertions of the Society of Friends in general; for, not content with originating these Soup Establishments, they have also raised a sum of money for distribution in the west, so as the more effectually to relieve the poor in distant districts.

MORTALITY IN SKIBBEREEN

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Jan 30, 1847.]

The “Keen”1 comes wailing on the wind,

That sweeps o’er Erin’s mountains blue;

It chills the heart of Earl and hind—

It lends the land a ghastly hue!

The song of death by Death is chanted!

The dying bear the shroudless dead;

Th’ uncoffin’d clay a grave is granted—

The very worm averts his head.

Darkly proceed the famish’d cotters;

To-morrow may behold their grave:

The young man towards the churchyard totters—

The bravest heart no more is brave.

Those gray hairs may have known the wave

Where Nelson’s Signal boldly flew;

Perchance they dared the Gallic glaive,

And bear the scars of Waterloo.

Slowly the gaunt procession wends—

The blessed voice of Hope is faint;

Her spotless stole Religion rends

In misery o’er the dying plaint;

While Pestilence, on sable wings,

Aids vulture Famine in the feast,

Which vies well with the offerings

Paid to the Plague—Scourge of the East.

And yet—oh! paradox—oh! shame!—

Oh! blind improvidence! The land

Is of the best that ever came

Forth from its mighty Maker’s hand.

Fertile and fair, it should have been

The glory of the British crown;

And now, behold the shudd’ring scene!—

The seedless fields—the spectral town.

But Nature vindicates her God;

Teaches a lesson from the soil:

A voice springs from the blighted sod

In mercy for the sons of toil.

Fair Nature’s energies expire

When rack’d for one poor porcal root;

And Labour merits better hire

Than the sad fare of Raleigh’s fruit.

The “Keen” comes wailing on the blast,

The voice of Winter joins the dirge;

The shadows of Despair are cast

Around the new grave’s narrow verge.

Oh! let us hope that day will rise

To dissipate this fearful gloom;

And bring the blessings of the skies

To raise a nation from her tomb.

—L.

THE former accounts of the ravages of disease at Skibbereen continue to be but too sadly confirmed. From a drawing made on the spot, we give a sketch of a scene of no unusual occurrence, as appears from the following extract of a letter, received by Mr. Blake, of Cork, from Dr. Crowley, of Skibbereen, dated Jan. 22:—

“Deaths here are daily increasing. Dr. Donovan and I are just this moment after returning from the village of South Reen, where we had to bury a body ourselves that was eleven days dead; and where do you think? In a kitchen garden. We had to dig the ground, or rather the hole, ourselves; no one would come near us, the smell was so intolerable. We are half dead from the work lately imposed on us.”

↑1 The Irish Lament for the Dead.

SKETCHES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Feb. 13, 1847.]

The accounts from the Irish provincial papers continue to detail the unmitigated sufferings of the starving peasantry. Indeed, they are stated to be on the increase, notwithstanding the very great exertion of public bodies and individuals to assuage their pressure.

With the object of ascertaining the accuracy of the frightful statements received from the West, and of placing them in unexaggerated fidelity before our readers, a few days since, we commissioned our Artist, Mr. James Mahoney, of Cork, to visit a seat of extreme suffering, viz., Skibbereen and its vicinity; and we now submit to our readers the graphic results of his journey, accompanied by such descriptive notes as he was enabled to collect whilst sketching the fearful incidents and desolate localities; premising merely, that our Artist must already have been somewhat familiar with such scenes of suffering in his own locality, (Cork), so that he cannot be supposed to have taken an extreme view of the greater misery at Skibbereen.

“I started from Cork, by the mail (says our informant), for Skibbereen and saw little until we came to Clonakilty, where the coach stopped for breakfast; and here, for the first time, the horrors of the poverty became visible, in the vast number of famished poor, who flocked around the coach to beg alms: amongst them was a woman carrying in her arms the corpse of a fine child, and making the most distressing appeal to the passengers for aid to enable her to purchase a coffin and bury her dear little baby. This horrible spectacle induced me to make some inquiry about her, when I learned from the people of the hotel that each day brings dozens of such applicants into the town. (See the Sketch.)

“After leaving Clonakilty, each step that we took westward brought fresh evidence of the truth of the reports of the misery, as we either met a funeral or a coffin at every hundred yards, until we approached the country of the Shepperton Lakes. (See the Sketch.) Here, the distress became more striking, from the decrease of numbers at the funerals, none having more than eight or ten attendants, and many only two or three.

“We next reached Skibbereen, a general view of which I send you from Clover Hill House, the residence of J. Macarthy Downing, Esq.; and, it being then late, I rested until Monday, when, with the valuable aid of Dr. D. Donovan, and his assistant, Mr. Crowley, I witnessed such scenes of misery and privation as I trust it may never be again my lot to look upon. Up to this morning, I, like a large portion, I fear, of the community, looked on the diaries of Dr. Donovan, as published in The Cork Southern Reporter, to be highly-coloured pictures, doubtless, intended for a good and humane purpose; but I can now, with perfect confidence, say that neither pen nor pencil ever could portray the miser and horror, at this moment, to be witnessed in Skibbereen. We first proceeded to Bridgetown, a portion of which is shown in the right hand distance of the sketch; and there I saw the dying, the living, and the dead, lying indiscriminately upon the same floor, without anything between them and the cold earth, save a few miserable rags upon them. To point to any particular house as a proof of this would be a waste of time, as all were in the same state; and, not a single house out of 500 could boast of being free from death and fever, though several could be pointed out with the dead lying close to the living for the space of three or four, even six days, without any effort being made to remove the bodies to a last resting place.

“After leaving this abode of death, we proceeded to High-street, or Old Chapel-lane (See the Sketch ) and there found one house, without door or window, filled with destitute people lying on the bare floor; and one, fine, tall, stout country lad, who had entered some hours previously to find shelter from the piercing cold, lay here dead amongst others likely soon to follow him. The appeals to the feelings and professional skill of my kind attendants here became truly heart-rending; and so distressed Dr. Donovan, that he begged me not to go into the house, and to avoid coming into contact with the people surrounding the doorway.

“We next proceeded to the Chapel-yard, to see the hut, of which Dr. Donovan gives the following graphic account in his diary:—

‘On my return home, I remembered that I had yet a visit to pay; having in the morning received a ticket to see six members of one family, named Barrett, who had been turned out of the cabin in which they lodged, in the neighbourhood of Old Chapelyard; and who had struggled to this burying-ground, and literally entombed themselves in a small watch-house that was built for the shelter of those who were engaged in guarding against exhumation by the doctors, when more respect was paid to the dead than is at present the case. This shed is exactly seven feet long, by about six in breadth. By the side of the western wall is a long, newly-made grave; by either gable are two of shorter dimensions, which have been recently tenanted; and near the hole that serves as a doorway is the last resting-place of two or three children; in fact, this hut is surrounded by a rampart of human bones, which have accumulated to such a height that the threshold, which was originally on a level with the ground, is now two feet beneath it. In this horrible den, in the midst of a mass of human putrefaction, six individuals, males and females, labouring under most malignant fever, were huddled together, as closely as were the dead in the graves around.

‘At the time (eleven o’clock at night) that I went to visit these poor sufferers, it was blowing a perfect hurricane, and such groans of roaring wind and rain I never remember to have heard.

‘I was accompanied by my assistant, Crowley, and we took with us some bread, tea and sugar; on reaching this vault, I thrust my head through the hole of entrance, and had immediately to draw back, so intolerable was the effluvium; and, though rendered callous by a companionship for many years with disease and death, yet I was completely unnerved at the humble seen of suffering and misery that was presented to my view; six fellow creatures were almost buried alive in this filthy sepulchre. When they heard my voice, one called out, ‘Is that the Priest?’ another, ‘Is that the Doctor?’ The mother of the family begged in the most earnest manner that I would have them removed, or else that they would rot together; and they all implored that we would give them drink. Mr. Crowley produced the tea and sugar, but they said it was of no use to them, as they had no fire or place to light it in, and that what they wanted was water; that they had put a jug under the droppings from the roof, but would not have drink enough for the night. The next day I got the consent of the Poor Law Guardians to have my patients removed from this abode of the dead to the fever hospital, and they are since improving.’

“To complete my melancholy visit to this scene of horror, and to visit every corner of Skibbereen, next morning, accompanied by a Mr. Everett, whose knowledge of the country I found most useful, I started for Ballidichob, and learned upon the road that we should come to a hut or cabin in the parish of Aghadoe, on the property of Mr. Long, where four people had lain dead for six days; and, upon arriving at the hut, the abode of Tim Harrington, we found this to be true; for there lay the four bodies, and a fifth was passing to the same bourne. On hearing our voices, the sinking man made an effort to reach the door, and ask for drink or fire; he fell in the doorway; there, in all probability to die; as the living cannot be prevailed to assist in the interments, for fear of taking the fever.

“We next got to Skull, where, by the attention of Dr. Traill, vicar of the parish (and whose humanity at the present moment is beyond all praise), we witnessed almost indescribable in-door horrors. In the street, however, we had the best opportunity of judging of the condition of the people; for here, from three to five hundred women, with money in their hands, were seeking to buy food; whilst a few of the Government officers doled out Indian meal to them in their turn. One of the women told me she had been standing there since daybreak, seeking to get food for her family at home.

“This food, it appeared, was being doled out in miserable quantities, at ‘famine prices,’ to the neighbouring poor, from a stock lately arrived in a sloop, with a Government steamship to protect its cargo of 50 tons; whilst the population amounts to 27,000; so that you may calculate what were the feelings of the disappointed mass.

“In my way out of the town, I made the accompanying Sketch; and, here, again, I had an opportunity of witnessing the efforts of the Vicar’s family to relieve the afflictions around them; and we met his daughters returning from their work of charity in the poorest portion of the town.

“Having returned to Skibbereen, my next object was to seek out the truth of the following extract from Dr. Donovan’s Diary, as published in the Cork Southern Reporter, of Jan. 26:—

“‘A man of the name of Leahey died in the parish of Dromdaleague about a fortnight ago; his wife and two children remained in the house until the putrescent exhalations from the body drove them from their companionship with the dead; in a day or two after, some persons in passing the man’s cabin, had their attention attracted by a loud snarling, and on entering, found the gnawed and mangled skeleton of Leahey contended for by hungry dogs.’”

“This, I need not tell you, I looked upon as designed for an effect; and so I started for Dromdaleague, to reach which we had to pass through the miserable parish of Cahera, where, unless something be done for the poor, and that quickly and effectively, the result will be awful.”

Here the report must terminate for the present. Next week we shall complete our painfully interesting series of Illustrations.

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Feb. 20, 1847.]

We resume from our Journal of last week our Artist’s Sketches of Scenes and Incidents form the distressed district of Skibbereen, and its neighbourhood; premising that our main object in the publication of this Series of Illustrations is to direct public sympathy to the suffering poor of these localities, a result that must, inevitably, follow the right appreciation of their extent and severity.

We left our Artist, last week, on the road to Dromdaleague, to inquire into the horrible circumstances of Leahey’s death.

The first Sketch is taken on the road, at Cahera, of a famished boy and girl turning up the ground to seek for a potato to appease their hunger. “Not far from the spot where I made this sketch,” says Mr. M., “and less than fifty perches from the high road, is another of the many sepulchres above ground, where six dead bodies had lain for twelve days, without the least chance of interment, owing to their being so far from the town. After leaving this fearful spot, we soon reached Dromdaleague, where I called upon the Rev. J. Creedon, and inquired of him as to the fate of Leahey. ‘Not only do I know the statement to be true,’ replied the reverend gentleman, ‘but I also prepared the man for death, and am ready to accompany you to the spot.’ We, accordingly, started; and, within half an hour’s drive, reached the village of Meinies, where the house of Leahey is situated, and of which I send you a sketch. Whilst making this, I learned from Mr.. Creedon, and one of the villagers, that not only was the account of Leahey’s house in the Diary true, but the case was even more disgusting than there stated; and, horrifying as it was, the man’s mother, who found the dogs about him, after having first lain him across the few remaining sparks of fire upon the floor, went out to beg as much as would purchase a coffin to bury him in.”

“Having heard much of the wants of Dunmanway, I proceeded thither, and am delighted to say that this large and thriving town (of which I send you a sketch, taken from the bridge on the Cork road) seems to be the barrier to the dreadful want further west. Not, at the same time, but that much want does exist here, though nothing beyond what may be expected upon land where nature is not bountiful. The worst feature presenting itself, at this moment, all through the West, is the entire abandonment of agricultural occupation; and, during my entire excursion from Clonakilty round to Dunmanway, not more than ten or a dozen fields seemed to have been prepared for the spring; and the answer of all those to whom I addressed myself on the subject was, that if they put down, they did not know who would reap; and that, in case the crops were sown, the poor famished wretches would be there to eat them up long before they had time to grow.

“Again, all sympathy between the living and the dead seems completely out of the question; and the revolting practice will, doubtless, go on until it works its own remedy. I certainly saw from 150 to 180 funerals of victims to the want of food, the whole number attended by not more than 50 persons; and so hardened are the men regularly employed in the removal of the dead from the workhouse, that I saw one of them, with four coffins in a car, driving to the churchyard, sitting upon one of the said coffins, and smoking with much apparent enjoyment. The people also say that whoever escapes the fever is sure of falling sick on the road (the Public Works), as they are, in many instances, compelled to walk from three to six miles, and sometimes a greater distance, to work, and back again in the evening, without partaking of a morsel of food. Added to this, they are, in a great number of instances, standing in bogs and wet places, which so affects them, that many of the poor fellows have been known to drop down at their work.”

We must here revert to Ballydehob, on the Skibbereen road, which our Artist has sketched, showing Mount Gabriel in the distance. Here he was told by the Rev. Mr. Triphook that the destitution was of so frightful a nature that such persons as could command five pounds were leaving the town, to avoid the contagion of fever, as well as the afflicting scene of persons dropping around them daily; and the informant added that the town was more than five times fuller of people from the surrounding country than it had accommodation for.

A specimen of the in-door horrors of Scull may be seen in the annexed sketch of the hut of a poor man named Mullins, who lay dying in a corner upon a heap of straw, supplied by the Relief Committee, whilst his three wretched children crouched over a few embers of turf, as if to raise the last remaining spark of life. This poor man, it appears, had buried his wife some five days previously, and was, in all probability, on the eve of joining her, when he was found out by the untiring efforts of the Vicar, who, for a few short days, saved him from that which no kindness could ultimately avert. Our Artist us assures that the dimensions of the hut do not exceed ten feet square; adding that, to make the sketch, he was compelled to stand up to his ankles in the dirt and filth upon the floor.

“I have thus,” observes Mr. M., “been lengthy in my details in order that you may be as well informed upon the subject as I can enable you to be; and, bearing in mind the horrifying scenes that I have just witnessed, I entreat you to do the best you can for so much suffering humanity; as this visit to the West will, I trust, assist in making this affliction known to the charitable public.”

SOUP STORE AT CORK

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Mar 13, 1847.]

The benevolent attempts to alleviate the present scarcity are specially worthy of illustration in our pages; since they, doubtless, in many instances, prompt the reader to aid directly or indirectly in the good work, “all mankind’s concern”—charity. The annexed Illustration is of this class of subjects; it represents the Soup Depôt, in Barrack-street, Cork, stated to be the first establishment of the kind opened in Ireland for the distribution of food to the poor, gratuitously. Our artist (Mr. James Mahoney) assures us that 1300 poor persons are thus relieved daily; and that the establishment has effected more good among the wretched than any other means of relief yet suggested. The rush to obtain a place in one of the partitions (eight in number), so as to be in time for the distribution, is surprising; as is, also, the quiet, peaceable demeanor of the poor people.The spot where this large Depôt has been fitted up was, until this year, one of the principal potato markets, and is, therefore, well calculated for the purpose; it being well walled in, and surrounded with sheds, which afford shelter to the poor applicants. The food is cooked in an upper building, and handed down for distribution, as shown by our artist. Previously to this, an equally large quantity of capital meat soup is distributed at one halfpenny per quart, to such as choose to purchase it. It is worthy of remark, that, from the opening of this Depôt to the present time, not an act of dishonesty has been known to take place; Alderman Roche stating that not a spoon or vessel to be missing.

We quote these additional details of the mode of distribution, from the Southern Reporter:

It is impossible to overrate the valuable services rendered by the gentlemen who attend here, and undertake the arduous duty of administering the daily rations of food to the famishing and clamorous crowds who beset the gates. The average number supplied every day at this establishment for the past week has been 1300, and many hundreds more apply, whom it is impossible at present to accommodate. The upper gate is opened at twelve o’clock, and eight hundred are admitted, when the tremendous rush which takes place presents fearful evidence of the hunger and misery which the crowd are enduring; on entering, they are classified, and stationed in the order in which it is intended to serve them, in a row of pens or enclosed places under the range of sheds at the right hand, each lot of 100 being in charge of a policeman, to see that each is properly attended to: there is then a communication from the kitchen in the rear, through which the homminy is handed in tins, containing a quart each, with great rapidity, to each person, who then crosses the yard to the sheds at the other side, and there eats his food. The whole 800 are served in about three hours, and are then let out by the lower gate, and a fresh batch of 5 to 600 admitted as before, and fed in the same way. We tasted the food they receive, which is most carefully prepared from rice and Indian meal, well boiled and seasoned, and can safely declare that it is excellent. We would, however, earnestly appeal to the ever active benevolence of the charitable, by suggesting the immense advantage the poor would derive from the addition of a little bread to this description of soup. Even a two-penny loaf per day from one half of the respectable families in Cork, who would not miss ten times its cost, sent to this Depôt, would be of incalculable assistance, and greatly aid the noble exertions of the Committee.”

SKETCHES IN IRELAND

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Aug. 26, 1848.]
(By our Special Correspondent.)

THURLES.

WERE it not the crowds of country-people who come into town to chapel, to market, and to hear the news, and the soldiers who fill the shops where whisky and porter, potatoes, eggs, salt, calico, linen, black-puddings, buttons, thread, and meal are sold, and the officers and “heaps” of gentlemen who puzzle the waiters and one another at the head hotel by ringing all the bells at once, as already told—there would be no sign of insurrection in Thurles. There is the fullness of the streets with country people, curious to ascertain what the military are doing; there are the detective police, curious to find out the business which brings any new-comer to Thurles, and who take round-about ways to satisfy their curiosity. There is the same philosophic amusement for those who are not otherwise too busy, of watching and studying the detectives. A visit to the Catholic chapel, where hundreds of the country people—the men in their dark blue or brown overcoats, with capes behind; the women in their blue hooded cloaks: all of them in good condition as to clothes; hardly a ragged coat, or cloak, or stocking to be seen—a visit to the chapel, where some hundreds are always, in the early part of the day, on their knees, is about all which the weather permits us to do (see Engraving); or we may follow some of them to the Court-house to hear their application for a license to keep fire-arms, and listen to the discussion as to their being or not being believed to be loyal subjects. Or we may linger under cover of the half-built railway station, and se the half-filled railway trains pass from Dublin to Limerick down, and from Limerick to Dublin up—three of them per day each way; and though the railway, by its easy gradients through a hundred miles of level country, with no tunnels, or viaducts, or deep cuttings, such as we see on almost every line in England, must have been cheaply constructed, we cannot help a mental calculation as to the small traffic and a small dividend.

But those are not subjects for a special reporter. The question of questions is, not what are the detectives doing to arrest the remainder of the insurgent leaders, or what is the light brigade of Major-General M’Donald doing to help them, but how is Ireland to be saved from an annual potato rot, and the famine which that and a poor system of agriculture leaves her a prey to, which, being the question, leads me again to Lord Clarendon’s practical instructors.

Let us follow some of them.

To the neighbourhood of Macroom, in the county of Cork, Mr. John Hinds was sent. A reference to the evidence taken by the Commission which inquired into the occupation of land in 1844, under the able Presidency of the Earl of Devon, shows us that up to that year the custom of farming in the Macroom district was deplorably wasteful. When I visited the district during the famine months of the spring of 1847 I found all useful farm work abandoned, and the entire population working on the roads for the relief out of the ten millions which was voted for the purpose by Parliament. Not a perch of ground on the ordinary farms was broken with a spade or plough at the end of March. And, had the relief in food only allowed, it is a moral certainty that not a spadeful of soil would have been turned up, a grain of seed sown, or a plant planted in that district, as in others, except by a few of the gentlemen cultivators.

Being at last forced upon their own resources in 1847, the Macroom tenantry were probably more eager, in 1848, to listen to Lord Clarendon’s instructors than otherwise they might have been. Mr. Hinds says he first called upon the High Sheriff, the Hon. Mr. White, who received him favourably, and gave orders that his tenantry should be collected to listen to him, which was done. The instructor then travelled through the wild tract about the lakes which are the sources of the river Lee, which runs to Cork, and forms its harbour, a tract, though wild, thickly peopled. Everywhere he went the poor farmers crowded around him with the greatest anxiety. But alas! It was not an instructor to teach them how to till the land that they wanted; they looked for some one coming to till it for them—to find seed, pay for labour, and give them the crops. Mr. Hinds says they followed him over the whole country, from farm to farm. He pointed out to them as he went along, the defects of their old customs, and the advantages of the system which he recommended. He accompanied Mr. Coppinger, a poor-law guardian, over a large tract of country, near Mushera mountain; but he says it would be difficult to make anything of the poor creatures whom he met swarming there. “But, strange to say,” he adds, “some large farmers and gentry told me that it was now impossible to get farming labourers to work either by task or day upon the land, so completely are they demoralized and upset by the new system of labour that has been introduced among them (by the relief works). Instead of working at their own lands at home, or hiring themselves out as daily labourers, worthy of their hire, they now prefer working on the roads, like convicts in a penal colony; and I find groups of them in all parts of the county breaking stones for one pound of meal a day, hardly enough to support them, and their farms lying idle and neglected. If half the labour that is now spent on breaking stones could find its way back into the fields, and be employed in digging and deepening them, the country would soon feel the benefit of it, and the labouring population gradually come back to habits of industry and labour. As it is, the present system, if persevered in, must end in certain ruin.”

To this I would add, by way of suggestion, that if one pound of meal per day keeps these people upon the roads to break stones, a higher rate of wages than is usually offered to them by those who hire labour in that district might draw them from the roads and the pound of meal. It will hardly be credited that the “large farmers and gentry” spoken of by Mr. hinds offer labourers threepence and fourpence per day, without other allowance. The facts are simply these. The poor-law allowance is the very least which medical experience orders for the bare sustenance of life. Those who seek to hire labour offer less than the poor-law allowance, and the necessities of the wretched creatures decide in favour of the poor-law and the roads. The lowest-priced labour, like other low-priced commodities, is not always the cheapest. One of the most eminent political economists in England, Mr. Morton, of Whitefield, Gloucestershire, found that he could get any number of men to work for him for nine shillings a week on going to that farm. He preferred to give them twelve shillings a week, and has continued to do so. He has had better workmen, and better work, and cheaper labour for his twelve shillings, than those farmers who continue to pay nine shillings.

The half of nine shillings per week would be wages such as were never heard of about Macroom. If the half, instead of the fourth or the fifth of nine shillings per week, was offered for farm labour, the miserable men of Macroom would go to the farmer who offered it, and leave the roads and the one pound of meal a day.

But it is not so certain that those who have their five, ten, or fifteen acres of their own farm would leave the pound of meal to cultivate for themselves. If they borrow money at Macroom to buy seed or obtain food while the crop is growing, they must have two or three names to a bill, and pay 20, 30, or 40 per cent. for six months. So bad is their security deemed to be, that even that interest, nor any other interest that they may promise (they will promise anything), can obtain loans for them since the prevalence of the potato rot; consequently their land lies untilled. It is beyond the power of human knowledge to devise a plan by which these people are to be made men of substance, unless the plan of Lord Clarendon, of teaching them how to make their land fertile and their crops profitable, be followed out, in conjunction with such aid in seed and implements as other funds may for a time assist them in procuring. The Society of Friends in England have, through their agents in Ireland, distributed seed and implements over a great extent of country during the last two years.

Mr. Hinds found that the gentry did not attend his meetings, nor give him much of their countenance at Macroom. He determined, therefore, to go among the poor people on their own farms. The Rev. Mr. Burton, parish priest of Ballyvourney, secured him a good meeting in his parish. “We adjourned,” he says, “to the open air, and it was with difficulty I could make myself heard by the numbers who crowded round me for information. Only for the assistance of the clergy of all persuasions, I would not be able to struggle on at all in these vast tracts; but indeed they are doing their duty, and the people are everywhere beginning to feel the benefit of it.”

Then again he says: “I held meetings in Muskerry, which were well attended by the farmers; but, somehow or other, the gentry held back; and more is the pity, for all along the valley of the Lee the country is beautiful, the land fine, the people quiet and industrious. What they principally want, is instruction and co-operation from their superiors of wealth and resources.”

It is satisfactory to know, however, that the gentry became more favourable to the industrial mission as the season advanced.

Mr. Matthew Grace, who was sent as instructor to the Dingle district in Kerry, says the Rev. Owen M’Carthy, parish priest of Ballyheigne, “offered every assistance in his power to bring me in contact with the poor wretched inhabitants. He hopes to be able to get them some seeds, and that I will be able to instruct them in cultivating them.” Under the date of May 6th, he gives the following deplorable picture:—“The Reverend Mr. O’Sullivan, P.P. of Kilgobin, accompanied me over a large tract of poor desolate country, where I met several families digging their stubble land of last year and preparing for potatoes. The great difficulty here, as elsewhere, is the want of seeds. Mr. O’Sullivan told me he had known some of these poor people sell their beds, and carry them away privately by night from shame, in order to procure the seeds—and those who could not do so have only to let their land lie idle and to die themselves alongside it. Mr. O’Sullivan has himself prepared four acres of turnips, in the hope that the people will follow his example; but it is vain to expect anything from such broken down and dejected poor creatures as these.”

On visiting Dingle a second time, Mr. Grace saw the good results of his first visit manifest. Land was prepared for green crops. The Rector introduced him to his congregation, to teach them how to dispose of the seeds sent them by the Society of Friends. At Castleisland he says his meetings were well attended by the clergy, and gentry, and the pauper tenantry. A committee was formed to get seeds and implements proper for the poor farmers. “Unless something effective to be done in this respect,” he says, “it is quite useless to be trying to get the poor creatures to alter their system, or to improve it, by bare advice or instruction.”

Mr. George Jordan, who was sent to the Swineford district, in the western county of Mayo, found it useless to instruct them while the wretched occupiers of the soil had not an ounce of seed nor any means of obtaining it, “unless it dropped down from heaven.” Small tracts on husbandry send to the instructors for distribution were everywhere eagerly sought for.

Mr. Thomas Wynne Boggs, who was sent to what he truly calls the splendid county of Roscommon, says:—“With the assistance of the clergy, I have been endeavouring to ascertain the quantity of tillage land in this splendid county of Roscommon, and we think it is about five acres tilled for forty-five acres untilled and lying idle. The great part of these rich and beautiful plains is covered with weeds and rushes. The people are wandering about, seeking for foreign food for breaking stones; their families starving; and that beautiful land, that ought to support them all and as many more, is lying idle like themselves and useless” (as grazing meadows).

Since coming to the county of Tipperary, I have visited and observed some of the good effects following the instructions of Mr. Samuel Shouldice, who was appointed to the district of Ardfinan. Mr. Prendergast, Secretary to the Farming Society, guided him through the district about Market-hill. The farmers had sown their wheat crops, but in a defective way, great waste being caused by the numerous furrows and small narrow ridges. Mr. Prendergast pressed strongly on his tenants the necessity of adopting the instructor’s advice; and to enforce it by example he gave directions to his steward in their presence to follow his instructions, and to lay down the land strictly in accordance with them.

Mr. Samuel Barton, of Rochestown, took the instructor among his tenants, and provided some of them with seeds and implements, who seemed inclined to follow the instructions. He called on Mr. O’Connor, the parish priest of Ardfinan, and found him with five ploughs at work, preparing to sow potatoes alone. The value of a more varied system of cultivation was explained, so that if one crop failed others might succeed, and the Reverend gentleman, in the kindest manner, immediately placed his whole field, ploughs, manure, and seeds at the instructor’s disposal, to treat it as he thought proper. This act of confidence on his part had the best effect towards enlisting the feelings of the farmers, and inducing them to follow his example.

This was with the Catholic priest. Immediately after, the Protestant rector of the parish, the Rev. Mr. Madden sent for the instructor, and asked him to lay out his farm for him, which was done.

The competition for land—there being no other scope for industry—leads the people to give such large sums of money for the good-will or possession to outgoing tenants, as leave them destitute of capital to cultivate the land when they obtain it.

I shall not occupy space by alluding to more of the districts to which the instructors were sent. Their reports are all interesting. By a misfortune, not new to Ireland, the public press has not thought projects so simple, practicable, and really effective, worthy of its support—so I am informed on high authority. I have, therefore, been the more particular in making special inquiries for myself, and in bringing those beneficial services to Ireland fairly before the public.

The districts to which the instructors were sent are twenty-nine in number. To sixteen of them they were provided free of expense to the localities; to the remainder the localities contributed half the expenses. The payments were latterly £14 per fortnight to each instructor, the districts over which they travelled being extensive. The Lord-Lieutenant began the fund by a subscription of £50, and afterwards obtained £1000 from another source in England. The whole sum expended was £2433. Owing to the insurrectionary movements, all the instructors have been called in. If funds can be provided, it is intended they shall be sent out again in October, to direct the people during the winter and spring.

The weather continues wet, and every heart seems sinking at the unhappy prospect for the harvest. There have only been three entire dry days in the last fortnight; still most of the corn is safe, though it will not be so fine in quality, if the weather should brighten up. The peasantry come here early in the morning with buttermilk, potatoes, and scanty gatherings of greens, to sell, and linger in the market-place over their small sales all day; but the greater number who come seem to have nothing in hand of business kind.

We can hardly get them into conversation on the most ordinary topics: they think every stranger is a detective policeman. Even though innocent of insurrectionary sympathies, they fear an accusation. To a man standing near the railway I put some questions a little time ago about the crops, and the localities over which he had travelled. He trembled when I spoke, and became so tremulous that he could scarcely answer me. Sorry to see his uneasiness at being addressed by a stranger in such a perilous time, I left him, that he might be at ease, so far as I was concerned.

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Sept. 2, 1848.]

WE returned to the town of Thurles, in Tipperary, after accompanying the train which brought the prisoners to Dublin; but finding nothing occur to detain us at Thurles, which, for three weeks following the insurrectionary affray near Ballingarry, had been the locality of chiefest interest to the military, the police, and the reporters, we set our faces westward, and occasionally southward, on a tour through Tipperary county. It is about seventy miles long from north to south, and about forty miles broad from east to west, and comprises an area of 1659 square miles. Its surface in acres measures 1,061,731. Of those acres 843,887 are stated to be “arable” (that is cultivated—though in many respects badly cultivated), while 178,183 are wholly uncultivated, 23,779 are covered with plantations, 2359 form the sites of towns, and 13,523 are under water.

It is generally level or gently undulating, except on its borders, where southward we see the Galtees, the Knockmeledown ranges, and the Slievenamon solitary mountain; and in the east, where we see the Slieve Ardagh hills; and the west, where a group rises with the Keeper, shutting out the setting sun. The fame of Tipperary for agrarian outrages every ear has heard. The beauty of its surface no tongue can sufficiently declare. There is no English county that resembles it. Its wheat, its orchards, its high hedgerows, luxuriant and flowery in their wildness, you may see equalled in Kent; but Kent is without the mountains and the music of the rivers of Tipperary. On the other hand, weeds attempt to grow in the farm fields of Kent, as they do here; but they do not choke up the wheat and overcome its growth, and keep the potatoes often undermost, as they do here. Wages sufficient to induce men and women to work are paid in Kent; not so in Tipperary. Nothing is so continually manifest to the observer here, as the want of labour in the fields, and the number of people everywhere without employment, and declaring that nobody will employ them, not even at sixpence per day.

The population of the county was, at the taking of the last census, 435,553. There were 34,100 farms of more than one acre each (the average seems to run between 15 and 30 acres). The principal towns are Clonmel, with a population of 13,000; Nenagh, 8648; Carrick-on-Suir, 11,049; Thurles, 7523; Cashel, 7036; Roscrea, 5275; Fethard, 3915; Cahir, 3668; Templemore, 3683; Clogheen, 2049; and Tipperary, from whence the county takes its name, 7370.

Tipperary town stands near the centre of the most fertile district of that fertile shire. It consists of one long main street running along an acclivity with a southern aspect, with lanes and other streets extending on each side. Viewed from a grassy eminence on the north side, we have before us the parish church; a row of mean cot houses, poorly thatched, inhabited by people poorly clothed, and complaining that they have no work to do; while, beyond the town, we have a view of the Workhouse and the Fever hospital, and another building, occupied at present as a barrack. Behind these rises a ridge of hills, the property chiefly of Augustus Stafford, Esq., M.P. (better known as Stafford O’Brien—having but recently obtained the Royal license to change his name); and behind that ridge of hills rise the Galtee Mountains—the vale of Aherle intervening. Viewed from the south, near the Workhouse, we have the unfinished railway station immediately before us, and the town, beautifully chequered with gardens and trees, rising beyond; those gardens, when we approach them and look over the walls, are so completely overgrown with thistles, docks, and luxuriant foulness, that you cannot tell nor even guess at the nature of the crop that may have been sown—whether potatoes, turnips, or cabbages. Outside the walls, by the pathway sides, and at every street corner, men, women, and children, of all ages and sizes, are gathering around strangers to beg; and to every question of “Why are you begging and not working?” the reply is “There is no work to do.”

From Tipperary we travelled to Cahir, eleven miles. This town occupies a situation of singular beauty on both banks of the Suir river. It is chiefly the property of the Earl of Glengall. The well-cultivated fields, rich in their crops of grain, now ripe, and in process of being harvested, prove that some causes have been at work to improve this district. We obtained access to the tower of the Bridewell, from whence a good view of the town and surrounding country is obtained. From a point on the river side, below the ancient castle and bridge, we took another view. The large flour mills, one of which is beside the bridge, are objects of industrial interest, which the traveller finds occurring more frequently on the river Suir than on any other river in the south of Ireland.

EVICTIONS OF PEASANTRY IN IRELAND

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Dec. 16, 1848.]

A vast social change is gradually taking place in Ireland. The increase of emigration on the part of the bulk of the small capitalists, and the ejectment, by wholesale, of the wretched cottiers, will, in the course of a short time, render quite inappropriate for its new condition the old cry of a redundant population. But this social revolution, however necessary it may be, is accompanied by an amount of human misery that is absolutely appalling. The Tipperary Vindicator thus portrays the state of the country:—

The work of undermining the population is going on stealthily, but steadily. Each succeeding day witnesses its devastations—more terrible than the simoon, and more deadly than the plague. We do not say that there exists a conspiracy to uproot the ‘mere Irish;’ but we do aver, that the fearful system of wholesale ejectment, of which we daily hear, and which we daily behold, is a mockery of the eternal laws of God—a flagrant outrage on the principles of nature. Whole districts are cleared. Not a roof-tree is to be seen where the happy cottage of the labourer or the snug homestead of the farmer at no distant day cheered the landscape. The ditch side, the dripping rain, and the cold sleet are the covering of the wretched outcast the moment the cabin is tumbled over him; for who dare give him shelter or protection from ‘the pelting of the pitiless storm?’ Who has the temerity to afford him the ordinary rites of hospitality, when the warrant has been signed for his extinction? There are vast tracts of the most fertile land in the world in this noble county now thrown out of tillage. No spade, no plough goes near them. There are no symptoms of life within their borders, no more than if they were situated in the midst of the Great Desert—no more than if they were cursed by the Creator with the blight of barrenness. Those who laboured to bring those tracts to the condition in which they are—capable of raising produce of any description—are hunted like wolves, or they perish without a murmur. The tongue refuses to utter their most deplorable—their unheard-of sufferings. The agonies endured by the ‘mere Irish’ in this day of their unparalleled affliction are far more poignant than the imagination could conceive, or the pencil of a Rembrandt picture. We do not exaggerate; the state of things is absolutely fearful; a demon, with all the vindictive passions by which alone a demon could be influenced, is let loose and menaces destruction. Additional sharpness, too, is imparted to his appetite. Christmas was accustomed to come with many healing balsams, sufficient to remove irritation if not to stanch wounds; but its place is usurped by other and far different qualifications. The howl of misery has succeeded the merry carol which used to usher in the season; no hope is felt that an end will soon be put to this state of wretchedness. the torpor and apathy which have seized on the masses are only surpassed by the atrocities perpetrated by those who set the dictates of humanity and the decrees of the Almighty at equal defiance.”

CONDITION OF IRELAND

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE NEW POOR-LAW

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Dec. 15, 1849.]
(From our own Correspondent.)

[The present fearful Condition of Ireland, made considerably worse, we believe, by the operation of the New Poor-Law, has induced us to give, as far as possible, a faithful report of the working of this law with Illustrations of Localities, sketched by our own Artist.]

GENERAL STATE OF KILRUSH

Kilrush, which gives its name to a Poor-law Union, will be celebrated in the history of pauperism. With Clifden, Westport, Skibbereen, and other places, it forms one of the battle-fields of Ireland, in which property, under the guidance of legislation, has fought with poverty, and been worsted in the conflict. It is our purpose to describe the progress of the contest, and, as Sterne took a single victim to make mankind sensible of the horrors of slavery—as a single case of flogging women did more to rouse the people of England against the iniquities they had countenanced in the West Indies, than many volumes of general description—we presume that we shall make the condition of Ireland, and the working of the Poor-law there, more effectually known by selecting a single Union for remark, than by parading before our readers a great multitude of statistical facts. Our Commissioner is on the spot, and we illustrate the Sketches and condense the facts he has supplied us with. Sketch No. 1. represents the town of Kilrush.

As an appropriate introduction, we quote from the Times of Tuesday an account of the

“DEPLORABLE STATE OF THE KILRUSH UNION.”

The Limerick papers bring melancholy accounts of a “crisis” which has at length taken place in the affairs of this unfortunate Union. Money and credit are all gone, and starvation has literally set in among the paupers in the workhouse, the inmates having been sent to bed on Thursday night without having eaten any dinner—the only remedy that the guardians could suggest to numb the sense of hunger. The Limerick Chronicle‘s statement is as follows:—

“‘Notwithstanding the exertions of the local board and Poor-law inspectors, the in-door paupers were obliged to go to bed without dinner on Thursday night. The master brought the state of the house, as regards want of provisions for that day, before the board, when soup and chopped turnips grown on the land was the only food available. The out-door paupers are in a desperate state, crowding the dépôts and following the relieving officers by thousands to town to get into the workhouse; but one day’s admission (300 admitted) so crowded the auxiliary, that admission was impossible. Barley, the produce of the land about the workhouse, has been ordered to be threshed; but are 2600 paupers to be fed on the principle of “live, horse, and you’ll get grass?” It is fearful to think of the state of Kilrush Union—nothing but starving creatures fro the country to be seen pouring into a starving workhouse; the Board meet every day, but, if we are to judge from the general confession of that body, they are able to effect no good. The chairman, Colonel C. M. Vandeleur, took the chair yesterday, and his presence was sufficient it was thought to get the ‘needful,’ but to no purpose; out-door paupers and relieving officers were sent home, and in-door paupers recommended to go to bed. The coroner attended an inquest on a man who was found in a dying state o the side of the road near Kilmury. Mortality in the workhouse has been small; but, owing to the able-bodied on the out-door relief being struck off, the deaths in that department are every day increasing to a frightful extent. Relieving officers complain that they must bury their dead without coffins. The Board yesterday agreed to petition the Poor-law Commissioners on the state of the Union, and said that the guardians would not be morally responsible for the deaths that may occur through starvation.’”

Kilrush is in the county of Clare, and on one bank of the Shannon. It is situated in a district that is both fertile and picturesque. It has all the conveniences of a haven, and might have all the advantages of a great trading and fishing port. It is, for Ireland, a tolerably large town, with well-built stone houses, and broad, clean streets, though it has plenty of mud cabins and dirt, like every other Irish town. It is going rapidly to decay, and most of the houses could be bought for less than the value of the stones they were built with. The Poor-house is now, and likely to be for a long period, the principal building in the town, and, with the Catholic chapel, constitute its architectural distinctions.

The Union to which it gives a name consists of nine districts:—1. Kilrush and Killimer. 2. Knock and Killofin. 3. Kilfiddan and Kildysert. 4. Kilmihil and Kilmacdooan. 5. Kilmury. 6. Killard. 7. Kilkee. 8. Moyarta. 9. Kilballyowen. It extends right across the Clare peninsula, between the Shannon and the Western Ocean, and contained, in 1841, a population of 82,358. Of this population, very considerably reduced in numbers, there were no less than 22,661 receiving relief out of the workhouse, at the cost per week of £559, in April, 1849; and in June the number was increased to 29,049, who were maintained at a cost of £780 16s. 5d. Taking the average of the two months, the number relieved was more than 35 per cent.; the cost of maintaining them was something less than 6d. per head per week. At the same period there were i the union workhouse about 2500 paupers, making the total number of persons relieved in June 31,549, or more than 43 per cent. of the population of 1841. If we knew the exact number at present, greatly reduced as it its, we should, no doubt, find that considerably more than one-half of the whole population, or more than 50 per cent., are receiving relief. So far as mere figures go, it is an afflicting picture to see every man, woman, or child, in possession of a crust or a pound of meat, besieged by another beggar for a share of that which is hardly sufficient for his own wants.

From this general view we pass to an example of the manner in which the out-door paupers live. In the workhouse the people, till the last arrival, were tolerably well taken care of; and such is the general destitution, that they were well housed, clothed, and fed, in comparison with the mass. Our second Sketch represents what is called a Scalpeen. There is also something called a scalp, or hole dug in the earth, some two or three feet deep. In such a place was the abode of Brian Connor. He has three in family, and had lived in this hole several months before it was discovered. It was roofed over with sticks and pieces of turf, laid in the shape of an inverted saucer. It resembles, though not quite so large, one of the ant-hills of the African forests. Many of the people whose houses have been levelled take up their abodes in such places; and even in them there is a distinction of wretchedness. A Scalpeen is a hole, too, but the roof above it is rather loftier and grander in its dimensions. It is often erected within the walls when any are left standing, of the unroofed houses, and all that is above the surface is built out of the old materials. It possesses, too, some pieces of furniture, and the Scalpeen is altogether superior to the Scalp. In such, or still more wretched abodes, burrowing as they can, the remnant of the population is hastening to an end, and after a few years will be as scarce nearly as the exterminated Indians, except the specimens that are carefully preserved in the workhouse. Those whom starvation spares, disease cuts off.

Even from the Scalps the poor are hunted. “None of the houseless class,” says Captain Kennedy, the poor-law inspector, “can now find admittance into some over-crowded cabin, whose inmates seldom survive a month.” A month’s agonies—the result of hunger, dirt, and fever—after being expelled from a home, suffices to destroy life. It is a sort of Majendie experiment made on human beings—not on cats in an air-pump, or on rabbits with prussic acid. Yet the instinctive love of life is so great, so strong is the sentiment by which Nature ensures the continuance of the race, that Brian Connor dreads nothing so much as that he shall not be allowed, now that his hut has been discovered, to burrow longer in security; and like a fox, or some other vermin, he expects to be unearthed, and left even without the shelter of what may be called a preparatory grave. The mud cabins and turf huts that the peasantry lived in before 1846 were denounced by every traveller as the scandal of civilised Europe; and it was supposed that worse habitations were not on the earth; but the Irish have proved that in their lowest deep there is still a lower deep—that a Scalpeen is worse than a mud-hut, and a Scalp worse than a Scalpeen.

Men who are wretched and men who are criminal keep each other in countenance, and perpetuate crime and wretchedness. What hope, then, can be entertained or ever again elevating the Irish, when the bulk of them are degraded to Scalps and starvations, even to the dignity of mud cabins and plenty of potatoes? They may die out or may be killed off; but, when the half of the whole live on 6d. per week, and are thankful for being allowed to burrow in Scalps, there must be more hope of the savages of New South Wales or the Brazils, than of those whom knaves have flattered with the name of the “finest peasantry in the world.”

A great and just sympathy is just now excited by the sufferings of the needlewomen of the metropolis, and by the hard labour and poor pay of females in various branches of town industry. But they at least find shelter; most of them have clothing; they manage to get food, though the supply is scanty; and the most crowded lodging-house of the metropolis is a palace compared with the Scalp, or burrowing hole, of the Irish peasant.

The present condition of the Irish, we have no hesitation in saying, has been mainly brought on by ignorant and vicious legislation. The destruction of the potato for one season, though a great calamity, would not have doomed them, fed as they were by the taxes of the state and the charity of the world, to immediate decay; but a false theory, assuming the name of political economy, with which it has no more to do than with the slaughter of the Hungarians by General Haynau, led the landlords and the legislature to believe that it was a favourable opportunity for changing the occupation of the land and the cultivation of the soil from potatoes to corn. When more food, more cultivation, more employment, were the requisites for maintaining the Irish in existence, the Legislature and the landlords wet about introducing a species of cultivation that could only be successful by requiring fewer hands, and turning potato gardens, that nourished the maximum of human beings, into pasture grounds for bullocks, that nourished only the minimum. The Poor-law, said to be for the relief of the people and the means of their salvation, was the instrument of their destruction. In their terrible distress, from that temporary calamity with which they were visited, they were to have no relief unless they gave up their holdings. That law, too, laid down a form for evicting the people, and thus gave the sanction and encouragement of legislation to exterminate them. Calmly and quietly, but very ignorantly—though we cheerfully exonerate the parties from any malevolence; they only committed a great mistake, a terrible blunder, which in legislation is worse than a crime—but calmly and quietly from Westminster itself, which is the centre of civilization, did the decree go forth which has made the temporary but terrible visitation of a potato rot the means of exterminating, through the slow process of disease and houseless starvation, nearly the half of the Irish.

The land is still there, in all its natural beauty and fertility. The sparkling Shannon, teeming with fish, still flows by their doors, and might bear to them, as the Hudson and Thames bear to the people of New York and of London, fleets of ships laden with wealth. The low grounds or Corcasses of Clare are celebrated for their productiveness. The country abounds in limestone: coal, iron, and lead have been found. It has an area of 827,994 acres, 372,237 of which are uncultivated, or occupied by woods or water. It is estimated that there are 296,000 acres of unoccupied land; and that of these 160,000 are capable of cultivation and improvement. Why are they not cultivated and improved, as the wilds of America are cultivated and improved by the brethren of the Irish? Why are these starving people not allowed and encouraged to plant their potato-gardens on the wastes? Why are they not married to the unoccupied soil, as a humane politician proposes to provide for the starving needlewomen of the metropolis by marrying them to the Currency Lads of New South Wales? A more important question cannot be asked. There is about Kilrush, and in Clare, and throughout Ireland, the doubly melancholy spectacle of a strong man asking for work as the means of getting food; and of the fertile earth wooing his labours, in order to yield up to him its rich but latent stores: yet it lies idle and unfruitful. Why is not this doubly melancholy spectacle destroyed by their union, and converted into life and happiness, as oxygen and hydrogen, each in itself destructive, become, when united as water, the pabulum of existence? We shall fully consider that question before we quit the subject, but we shall now only say that the whole of this land, cultivated and uncultivated, is owned by a few proprietors—that many of them are absentees—that almost all are in embarrassed circumstances—and that, from ignorance, or false theory, or indolence, they prefer seeing the land covered with such misery as we have described, to either bringing the land under cultivation themselves, or allowing the people to cultivate it. Their greatest ambition, apparently, is to get rid of the people.

Our third Sketch shows the desolation to be seen about Kilrush and in many other parts of Ireland. No conqueror ever left more conspicuous marks of his devastation. The Sketch is not of a deserted village—though that was a miserable enough spectacle, for the wretched beings who once viewed it as the abode of plenty and peace still linger and hover about it—but of a destroyed village. The ruthless spoiler has been at work and swept away the shelter that honest industry had prepared for suffering and toiling humanity. A conqueror would not have had time and security to do the mischief which is perpetrated in safety under the guardianship of the laws by the Irish themselves. Within the Union of Kilrush, in the year of grace 1849, and before the coming of the month of June, about 16,000 persons had been unhoused out of 82,358, and 1200 were unhoused within one fortnight of May 7, in all, one-fifth or 20 per cent. of the whole population were turned out of their houses and the houses pulled down. Not less than 2890 houses were levelled in the Union of Kilrush in the years 1848-49. Ireland is now marked with many such monuments of the terrible mistakes of landlords and of the legislature as the roofless village represented in our Sketch.

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Dec. 15, 1849.]

Having last week introduced this important subject to our readers, and given them some of the statistics of Kilrush, we shall henceforward allow our Correspondent to speak for himself:—

I assure you (he says) that the objects of which I send you Sketches are not sought after—I do not go out of my way to find them; and other travellers who have gone in the same direction, such as Lord Adair, the Earl of Surrey, and Mr. Horsman, will vouch, I am sure, for the accuracy of my delineations. The Sketch of Moveen, to which I now call your attention, is that of another ruined village in the Union of Kilrush. It is a specimen of the dilapidation I behold all around. There is nothing but devestation, while the soil is of the finest description, capable of yielding as much as any land in the empire. Here, at Tullig, and other places, the ruthless destroyer, as if he delighted in seeing the monuments of his skill, has left the walls of the houses standing, while he has unroofed them and taken away all shelter from the people. They look like the tombs of a departed race, rather than the recent abodes of a yet living people, and I felt actually relieved at seeing one or two half-clad spectres gliding about, as an evidence that I was not in the land of the dead. You may inquire, perhaps, and I am sure your readers will wish to know, why it is that the people have of late been turned out of their houses in such great numbers, and their houses just at this time pulled down, and I will give you my explanation of this fact.

The public records, my own eye, a piercing wall of woe throughout the land—all testify to the vast extent of the evictions at the present time. Sixteen thousand and odd persons unhoused in the Union of Kilrush before the month of June in the present year; seventy-one thousand one hundred and thirty holdings done away in Ireland, and nearly as many houses destroyed, in 1848; two hundred and fifty-four thousand holdings of more than one acre and less than five acres, put an end to between 1841 and 1848: six-tenths, in fact, of the lowest class of tenantry driven from their now roofless or annihilated cabins and houses, makes up the general description of that desolation of which Tullig and Moveen are examples. The ruin is great and complete. The blow that effected it was irresistible. It came in the guise of charity and benevolence; it assumed the character of the last and best friend of the peasantry, and it has struck them to the heart. They are prostrate and helpless. The once frolicsome people—even the saucy beggars—have disappeared, and given place to wan and haggard objects, who are so resigned to their doom, that they no longer expect relief. One beholds only shrunken frames scarcely covered with flesh—crawling skeletons, who appear to have risen from their graves, and are ready to returned frightened to that abode. They have little other covering than that nature has bestowed on the human body—a poor protection against inclement weather; and, now that the only hand from which they expected help is turned against them, even hope is departed, and they are filled with despair. Than the present Earl of Carisle there is not a more humane nor a kinder-hearted nobleman in the kingdom; he is of high honor and unsullied reputation; yet the Poor-law he was mainly the means of establishing for Ireland, with the best intentions, has been one of the chief causes of the people being at this time turned out of their homes, and forced to burrow in holes, and share, till they are discovered, the ditches and the bogs with otters and snipes.

The instant the Poor-law was passed, and property was made responsible for poverty, the whole of the landowners, who had before been careless about the people, and often allowed them to plant themselves on untenanted spots, or divide their tenancies—delighted to get the promise of a little additional rent—immediately became deeply interested in preventing that, and in keeping down the number of the people. Before they had rates to pay, they cared nothing for them; but the law and their self-interest made them care, and made them extirpators. Nothing less than some general desire like that of cupidity falling in with an enactment, and justified by a theory—nothing less than a passion which works silently in all, and safely under the sanction of a law—could have effected such wide-spread destruction. Even humanity was enlisted by the Poor-law on the side of extirpation. As long as there was no legal provision for the poor, a landlord had some repugnance to drive them from every shelter; but the instant the law took them under its protection, and forced the landowner to pay a rate to provide for them, repugnance ceased: they had a legal home, however inefficient, to go to; and eviction began. Even the growth of toleration seems to have worked to the same end. Till the Catholics were emancipated, they were all—rich and poor, priests and peasants—united by a common bond; and Protestant landlords beginning evictions on a great scale would have roused against them the whole Catholic nation. it would have been taken up as a religious question, as well as a question of the poor, prior to 1829. Subsequent to that time—with a Whig administration, with all offices open to Catholics—no religious feelings could mingle with the matter: eviction became a pure question of interest; and while the priests look now perhaps, as much to the Government as to their flocks for support, Catholic landlords are not behind Protestant landlords in clearing their estates. English notions and English habits, without any reference to the causes of English greatness—which are not to be found in a Poor-law and farms of a particular size—impressed law-makers and the landlords of Ireland with a strong desire to enlarge and consolidate farms, and clear them of the squatters and subtenants, who had formerly been permitted, if not encouraged. With a Poor-law, that desire could be safely acted on, and so it supplies a temptation and the means to carry eviction extensively into effect.

The evictions were numerous before the potato rot. It was not that great calamity, therefore, that superinduced them, it was the chief cause of the present desolation. The potato harvest and harvests of every kind have been lost many times before 1846, without reducing the people to their present misery. But that calamity threw the people at the mercy of the Government, and the Government used its power directly and indirectly, in accordance with the theory, to clear the land. Out-door relief was established in that season of distress, and relief altogether was coupled with the resignation of the land. The poor were required to give up their heritage, small though it were, for less than a mess of pottage. A law was passed, the 11 and 12 Vic. c. 47, entitled, “An Act for the Protection and Relief of the Destitute Poor Evicted from the Dwellings,” which provided a means of evicting them, subjecting the landlords to the necessity of giving notice to Poor-law guardians, and to the share of a common burden. Under such stimuli and such auspices, the clearing process has gone on in an accelerated ratio, and Ireland is now dotted with ruined villages, and filled with a starving population, besieging the doors of crowded workhouses, and creeping into the halls and chambers of the deserted mansions of the nobility and gentry. A gentleman’s mansion turned into a poor-house, is a fit emblem of the decay that a mistaken policy has brought on all classes. The system intended to relieve the poor, by making the landlords responsible for their welfare, has at once made it the interest, and therefore the duty, of the landlords to get rid of them. Extirpation is accordingly going forward at a rapid rate; and the evidence of that is now placed before the eyes and the understanding of the readers of the Illustrated London News.

I will give you, by-and-bye, some notices of driving for rent, of landowners impoverished by rates, and of bankrupt unions; but at present I must draw attention to some of the other Sketches I send. The Scalp of Brian Connor (here represented) has been already described; it is another illustration of the worse than pig-sty habitations of those who did live in the now roofless cottages. Another Sketch follows (of Miss Kennedy), which shows that, amidst this world of wretchedness, all is not misery and guilt. Indeed, it is a part of our nature that the sufferings of some should be the occasion for the exercise of virtue in others. Miss Kennedy (about seven years old) is the daughter of Captain Kennedy, the Poor-law Inspector of the Kilrush Union. She is represented as engaged in her daily occupation of distributing clothing to the wretched children brought around her by their more wretched parents. In the front of the group I noticed one woman crouching like a monkey, and drawing around her the only rag she had left to conceal her nudity. A big tear was rolling down her cheek, with gratitude for the gifts the innocent child was distributing. The effect was heightened by the chilliness and dreariness of a November evening, and by the wet and mire in which the naked feet of the crowd were immersed. On Captain Kennedy being appointed to the Union, his daughter was much affected by the misery of the poor children she saw; and so completely did it occupy her thoughts, that, with the consent of her parents, she gave up her time and her own little means to relieve them. She gave away her own clothes—she was allowed to bestow part of her mother’s—and she then purchased course materials, and made up clothing for children of her own age; she was encouraged by her father and some philanthropic strangers, from whom she received sums of money, and whose example will no doubt be followed by those who possess property in the neighbourhood; and she devoted herself with all the energy and perseverance of a mature and staid matron to the holy office she has undertaken. The Sketch will, I hope, immortalize the beneficent child, who is filling the place of a saint, and performing the duties of a patriot.

On all sides I hear praises of the amiable child and her excellent father, and this is not without a moral for the landlords. The public officers who are appointed to administer and control the relief of the poor, have it in their power to do much for the people. Mere kindness of manner, though they render no substantial assistance, endears them to the suffering crowd. Captain Kennedy is at once kind, charitable, and judicious. He is at the head of the Union. He fills for the people the most important office in the district. He is the great man of the place. It must be so in other districts. The funds are contributed by the landowners, but they are distributed by public officers. Thus the Poor-law, which disposes of the landowners’ property, also deprives them of the pleasure and the burden of distributing it themselves. A public officer is made, in fact, to administer their estates, and he stands between them and their compulsory bounties, securing the respect and confidence which they might and ought to have. The more the subject is examined, the more, I have no doubt, it will be found that the poor-law is as injurious to the landlords as it is to the people.

Searching for Potatoes is one of the occupations of those who cannot obtain out-door relief. It is gleaning in a potato-field—and how few are left after the potatoes are dug, must be known to every one who has ever seen the field cleared. What the people were digging and hunting for, like dogs after truffles, I could not imagine, till I went into the field, and then I found them patiently turning over the whole ground, in the hopes of finding the few potatoes the owner might have overlooked. Gleaning in a potato-field seems something like shearing hogs, but it is the only means by which the gleaners could hope to get a meal.

The Sketch of a Woman and Children represents Bridget O’Donnel. Her story is briefly this:—“I lived,” she said, “on the lands of Gurranenatuoha. My husband held four acres and a half of land, and three acres of bog land; our yearly rent was £7 4s.; we were put out last November; he owed some rent. We got thirty stone of oats from Mr. Marcus Keane, for seed. My husband gave some writing for it: he was paid for it. He paid ten shillings for reaping the corn. As soon as it was stacked, one “Blake” on the farm, who was put to watch it, took it away to his own haggard and kept it there for a fortnight by Dan Sheedey’s orders. They then thrashed it in Frank Lellis’s barn. I was at this time lying in fever. Dan Sheedey and five or six men came to tumble my house; they wanted me to give possession. I said that I would not; I had fever, and was within two months of my down-lying (confinement); they commenced knocking down the house, and had half of it knocked down when two neighbours, women, Nell Spellesley and Kate How, carried me out. I had the priest and doctor to attend me shortly after. Father Meehan anointed me. I was carried into a cabin, and lay there for eight days, when I had the creature (the child) born dead. I lay for three weeks after that. The whole of my family got the fever, and one boy thirteen years old died with want and with hunger while we were lying sick. Dan Sheedey and Blake took the corn into Kilrush, and sold it. I don’t know what they got for it. I had not a bit for my children to eat when they took it from me.”

The last Sketch shows the Scalpeen of Tim Downs, at Dunmore, in the parish of Kellard, where himself and his ancestors resided on the spot for over a century, with renewal of their lease in 1845. He neither owed rent arrears or taxes up to the present moment, and yet he was pitched out on the roadside, and saw ten other houses, with his own, levelled at one fell swoop on the spot, the ruins of some of which are seen in this Sketch. None of them were mud cabins, but all capital stone-built houses.

I must conclude my present communication with an account of a great catastrophe, which has hurried 37 of the poor wretches that depended on the Union of Kilrush, with four other persons, into eternity. The Union will be relieved by an accident at which humanity mourns:—

“On the evening of Wednesday week intelligence reached the town of Kilrush that a large number of persons, most of whom were paupers, who had been seeking out-door relief at Kilrush, were drowned while crossing the ferry on their return to Moyarta. No less than 33 dead bodies were washed ashore on the northern side of the ferry. They were removed to an adjacent field, and the coroner, Mr. Frank O’Donnell, arriving soon after from Kilkee, an inquest was held on their wretched remains. It appeared upon the inquiry that no less than 43 or 45 persons (for they could not tell the exact number), were allowed to crowd into a crazy and rotten boat, which had been plying on this ferry for the last forty years. The boat moved on as far as the middle of the ferry, when a sea broke over her stern, and filled her at once, the wind blowing strong from the south-west at the time. She upset instantly, and her miserable living freight were immersed in the merciless waters, while four (who were eventually saved) clung to her until a boat from Captain Cox’s men came to their assistance. The verdict of the coroner’s jury was as usual in such cases, but imputing gross neglect, and attaching censure to the owners of the boat, for admitting such a number of persons into so frail a craft. With the exception of four, the victims were all paupers who had frequently come into the town in vain to seek out-door relief, and were returning that sad evening to their wretched hovels in the parishes of Moyarta and Kilballyowen.”

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Dec. 29, 1849.]

From the town of Kilrush to Kilkee, on the shore of the Atlantic, I passed through an unimproved district, on which nature has bestowed fertility, and man has levelled the habitations that were built in happier days. In a drive of seven miles I counted thirty-three roofless houses. Kilkee is a beautiful spot. Round a bay, from which the ground rises like an amphitheatre, are planted many villas and baths. The scenery is bold, and the waves, after rolling across the vast Atlantic, spend their last force on the rocks, dying amidst noise and foam. From its situation, it is worthy of its name, the “Western Brighton,” and it is worthy of notice, showing that nature has left nothing that can contribute to prosperity, not even a suitable bathing-place, unprovided in the Union of Kilrush. From Kilkee, through Kilard and Donoughboy, I went to Moveen the roofless, of which I have already sent you a Sketch. I was told here a melancholy tale of the widow Hogan and her four children, who were all carried out of her cabin in a helpless state of fever, and laid down in a ditch on the opposite side of the road, where they remained several days, when a humane stranger had them carried to the hospital, eleven miles off. To Tullig from Kilkee, I counted ninety-two roofless houses. Passing afterwards through the picturesque village of Cariegaholt to Donagha and Querin, I counted 105 dwellings in ruins. Clarefield, to which I came next, baffles description. Adults, who appeared idiotic; children, wrinkled with care, so that they appeared like aged persons; and men who should not be worn out, but more helpless than children, with scarcely a rag to cover them, crowded the place. Their habitations were mere kennels. I was heart-sick, and said “Surely there cannot be so much suffering and neglect in any other spot on the face of the earth!” I returned to Kilrush, glad to find a refuge even in it from the more appalling misery of the surrounding villages.

Leaving Kilrush once more, I proceeded northwards to Enaghmonmore, Derryard, and Donmore, and in this distance I counted thirty houses levelled. In the whole district there is not one respectable or even decent house. Kilard, to which I next came, is another ruined village, in which the extirpation of the old Irelanders has been complete. Afterwards I passed through the village of Doonbeg, a spot possessing every natural advantage, one half of which has been destroyed by the landowners, and remains, with its pointed gables and a few blackened rafters, a sad contrast even to the miserable houses that are left standing. The people who are yet left alive are crowded into dens, or rather dog-holes, where, in a space not sufficient for two persons, twenty are glad to find shelter.

Two wretched families have taken refuge under the bridge in a hole. They consist of two widows, one with three children, all ill of jaundice, and the other with five. The history of Judy O’Donnel, one of the widows, is worthy of being sketched. She had given evidence against a dishonest relieving officer whose relative was a driver upon the estate on which she lived, and Judy’s house was very soon afterwards levelled with the ground. The wreckers came upon it in her absence, when her son gallantly defended his home. He mounted on the roof with a bag of stones, and kept the enemy at bay till his ammunition was exhausted, when he was obliged to give in, and stand by to see the little furniture of this mother cast into the road and the house pulled down. Judy exhibited her receipts for the rent up to the last gale; and she declared the agent of the owner, to whom she had tendered what was due twice, had refused, and that she was ejected because she deposed against the dishonest public servant. Judy and Margaret O’Donnel, with their families, then retired to the hole under the bridge, represented in the sketch, and there they are now suffered to remain, holding their habitation at the mercy of the county surveyor. They are afraid of being ejected even from this spot, and dare not cross the stepping-stones shown in the Sketch lest they should be taken up for trespassing. Judy O’Donnel’s son is dying of dysentery.

Before quitting Kilrush altogether, I must give you some further particulars of the Union and of its inhabitants. I must first tell you that at present the population of the Union is decreased from 82,358 in 1841 to 65,000; and, as 31,549 persons were receiving relief in June, actually 48 per cent. of the inhabitants are paupers, and such paupers as the veriest paupers in England would hasten to relieve. What has become of the 17,358 who, contrary to the course of nature, which everywhere delights in the increase of sentient beings, unlike warriors and Irish landlords, and has provided for the continual ennobling of all, I cannot precisely say. Some few, a very small fragment, may, by emigration, have escaped from the desolation, and found a refuge in England, or a happier home across the Atlantic; but the great majority has been starved out of existence.

“I see,” said Captain Kennedy, writing on January 2, this year, in the papers published by the House of Commons, “masses of the people starving, and the land, which could be made to feed treble the number, lying all but waste.” In the special returns I find entries like this:—“This man, Michael Considine, in consequence of having land, could not be relieved. His wife and nine children died of actual want.” The following table of deaths in the workhouse will throw some light on this painful subject:—

DEATHS IN KILRUSH WORKHOUSE IN THE YEARS 1847, 1848, AND ELEVEN MONTHS OF 1849.

Years. | 1847 | 1848 | 1849*
Avg. # of Inhabitants. | 922 | 1411 | 1617
Total Deaths. | 1075 | 1209 | 441
After Three Months. | 321 | 372 | 138
After Two Months. | 235 | 298 | 90
After One Month. | 264 | 326 | 84
After One Week. | 154 | 152 | 76
After Odd Days. | 101 | 61 | 53

* Exclusive of December.

Thus, the whole number of deaths in the workhouse, in 1847, exceeded the average number of inmates by 153. It was only less than the largest number ever present (1192) by 117. In 1847, the paupers entered the workhouse only to die. In 1848, the case was not quite so bad; the deaths were 202 less than the average number present in the workhouse, and 469 less than the largest number (1678) ever present. In 1849, the mortality was much lessened, partly owing to a change in the management, under vice-guardians, who had superseded elective guardians, and partly owing to the vast number of previous deaths, which left, in 1849, fewer to die. Of all the frightful mortality I ever heard of, except that of the Black-Hose of Calcutta, or that of the fore-cabin of the Londonderry steamer, that of the Kilrush Union workhouse is the most frightful. Nor was there, according to the theory of Mr. Doubleday (who asserts that births are in proportion to want and misery), any increase of children to compensate. In the half-year ending March 25, 1849, there was not a single birth in the Kilrush Union; in that ending September 25, there were only four; while the average number of inmates was 2200. Neither pestilence nor war can cause depopulation like a short crop, combined with the evictions dictated by a false theory, and the belief that, under the direction of legislation, the evicted people will be benevolently provided for in a union workhouse.

The area of the Union is 178,935 acres; and in 1841, therefore, the population was in the proportion of one soul to every 2-1/2 acres, or far below the poet’s standard of every rood of ground maintaining its man, and far below the proportion of population to acres in Lancashire. The area of that shire, according to Mr. McCulloch—for high authorities differ on such a matter of geometrical measurement—is 1,130,240 acres, and its population, in 1841, was 1,667,054; or, there was then 1-1/2 souls to every acre; since then the population has, no doubt, increased at least in as large a proportion as the less dense population of Kilrush has been destroyed. May I mention this contrast as some elucidation of the great question at issue i the world, as to the effects of commerce and manufactures united with agriculture, and of agriculture alone, in sustaining a population. In proportion to Lancashire, Kilrush—which consists for the most part of a very fertile soil; which is admirably situated at the mouth of a great river, possessing also a large extent of sea-coast, in the neighbourhood of an abundance of fish; whose people are actually starved out of existence—was, before the depopulation began, only one-third as densely peopled as Lancashire. The valuation of the Kilrush Union is put down at £59,449, or something more than 6s. 2d. per acre. The annual value of real property in Lancashire is put down in 1841 at £5,266,606, or upwards of £4 13s. per acre. Thus, while the population of Lancashire, per acre, is three times as great as that of Kilrush, the value of property is thirteen times as great. These little data, applicable in a great degree to the whole of agricultural Ireland, may serve to explain the different effects of commerce and manufactures as contrasted with agriculture, and the different operation of a Poor-law falling on the rapidly increasing property of commercial and prosperous England and on the poverty of agricultural and decaying Ireland.

It is not my object, nor can it be yours, nor that of any reflecting man, to hold up the unfortunate landowners of this district to public indignation. They are the heirs and the victims of a vicious system. I have forborne, therefore, to mention their names in conjunction with the unfortunate creatures whose cases I have brought before you. I will, however, before I quit the subject altogether, mention that the principal proprietors and middlemen of the Union are Colonel Vandeleur, O’Gorman Mahon, John McDonnel, the Marquis of Conyngham; Messrs. Westropp, John McMahon, Blackall, Major Brooks, Charles Wilmot Smith, Hugh P. Hickman, H. Stewart Burton, Mr. Westly, and Messrs. Stackpooles, minors. I may also give you the following account of the houses levelled within the Union of Kilrush, in the last two years:—Kilmurry Strikane, 604; Kilard, 621; Moyarta, 402; Kilrush, 305; Knock and Kilmer, 111; Kilmichael, 221; Kilmacdooane, 167; Kilballyowen, 150; Kilkee, 165; Kildysart, 80; Kilfidane, 40; Kilofin, 30: Total, 2891.

I must now take leave of Kilrush, which I left on my way to Ennistimon. Similar scenes of desolation to those I had beheld for several days continued; and on both sides of the road, as far as the eye could reach, it fell on “tumbled” and roofless houses. Now and then I saw on the borders of a bog or quagmire some of the scalps in which the people seek to preserve their lives. On arriving at the bog of Cahuermore, I alighted at the scalp shown in the Sketch, which Mr. Monsel and his companions discovered to their surprise, and found in it a woman dying of the customary fever which attends on want of food and clothing and the ordinary necessaries of life. Than this scalp, nothing could be more wretched. It was placed in a hole, surrounded by pools, and three sides of the scalp (shown in the Sketch) were dripping with water, which ran in small streams over the floor and out by the entrance. Yet, wretched as this hole is, the poor inhabitants said they would be thankful and content if the landlord would leave them there, and the Almighty would spare their lives. Its principal tenant is Margaret Vaughan, whose history has found its way before the public, and a more wretched history, even in this country of wretchedness, is scarcely to be found. Not far from her cave is the destroyed village of Kilmurry Strikane, another of those pictures of desolation of which I have already sent you too many. For the present I will leave them, and turn to a little oasis of humanity in the desert of misery.

A short drive from Kilmurry brought us to the summit of a hill where the face of the country appeared instantly to have changed. It was like passing from the Catholic to the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, or rather like a dream. At once I came on neat white-washed houses and tidy gardens, with the haggard or farm-yard enclosed, and generally containing something worth taking care of. I had entered on the domain of Colonel Windham, who is not tired of his fellow-creatures, and does not seek to exterminate them. Not a roofless house did I see here. Whether Colonel Windham have spent a large fortune on this place, or whether he have gained money while he has promoted the happiness of his tenantry, I am not informed; but when he contrasts his property with the surrounding estates, he must feel himself a proud and a happy, if not a rich, man. The whole face of the country is altered, and all the people you meet, whether men, women, or children, seem cheerful, as if they had plenty of the means of subsistence. On the very threshold of his property stands a national school, equally picturesque from its position, and admirable for its management. Though a single example is by no means conclusive of what might be equally done by all, and there never can be any just reliance on a system which places the welfare of the many at the discretion of a few, and wrecks the happiness of a whole community when the hereditary owner of a large property is a worthless extortioner and spendthrift, yet I must say the conduct of Colonel Windham adds to the loathing with which we regard many of his neighbours. More fortunate, however, than many of them, he inherited an unencumbered property and an ample fortune in England, which enabled him to spare his Irish tenants without falling prey to exacting creditors, when the famine fell on the land.

On coming to Spanish Point, so named from a portion of the Armada having been wrecked on it, I found an enormous building, once called the Atlantic Hotel, converted in to an auxiliary union workhouse. It is an emblem of what is everywhere going on—the change from productive industry, to destructive pauperism, the cessation of hope and enterprize, and the spreading of apathy and despair. I love the ocean with its incessant life, a great emblem of eternity, and I found the scenery on its shores, about Spanish Point, bold and attractive. From thence, however, to Ennistimon, through Lohyncha, there is nothing so remarkable as the absence of those roofless villages and skeleton houses I had found so abundant in the districts about Kilrush.

I send you herewith a Sketch of Driving for Rent. It may serve to vary a little the miseries I have to portray.

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Jan. 19, 1850.]

AFTER seeing the Ennistymon Union, and finding it in much the same desolate condition as that of Kilrush, I am about to pass into Galway; but before I leave the county of Clare I must give you a brief summary of the four Poor-Law Unions into which it is divided:—

Union.

Population
in 1841.

Average Number of
Persons relieved in 1849.

Valuation.
(Pounds)

Area.
(Acres)

In the
House.

Out of the
House.

Ennis
Ennistymon
Kilrush
Scariff
______
Total

77,840
49,935
82,358
53,563
______
263,696

3,000
2,500
2,500
2,500
______
10,500

25,000
21,000
30,000
25,000
______
101,000

101,222
67,486
59,449
44,609
______
272,766

212,736
174,839
178,935
168,048
______
734,558

In the whole county of Clare, therefore, the proportion of persons relieved is 43 per cent. of the total population of 1841—now lessened at least 20 per cent. The expense of the four unions is estimated at £200,000 per annum, or 73 per cent. of the total valuation. But, as much of the land is now out of cultivation, the valuation has declined as much as the population. I knew one gentleman in the Ennistymon union who pays, and will have to pay till next September, 18s 1-1/2d. in the pound on his whole receipts on account of poor-rates, county cess, &c. One great misfortune of the Poor-law is, that, as it increases the burden, it incapacitates the landowner from bearing it. The diminution of the rate-paying power is in proportion to the increase of pauperism. The population of Clare is only 1 person to every 2-3/4 acres. There is, therefore, plenty of room in the county, plenty of all the natural sources of wealth, or of those agents out of which industry creates all wealth; yet in Clare, wealth is the one thing needed, and industry, therefore, is defective. Man, not nature, is to blame; and all the woes of Ireland come from bad national husbandry. The great want being wealth of all kinds, and the great want having long been wealth, it is plain that a Poor-law that provides for idleness and destitution, and lessens the natural stimulus to industry; which decreases wealth and devotes it to unproductive consumption, is one of the last measures any reasonable being would have had recourse to for the purpose of regenerating Ireland. What I have shown to be true of Kilrush, and true of Clare, is true of by far the greater portion of the island. The same leading facts exist everywhere: everywhere there is a scanty population in relation to space as compared to Lancashire, and a very redundant population as compared to the wealth in existence; everywhere there is great abundance of all the natural means of opulence, and scandalous neglect or ignorance in applying them. The Poor-law is obviously calculated to encourage idleness to prey on the wealth already in existence. Lessening the motives for exertion, whatever interest it may give the landlords in keeping their estates clear of paupers, it will prevent in future the creation of wealth. It does the very thing, therefore, that ought not to be done. As I see before me the sickening evidence of its operation, it is plain, whatever measures may be required to regenerate Ireland, that the Poor-law is only the climax of the ignorant legislation that, operating in silence through the ages, has perverted the Irish, and made their naturally fertile abode one scene of desolation.

On the road from Ennistymon to Ballyvaughan, the extreme part of Clare, for about thirty miles I saw nothing particularly worthy of being mentioned. I passed by the property of Mr. Cornelius O’Brien, late M.P. for the county of Limerick, which, like that of Colonel Wyndham, is in a credible condition. No scalps or scalpeens were visible, but there was bog reclaimed from barrenness by thorough draining, and impregnated with fertility by the hand of industry. Afterwards, on the road on the Birchfield property, I saw some specimens of the abortions of the Board of Works—roads driven into the midst of bogs, and left unfinished, conducting nowhere, and serving no purpose. Nor was the neighbourhood without those roofless villages and tumbled-down houses I have so continually met with. Some potato-fields were to me a more agreeable sight; and in this part of the country the cultivation of that root is still continued extensively. I shall not trouble your readers with any of the local disputes which I am obliged to hear and read a great deal about. Vice-guardians, inspectors, &c., men who have the difficult and ungrateful task of carrying the Poor-law into execution, need much indulgence, and must fall even, if they be exempt from the partiality, the selfishness, the desire of avoiding trouble, and of sparing their own purses, which distinguish men in their situation. On such subjects, all classes wrangle and write a great deal, and the poor guardians have to bear the blame of the opthalmia at Athlone, which has already destroyed the sight of twenty-seven children, of the want of adequate supplies for the crowds of paupers, and of all the disease and wretchedness in the workhouse they are forced to behold, and must vainly try to alleviate. That there may be jobbing and carelessness it is impossible to deny; but the multitude of inspectors, relieving officers, and guardians and critical rate-payers, gives rise to endless criminations and recriminations, such as always take place amongst conflicting authorities in a state of uncertainty and doubt, with difficulties before them which they cannot overcome. These things, even to the opthalmia at Athlone, are the natural consequences of the law which crowds people stricken with misery and disease into the workhouses, and places them under the government of men ignorant of the means of organisation, and having an interest to provide for them as badly as possible. It is only another evidence of the impropriety of establishing such a law for a people in such a condition.

I crossed the bay to Galway, and proceeded towards Clifden by a route devoid of interest, exhibiting, in a less degree than in Clare, the usual signs of devastation in progress. Mr. Martin’s property extends almost the whole way from Ouchterade to Clifden, and is a mixture of mountain, moor, and fertile land, capable of indefinite improvement, with great facility of water carriage, but most sadly neglected. It is a bad sign for the next harvest, and for the people of this country, that in my whole journey from Galway I did not see more than from thirty to forty persons, including all ages and sexes; and, with the exception of ten men working under a road contractor, few or none of them were at work.

At Carihaken the levellers have been at work, and tumbled down eighteen houses. In one of them dwelt John Killian, who stood by me while I made the accompanying sketch of the remains of his dwelling. He told me that he and his fathers before him had owned this now ruined cabin for ages, and that he had paid £4 a year for four acres of ground. He owed no rent: before it was due, the landlord’s drivers cut down his crops, carried them off, gave him no account of the proceeds, and then tumbled his house. The hut made against the end wall of a former habitation was not likely to remain, as a decree had gone forth entirely to clear the place. The old man also told me that his son having cut down, on the spot that was once his own garden, a few sticks to make him a shelter, was taken up, prosecuted, and sentenced to two month’s confinement for destroying trees and making waste of the property.

I must supply you with another Sketch of a similar subject on the road between Maam and Clifden, in Joyce’s County, once famous for the Patagonian stature of the inhabitants, who are now starved down to ordinary dimensions. High up on the mountain, but on the road-side, stands the scalpeen of Keillines. It is near General Thompson’s property. Conceive five human beings living in such a hole: the father was out, at work; the mother was getting fuel on the hills, and the children left in the hut could only say they were hungry. Their appearance confirmed their words—want was deeply engraved in their faces, and their lank bodies were almost unprotected by clothing.

At Kylemore my companion bought a turbot, weighing from 18lb. to 20lb., for 1s 6d., and might have had it for 1s. had he driven a hard bargain. The fact indicates that the sea would supply plenty of food if man would take the trouble to procure it. A similar capacity of the equal capacity of the soil is found at a short distance from Kylemore. Two enterprising Englishmen, of the name of Eastwood, planted themselves there about four years ago, and all around them the bleak and barren moor has been changed into well laid-out fields—some green with herbage, and others brown and dingy with the stubble of the carried corn. There is a comfortable lodge, in the Elizabethan style, and around it suitable farm buildings. The whole indicates skill, industry, and good taste; it indicates, too, great courage in overcoming a moral as well as a physical opposition. The Messrs. Eastwood have, in some measure, conquered the habits of the people, which was a more difficult task than subduing the neglected and deserted heath. They will be pioneers to others, who will select, let us hope, this fertile and promising wilderness for the scene of their exertions, instead of wrestling against the arid sands of Australia, or engaging in competition for the plains of the Mississippi with emigrants from all the countries of Europe. Their example has in fact been followed; and between their abode and Clifden two or three beginnings have been made—so that the country adjoining that town exhibits several signs of improvement.

This neighbourhood, before the potato rot came, was not so entirely occupied by the cultivation of the root as some other parts of the country. In the Union of Kilrush, for example, in 1848, there were 11,569 acres under potatoes, out of an area of 178,935 acres; in the Union of Clifden there were only 3714 acres, out of an area of 189,504 acres, under potatoes. The fact is of some importance, in explaining the comparative ease with which the poor in Clifden have been disposed of. Clifden itself is an exotic in an unfavourable climate. It was reared by the patronage of the late Viscount; and since that ceased, it began to decline: the Poor-law has almost finished it. Before we reached, we learned that all the guardians of the union were out of money, and obliged to pay for what they wanted by cheques, which they are to receive in payment of the rates. Extreme poverty exists in the neighbourhood—the soil around is poor—great numbers of houses have been levelled—but the poor, unlike those of Kilrush, have in great part disappeared with the houses. They have not found refuge in the workhouse—they have not been carried away as emigrants; they have either wandered away or have died, or both may have contributed to cause their disappearance. I have a list of 111 houses levelled within a few months in the immediate neighbourhood of Clifden, which is very considerable, considering that the whole population of the Union was only 33,465 in 1841. Assuming five inmates to a house, the sixtieth part of the population has been dispossessed. Here, too, there is little more than one person to every six acres; or, scanty as is the population of Clare, the population of the Union of Clifden is not, in relation to acres, half so abundant. I have taken a Sketch of the workhouse, which I send as a memorial of this pet place of the late Viscount Clifden.

From Clifden to Ouchterade, twenty-one miles, is a dreary drive over a moor, unrelieved except by a glimpse of Mr. Martin’s house at Ballynahinch, and of the residence of Dean Mahon. Destitute as this tract is of inhabitants, about Ouchterade some thirty houses have been recently demolished. A gentleman who witnessed the scene told me nothing could exceed the heartlessness of the levellers, if it were not the patient submission of the sufferers. They wept, indeed; and the children screamed with agony at seeing their homes destroyed and their parents in tears; but the latter allowed themselves unresistingly to be deprived of what is to most people the dearest thing on earth next to their lives—their only home.

I returned to Galway, where the Poor-law officials are not communicative, nor is there in the Union any extraordinary fact to communicate. The old town is a jumble of thatched mud cabins, stone-built houses, and the remains of a former splendour, old sculptures and carvings, putting to shame the homely and even rude houses of a modern date. The people are remarkable for the vivid colours of their dresses, amongst which red predominates, and some lingering traces of a foreign origin may yet be discovered in their countenances. Here, as in most other sea-ports and fishing towns, particularly of Ireland, hulking men lounging about were numerous, and appeared to have every other capacity to work but the will. You are not annoyed, however, by mendicants in Galway, as in other Irish towns, though there is a universal complaint of distress finished by the exclamation, “That last five-shilling rate is a death-blow to all.”

From Galway I proceeded to Ennis, and in the neighbourhood inspected the village of Clear, which had been destroyed within a few weeks, and some part of it within a few days. The Sketch of Pat Macnamara’s Cabin shows the condition of the village. In Ennis I went through the lanes and alleys, and amongst the most distressed part of the population. In one small room, not 20 feet square, I found congregated fifteen people, young and old, exhibiting nearly all the phases of want and squalor. From the smoke which filled the place, it was a Rembrandt scene, and it was with difficulty I could make out the forms of the wretched groups, or of the squalid and dying child on the floor. In the union workhouse of Ennis there is order, decency, and regularity. With it is conjoined a farm of eighteen acres, which is well cultivated by the labour of the paupers. It is wisely placed under the superintendence of one of the Lord Clarendon’s practical agricultural instructors; and probably he is as well employed in displaying his skill at the farm as in any other mode of teaching his art.

At Ennis, I consider my tour terminated; and I shall only send you further some general observations on the Poor-law, and some suggestions as to what might reasonably be done for Ireland.

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Jan. 26, 1850.]

THE LAW, which many of the priests and people sought to make “as expensive as possible” to the landlords, fell heavily on them. A proposition, made in the progress of the bill, to subject mortgages to the rate, was of course scouted; and thus the landlord had to pay the half rate on the whole of his rental, while the larger part of that, in many cases, went to the mortgagee. The authors of the bill looked to the landowners for the improvement of the land, but the measure crippled their resources. Dublin production was needed; the law diminished production; and the owners, from the blindness of avarice, and the haste with which they carried out the evictions, helped to injure themselves. But the law incited them to do wrong, and took away the means by which they might have repaired some of the damage. Thus it did mischief to the landowner as well as the occupier. What good could it do—as it diminished the quantities of food—to those who were neither owners not occupiers?

However industrious and energetic the Irish may be when removed from the incessant control, dictation, and restraint they are subject to in Ireland, there is abundant testimony to show that at home they have no superfluous energy and industry. The condition of their country is the unanswerable proof. Writing about 1725, Swift describes the native Irish as giving themselves wholly up to idleness, nastiness, and thieving. “Even farmers,” he says, “who pay great rents, live in filth and nastiness upon buttermilk and potatoes, without a shoe or stocking to their feet, or a house so convenient as an English hogstye.” It is the usual practice,” he says, “of an Irish tenant, rather than want land, to offer more for a farm than he knows he can ever be able to pay, and in that case he grows desperate and pays nothing at all.” Bishop Berkeley, writing in 1749, said, “The house of an Irish peasant is the cave of poverty. Their fields and gardens are a lively counterpart of Solomon’s description in the Proverbs. ‘I went,’ said that wise King, ‘by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding, and lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.’ You often meet whole families in a drove without clothes to cover or bread to feed them, both of which might be easily procured by moderate labour.”The negroes in our plantation have a saying, that if negro was not negro, Irishman would be negro. The very savages of America are better clad and better lodged than the Irish cottagers throughout the fine fertile counties of Limerick and Tipperary.” So he asks in his “Querist,” “Whether the bulk of our Irish natives are not kept from thriving by the cynical content in dirt and beggary which they possess to a degree beyond any other people in Christendom.” Coming down to our own times, Captain Kennedy, in his reports and letters from Kilrush, published by the House of Commons, describes both landlords and tenants as unfit for energetic exertion. “The peasant’s life was passed in planting his potatoes in the spring, digging them up in autumn, and dozing through the winter over the turf fire which cost him nothing.” The instant a misfortune fell upon him he was destitute and helpless. “Again,” he says, writing on April 6, 1846, “improvident, ignorant, thriftless parents, scarcely human in habits and intelligence only, present themselves with nine or ten skeleton children when they themselves can no longer support the pangs of hunger, and their children are beyond recovery….. Hundreds of instances occur where an acre of land worth 15s. is let for £3 ….. In default of payment, the occupiers are bound to give 140 days’ labour during spring and harvest, which, at 8d. a day, amounts to £4 13s. 4d….. 100 or 120 days’ labour is given for a cabin worth 7s. 6d. a year….. The half-witted occupiers” he says on April 13, 1848, “are too often deluded by the specious promises of under-bailiffs, and induced to throw down their own cabin for a paltry consideration of a few shillings, and an assurance of out-door relief.”

I might quote much more testimony to the same effect, but this will satisfy every candid mind that the condition of the Irish has been for a long period similar to their present condition. They are thriftless and improvident beyond example. In their own country, at least, they have long been deficient in energy to help themselves. The Poor-law, by pretending to provide for them, justified and promoted their indolence and improvidence. Between them, too, and the landlords, there was an hereditary feud; and when they were told they were to be maintained at the expense of the landlords, they had the strongest motives to indulge in laziness. The law pandered to all their hereditary vices; it declared them entitled to be maintained at the expense of those whom they regarded as oppressors. Like the others, they did not know that the law would ruin the occupiers, or their own people, as well as the foreign and Protestant landlord. They thought only of its letter, and hastened to indulge in laziness at the landlord’s expense. It became popular to sneer at industry. The law diminished the motives for that essential virtue, while it ruined the little occupiers, and impoverished the landlords. For eight years it had been in force before the potato rot came, which only made manifest its terrible effects on the possessions, habits, and minds of the people. The law, replete, as I have very briefly endeavoured to point out, with the most disastrous effects, was advocated with the very best intentions by leaders of all parties. Sir Robert Peel described it as demanded by public opinion. We are, however, well aware that universal approval is no index to the effects of a law. Most certainly it did not elevate the Irish. It did not save a single life nor solace a single misery. It served only a few officials. It added amazingly to the number of the destitute, and it helped to degrade the people almost past the hope of recovery.

All these and many similar effects resulted from the Poor-law of 1838; and no words can characterize the fright-begotten, principle-forgetting law, to extend out-door relief to the Irish, passed by the present Ministry in 1847. I believe all reflecting politicians who found their science on principle, in preference to passion—and all isolated and single present facts are interpreted by us with passion, and therefore partake of its character—condemned the mode in which the Ministry dealt with the calamity of 1846. They at once induced the people to give up the cultivation of the soil, and so increased the mass of destitution that nothing appeared feasible to its terrified authors, except to substitute for their misplaced charity, out-door relief. The law of 1847 was only the extension of the law of 1838; but its effects have been more destructive of life than the worst pestilence we read of in history. It is well characterized by the statement, “that the peasantry will pull down their own cabins for an assurance of out-door relief.” We are told, in more than one union, that the majority of the applicants are “the holders of small farms, which they relinquish to obtain relief.” The law substituted dependent pauperism for honest industry, and made it the actual rule of conduct in the greater part of Ireland. If it be criminal to ordain and encourage vice, then is the British legislature the most criminal body in existence.

Its imbecility, indeed, equals its criminality. It is impossible to carry the law into execution. In several instances it has been of necessity suspended; in several others the Government has carried out the law by grants of public money; and in several unions at this moment the rates cannot be collected, and relief is refused for want of means to give it. Should it be said that the recent seasons are entirely exceptional, I might dispute the statement; but I can safely allege that an enactment that is fit only for fair weather may be caprice—a spirit of good temper—a little misplaced benevolence—but is not a law. At this time Kilrush and several other unions are bankrupt. In 1848, twenty-one unions expended in all, under the direction of the law, £508,829, and could collect only £198,556; the Government and the British Association supplied the remainder. According to a Parliamentary paper, the estimated demand on those twenty-one unions for 1849 was £568,829 and the utmost rate which could be collected was not expected to produce more than £273,481. Without Government or charitable aid, the law would be a nullity. In the union of Milford, Donegal, out of a population of 38,108 persons, only 779 men and 287 women were employed—about one in thirty-eight. No poor-rate levied on the industry and property of that union could possibly support the population. similar facts are true of every part of Ireland, and the law would be only an imbecile farce if it were not more terribly ruinous than it is ridiculous.

I should now say a few words on the probable means of helping the Irish; but the length of this communication, the many suggestions that are before the public, and the excellent recommendations of Mr. Bright, command me to stop. From the conspicuous failure of the Poor-law, which had a benevolent origin, and was almost universally approved of, I dread the responsibility of helping forward the mighty mischief—the ruin of a people—by an injudicious recommendation. I must avoid adding to the confusion that already exists, by refusing to increase the many nostrums by which it is expected Ireland may yet be redeemed. One remark only will I make.

Nearly all the circumstances of which Mr. Bright justly complains—“entails,” “primogeniture,” “heavy stamps and difficulties in disposing of land,” “insecurity for tenants,” “imperfect representation of the people,” an “incongruous Church establishment”—exist, or did recently exist, in Great Britain, so far as the enactments in the statue-book are concerned, just as they exist in Ireland. In spite of them, however, and not in consequence of any legislation, the English have worked out their own advancement. For years past, instead of taking the law from the Legislature, they have in fact imposed the law on it. The Legislature has only given a technical form and dress to the will of the people. It is far less the law, therefore, than the difference in energy and knowledge, which causes the might difference in prosperity between Great Britain and Ireland. Consulting history, and in particular the economic history of our own country, during the last century, I cannot find any example of national prosperity, and the increase of national wealth, produced directly by the acts of the Legislature. On the contrary, I see the rise of our chief manufactures, the improvement of our agriculture, the progress of knowledge, and the rapid march of invention, have all ensued in spite of its acts, which, manifested as exorbitant Customs and Excise duties, Stamp duties, and Corn-laws, have one and all been impediments to the national progress. Our immediate improvement, and our great hope for the future, are based on having recently got rid of a law. I therefore cannot expect, like Mr. Bright, any improvement for Ireland from the hand of the Legislature. Laws are of inconceivably small importance compared to the spirit of the people who have to administer and submit to them. The improvement of Ireland, therefore, must come from the Irish themselves; and the best we can expect from legislation is, that it should, as far as it can, and as rapidly as convenient, undo the work it has done in Ireland.

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Feb. 9, 1850.]

I intended my last communication to be the conclusion, but, on looking over my portfolio, I find another Sketch or two—one of which, at least, you may think worthy of being published. The village of Killard forms part of the Union of Kilrush, and possesses an area of 17,022 acres. It had a population, in 1841, of 6850 souls, and was valued to the Poor-rate at £4254. It is chiefly the property, I understand, of Mr. John MacMahon Blackall, whose healthy residence is admirably situated on the brow of a hill, protected by another ridge from the storms of the Atlantic. His roof-tree yet stands secure, put the people have disappeared. The village was mostly inhabited by fishermen, who united with their occupation on the waters the cultivation of potatoes. When the latter failed, it might have been expected that the former should have been pursued with more vigour than ever; but boats and lines were sold for present subsistence, and to the failure of potatoes was added the abandonment of the fisheries. The rent dwindled to nothing, and then came the leveller and the exterminator. What has become of this 6850 souls, I know not; but not ten houses remain of the whole village to inform the wayfarer where, according to the population returns, they were to be found in 1841. They were here, but are gone for ever; and all that remains of their abodes are a few mouldering walls, and piles of offensive thatch turning into manure. Killard is an epitome of half Ireland. If the abodes of the people had not been so slight, that they have mingled, like Babylon, with their original clay, Ireland would for ages be renowned for its ruins; but, as it is, the houses are swept away like the people, and not a monument remains of a multitude, which, in ancient Asia or in the wilds of America, would numerically constitute a great nations.

May I, in conclusion, remind your readers that the class of men in whose name, by whose bidding, and for whose supposed advantage all this ruin has been wrought, are still blindly treading in the same path. They are even now taking counsel together, to compel the wretched beings left on the land to seek the means of subsistence from the soil they monopolise. Their hope is, to keep up rent; the effect of their wishes, were they embodied into a law, would be to continue extirpation. A fall of price, and a decay of rent—the necessary consequences of suspending labour and getting rid of consumers—have lessened their incomes, and to gross ignorance of the effects of legislation, are now added decay and anger. It is estimated that the value of property rateable to the poor has fallen from upwards of £13,000,000 to less than £9,000,000 in three years, while all the obligations of the landowners are undiminished, and, in many cases, increased. Some great proprietors have been already sold up; and many of those who escape that degradation will only retain nominal possession of their domains. Under such circumstances it may be expected that the landowners will struggle desperately, but they will struggle in vain; for, in extirpating the people, instead of aiding and encouraging their exertions, they have snapped the sinews of their own strength.

But I must leave this painful subject. The worst, it may be hoped, is passed. Though legislation can only help the people by undoing this its work, and setting them free, it is not in human nature to perish without a struggle. The land is still here, all the elements of wealth are still in existence; public attention is intensely directed to social phenomena; opportunities of improvement, as the arise, will be embraced; and landlords, farmers, peasants, and priests will each do something to help themselves, and will promote the prosperity of all.

The late dreadful lesson has given them dear-bought knowledge; suffering has made it a part of their existence, and they cannot get rid of it if they would. For those who have outlived famine, and legislation more desolating than famine, brighter prospects are dawning, but they can only be secured and enjoyed by their own exertions. To grow in prosperity, the Irish must not be continually deceived by a false reliance on those who have hitherto deluded them, and who are even now claiming all the credit of the improvement that is for ever springing from the struggles of individuals to better their condition.

THE TIDE OF EMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES AND TO THE BRITISH COLONIES

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[July 6, 1850.]

The great tide of Emigration flows steadily westward. The principal emigrants are Irish peasants and labourers. It is calculated that at least four out of every five persons who leave the shores of the old country to try their fortunes in the new, are Irish. Since the fatal years of the potato famine and the cholera, the annual numbers of emigrants have gone on increasing, until they have become so great as to suggest the idea, and almost justify the belief, of a gradual depopulation of Ireland. The colonies of Great Britain offer powerful attractions to the great bulk of the English and Scottish emigrants who forsake their native land to make homes in the wilderness. But the Irish emigration flows with full force upon the United States. Though many of the Irish emigrants are, doubtless, persons of small means, who have been hoarding and saving for years, and living in rags and squalor, in order to amass sufficient money to carry themselves and families across the Atlantic, and to beg their way to the western states, where they may “squat” or purchase cheap lands, the great bulk appear to be people of the most destitute class, who go to join their friends and relatives, previously established in America. Large sums of money reach this country annually from the United States. Through Liverpool houses alone, near upon a million pounds sterling, in small drafts, varying from £2 or £3 to £10 each, are annually forwarded from America, for poor persons in Ireland, to enable them to emigrate; and the passage-money of many thousands, in addition, is paid in New York. Before the fatal year 1847, the emigration was very considerable; but, since that time, it has very rapidly increased. The following document, issued on the authority of her Majesty’s Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners, shows the progressive increase in the numbers of British subjects who have annually quitted our shores as Emigrants, from 1825 to January 1st 1850:—

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM DURING THE TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, FROM 1825 TO 1849 INCLUSIVE.

Years.

North
American
Colonies.

United
States.

Australian
Colonies
and New
Zealand.

All
other
Places.

Total.

1825 | 8,741 | 5,551 | 485 | 114 | 14,891
1826 | 12,818 | 7,063 | 903 | 116 | 20,900
1827 | 12,648 | 14,526 | 715 | 114 | 28,003
1828 | 12,084 | 12,817 | 1,056 | 135 | 26,092
1829 | 13,307 | 15,678 | 2,016 | 197 | 31,198
1830 | 30,574 | 24,887 | 1,242 | 204 | 56,907
1831 | 58,067 | 23,418 | 1,561 | 114 | 83,160
1832 | 66,339 | 32,872 | 3,733 | 196 | 103,140
1833 | 28,808 | 29,109 | 4,093 | 517 | 62,527
1834 | 40,060 | 33,074 | 2,800 | 288 | 76,222
1835 | 15,573 | 26,720 | 1,860 | 325 | 44,478
1836 | 34,226 | 37,774 | 3,124 | 293 | 75,417
1837 | 29,884 | 36,770 | 5,054 | 326 | 72,034
1838 | 4,577 | 14,332 | 14,021 | 292 | 33,222
1839 | 12,658 | 33,536 | 15,786 | 227 | 62,207
1840 | 32,293 | 40,642 | 15,850 | 1,958 | 90,743
1841 | 38,164 | 45,017 | 32,625 | 2,786 | 118,592
1842 | 54,123 | 63,852 | 8,534 | 1,835 | 128,344
1843 | 23,518 | 28,335 | 3,478 | 1,881 | 57,212
1844 | 22,924 | 43,660 | 2,229 | 1,873 | 70,686
1845 | 31,803 | 58,538 | 830 | 2,330 | 93,501
1846 | 43,439 | 82,239 | 2,347 | 1,826 | 129,851
1847 | 109,680 | 142,154 | 4,949 | 1,487 | 258,270
1848 | 31,065 | 188,233 | 23,904 | 4,887 | 248,089
1849 | 41,367 | 219,450 | 32,091 | 6,590 | 299,498
Total | 808,740 | 1,260,247 | 185,286 | 30,911 | 2,285,184

Average Annual Emigration from the United Kingdom for the last twenty five years: 91,407

The emigration of the present year bids fair to exceed even the unprecedentedly large emigration of 1849. This human stream flows principally through the ports of London and Liverpool; as there is but little direct emigration from Scotland or Ireland. In the year 1849, out of the total number of 299,498 emigrants, more than one-half, or 153,902 left from the port of Liverpool. We learn from a statement in a Liverpool newspaper, that in the months of January, February, March and April of the present year, the total emigration was 50,683 persons; and as these four months include two of the least busy months of the year, it is probable that the numbers during the months of May, June, July and August, the full emigrational season, will be much more considerable, and that the emigration for the year will exceed that for 1849. Her Majesty’s Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners publish in the spring of every year a useful little pamphlet, entitled the “Colonisation Circular”, which contains the names and duties of the Emigration offices in the ports of The United Kingdom and in the Colonies—the cost of passage to the various colonies—a statement of the demand for labour—the rate of wages, and the price of provisions in each colony—an explanation of the mode of disposal of Crown lands—the privileges granted to naval and military settlers—the victualling scale on board ships-an abstract of the Passengers Act, and other valuable particulars. The Government however, gives no information relative to the United States—so that its admirable little circular is of comparatively little service to at least one-half of the great crowds of emigrants.

The majority of emigrants take a steerage passage, and go out at the cheapest rate. Out of the 153,902 mentioned above as having left the port of Liverpool in 1849, the number of first and second cabin passengers was only 4639. The information likely to be most valuable to the great bulk of the emigrants is, therefore, that relative to the demand for their labour in the United States and the British Colonies. We shall, accordingly, extract from the Government Circular a good deal of the official information bearing upon this point, premising, in the case of each colony, a few practical hints and observations as to their characteristics and capabilities as emigration fields:—

[The labor data has been excluded from this ebook.]

EMIGRATION FROM LIVERPOOL.

We now proceed to detail the process of emigration, beginning with the arrival of the emigrants at Liverpool, the great port of intercourse with the United States. The first care of the emigrants, if their passage have not previously been paid for them by their kind friends in New York, is to pay their passage-money, and make the best bargain they can with the passenger-brokers. The competition in this trade is very great, and fares, accordingly, vary from day to day, and even from hour to hour, being sometimes as high as £5 per passenger in the steerage, and sometimes as low as £3 10s.

All persons contracting to convey passengers to North America are required to take out a license; and, under the new act, have also to give bonds by themselves and two sureties to the colonial land and Emigration Commissioners, to the amount of £200. There are at present twenty-one licensed passenger-brokers in Liverpool. The following list appears in the Liverpool Journal:—George Percival, representing the house of Messrs. Harden and Co.; Wilson, representing Messrs. Pilkington and Wilson, 55 Waterloo-road; Daniel P. Mitchell, representing Messrs. Train and Co.; Josiah Thompson, representing Messrs. Grimshaw and Co.; 11, Goreepiazzas; J. T. Crook, 2, Tower-chambers, Old Churchyard, and 115, Waterloo-road; George Saul, 36, Waterloo-road; J. W. Shaw, 90, Waterloo-road; Robert Dunn, 1, Cook-street; Orson Pratt, 15, Wilton-street; Thomas Elliott, 11, Waterloo-road; W. Robinson, 48, Waterloo-road; William Tapscott, Regent-road; Frederick Sabell, 28, Moorfields; Eleazar Jones, 25, Union-street; G. C. Beckett, 116, Waterloo-road; J. S. Holmes, 120, Waterloo-road; D. O’Donovan, 117, Waterloo-road; Edward Matthew Norris, 6, Regent-road; William Russel Grace, 120, Waterloo-road; Thomas Lockhart, 192, Great Howard-street; Williame Maume, 6, Regent-road; and Michael M’Connell, 47, Union-street.

Amongst these twenty-one, says the Liverpool Journal, are the names of parties well known in Liverpool, of high honour and strict integrity; but, on the other hand, it must be confessed that there are some to whom this character will not apply; and Lieut. Hodder, the Government Emigration Agent, whose duty it is to see the poor emigrant protected, and the act carried out, is, with his officers, kept in a state of constant combativeness. If a summons be taken out, the chances are ten to one that the poor people whom it was intended to victimise are treated with; and, to save the exposure which would otherwise result, the case is compromised at any price. The magistrates may, for any irregularity or delinquency, withdraw a licence—a power sometimes exercised; but no cases are yet on record of the forfeiture of a bond.

The walls of Liverpool are thoroughly placarded with the notices of the days of sailing of the various packets, for which many firms act as passenger-brokers, and set forth in large letters the excellent qualities of such well known and favourite packets as the Yorkshire, the New World, the Isaac Webb, the West Point, the Constitution, the Isaac Wright, the London, the Star of the West, the Queen of the West, and scores of others. The average number of steerage passengers that can be accommodated in these fine vessels (which are mostly owned in New York) is 400; but some of them, such as the Isaac Webb, can comfortably make room for double that number.

After the emigrant has chosen the ship by which he will sail, and perhaps run the gauntlet through scores of designing and unscrupulous “man-catchers”—a class of persons who get a commission from the passenger-brokers for each emigrant that they bring to the office—his next duty is to present himself at the

MEDICAL INSPECTOR’S OFFICE.

By the terms of the New Passenger Act, 12 & 13 Vict., c.33, no passenger-ship is allowed to proceed until a medical practitioner appointed by the emigration office of the port shall have inspected the medicine-chest and passengers, and certified that the medicines etc are sufficient, and that the passengers are free from contagious disease. The master, owner, or charterer of the ship is bound to pay the medical inspector the sum of £1 sterling for every 100 persons thus inspected. When the emigrant and his family have undergone this process, their passage-ticket is stamped, and they have nothing further to do, until they go on board, but to make their own private arrangements and provide themselves with outfits, or with such articles of luxury or necessity as they may desire over and above the ships allowance.

All persons who may be discovered to be affected with any infectious disease, either at the original port of embarkation or at any port in the United Kingdom into which the vessel may subsequently put, are to be re-landed, with those members of their families, if any, who may be dependent upon them, or unwilling to be separated from them, together with their clothes and effects. Passengers re-landed are entitled to receive back their passage-money, which may be recovered from the party to whom it was paid, or from the owner, charterer, or master of the ship, by summary process, before two or more justices of the peace.

THE EMBARKATION.

The scene in the Waterloo dock, at Liverpool, where all the American sailing packets are stationed, is at all times a very busy one; but, on the morning of the departure of a large ship, with a full complement of emigrants, it is peculiarly exciting and interesting. The passengers have undergone inspection, and many of them have taken up their quarters on board for twenty-four hours previously, as they are entitled to do by terms of the act of Parliament. Many of them bring, in addition to the boxes and trunks containing their worldly wealth, considerable quantities of provisions, although it must be confessed that the scale fixed by the Government to be supplied to them by the ship is sufficiently liberal to keep in health and comfort all among them, who, in their ordinary course of life, were not accustomed to animal food. The following is the scale, in addition to any provisions which the passengers may themselves bring:—

3 quarts of water daily.

2 and 1/2 lb of Bread or biscuit (not inferior to navy biscuit)

1 lb wheaten Flour

5 lb oatmeal

2 lb rice

2 oz tea

1/2 lb sugar

1/2 lb molasses

Per week. To be issued in advance, and not less often than twice a week.

5 lb. of good potatoes may, at the option of the master, be substituted for 1 lb. of oatmeal or rice; and in ships sailing from Liverpool, or from Irish of Scottish ports, oatmeal may be substituted, in equal quantities, for the whole or any part of the issues of rice.

Vessels carrying as many as 100 passengers must be provided with a seafaring person to act as passenger’s cook, and also with a proper cooking apparatus. A convenient place must be set apart on deck for cooking, and a proper supply of fuel shipped for the voyage. The whole to be subject to the approval of the emigration officer.

DANCING BETWEEN DECKS.

The scenes that occur between decks on the day before the sailing of a packet, and during the time that a ship may be unavoidably detained in dock, are not generally of a character to impress the spectator with the idea of any great or overwhelming grief on the part of the emigrants at leaving the old country. On the contrary, all is bustle, excitement, and merriment. The scene of a party of emigrants, male and female, dancing between decks—to the music of the violin—played for their amusement, by some of their fellow-passengers, is not a rare one. Sometimes a passenger is skilful upon the Irish bagpipe, and his services are freely asked and freely given for the gratification of his countrymen and countrywomen-not simply while in dock, but, according to the reports of captains and others, during the whole voyage. Any person who can play the violin—the flute—the pipe, or any other instrument, becomes of interest and importance to the passengers, and is kept in constant requisition for their amusement. The youngest child and the oldest man in the ship are alike interested; and grey headed men and women are frequently to be seen dancing with as much delight, if not with as much vigour, as if Seventeen, not Seventy, was the number that would most nearly express their age.

But, as the hour of departure draws nigh, the music ceases. Too many fresh arrivals take place every moment, and the docks become too much encumbered with luggage to admit of the amusement. Although notice of the day and hour of departure may have been given for weeks previously, there are a large class of persons—not confined to emigrants it may be observed en passant—who never will be punctual, and who seem to make it a point of duty and conscience to postpone everything to the last moment, and to enjoy the excitement of being within a few minutes or even moments of losing their passage. These may be seen arriving in flushed and panting detachments, driving donkey-carts laden with their worldly stores, to the gangway, at the ship’s side. It often happens that the gangway has been removed before their arrival, in which case their only chance is to wait until the ship reaches the dock-gate, when their boxes, bails, barrels and bundles are actually pitched into the ship, and men, and women, and children have to scramble up among the rigging, amid a screaming, a swearing, and a shouting perfectly alarming to listen to. Not infrequently a box or barrel falls overboard, and sometimes a man or a woman suffers the same fate, but is speedily re-saved by men in a small boat, that follows in the wake of this ship for the purpose, until she have finally cleared the dock.

THE DEPARTURE.

There are usually a large number of spectators at the dock-gates to witness the final departure of the noble ship, with its large freight of human beings. It is an interesting and impressive sight; and the most callous and indifferent can scarcely fail, at such a moment, to form cordial wishes for the pleasant voyage and safe arrival of the emigrants, and for their future prosperity in their new home. As the ship is towed out, hats are raised, handkerchiefs are waved, and a loud and long-continued shout of farewell is raised from the shore, and cordially responded to from the ship. It is then, if at any time, that the eyes of the emigrants begin to moisten with regret at the thought that they are looking for the last time at the old country—that country which, although, in all probability, associated principally with the remembrance of sorrow and suffering, of semi-starvation, and a constant battle for the merest crust necessary to support existence is, nevertheless, the country of their fathers, the country of their childhood, and consecrated to their hearts by many a token. The last look, if known to be the last, is always sorrowful, and refuses, in most instances, to see the wrong and the suffering, the error and the misery, which may have impelled the one who takes it, to venture from the old into the new, from the tried to the untried path, and to recommence existence under new auspices, and with new and totally different prospects.

“Farewell, England! Blessings on thee—

Stern and niggard as thou art.

Harshly, mother, thou hast used me,

And my bread thou hast refused me:

But ’tis agony to part:”

is doubtless the feeling uppermost in the mind of many thousands of the poorer class of English emigrants at the moment when the cheers of the spectators and of their friends on shore proclaim the instant of departure from the land of their birth. Even in the case of the Irish emigrants, a similar feeling-though possibly less intense-can scarcely fail to be excited. Little time, however, is left to them to indulge in these reflections. The ship is generally towed by a steam-tug five or ten miles down the Mersey; and during the time occupied in traversing these ten miles, two very important ceremonies have to be gone through: the first is “the Search for Stowaways;” and the second is the “Roll-call of the Passengers.”

THE SEARCH FOR STOWAWAYS.

The practice of “stowing away,” or hiding about a vessel until after the passage tickets have been collected, in order to procure, by this fraudulent means, a free passage across the Atlantic, is stated to be very common to ships leaving London and Liverpool for the United States. The “stowaways” are sometimes brought onboard concealed in trunks or chests, with air-holes to prevent suffocation. Sometimes they are brought in barrels, packed up to their chins in salt, or biscuits, or other provisions, to the imminent hazard of their lives. At other times they take the chance of hiding about the ship, under the bedding, amid the confused luggage of other passengers, and in all sorts of dark nooks and corners between decks. Hence, it becoming expedient to make a thorough search of the vessel before the steam-tug has left her, in order that, if any of these unhappy intruders be discovered, they may be taken back to port and brought before the Magistrate, to be punished for the fraud which they have attempted. As many as a dozen stowaways have sometimes been discovered in one ship; and cases have occurred, though not frequently, of men, women, and young boys, having been taken dead out of the barrels or chests in which they had concealed themselves, to avoid payment of £3 or £4 passage money. When the ship is fairly out, the search for stowaways is ordered. All the passengers are summoned upon the Quarter-Deck, and there detained until the search has been completed in every part of the ship. The Captain, Mate, or other Officer, attended by the clerk of the passenger broker, and as many of the crew as may be necessary for the purpose, then proceed below, bearing masked lanterns or candles, and armed with long poles, hammers, chisels, etc, that they may break open suspicious looking chests and barrels. Occasionally, the pole is said to be tipped with a sharp nail, to aid the process of discovery in dark nooks; and sometimes the man armed with the hammer hammers the bed-clothes, in order that if there be a concealed head underneath, the owner may make the fact known, and thus avoid a repetition of the blows. If a stowaway be concealed in a barrel, it is to be presumed that he has been placed with his head uppermost, and the searchers, upon this hint, whenever they have a suspicion, deliberately proceed to turn the barrel bottom upwards—a process which never fails, after a short time, if the suspicion be well founded, to elicit an unmistakable cry for release. Although this search is invariably made with the upmost care, it is not always effectual in discovering the delinquent; and instances have occurred in which no less than eight, ten, or even a larger number, including both men and women, have made their appearance after the vessel has been two or three days at sea. Some captains used to make it a rule to behave with great severity, if not cruelty, to these unfortunates; and instances are related of their having caused them to be tarred and feathered, or to walk the decks through the cold nights with nothing on but their shirts: but this inhumanity does not now appear to be practised. As there is a great deal of dirty work that must be done on ship-board, the stowaways are pressed into that service, and compelled to make themselves useful, if not agreeable. They are forced, in fact, to work their passage out, and the most unpleasant jobs are imposed upon them. After the search for them in every corner of the ship, the next ceremony, that of the

ROLL-CALL,
is commenced. This is one that occupies a considerable space of time, especially in a large ship, containing seven or eight hundred emigrants. The passengers-those in the state cabin excepted-being all assembled upon the Quarter-Deck, the clerk of the passenger-broker, accompanied by the ship’s surgeon, and aided in the preservation of order by the crew, proceeds to call for the tickets. The clerk, or man in authority, usually stands upon the rail, or other convenient elevation on the Quarter-Deck, so that he may be enabled to see over the heads of the whole assemblage—usually a very motley one—comprising people of all ages, from seven weeks to seventy years. A double-purpose is answered by the roll-call—the verification of the passenger-list, and the medical inspection of the emigrants, on behalf of the captain and owners. The previous inspection on the part of the governor was to prevent the risk of contagious disease on board. The inspection on the part of the owners is for a different object.

The ship has to pay a poll-tax of one dollar and a half per passenger to the State of New York; and if any of the poor emigrants are helpless and deformed persons, the owners are fined in the sum of seventy five dollars for bringing them, and are compelled to enter in a bond to the city of New York that they will not become a burden on the public. To obviate this risk, the medical officer of the ship passes them under inspection; and if there be a pauper cripple among the number who cannot give security that he has friends in America to take charge of him of arrival, and provide for him afterwards, the captain may refuse to take him.

The business of verification and inspection generally occupies from two to four hours, according to the number of emigrants on board; and, during its progress, some noteworthy incidents occasionally arise. Sometimes an Irishman, with a wife and eight or ten children, who may have only paid a deposit of his passage-money, attempts to evade the payment of the balance, by pleading that he has not a farthing left in the world; and trusting that the ship will rather take him out to New York for the sum already paid, than incur the trouble of putting him on shore again with his family. Sometimes a woman may have included in her passage-ticket an infant at the breast, and may be seen, when her name is called, panting under the weight of a boy of eight or nine years of age, whom she is holding to her bosom as if he were really a suckling. Sometimes a youth of nineteen, strong and big as a man, has been entered as under twelve, in order to get across to America for half the fare of an adult; and sometimes a whole family are without any tickets, and have come on board in the hope that, amid the confusion which they imagine will be attendant upon the congregation of so many hundred people on a ship, they may manage to evade notice, and slip down unperceived amid those whose documents are found en règle. These cases, as they occur, are placed on one side; and those who have duly paid their passage money, and produced their tickets, are allowed to pass down and take possession of their berths. Those who have not paid, either in whole or in part, and are either unable or unwilling to satisfy the claim against them, are then transferred on board the tug, with bag and baggage, to be reconveyed to port. Those who have money, and have attempted a fraud, generally contrive, after many lamentations about their extreme poverty, to produce the necessary funds, which, in the shape of golden sovereigns are not unfrequently found to be safely stitched amid the rags of petticoats, coats, and unmentionable garments. Those who have really no money, and who cannot manage to appeal to the sympathy of the crowd for a small subscription to help them to the New World, must resign themselves to their fate, and remain in the poverty from which they seek to free themselves, until they are able to raise the small sum necessary for their emancipation. The stowaways, if any, are ordered to be taken before the magistrates; and all strangers and interlopers being safely placed in the tug, the emigrant ship is left to herself. May all prosperity attend her living freight!

“Far away—oh far away—

We seek a world o’er the ocean spray!

We seek a land across the sea,

Where bread is plenty and men are free,

The sails are set, the breezes swell—

England, our country, farewell! farewell!”

THE DEPOPULATION OF IRELAND

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[May 10, 1851.]

The Census Returns, when published, will enable us to ascertain, in some degree, the extent of the combined ravages of famine and pestilence, in the first place, and of despair and emigration, in the second, in the depopulation of Ireland. But even these returns, authentic as they will be, cannot be complete; for the emigration that has gone on since the census was taken, and which still continues, will compel the statist to make large deductions from the amount which the census will yield, if he wish to ascertain the real number of the Irish people. The annals of the modern world offer no such record as that presented in the history of Ireland, since the memorable and deplorable years of the potato famine, and of the pestilence that followed in its track. The splendid emigrant ships that ply between Liverpool and New York, and which have sufficed in previous years to carry to the shores of America an Irish emigration, amounting on the average to 250,000 souls per annum, have, during the present spring, been found insufficient to transport to the States the increasing swarms of Irish who have resolved to try in the New World to gain the independence which has been denied them in the old.

“Emigration,” says a letter dated a few days back, “is proceeding to an extent altogether unprecedented; but much less, in proportion, from Ulster than the other provinces. From most of the southern counties, the small farmers are hastening in vast numbers; and even in Leinster the mania for emigration prevails far and wide. The remittances from America are far greater in amount than in any previous year, and considerable sums are paid by the banks and by private commercial establishments, from day to day, on orders from the United States. From some districts in Ulster, numbers of the smaller tenantry are taking their departure. From one of the principle estates in Monaghan nearly one thousand persons of the cottier class are about to be sent to Canada at the expense of the landlord, who, it is stated, has made arrangements for providing them with a comfortable passage, and some small allowance of money to each family after reaching the port of their destination.”

The number of emigrant vessels proceeding to America direct from Irish ports is quite unprecedented, and is one of the most extraordinary circumstances of the time. Within eight days, the following eleven vessels, carrying 1568 passengers, sailed from the single port of Cork:—The Dominique, for Quebec, 150 passengers; the Don, for New York, 160; the Lockwoods, for New York, 280; the Marchioness of Bute, for Quebec, 120; the Sara, for Boston, 104; the Solway, for New York, 196; the Try Again, for Quebec, 130; the Favourite, for Boston, 120; the Clarinda, for New York, 100; the Swift, for Boston, 120; the Field Marshal Radetzsky, for New York, 88 passengers. In addition to those vessels, the Hotspur went down the Cork river, on Tuesday, with 100 paupers on board, from the Kenmare Union-house.

But what is most remarkable is, that, while this enormous emigration is going on, leading to a fear in some parts of the country that sufficient people will not be left to cultivate the land, the owners or mortgagees of Irish estates continue to evict their tenantry with as much virulence as ever. The Galway Vindicator states:—“There were 195 ejectments entered—13 at the suit of the trustees of A. H. Lynch, one of Mathew S. Coneys, and 181 were brought by the Law Life Insurance Company; and of 183 entries of civil bills, 87 were at the suit of the insurance company. With the exception of three or four, the ejectments were all undefended. They were disposed of at the rate of one each minute; so that, taking an average of five souls to each family ejected, we will have 300 per hour, and in the entire 905 human beings cast upon poor-house relief.

The same journal estimates the total evictions in Connemara during the present season at upwards of 4000. In Limerick and Kerry the same system is carried on; the evicted remaining in the union workhouse until remittances arrive from their friends in America, when they shake from their feet the dust of their native land, and rejoin their friends and relations across the Atlantic.

The following letter from our Correspondent in Cork—accompanying a series of Sketches, which we have engraved for our present Number—gives the latest information upon this interesting subject:—

(From our Correspondent at Cork.)

The constant appearance of the heading ‘Emigration from Ireland,’ and the no less constant stream of well-clad, healthy, and comfortable-looking peasantry in our streets, induces me to send you the accompanying sketches and communications on that subject.

Upon reference to notes and papers of my own, and to information afforded me be the emigration agents here, I am disposed to think that about the middle of May the great emigrational torrent ceases to flow from these shores. Looking backward for the last month, I find that, during the week ending April 11, the greatest rush for the season took place. The numbers who left Cork that week could not have fallen far short of 1500 souls, and this with the emigration of the other ports of Limerick, Waterford, Dublin, and even of Belfast, will give us an approach to 5000 weekly leaving the country. Large as this number may appear, it is well known that it is considerably below the mark when the departures for Liverpool are included. One agent informed me that he himself had booked 600 emigrants in four days, and yet he is but one of the many agents who are to be met with not alone in the large towns and seaports, but even thickly scattered through each petty town and village throughout the country. In England you can have but little conception of the sufferings of the poor Irish emigrant from the time he first announces his intention of leaving home to his final departure; nor, indeed, can it be understood even in this country, except by those who make it their business to investigate the subject. Impressed with this belief, and being desirous of witnessing some of the partings of the emigrants from amidst the scenes of their youth, I took, a few days since, a run into the south-west of the county, from whence the great stream pours into the city of Cork. In my ramble I fell in with a clergyman, who was there on his way to take leave of a large number of his parishioners, who were then packing up.

None perhaps feel more severely the departure of the peasantry than the Roman Catholic clergy; as from them, and them alone, it may be said, comes the sole means of support which they receive. Yet none take a more active part in seeing them safely out of the country, or have looked more closely to the interest of those they leave behind, than those clergymen, even though their revenues are reduced, in most cases, to one-half, and in some to one-third. In company with one of these humble but exemplary men, I came to a sharp turn in the road, in view of that for which we sought, and of which I send you a sketch, namely, the packing and making ready of, I may say, an entire village—for there were not more than half-a-dozen houses on the spot, and all their former inmates were preparing to leave. Immediately that my rev. friend was recognised, the people gathered about him in the most affectionate manner. He had a word of advice to Pat, a caution to Nelly, a suggestion to Mick; and he made a promise to Dan to take care of the “old woman,” until the five pounds came in the spring to his ‘Reverence’ to send her over to America. Then ensued a scene of tears and lamentation, such as might have softened a much harder heart than mine or that of the priest. He stood for awhile surrounded by the old and the young, the strong and the infirm, on bended knees, and he turned his moistened eyes towards heaven, and asked the blessing of the Almighty upon the wanderers during their long and weary journey. Many were the tears brushed quietly away from the sunburnt cheeks of those who there knelt, and had implicit faith that the benediction so fervently and piously asked, would be vouchsafed to them.

It was not pleasant to linger amid a scene like this; so to dispel our sadness, we took a last farewell of the group, and ere long found ourselves upon the road to Kenmare, and in the midst of a train of from 200 to 300 men and women, boys and girls, varying in age from ten to thirty years. They looked most picturesque in their gay plaid shawls and straw bonnets, and were all on their way to Cork, to go on board the emigrant ship.

Upon inquiry I was given to understand that this was but one of the many groups sent from the union-houses through the country, and at the expense of the ratepayers. This, though an expensive process, is better than to leave them to pine and perish with want, as in the too wretched union of Kilrush; yet it is sad to see so much young blood sent from amongst us, and that too, as a gentleman, an extensive farmer in the county of Kerry, told me, at a period when it is found difficult to obtain hands to do the necessary farm-work. To so great an extent has this extraordinary emigration mania been carried in the county of Kerry, that this gentleman told me that he had been obliged even thus early to engage farm labourers at Mill-street, in the county of Cork, to take in his harvest in the county of Kerry during the coming season. Moreover, he stated that he was not the only one in the county who would be obliged to have recourse to the same means of procuring labourers. It would be strange indeed, that Ireland, who, at one time, was able to supply with her superabundant labour the farmers of England and Wales, should be obliged to seek in the English and Welsh fields for hands to do her work. Yet it is quite possible that such a thing may happen.

Having seen sufficient of the country, I turned my steps towards the city, and upon my arrival there, first sought out the houses of the strangers who frequently are obliged to remain in lodging-houses from one to five or six days, according to circumstances. I can assure you that it is not exaggerating the abject misery of these miscalled ‘lodging-houses for emigrants.’ It is no unusual thing to thrust from twenty to forty persons, of all ages and both sexes, into rooms not more than four yards by five or six yards square, with no other accommodation than a mass of filthy straw, placed around the room, upon which the weary traveller is expected to find repose. In the event of his being provided by the proprietor with some sort of covering, he is charged threepence a night; should they bring their own bed-clothes, they pay twopence; and those who are content to sleep on the straw, without divesting themselves of the rags, pay one penny.

For standing room where they may breakfast of dine—for it cannot be called accommodation—the charges are pretty much on the same scale. On the whole, it is fortunate that the great business of emigration is generally over before the setting-in of the warm weather, otherwise these lodging-houses, from their over-crowded state, as well as from the accumulated amount of filth in them, would become perfect nuisances, and dangerous to the health of the community.

Several years since, when landing for the first time on the French shore, I felt much harrassed by the untiring persecution of the hotel touters; but little did I dream of ever seeing the touting system carried to such a fearful extent as it now is in Ireland; for no sooner is the red plaid of an Irish emigrant girl, or the unbuttoned shirt-collar of a Kerryman recognised, than she or he is instantly beset by those harpies, or mancatchers. It is sometime impossible to escape, except by main force, and by the aid of the police. The latter are daily thanked by the bench of magistrates for their exertions in this respect.

The accompanying is a sketch of a party of emigrants who have arrived on the quay after a long journey, in some cases close upon one hundred miles:—They are stretched and tumbled about upon boxes and straw to seek some few moments’ repose. This, and the companion sketch of the row at the office-door, where some of the emigrants are seen paying their passage-money, will show the extent to which the ruffianly touters and mancatchers carry their interference, and from which they are only obliged to desist upon the application of superior force.

Having thus shown you what was picturesque in the passage of the group of emigrants from the home of their infancy to the office of the emigration agent who provides them with a ship direct from the port, it may not now be out of place for me to send you a sketch of the interior of one of those vessels, which I accordingly do, and which I trust will readily explain the mode in which those vessels are fitted up, and where each party gets so many square inches to her or his share of ship, as the case may be, and where, if I am given rightly to understand, man woman, and child are obliged to huddle together like pigs at a fair. But then the ship is partitioned, divided, and formed exactly according to the strict letter of the law, and none can grumble, yet few can go on board one of them without being instantly struck with the chances tat appear of the complete demoralization of the whole group; and what it must be when the sea rolls heavily, when the hatches are all closed, and the ship heaves and labours in the storm, can be much better imagined by others than described by me. The answer given to a party who, upon seeing the way in which these unfortunate beings were left toss and tumble about, asked if even a plank in the shape of a table was not to be provided for them was, ‘Cock them up with it, indeed! How badly off they’re for a table!’ And yet this man is known to be a kind, generous-hearted man in other respects.

Every inquiry or remonstrance is answered by the allegation, that all is according to the Act of Parliament, or ‘the Act so directs it;’ so that you will perceive what little chances of extra comforts the emigrant has who emigrates in the smaller vessels belonging to men, some of whom are making lordly fortunes by their new trade.

Having now shown you so much of what appertains to those who sail from this port direct to America, nothing remains but to send you a sketch of the departure of the steamers for Liverpool, which generally, of late, have been crowded to suffocation, owing, perhaps, as much to the cheapness of the fares, caused by the steam-boat opposition for some time back, as to a previous knowledge among the emigrants that they will be better provided for in the way of a ship in Liverpool, the ‘great port of embarkation,’ than they are likely to be in Irish vessels.

The withdrawal of this ruinous competition will now, no doubt, in this matter of emigration, materially serve the Cork Steam-ship Company, as doubtless large numbers of those who heretofore made for Waterford, will be now tempted to turn their thoughts towards Cork, owing to the superiority of the vessels leaving the port. From early dawn on the day of the steamer’s sailing up to the hour of starting, whether it be ten in the morning or five in the evening, the curious in those matters will be sure to find the quays leading to the packet-office one continued stream of cars, carts, trucks, and porters, and all heavily laden with feather-beds, boxes, trunks, indescribable baggage and sacks of potatoes, and all tending to the one centre, namely, the deck of the Nimrod, and where the well-disposed as also the ill-disposed are sure to congregate to witness the departure. The sketch which I send you represents one of those weekly scenes, and from which I trust your readers will have some notion of the bustle and excitement that takes place upon those occasions, and when the incidents sometimes witnessed at the parting of friends and relations are truly heart-touching.

During the existence of the low fares, it was more than once stated that ‘some of the emigrants were wretched and miserable-looking beings.’ At present it is the bone and sinew of the land that appear to go out, and even those in more than comfortable circumstances are often among the number, as the immense sums of money sent into this country from relatives in America (our branch bank alone paid out, on account of remittances received during this season, the large sum of £40,000) testify.”

THE IRISH GLEANER

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Nov. 27, 1852.]

THE DAWN OF A BRIGHTER DAY

BY FRANCIS BENNOCH.

From the bustling east to the idle west—

From the north to the southmost shore—

O’er the hill, through bog, in light, and fog,

You may travel all Ireland o’er.

Where energy, liberty, love, were dead,

Or in senseless stupor lay,

Hope—smiling beams,

And its radiance streams

On the dawn of a brighter day.

The pestilence came like a quenchless flame

On the breath of a poisonous wind;

You might reckon its force and track its course

By the ruin it left behind:

Nor beauty, nor youth, nor sex was spared—

Its imssion was still to slay!

From the desolate past

There cometh at last

The dawn of a brighter day.

Though kindred fled from kindred dead,

They have found a home afar;

They have labour and rest in the beautiful West,

Where trusty brethren are.

And those who remain in their own dear land

While justice bears the sway—

Have prosperous lives;

For labour thrives

In the dawn of a brighter day.

What matter, although the pauper’s rags

May flutter before the breeze!—

Dead leaves are seen ‘mid the living green

Of the leafiest forest trees.

Though poverty lurks, and beggary works,

In the South, wherever we stray;

Yet, all around

Is increasingly found

The dawn of a brighter day.

Here many will find hearts warm and kind;

Maids beautiful, lithe, and sweet—

You might envy the favoured grass they press

In the tread of their naked feet!

A flood of melody swells the voice,

And stealeth the soul away:

‘Tis beaty supreme

Fulfilling the dream

That told of a brighter day.

By head and hand, on sea and land,

The present its future weaves;

By hill and plain, or where ears of grain

Are gathered among the sheaves,

A spirit of love in labour lives,

Bringing health and wealth alway.

The night has flown,

The light has shone

‘Tis the dawn of a brighter day!

SKETCHES OF IRISH LIFE

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Jan. 24, 1857.]

THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER.

Amongst the variety of “professors” that practise on the Irish peasantry in the shape of horse and cow doctors, bone-setters, and fairy men, perhaps there is not a more distinguished individual than the Hedge Schoolmaster.

Educated in a seminary similar to that in which he presides, having there acquired all his former preceptor’s knowledge, he has either stepped into his shoes on his demise, or set up an establishment on his own account, trusting his success to the favourable opinion the neighbours had formed of his abilities during his years of probation. The Hedge Schoolmaster is, therefore, greatly respected by the peasantry whose children he has undertaken to educate; he is ever a welcome guest at their homes, gets the best “bit and sup” and the warmest corner at their firesides. Here he seems as much at home and more at his ease than the hospitable owner of the domicile he has condescended to visit, and whom he repays by astonishing with his intimate knowledge of past events, gleaned generally from antiquated newspapers: he can even tell of things to come, in a style equal, if not superior, to the prophetic pages of Moore’s Almanack, which popular annual he is seldom or ever known to agree with. He is generally, too, a proficient in music, and on Sunday evenings, in the summer time, gives the boys and girls an opportunity of enjoying themselves on “the green” in a jig or country dance to the sounds of his violin. But as human nature is never perfect, even in the wisest of mankind, there is one failing inseparably allied with the hedge Schoolmaster—he is a little too fond of “the drop;” his indulgence in which, though it occasionally mars his dignity in some respects, is amply atoned for in others; for, as the spirit of the glass ascends to his head, the pent-up larning as quickly escapes from that abode in “words of learned length and thundering sound.”

Now there may be, as is often the case, a rival schoolmaster in the adjacent village, and he too, either by accident or design, might be present on one of those festive occasions. The meeting of those worthies is as “Greek to Greek.” No two gamecocks could regard each other more fiercely, and the encounter of wits is often as decisive and deadly. Here lies the Hedge Schoolmaster’s real danger. If in the opinion of the excited company he is put down in the discussion, even on such a point as the “Irish tutor” puzzled the great Dr. O’Toole, when he asked him the exact position Ballyragget occupied on the globe, his fame is gone. The cry is up through the country, “The master was beat in the ‘larnin’;’” and in a day or two the schoolmaster is literally “abroad,” his grove deserted, and his pupils fled to his more witty or accomplished rival.

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Feb. 21, 1857.]

THE IRISH COW-DOCTOR.

To give a general idea of the cow-doctor, he is invariably an old bachelor, had once upon a time been the sporteen (a gay fellow) of some village, and attended all the dances and hurling matches for miles round the country. No meeting of any kind was complete without his presence. How it was that he neglected the matrimonial yoke is difficult to determine; whether it was that his admiration of the fair sex was so great that he was loth to offend all, by a “single selection of one,” or that he feared by such selection he might regret his choice, if afterwards he became acquainted with one of more superior attractions. Meantime, in giving this important question too much consideration, he neglects his small “holding,” has become reduced in circumstances, and as he lives on through years of misfortune a change gradually comes “o’er the spirit of his dream,” for, as “experience teacheth,” the experiments he had formerly practised on his own cattle have converted him from an eccentric into a scientific, and if not a sad, at least a wise man. He is now recognised by the farmers of his district as the cow-doctor, from the skill he exercises i curing their distempered cattle, when all the resources they had previously adopted proved unavailing. The home of the cow-doctor is not the most delectable. Unlike the generality of mankind, he much more prefers the hearths of his neighbours to his own fireside, which is seldom graced by his presence, unless when he cannot possibly avoid it. As he is in great demand through the country, he always contrives to make his visits visitations, and the entertainment he receives from the owner of his patient is all he expects directly to gain for his professional services. There are few professions in life to which there are not some perquisites attached, and in being bestowed are generally considered and taken as compliments; but that system is quite the reverse with the cow-doctor; for, not being encumbered with a medicine-chest, he is often obliged to visit the nearest apothecary’s shop, having been previously supplied with money to purchase the necessary drugs, which he compounds with great secrecy; and, knowing that a professional is always supplied at a very low figure, he considers the balance his own property—the farmer meantime paying him a high compliment, and bearing his services in grateful remembrance.

ACCOUNTS OF ENGLISH MILL WORKERS

“In 1832 Michael Sadler secured a Parliamentary investigation of conditions in the textile factories and he sat as chairman on the committee. The evidence printed here is taken from the large body published in the committee’s report and is representative rather than exceptional. It will be observed that the questions are frequently leading; this reflects Sadler’s knowledge of the sort of information that the committee were to hear and his purpose of bringing it out. This report stands out as one of three great reports on the life of the industrial class—the two others being that of the Ashley Commission on the mines and report on sanitary problems. The immediate effect of the investigation and the report was the passage of the Act of 1833 limiting hours of employment for women and children in textile work.”

—Scott and Baltzly

Joshua Drake, called in; and Examined.

You say you would prefer moderate labour and lower wages; are you pretty comfortable upon your present wages? —I have no wages, but two days a week at present; but when I am working at some jobs we can make a little, and at others we do very poorly.

When a child gets 3s. a week, does that go much towards its subsistence? —No, it will not keep it as it should do.

When they got 6s. or 7s. when they were pieceners, if they reduced the hours of labor, would they not get less? —They would get a halfpenny a day less, but I would rather have less wages and less work.

Do you receive any parish assistance? —No.

Why do you allow your children to go to work at those places where they are ill-treated or over-worked? —Necessity compels a man that has children to let them work.

Then you would not allow your children to go to those factories under the present system, if it was not from necessity? —No.

Supposing there was a law passed to limit the hours of labour to eight hours a day, or something of that sort, of course you are aware that a manufacturer could not afford to pay them the same wages? —No, I do not suppose that they would, but at the same time I would rather have it, and I believe that it would bring me into employ; and if I lost 5d. a day from my children’s work, and I got half-a-crown myself, it would be better.

How would it get you into employ? —By finding more employment at the machines, and work being more regularly spread abroad, and divided amongst the people at large. One man is now regularly turned off into the street, whilst another man is running day and night.

You mean to say, that if the manufacturers were to limit the hours of labour, they would employ more people? —Yes.

[Parliamentary Papers,
1831-1832, XV, 44.]

Mr. Matthew Crabtree, called in; and Examined.

What age are you? —Twenty-two.

What is your occupation? —A blanket manufacturer.

Have you ever been employed in a factory? —Yes.

At what age did you first go to work in one? —Eight.

How long did you continue in that occupation? —Four years.

Will you state the hours of labour at the period when you first went to the factory, in ordinary times? —From 6 in the morning to 8 at night.

Fourteen hours? —Yes.

With what intervals for refreshment and rest? —An hour at noon.

When trade was brisk what were your hours? —From 5 in the morning to 9 in the evening.

Sixteen hours? —Yes.

With what intervals at dinner? —An hour.

How far did you live from the mill? —About two miles.

Was there any time allowed for you to get your breakfast in the mill? —No.

Did you take it before you left your home? —Generally.

During those long hours of labour could you be punctual; how did you awake? —I seldom did awake spontaneously; I was most generally awoke or lifted out of bed, sometimes asleep, by my parents.

Were you always in time? —No.

What was the consequence if you had been too late? —I was most commonly beaten.

Severely? —Very severely, I thought.

In those mills is chastisement towards the latter part of the day going on perpetually? —Perpetually.

So that you can hardly be in a mill without hearing constant crying? —Never an hour, I believe.

Do you think that if the overlooker were naturally a humane person it would still be found necessary for him to beat the children, in order to keep up their attention and vigilance at the termination of those extraordinary days of labour? —Yes; the machine turns off a regular quantity of cardings, and of course, they must keep as regularly to their work the whole of the day; they must keep with the machine, and therefore however humane the slubber may be, as he must keep up with the machine or be found fault with, he spurs the children to keep up also by various means but that which he commonly resorts to is to strap them when they become drowsy.

At the time when you were beaten for not keeping up with your work, were you anxious to have done it if you possibly could? —Yes; the dread of being beaten if we could not keep up with our work was a sufficient impulse to keep us to it if we could.

When you got home at night after this labour, did you feel much fatigued? —Very much so.

Had you any time to be with your parents, and to receive instruction from them? —No.

What did you do? —All that we did when we got home was to get the little bit of supper that was provided for us and go to bed immediately. If the supper had not been ready directly, we should have gone to sleep while it was preparing.

Did you not, as a child, feel it a very grievous hardship to be roused so soon in the morning? —I did.

Were the rest of the children similarly circumstanced? —Yes, all of them; but they were not all of them so far from their work as I was.

And if you had been too late you were under the apprehension of being cruelly beaten? —I generally was beaten when I happened to be too late; and when I got up in the morning the apprehension of that was so great, that I used to run, and cry all the way as I went to the mill.

[Parliamentary Papers,
1831-1832, XV, 95-97.]

Mr. John Hall, called in; and Examined.

Will you describe to the Committee the position in which the children stand to piece in a worsted mill, as it may serve to explain the number and severity of those cases of distortion which occur? —At the top to the spindle there is a fly goes across, and the child takes hold of the fly by the ball of his left hand, and he throws the left shoulder up and the right knee inward; he has the thread to get with the right hand, and he has to stoop his head down to see what he is doing; they throw the right knee inward in that way, and all the children I have seen, that bend in the right knee. I knew a family, the whole of whom were bent outwards as a family complaint, and one of those boys was sent to a worsted-mill, and first he became straight in his right knee, and then he became crooked in it the other way.

[Parliamentary Papers,
1831-1832, XV, 115].

Elizabeth Bentley, called in; and Examined.

What age are you? —Twenty-three.

Where do you live? —At Leeds.

What time did you begin to work at a factory? —When I was six years old.

At whose factory did you work? —Mr. Busk’s.

What kind of mill is it? —Flax-mill.

What was your business in that mill? —I was a little doffer.

What were your hours of labour in that mill? —From 5 in the morning till 9 at night, when they were thronged.

For how long a time together have you worked that excessive length of time? —For about half a year.

What were your usual hours when you were not so thronged? —From 6 in the morning till 7 at night.

What time was allowed for your meals? —Forty minutes at noon.

Had you any time to get your breakfast or drinking? —No, we got it as we could.

And when your work was bad, you had hardly any time to eat it at all? —No; we were obliged to leave it or take it home, and when we did not take it, the overlooker took it, and gave it to his pigs.

Do you consider doffing a laborious employment? —Yes.

Explain what it is you had to do? —When the frames are full, they have to stop the frames, and take the flyers off, and take the full bobbins off, and carry them to the roller; and then put empty ones on, and set the frame going again.

Does that keep you constantly on your feet? —Yes, there are so many frames, and they run so quick.

Your labour is very excessive? —Yes; you have not time for any thing.

Suppose you flagged a little, or were too late, what would they do? —Strap us.

Are they in the habit of strapping those who are last in doffing? —Yes.

Constantly? —Yes.

Girls as well as boys? —Yes.

Have you ever been strapped? —Yes.

Severely? —Yes.

Could you eat your food well in that factory? —No, indeed I had not much to eat, and the little I had I could not eat it, my appetite was so poor, and being covered with dust; and it was no use to take it home, I could not eat it, and the overlooker took it, and gave it to the pigs.

You are speaking of the breakfast? —Yes.

How far had you to go for dinner? —We could not go home to dinner.

Where did you dine? —In the mill.

Did you live far from the mill? —Yes, two miles.

Had you a clock? —No, we had not.

Supposing you had not been in time enough in the morning at these mills, what would have been the consequence? —We should have been quartered.

What do you mean by that? —If we were a quarter of an hour too late, they would take off half an hour; we only got a penny an hour, and they would take a halfpenny more.

The fine was much more considerable than the loss of time? —Yes.

Were you also beaten for being too late? —No, I was never beaten myself, I have seen the boys beaten for being too late.

Were you generally there in time? —Yes; my mother had been up at 4 o’clock in the morning, and at 2 o’clock in the morning; the colliers used to go to their work about 3 or 4 o’clock, and when she heard them stirring she has got up out of her warm bed, and gone out and asked them the time; and I have sometimes been at Hunslet Car at 2 o’clock in the morning, when it was streaming down with rain, and we have had to stay until the mill was opened.

[Parliamentary Papers,
1831-1832, XV, 195.]

Peter Smart, called in; and Examined.

You say you were locked up night and day? —Yes.

Do the children ever attempt to run away? —Very often.

Were they pusued and brought back again? —Yes, the overseer pursued them, and brought them back.

Did you ever attempt to run away? —Yes, I ran away twice.

And you were brought back? —Yes; and I was sent up to the master’s loft, and thrashed with a whip for running away.

Were you bound to this man? —Yes, for six years.

By whom were you bound? —My mother got 15s. for the six years.

Do you know whether the children were, in point of fact, compelled to stop during the whole time for which they were engaged? —Yes, they were.

By law? —I cannot say by law; but they were compelled by the master; I never saw any law used there but the law of their own hands.

To what mill did you next go? —To Mr. Webster’s, at Battus Den, within eleven miles of Dundee.

In what situation did you act there? —I acted as overseer.

At 17 years of age? —Yes.

Did you inflict the same punishment that you yourself had experienced? —I went as an overseer; not as a slave, but as a slave-driver.

What were the hours of labour in that mill? —My master told me that I had to produce a certain quantity of yarn; the hours were at that time fourteen; I said that I was not able to produce the quantity of yarn that was required; I told him if he took the timepiece out of the mill I would produce that quantity, and after that time I found no difficulty in producing the quantity.

How long have you worked per day in order to produce the quantity your master required? —I have wrought nineteen hours.

Was this a water-mill? —Yes, water and steam both.

To what time have you worked? —I have seen the mill going till it was past 12 o’clock on the Saturday night.

So that the mill was still working on the Sabbath morning? —Yes.

Were the workmen paid by the piece, or by the day? —No, all had stated wages.

Did not that almost compel you to use great severity to the hands then under you? —Yes; I was compelled often to beat them, in order to get them to attend to their work, from their being over-wrought.

Were not the children exceedingly fatigued at that time? —Yes, exceedingly fatigued.

Were the children bound in the same way in that mill? —No; they were bound from one year’s end to another, for twelve months.

Did you keep the hands locked up in the same way in that mill? —Yes, we locked up the mill; but we did not lock the bothy.

Did you find that the children were unable to pursue their labour properly to that extent? —Yes; they have been brought to that condition, that I have gone and fetched up the doctor to them, to see what was the matter with them, and to know whether they were able to rise or not able to rise; they were not at all able to rise; we have had great difficulty in getting them up.

When that was the case, how long have they been in bed, generally speaking? —Perhaps not above four or five hours in their beds.

[Parliamentary Papers,
1831-1832, XV, 197.]

MISSOURI COMPROMISE

1820

An Act to authorize the people of the Missouri territory to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, and to prohibit slavery in certain territories.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the inhabitants of that portion of the Missouri territory included within the boundaries herein after designated, be, and they are hereby, authorized to form for themselves a constitution and state government, and to assume such name as they shall deem proper; and the said state, when formed, shall be admitted into the Union, upon an equal footing with the original states, in all respects whatsoever.

SEC.2. And be it further enacted, That the said state shall consist of all the territory included within the following boundaries, to wit: Beginning in the middle of the Mississippi river, on the parallel of thirty-six degrees of north latitude; thence west, along that parallel of latitude, to the St. Francois river; thence up, and following the course of that river, in the middle of the main channel thereof, to the parallel of latitude of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes; thence west, along the same, to a point where the said parallel is intersected by a meridian line passing through the middle of the mouth of the Kansas river, where the same empties into the Missouri river, thence, from the point aforesaid north, along the said meridian line, to the intersection of the parallel of latitude which passes through the rapids of the river Des Moines, making the said line to correspond with the Indian boundary line; thence east, from the point of intersection last aforesaid, along the said parallel of latitude, to the middle of the channel of the main fork of the said river Des Moines; thence down arid along the middle of the main channel of the said river Des Moines, to the mouth of the same, where it empties into the Mississippi river; thence, due east, to the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi river; thence down, and following the course of the Mississippi river, in the middle of the main channel thereof, to the place of beginning: Provided, The said state shall ratify the boundaries aforesaid. And provided also, That the said state shall have concurrent jurisdiction on the river Mississippi, and every other river bordering on the said state so far as the said rivers shall form a common boundary to the said state; and any other state or states, now or hereafter to be formed and bounded by the same, such rivers to be common to both; and that the river Mississippi, and the navigable rivers and waters leading into the same, shall be common highways, and for ever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said state as to other citizens of the United States, without any tax, duty impost, or toll, therefor, imposed by the said state.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That all free white male citizens of the United States, who shall have arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and have resided in said territory: three months previous to the day of election, and all other persons qualified to vote for representatives to the general assembly of the said territory, shall be qualified to be elected and they are hereby qualified and authorized to vote, and choose representatives to form a convention, who shall be apportioned amongst the several counties as follows:

From the county of Howard, five representatives. From the county of Cooper, three representatives. From the county of Montgomery, two representatives. From the county of Pike, one representative. From the county of Lincoln, one representative. From the county of St. Charles, three representatives. From the county of Franklin, one representative. From the county of St. Louis, eight representatives. From the county of Jefferson, one representative. From the county of Washington, three representatives. From the county of St. Genevieve, four representatives. From the county of Madison, one representative. From the county of Cape Girardeau, five representatives. From the county of New Madrid, two representatives. From the county of Wayne, and that portion of the county of Lawrence which falls within the boundaries herein designated, one representative.

And the election for the representatives aforesaid shall be holden on the first Monday, and two succeeding days of May next, throughout the several counties aforesaid in the said territory, and shall be, in every respect, held and conducted in the same manner, and under the same regulations as is prescribed by the laws of the said territory regulating elections therein for members of the general assembly, except that the returns of the election in that portion of Lawrence county included in the boundaries aforesaid, shall be made to the county of Wayne, as is provided in other cases under the laws of said territory.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the members of the conven tion thus duly elected, shall be, and they are hereby authorized to meet at the seat of government of said territory on the second Monday of the month of June next; and the said convention, when so assembled, shall have power and authority to adjourn to any other place in the said territory, which to them shall seem best for the convenient transaction of their business; and which convention, when so met, shall first determine by a majority of the whole number elected, whether it be, or be not, expedient at that time to form a constitution and state government for the people within the said territory, as included within the boundaries above designated; and if it be deemed expedient, the convention shall be, and hereby is, authorized to form a constitution and state government; or, if it be deemed more expedient, the said convention shall provide by ordinance for electing representatives to form a constitution or frame of government; which said representatives shall be chosen in such manner, and in such proportion as they shall designate; and shall meet at such time and place as shall be prescribed by the said ordinance; and shall then form for the people of said territory, within the boundaries aforesaid, a constitution and state government: Provided, That the same, whenever formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the constitution of the United States; and that the legislature of said state shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States, nor with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title in such soil to the bona fide purchasers; and that no tax shall be imposed on lands the property of the United States; and in no case shall non-resident proprietors be taxed higher than residents.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That until the next general census shall be taken, the said state shall be entitled to one representative in the House of Representatives of the United States.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the following propositions be, and the same are hereby, offered to the convention of the said territory of Missouri, when formed, for their free acceptance or rejection, which, if accepted by the convention, shall be obligatory upon the United States:
First. That section numbered sixteen in every township, and when such section has been sold, or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto, and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to the state for the use of the inhabitants of such township, for the use of schools.
Second. That all salt springs, not exceeding twelve in number, with six sections of land adjoining to each, shall be granted to the said state for the use of said state, the same to be selected by the legislature of the said state, on or before the first day of January, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five; and the same, when so selected, to be used under such terms, conditions, and regulations, as the legislature of said state shall direct: Provided, That no salt spring, the right whereof now is, or hereafter shall be, confirmed or adjudged to any individual or individuals, shall, by this section, be granted to the said state: And provided also, That the legislature shall never sell or lease the same, at anyone time, for a longer period than ten years, without the consent of Congress.
Third. That five per cent. of the net proceeds of the sale of lands lying within the said territory or state, and which shall be sold by Congress, from and after the first day of January next, after deducting all expenses incident to the same, shall be reserved for making public roads and canals, of which three fifths shall be applied to those objects within the state, under the direction of the legislature thereof; and the other two fifths in defraying, under the direction of Congress, the expenses to be incurred in making of a road or roads, canal or canals, leading to the said state.
Fourth. That four entire sections of land be, and the same are hereby, granted to the said state, for the purpose of fixing their seat of government thereon; which said sections shall, under the direction of the legislature of said state, be located, as near as may be, in one body, at any time, in such townships and ranges as the legislature aforesaid may select, on any of the public lands of the United States: Provided, That such locations shall be made prior to the public sale of the lands of the United States surrounding such location.
Fifth. That thirty-six sections, or one entire township, which shall be designated by the President of the United States, together with the other lands heretofore reserved for that purpose, shall be reserved for the use of a seminary of learning, and vested in the legislature of said state, to be appropriated solely to the use of such seminary by the said legislature: Provided, That the five foregoing propositions herein offered, are on the condition that the convention of the said state shall provide, by an ordinance, irrevocable without the consent or the United States, that every and each tract of land sold by the United States, from and after the firsl day of January next, shall remain exempt from any tax laid by order or under the authority of the state, whether for state, county, or township, or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years from and after the day of sale; And further, That the bounty lands granted, or hereafter to be granted, for military services during the late war, shall, while they continue to be held by the patentees, or their heirs remain exempt as aforesaid from taxation for the term of three year; from and after the date of the patents respectively.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That in case a constitution and state government shall be formed for the people of the said territory of Missouri, the said convention or representatives, as soon thereafter as may be, shall cause a true and attested copy of such constitution or frame of state government, as shall be formed or provided, to be transmitted to Congress.

SEC. 8. And be it further enacted. That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the state, contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibited: Provided always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labour or service is lawfully claimed, in any state or territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labour or service as aforesaid.

APPROVED, March 6, 1820.

COMPROMISE OF 1850

The six documents transcribed here are Henry Clay’s Resolution and the five statutes approved by Congress. The acts established a boundary between Texas and the United States, called for the admission of California as a “free state,” provided for a territorial government for Utah and New Mexico, called for the abolition of slave trade in Washington, DC, and amended the Fugitive Slave Act.

IN SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

January 29, 1850

Mr. Clay submitted for consideration the following

RESOLUTIONS:

It being desirable, for the peace, concord, and harmony of the Union of these States, to settle and adjust amicably all existing questions of controversy between them arising out of the institution of slavery upon a fair, equitable and just basis: therefore,

1st. Resolved, That California, with suitable boundaries, ought, upon her application to be admitted as one of the States of this Union, without the imposition by Congress of any restriction in respect to the exclusion or introduction of slavery within those boundaries.

2d. Resolved, That as slavery does not exist by law, and is not likely to be introduced into any of the territory acquired by the United States from the republic of Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress to provide by law either for its introduction into, or exclusion from, any part of the said territory; and that appropriate territorial governments ought to be established by Congress in all of the said territory, not assigned as the boundaries of the proposed State of California, without the adoption of any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery.

3d. Resolved, That the western boundary of the State of Texas ought to be fixed on the Rio del Norte, commencing one marine league from its mouth, and running up that river to the southern line of New Mexico; thence with that line eastwardly, and so continuing in the same direction to the line as established between the United States and Spain, excluding any portion of New Mexico, whether lying on the east or west of that river.

4th. Resolved, That it be proposed to the State of Texas, that the United States will provide for the payment of all that portion of the legitimate and bona fide public debt of that State contracted prior to its annexation to the United States, and for which the duties on foreign imports were pledged by the said State to its creditors, not exceeding the sum of $—dollars, in consideration of the said duties so pledged having been no longer applicable to that object after the said annexation, but having thenceforward become payable to the United States; and upon the condition, also, that the said State of Texas shall, by some solemn and authentic act of her legislature or of a convention, relinquish to the United States any claim which it has to any part of New Mexico.

5th. Resolved, That it is inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia whilst that institution continues to exist in the State of Maryland, without the consent of that State, without the consent of the people of the District, and without just compensation to the owners of slaves within the District.

6. But, resolved, That it is expedient to prohibit, within the District, the slave trade in slaves brought into it from States or places beyond the limits of the District, either to be sold therein as merchandise, or to be transported to other markets without the District of Columbia.

7. Resolved, That more effectual provision ought to be made by law, according to the requirement of the constitution, for the restitution and delivery of persons bound to service or labor in any State, who may escape into any other State or Territory in the Union. And,

8. Resolved, That Congress has no power to promote or obstruct the trade in slaves between the slave-holding States; but that the admission or exclusion of slaves brought from one into another of them, depends exclusively upon their own particular laws.

An Act
proposing to the State of Texas the Establishment of her Northern and Western Boundaries, the Relinquishment by the said State of all Territory claimed by her exterior to said boundaries, and of all her Claims upon the United States, and to establish a territorial Government for New Mexico.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following propositions shall be, and the same hereby are, offered to the State of Texas, which, when agreed to by the said State, in an act passed by the general assembly, shall be binding and obligatory upon the United States, and upon the said State of Texas: Provided, The said agreement by the said general assembly shall be given on or before the first day of December, eighteen hundred and fifty:

FIRST. The State of Texas will agree that her boundary on the north shall commence at the point at which the meridian of one hundred degrees west from Greenwich is intersected by the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, and shall run from said point due west to the meridian of one hundred and three degrees west from Greenwich; thence her boundary shall run due south to the thirty-second degree of north latitude; thence on the said parallel of thirty-two degrees of north latitude to the Rio Bravo del Norte, and thence with the channel of said river to the Gulf of Mexico.

SECOND. The State of Texas cedes to the United States all her claim to territory exterior to the limits and boundaries which she agrees to establish by the first article of this agreement.

THIRD. The State of Texas relinquishes all claim upon the United States for liability of the debts of Texas, and for compensation or indemnity for the surrender to the United States of her ships, forts, arsenals, custom-houses, custom-house revenue, arms and munitions of war, and public buildings with their sites, which became the property of the United States at the time of the annexation.

FOURTH. The United States, in consideration of said establishment of boundaries, cession of claim to territory, and relinquishment of claims, will pay to the State of Texas the sum of ten millions of dollars in a stock bearing five per cent. interest, and redeemable at the end of fourteen years, the interest payable half-yearly at the treasury of the United States.

FIFTH. Immediately after the President of the United States shall have been furnished with an authentic copy of the act of the general assembly of Texas accepting these propositions, he shall cause the stock to be issued in favor of the State of Texas, as provided for in the fourth article of this agreement: Provided, also, That no more than five millions of said stock shall be issued until the creditors of the State holding bonds and other certificates of stock of Texas for which duties on imports were specially pledged, shall first file at the treasury of the United States releases of all claim against the United States for or on account of said bonds or certificates in such form as shall be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury and approved by the president of the United States: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to impair or qualify any thing contained in the third article of the second section of the “Joint resolution for annexing Texas to the United States,” approved March first, eighteen hundred and forty-five; either as regards the number of States that may hereafter be formed out of the State of Texas, or otherwise.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That all that portion of the Territory of the United States bounded as follows: Beginning at a point in the Colorado River where the boundary line with the republic of Mexico crosses the same; thence eastwardly with the said boundary line to the Rio Grande; thence following the main channel of said river the parallel of the thirty-second degree of north latitude; thence east with said degree to its intersection with the one hundred and third degree of longitude west of Greenwich; thence north with said degree of longitude to the parallel of thirty-eighth degree of north latitude; thence west with said parallel to the summit of the Sierra Madre; thence south with the crest of said mountains to the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude; thence west with said parallel to its intersection with the boundary line of the State of California; thence with said boundary line to the place of beginningbe, and the same is hereby, erected into a temporary government, by the name of the Territory of New Mexico: Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to inhibit the government of the United States from dividing said Territory into two or more Territories, in such manner and at such times as Congress shall deem convenient and proper, or from attaching any portion thereof to any other Territory or State: And provided, further, That, when admitted as a State, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the executive power and authority in and over said Territory of New Mexico shall be vested in, a governor, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States. The governor shall reside within said Territory, shall be commander-in-chief of the militia thereof, shall perform the duties and receive the emoluments of superintendent of Indian affairs, and shall approve all laws passed by the legislative assembly before they shall take effect; he may grant pardons for offences against the laws of said Territory, and reprieves for offences against the laws of the United States, until the decision of the President can be made known thereon. he shall commission all officers who shall be appointed to office under the laws of the said Territory, and shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That there shall be a secretary of said Territory, who shall reside therein, and hold his office for four years, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States; he shall record and preserve all the laws and proceedings of the legislative assembly hereinafter constituted and all the acts and proceedings of the governor in his executive department; he shall transmit one copy of the laws and one copy of the executive proceedings, on or before the first day of December in each year, to the President of the United States, and, at the same time, two copies of the laws to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate, for the use of Congress. And, in case of the death, removal, resignation, or other necessary absence of the governor from the Territory, the secretary shall have, and he is hereby authorized and required to execute and perform all the powers and duties of the governor during such vacancy or necessary absence, or until another governor shall be duly appointed to fill such vacancy.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That the legislative power and authority of said Territory shall be vested in the governor and a legislative assembly. The legislative assembly shall consist of a Council and House of Representatives. The Council shall consist of thirteen members, having the qualifications of voters as hereinafter prescribed, whose term of service shall continue two years. The House of Representatives shall consist of twenty-six members, possessing the same qualifications as prescribed for members of the Council, and whose term of service shall continue one year. An apportionment shall be made, as nearly equal as practicable, among the several counties or districts, for the election of the Council and House of Representatives, giving to each section of the Territory representation in the ratio of its population, (Indians excepted,) as nearly as may be. And the members of the Council and of the House of Representatives shall reside in, and be inhabitants of, the district for which they may be elected respectively. Previous to the first election, the governor shall cause a census or enumeration of the inhabitants of the several counties and districts of the Territory to be taken, and the first election shall be held at such time and places, and be conducted in such manner, as the governor shall appoint and direct; and he shall, at the same time, declare the number of the members of the Council and House of Representatives to which each of the counties or districts shall be entitled under this act. The number of persons authorized to be elected having the highest number of votes in each of said Council districts, for members of the Council, shall be declared by the governor to be duly elected to the Council; and the person or persons authorized to be elected having the greatest number of votes for the House of Representatives, equal to the number to which each county or district shall be entitled, shall be declared by the governor to be duly elected members of the House of Representatives: Provided, That in case of a tiebetween two or more persons voted for, the governor shall order a new election to supply the vacancy made by such tie. And the persons thus elected to the legislative assembly shall meet at such place and on such day as the governor shall appoint; but thereafter, the time, place, and manner of holding and conducting all elections by the people, and the apportioning the representation in the several counties or districts to the Council and House of Representatives according to the population, shall be prescribed by law, as well as the day of the commencement of the regular sessions of the legislative assembly: Provided, That no one session shall exceed the term of forty days.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That every free white male inhabitant, above the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of said Territory at the time of the passage of this act, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to any office within the said Territory; but the qualifications of voters and of holding office, at all subsequent elections, shall be such as shall be prescribed by the legislative assembly: Provided, That the right of suffrage, and of holding office, shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States, including those recognized as citizens by the treaty with the republic of Mexico, concluded February second, eighteen hundred and forty-eight.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the legislative power of the Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act; but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; no tax shall be imposed upon the property of the United States; nor shall the lands or other property of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other property of residents. All the laws passed by the legislative assembly and governor shall be submitted to the Congress of the United States, and, if disapproved, shall be null and of no effect.

SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That all township, district, and county officers. not herein otherwise provided for, shall be appointed or elected, as the case may be, in such manner as shall be provided by the governor and legislative assembly of the Territory of New Mexico. The governor shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the legislative Council, appoint, an officers not herein otherwise provided for; and in the first instance the governor alone may appoint all said officers, who shall hold their offices until the end of the first session of the legislative assembly, and shall lay off the necessary districts for members of the Council and House of Representatives, and all other officers.

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That no member of the legislative assembly shall hold, or be appointed to, any office which shall have been created, or the salary or emoluments of which shall have been increased while he was a member, during the term for which he was elected, and for one year after the expiration of such term; and no person holding a commission or appointment under the United States, except postmasters, shall be a member of the legislative assembly, or shall hold any office under the government of said Territory.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That the judicial power of said Territory shall be vested in a Supreme Court, District Courts, Probate Courts, and in justices of the peace. The Supreme Court shall consist of a chief justice and two associate justices, any two of whom shall constitute a quorum, and who shall hold a term at the seat of government of said Territory annually, and they shall hold their offices during the period of four years. The said Territory shall be divided into three judicial districts, and a District Court shall be held in each of said districts by one of the justices of the Supreme Court, at such time and place as may be prescribed by law; and the said judges shall, after their appointments, respectively, reside in the districts which shall be assigned them. The jurisdiction of the several courts herein provided for, both appellate and original, and that of the Probate Courts and of justices of the peace, shall be as limited by law: Provided, That justices of the peace shall not have jurisdiction of any matter in controversy when the title or boundaries of land may be in dispute, or where the debt or sum claimed shall exceed one hundred dollars; and the said Supreme and District Courts, respectively, shall possess chancery as well as common law jurisdiction. Each District Court, or the judge thereof, shall appoint its clerk, who shall also be the register in chancery, and shall keep his office at the place where the court may be held. Writs of error, bills of exception, and appeals, shall be allowed in all cases from the final decisions of said District Courts to the Supreme Court, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law, but in no case removed to the Supreme Court shall trial by jury be allowed in said court. The Supreme Court, or the justices thereof, shall appoint its own clerk, and every clerk shall hold his office at the pleasure of the court for which he shall have been appointed. Writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of said Supreme Court shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the Circuit Courts of the United States, where the value of the property or the amount in controversy, to be ascertained by the oath or affirmation of either party, or other competent witness, shall exceed one thousand dollars; except only that in all cases involving title to slaves, the said writs of error or appeals shall be allowed and decided by the said Supreme Court without regard to the value of the matter, property, or title in controversy; and except also that a writ of error or appeal shall also be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States from the decision of the said Supreme Court created by this act, or of any judge thereof, or of the District Courts created by this act, or of any judge thereof, upon any writ of habeas corpus involving the question of personal freedom; and each of the said District Courts shall have and exercise the same jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States as is vested in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States; and the said Supreme and District Courts of the said Territory, and the respective judges thereof, shall and may grant writs of habeas corpus in all cases in which the same are grantable by the judges of the United States in the District of Columbia; and the first six days of every term of said courts, or so much thereof as shall be necessary, shall be appropriated to the trial of causes arising under the said Constitution and laws; and writs of error and appeals in all such cases shall be made to the Supreme Court of said Territory, the same as in other cases. The said clerk shall receive in all such cases the same fees which the clerks of the District Courts of Oregon Territory now receive for similar services.

SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That there shall be appointed an attorney for said Territory, who shall continue in office for four years, unless sooner removed by the President, and who shall receive the same fees and salary as the attorney of the United States for the present Territory of Oregon. There shall also be a marshal for the Territory appointed, who shall hold his office for four years, unless sooner removed by the president, and who shall execute all processes issuing from the said courts when exercising their jurisdiction as Circuit and District Courts of the United States: he shall perform the duties, be subject to the same regulation and penalties, and be entitled to the same fees as the marshal of the District Court of the United States for the present Territory of Oregon, and shall, in addition, be paid two hundred [dollars] annually as a compensation for extra services.

SEC. 12. And be it further enacted, That the governor secretary, chief justice and associate justices, attorney and marshal shall be nominated, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointed by the President of the United States. The governor and secretary, to be appointed as aforesaid, shall, before they act as such, respectively take an oath or affirmation, before the district judge, or some justice of the peace in the limits of said Territory, duly authorized to administer oaths and affirmations by the laws now in force therein, or before the chief justice or some associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to support the Constitution of the United States, and faithfully to discharge the duties of their respective offices; which said oaths, when so taken, shall be certified by the person by whom the same shall have been taken, and such certificates shall be received and recorded by the said secretary among the executive proceedings; and the chief justice and associate justices, and all other civil officers in said Territory, before they act as such, shall take a like oath or affirmation, before the said governor or secretary, or some judge or justice of the peace of the Territory, who may be duly commissioned and qualified, which said oath or affirmation shall be certified and transmitted, by the person taking the same, to the secretary, to be by him recorded as aforesaid; and afterwards, the like oath or affirmation shall be taken, certified, and recorded, in such manner and form as may be prescribed by law. The governor shall receive an annual salary of fifteen hundred dollars as governor, and one thousand dollars as superintendent of Indian affairs. The chief justice and associate justices shall each receive an annual salary of eighteen hundred dollars. The secretary shall receive an annual salary of eighteen hundred dollars. The said salaries shall be paid quarter-yearly, at the treasury of the United States. The members of the legislative assembly shall be entitled to receive three dollars each per day during their attendance at the sessions thereof, and three dollars each for every twenty miles’ travel in going to and returning from the said sessions, estimated according to the nearest usually travelled route. There shall be appropriated annually the sum of one thousand dollars, to be expended by the governor, to defray the contingent expenses of the Territory; there shall also be appropriated annually a sufficient sum to be expended by the secretary of the Territory, and upon an estimate to be made by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, to defray the expenses of the legislative assembly, the printing of the laws, and other incidental expenses; and the secretary of the Territory shall annually account to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States for the manner in which the aforesaid sum shall have been expended.

SEC. 13. And be it further enacted, That the legislative assembly of the Territory of New Mexico shall hold its first session at such time and place in said Territory as the Governor thereof shall appoint and direct; and at said first session, or as soon thereafter as they shall deem expedient, the governor and legislative assembly shall proceed to locate and establish the seat of government for said Territory at such place as they may deem eligible; which place, however, shall thereafter be subject to be changed by the said governor and legislative assembly.

SEC. 14. And be it further enacted, That a delegate to the House of Representatives of the United States, to serve during each Congress of the United States, may be elected by the voters qualified to elect members of the legislative assembly, who shall be entitled to the same rights and privileges as are exercised and enjoyed by the delegates from the several other Territories of the United States to the said House of Representatives. The first election shall be held at such time and places, and be conducted in such manner, as the governor shall appoint and direct; and at all subsequent elections, the times, places, and manner of holding the elections shall be prescribed by law. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be declared by the governor to be duly elected, and a certificate thereof shall be given accordingly: Provided, That such delegate shall receive no higher sum for mileage than is allowed by law to the delegate from Oregon.

SEC. 15. And be it further enacted, That when the lands in said Territory shall be surveyed under the direction of the government of the United States, preparatory to bringing the same into market, sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in each township in said Territory shall be, and the same are hereby, reserved for the purpose of being applied to schools in said Territory, and in the States and Territories hereafter to be erected out of the same..

SEC. 16. And be it further enacted, That temporarily and until otherwise provided by law, the governor of said Territory may define the judicial districts of said Territory, and assign the judges who may be appointed for said Territory to the several districts, and also appoint the times and places for holding courts in the several counties or subdivisions in each of said judicial districts, by proclamation to be issued by him; but the legislative assembly, at their first or any subsequent session, may organize, alter, or modify such judicial districts, and assign the judges, and alter the times and places of holding the courts, as to them shall seem proper and convenient.

SEC. 17. And be it further enacted, That the Constitution, and all laws of the United States which are not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory of New Mexico as elsewhere within the United States.

SEC. 18. And be it further enacted, That the provisions of this act be, and they are hereby, suspended until the boundary between the United States and the State of Texas shall be adjusted; and when such adjustment shall have been effected, the President of the United States shall issue his proclamation, declaring this act to be in full force and operation, and shall proceed to appoint the officers herein provided to be appointed in and for said Territory.

SEC. 19. And be it further enacted, That no citizen of the United States shall be deprived of his life, liberty, or property, in said Territory, except by the judgment of his peers and the laws of the land.

APPROVED, September 9, 1850.

An Act
for the admission of the State of California into the Union.

Whereas the people of California have presented a constitution and asked admission into the Union, which constitution was submitted to Congress by the President of the United States, by message dated February thirteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty, and which, on doe examination, is found to be republican in its form of government:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the State of California shall be one, and is hereby declared to be one, of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That, until the representatives in Congress shall be apportioned according to an actual enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States, the State of California shall be entitled to two representatives in Congress.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the said State of California is admitted into the Union upon the express condition that the people of said State, through their legislature or otherwise, shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the public lands within its limits, and shall pass no law and do no act whereby the title of the United States to, and right to dispose of, the same shall be impaired or questioned; and that they shall never lay any tax or assessment of any description whatsoever upon the public domain of the United States, and in no case shall non-resident proprietors, who are citizens of the United States, be taxed higher than residents; and that all the navigable waters within the said State shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of said State as to the citizens of the United States, without any tax, impost, or duty therefor: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed as recognizing or rejecting the propositions tendered by the people of California as articles of compact in the ordinance adopted by the convention which formed the constitution of that State.

APPROVED, September 9, 1850.

An Act
to establish a Territorial Government for Utah.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all that part of the territory of the United States included within the following limits, to wit: bounded on the west by the State of California, on the north by the Territory of Oregon, and on the east by the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and on the south by the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude, be, and the same is hereby, created into a temporary government, by the name of the Territory of Utah; and, when admitted as a State, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission: Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to inhibit the government of the United States from dividing said Territory into two or more Territories, in such manner and at such times as Congress shall deem convenient and proper, or from attaching any portion of said Territory to any other State or Territory of the United States.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the executive power and authority in and over said Territory of Utah shall be vested in a governor, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States. The governor shall reside within said Territory, shall be commander-in-chief of the militia thereof, shall perform the duties and receive the emoluments of superintendent of Indian affairs, and shall approve all laws passed by the legislative assembly before they shall take effect: he may grant pardons for offences against the laws of said Territory, and reprieves for offences against the laws of the United States, until the decision of the President can be made known thereon; he shall commission all officers who shall be appointed to office under the laws of the said Territory, and shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That there shall be a secretary of said Territory, who shall reside therein, and hold his office for four years, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States: he shall record and preserve all the laws and proceedings of the legislative assembly hereinafter constituted, and all the acts and proceedings of the governor in his executive department; he shall transmit one copy of the laws and one copy of the executive proceedings, on or before the first day of December in each year, to the President of the United States, and, at the same time, two copies of the laws to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the President of the Senate, for the use of Congress. And in the case of the death, removal, resignation, or other necessary absence of the governor from the Territory, the secretary shall have, and he is hereby authorized and required to execute and perform, all the powers and duties of the governor during such vacancy or necessary absence, or until another governor shall be duly appointed to fill such vacancy.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the legislative power and authority of said Territory shall be vested in the governor and a legislative assembly. The legislative assembly shall consist of a Council and House of Representatives. The Council shall consist of thirteen members, having the qualifications of voters as hereinafter prescribed, whose term of service shall continue two years. The House of Representatives shall consist of twenty-six members, possessing the same qualifications as prescribed for members of the Council, and, whose term of service shall continue one year. An apportionment shall be made, as nearly equal as practicable, among the several coun-ties or districts, for the election of the Council and House of Representatives, giving to each section of the Territory representation in the ratio of its population, Indians excepted, as nearly as may be. And the members of the Council and of the House of Representatives shall reside in, and be inhabitants of, the district for which they may be elected respectively. Previous to the first election, the governor shall cause a census or enumeration of the inhabitants of the several counties and districts of the Territory to be taken, and the first election shall be held at such time and places, and be conducted in such manner, as the governor shall appoint and direct; and he shall, at the same time, declare the number of members of the Council and House of Representatives to which each of the counties or districts shall be entitled under this act. The number of persons authorized to be elected having the highest number of votes in each of said Council districts for members of the Council, shall be declared by the governor to be duly elected to the Council; and the person or persons authorized to be elected having the highest number of votes for the House of Representatives, equal to the number to which each county or district shall be entitled, shall be declared by the governor to be duly elected members or the House of Representatives: Provided, That in case of a tie between two or more persons voted for, the governor shall order a new election to supply the vacancy made by such a tie. And the persons thus elected to the legislative assembly shall meet at such place, and on such day, as the governor shall appoint; but thereafter, the time, place, and manner of holding and conducting all elections by the people, and the apportioning the representation in the several counties or districts to the Council and House of Representatives, according to population, shall be prescribed by law, as well as the day of the commencement of the regular sessions of the legislative assembly: Provided That no one session shall exceed the term of forty days.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That every free white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident or said Territory at the time of the passage of this act, shall he entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to any office within the said Territory; but the qualifications of voters and of holding office, at all subsequent elections, shall be such as shall be prescribed by the legislative assembly: Provided, That the right of suffrage and of holding office shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States, including those recognized as citizens by the treaty with the republic of Mexico, concluded February second, eighteen hundred and forty-eight.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the legislative power of said Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act; but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; no tax shall be imposed upon the property of the United States; nor shall the lands or other property of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other property of residents. All the laws passed by the legislative assembly and governor shall be submitted to the Congress of the United States, and, if disapproved, shall be null and of no effect.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That all township, district, and county officers, not herein otherwise provided for, shall be appointed or elected, as the case may be, in such manner as shall be provided by the governor and legislative assembly of the territory of Utah. The governor shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the legislative Council, appoint all officers not herein otherwise provided for; and in the first instance the governor alone may appoint all said officers, who shall hold their offices until the end of the first session of the legislative assembly, and shall layoff the necessary districts for members of the Council and House of Representatives, and all other offices.

SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That no member of the legislative assembly shall hold or be appointed to any office which shall have been created, or the salary or emoluments of which shall have been increased while he was a member, during the term for which he was elected, and for one year after the expiration of such term; and no person holding a commission or appointment under the United States, except postmasters, shall be a member of the legislative assembly, or shall hold any office under the government of said Territory.

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That the judicial power of said Territory shall be vested in a Supreme Court, District Courts, Probate Courts, and in justices of the peace. The Supreme Court shall consist of a chief justice and two associate justices, any two of whom shall constitute a quorum, and who shall hold a term at the Beat of government of said Territory annually, and they shall hold their offices during the period of four years. The said Territory shall be divided into three judicial districts, and a District Court shall be held in each of said districts by one of the justices of the Supreme Court, at such time and place as may be prescribed by law; and the said judges shall, after their appointments, respectively, reside in the districts which shall be assigned them. The jurisdiction of the several courts herein provided for, both appellate and original, and that of the Probate Courts and of justices of the peace, shall be as limited by law: Provided, That justices of the peace shall not have jurisdiction of any matter in controversy when the title or boundaries of land may be in dispute, or where the debt or sum claimed shall exceed one hundred dollars; and the said Supreme and District Courts, respectively, shall possess chancery as well as common law jurisdiction. Each District Court, or the judge thereof, shall appoint its clerk, who shall also be the register in chancery, and shall keep his office at the place where the court may be held. Writs of error, bills of exception, and appeals shall be allowed in all cases from the final decisions of said District Courts to the Supreme Court, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law; but in no case removed to the Supreme Court shall trial by jury be allowed in said court. The Supreme Court, or the justices thereof, shall appoint its own clerk, and every clerk shall hold his office at the pleasure of the court for which he shall have been appointed. Writs of error, and appeals from the final decisions of said Supreme Court, shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the Circuit Courts of the United States, where the value of the property or the amount in controversy, to be ascertained by the oath or affirmation of either party, or other competent witness, shall exceed one thousand dollars, except only that, in all cases involving title to slaves, the said writs of error or appeals shall be allowed and decided by the said Supreme Court, without regard to the value of the matter, property, or title in controversy; and except also, that a writ of error or appeal shall also be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, from the decisions of the said Supreme Court created by this act or of any judge thereof or of the District Courts created by this act or of any judge thereof, upon any writ of habeas corpus involving the question of personal freedom; and each of the said District Courts shall have and exercise the same jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States as is vested in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States; and the said Supreme and District Courts of the said Territory, and the respective judges thereof shall and may grant writs of habeas corpus in all cases in which the same are granted by the judges of the United States in the District of Columbia; and the first six days of every term of said courts, or so much thereof as shall be necessary. shall be appropriated to the trial of causes arising under the said Constitution and laws; and writs of error and appeal, in all such cases, shall be made to the Supreme Court of said Territory, the same as in other cases. The said clerk shall receive in all such cases the same fees which the clerks of the District Courts of Oregon Territory now receive for similar services.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That there shall be appointed an attorney for said Territory, who shall continue in office for four years, unless sooner removed by the President, and who shall receive the same fees and salary as the attorney of the United States for the present Territory of Oregon. There shall also be a marshal for the Territory appointed, who shall hold his office for four years, unless sooner removed by the President, and who shall execute all processes issuing from the said courts, when exercising their jurisdiction as Circuit and District Courts of the United States: he shall perform the duties, be subject to the same regulation and penalties, and be entitled to the same fees as the marshal of the District Court of the United States for the present Territory of Oregon; and shall, in addition, be paid two hundred dollars annually as a compensation for extra services.

SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That the governor, secretary, chief justice and associate justices, attorney and marshal, shall be nominated, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointed by the President of the United States. The governor and secretary to be appointed as aforesaid shall, before they act as such. respectively, take an oath or affirmation, before the district judge, or some justice of the peace in the limits of said Territory, duly authorized to administer oaths and affirmations by the laws now in force there-in or before the chief justice or some associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to support the Constitution of the United States, and faithfully to discharge the duties of their respective offices; which said oaths, when so taken, shall be certified by the person by whom the same shall have been taken, and such certificates shall be received and recorded by the said secretary among the executive proceedings; and the chief justice and associate justices, and all other civil officers in said Territory, before they act as such, shall take a like oath or affirmation, before the said governor or secretary, or some judge or justice of the peace of the Territory who may be duly commissioned and qualified, which said oath or affirmation shall be certified and transmitted, by the person taking the same, to the secretary, to be by him recorded as aforesaid; and afterwards, the like oath or affirmation shall be taken, certified, and recorded, in such manner and form as may he prescribed by law. The governor shall receive an annual salary of fifteen hundred dollars as governor, and one thousand dollars as superintendent of Indian affairs. The chief justice and associate justices shall each receive an annual salary of eighteen hundred dollars. The secretary shall receive an annual salary of eighteen hundred dollars. The said salaries shall be paid quarteryearly, at the treasury of the United States. The members of the legislative assembly shall be entitled to receive three dollars each per day during their attendance at the sessions thereof, and three dollars each for twenty miles’ travel, in going to and returning from the said sessions, estimated according to the nearest usually travelled route. There shall be appropriated annually the sum of one thousand dollars, to be expended by the governor, to defray the contingent expenses of the Territory. There shall also be appropriated, annually, a sufficient sum, to be expended by the secretary of the Territory, and upon an estimate to be made by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, to defray the expenses of the legislative assembly, the printing of the laws, and other incidental expenses; and the secretary of the Territory shall annually account to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States for the manner in which the aforesaid sum shall have been expended.

SEC. 12. And be it further enacted, That the legislative assembly of the Territory of Utah shall hold its first session at such time and place in said Territory as the governor thereof shall appoint and direct; and at said first session, or as soon thereafter as they shall deem expedient, the governor and legislative assembly shall proceed to locate and establish the seat of government for said Territory at such place as they may deem eligible; which place, however, shall thereafter be, subject to be changed by the said governor and legislative assembly. And the sum of twenty thousand dollars, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, is hereby appropriated and granted to said Territory of Utah to be applied by the governor and legislative assembly to the erection of suitable public buildings at the seat of government.

SEC. 13. And be it further enacted, That a delegate to the House of Representatives of the United States, to serve during each Congress of the United States, may be elected by the voters qualified to elect members of the legislative assembly, who shall be entitled to the same rights and privileges as are exercised and enjoyed by the delegates from the several other Territories of the United States to the said House of Representatives. The first election shall be held at such time and places, and be conducted in such manner, as the governor shall appoint and direct; and at all subsequent elections, the times, places, and manner of holding the elections shall be prescribed by law. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be declared by the governor to be duly elected, and a certificate thereof shall be given accordingly: Provided, That said delegate shall receive no higher sum for mileage than is allowed by law to the delegate from Oregon.

SEC. 14. And be it further enacted, That the sum or five thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby, appropriated out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be expended by and under the direction of the said governor of the territory of Utah, in the purchase of a library, to be kept at the seat of government for the use of the governor, legislative assembly, judges of the Supreme Court, secretary, marshal, and attorney of said Territory, and such other persons, and under such regulations, as shall be prescribed by law.

SEC. 15. And be it further enacted, That when the lands in the said Territory shall be surveyed under the direction of the government of the United States preparatory to bringing the same into market, sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in each township in said Territory shall be, and the same are hereby, reserved for the purpose of being applied to schools in said Territory, and in the States and Territories hereafter to be erected out of the same.

SEC. 16. And be it further enacted, That temporarily, and until otherwise provided by law, the governor of said Territory may define the judicial districts of said Territory, and assign the judges who maybe appointed for said Territory to the several districts, and also appoint the times and places for holding courts in the several counties or subdivisions in each of said judicial districts, by proclamation to be issued by him; but the legislative assembly, at their first or any subsequent session, may organize, alter, or modify such judicial districts, and assign the judges, and alter the times and places of holding the courts, as to them shall seem proper and convenient.

SEC.17. And be it further enacted, That the Constitution and laws of the United States are hereby extended over and declared to be in force in said Territory of Utah, so far as the same, or any provision thereof, may be applicable.

APPROVED, September 9, 1850.

An Act
to amend, and supplementary to, the Act entitled “An Act respecting Fugitives from Justice, and Persons escaping from the Service of their Masters,” approved February twelfth, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repsentatives of the United States of America in congress assembled, That the persons who have been, or may hereafter be, appointed commissioners, in virtue of any act of Congress, by the Circuit Courts of the United States and who, in consequence of such appointment, are authorized to exercise the powers that any justice of the peace, or other magistrate of any of the United States, may exercise in respect to offenders for any crime or offence against the United States, by arresting, imprisoning, or bailing the same under and by virtue of the thirty-third section of the act of the twenty-fourth of Septimber seventeen hundred and eightynine, entitled “An Act to establish the Judicial courts of the United States,” shall be, and are hereby, authorized and required to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the Superior Court of each organized Territory of the United States shall have the same power to appoint commissioners to take acknowledgements of bail and affidavits and to take depositions of witnesses in civil causes, which is now possessed by the Circuit Court of the United States; and all commissioners who shall hereafter be appointed for such purposes by the Superior Court of any organized Territory of the United States, shall possess all the powers, and exercise all the duties, conferred by law upon the commissioners appointed by the Circuit Courts of the United States for similar purposes, and shall moreover exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the Circuit Courts of the United States, and the Superior Courts of each organized Territory of the United States, shall from time to time enlarge the number of commissioners, with a view to afford reasonable facilities to reclaim fugitives from labor, and to the prompt discharge of the duties imposed by this act.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the commissioners above named shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the judges of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States, in their respective circuits and districts within the several States, and the judges of the Superior Courts of the Territories, severally and collectively, in termtime and vacation; and shall grant certificates to such claimants, upon satisfactory proof being made, with authority to take and remove such fugitives from service or labor, under the restrictions herein contained, to the State or Territory from which such persons may have escaped or fled.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of all marshals and deputy marshals to obey and execute all warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of this act, when to them directed; and should any marshal or deputy marshal refuse to receive such warrant, or other process, when tendered, or to use all proper means diligently to execute the same, he shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in the sum of one thousand dollars, to the use of such claimant, on the motion of such claimant, by the Circuit or District Court for the district of such marshal; and after arrest of such fugitive, by such marshal or his deputy, or whilst at any time in his custody under the provisions of this act, should such fugitive escape, whether with or without the assent of such marshal or his deputy, such marshal shall be liable, on his official bond, to be prosecuted for the benefit of such claimant, for the full value of the service or labor of said fugitive in the State, Territory, or District whence he escaped: and the better to enable the said commissioners, when thus appointed, to execute their duties faithfully and efficiently, in conformity with the requirements of the Constitution of the United States and of this act, they are hereby authorized and empowered, within their counties respectively, to appoint, in writing under their hands, anyone or more suitable persons, from time to time, to execute all such warrants and other process as may be issued by them in the lawful performance of their respective duties; with authority to such commissioners, or the persons to be appointed by them, to execute process as aforesaid, to summon and call to their aid the bystanders, or posse comitatus of the proper county, when necessary to ensure a faithful observance of the clause of the Constitution referred to, in conformity with the provisions of this act; and all good citizens are hereby commanded to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of this law, whenever their services may he required, as aforesaid, for that purpose; and said warrants shall run, and be executed by said officers, any where in the State within which they are issued.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That when a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States, has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due, or his, her, or their agent or attorney, duly authorized, by power of attorney, in writing, acknowledged and certified under the seal of some legal officer or court of the State or Territory in which the same may be executed, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrant from some one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid, of the proper circuit, district, or county, for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken, forthwith before such court, judge, or commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case of such claimant in a summary manner; and upon satisfactory proof being made, by deposition or affidavit, in writing, to be taken and certified by such court, judge, or commissioner, or by other satisfactory testimony, duly taken and certified by some court, magistrate, justice of the peace, or other legal officer authorized to administer an oath and take depositions under the laws of the State or Territory from which such person owing service or labor may have escaped, with a certificate of such magistracy or other authority, as aforesaid, with the seal of the proper court or officer thereto attached, which seal shall be sufficient to establish the competency of the proof, and with proof, also by affidavit, of the identity of the person whose service or labor is claimed to be due as aforesaid, that the person so arrested does in fact owe service or labor to the person or persons claiming him or her, in the State or Territory from which such fugitive may have escaped as aforesaid, and that said person escaped, to make out and deliver to such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, a certificate setting forth the substantial facts as to the service or labor due from such fugitive to the claimant, and of his or her escape from the State or Territory in which such service or labor was due, to the State or Territory in which he or she was arrested, with authority to such claimant, or his or her agent or attorney, to use such reasonable force and restraint as may be necessary, under the circumstances of the case, to take and remove such fugitive person back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped as aforesaid. In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates in this and the first [ fourth] section mentioned, shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by any court judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and conviction before the District Court of the United States for the district in which such offence may have been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within anyone of the organized Territories of the United States; and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars, for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the District or Territorial Courts aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said offence may have been committed.

SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the marshals, their deputies, and the clerks of the said District and Territorial Courts, shall be paid, for their services, the like fees as may be allowed to them for similar services in other cases; and where such services are rendered exclusively in the arrest, custody, and delivery of the fugitive to the claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or where such supposed fugitive may be discharged out of custody for the want of sufficient proof as aforesaid, then such fees are to be paid in the whole by such claimant, his agent or attorney; and in all cases where the proceedings are before a commissioner, he shall be entitled to a fee of ten dollars in full for his services in each case, upon the delivery of the said certificate to the claimant, his or her agent or attorney; or a fee of five dollars in cases where the proof shall not, in the opinion of such commissioner, warrant such certificate and delivery, inclusive of all services incident to such arrest and examination, to be paid, in either case, by the claimant, his or her agent or attorney The person or persons authorized to execute the process to be issued by such commissioners for the arrest and detention of fugitives from service or labor as aforesaid, shall also be entitled to a fee of five dollars each for each person he or they may arrest and take before any such commissioner as aforesaid, at the instance and request of such claimant, with such other fees as may be deemed reasonable by such commissioner for such other additional services as may be necessarily performed by him or them; such as attending at the examination, keeping the fugitive in custody, and providing him with food and lodging during his detention, and until the final determination of such commissioner; and, in general, for performing such other duties as may be required by such claimant, his or her attorney or agent, or commissioner in the premises, such fees to be made up in conformity with the fees usually charged by the officers of the courts of justice within the proper district or county, as near as may be prac-ticable, and paid by such claimants, their agents or attorneys, whether such supposed fugitives from service or labor be ordered to be delivered to such claimants by the final determination of such commissioners or not.

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That, upon affidavit made by the claimant of such fugitive, his agent or attorney, after such certificate has been issued, that he has reason to apprehend that such fugitive will be rescued by force from his or their possession before he can be taken beyond the limits of the State in which the arrest is made, it shall be the duty of the officer making the arrest to retain such fugitive in his custody, and to remove him to the State whence he fled, and there to deliver him to said claimant, his agent, or attorney. And to this end, the officer aforesaid is hereby authorized and required to employ so many persons as he may deem necessary to overcome such force, and to retain them in his service so long as circumstances may require. The said officer and his assistants, while so employed, to receive the same compensation, and to be allowed the same expenses, as are now allowed by law for transportation of criminals, to be certified by the judge of the district within which the arrest is made, and paid out of the treasury of the United States.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That when any person held to service or labor in any State or Territory, or in the District of Columbia, shall escape therefrom, the party to whom such service or labor shall be due, his, her, or their agent or attorney, may apply to any court of record therein, or judge thereof in vacation, and make satisfactory proof to such court, or judge in vacation, of the escape aforesaid, and that the person escaping owed service or labor to such party. Whereupon the court shall cause a record to be made of the matters so proved, and also a general description of the person so escaping, with such convenient certainty as may be; and a transcript of such record, authenticated by the attestation of the clerk and of the seal of the said court, being produced in any other State, Territory, or district in which the person so escaping may be found, and being exhibited to any judge, commissioner, or other officer authorized by the law of the United States to cause persons escaping from service or labor to be delivered up, shall be held and taken to be full and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and that the service or labor of the person escaping is due to the party in such record mentioned. And upon the production by the said party of other and further evidence if necessary, either oral or by affidavit, in addition to what is contained in the said record of the identity of the person escaping, he or she shall be delivered up to the claimant. And the said court, commissioner, judge, or other person authorized by this act to grant certificates to claimants of fugitives, shall, upon the production of the record and other evidences aforesaid, grant to such claimant a certificate of his right to take any such person identified and proved to be owing service or labor as aforesaid, which certificate shall authorize such claimant to seize or arrest and transport such person to the State or Territory from wbich he escaped: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed as requiring the production of a transcript of such record as evidence as aforesaid. But in its absence the claim shall be heard and determined upon other satisfactory proofs, competent in law.

APPROVED, September 18, 1850.

An Act
to suppress the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the first day of January, eighteen hundred and fifty-one, it shall not be lawful to bring into the District of Columbia any slave whatever, for the purpose of being sold, or for the purpose of being placed in depot, to be subsequently transferred to any other State or place to be sold as merchandize. And if any slave shall be brought into the said District by its owner, or by the authority or consent of its owner, contrary to the provisions of this act, such slave shall thereupon become liberated and free.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for each of the corporations of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, from time to time, and as often as may be necessary, to abate, break up, and abolish any depot or place of confinement of slaves brought into the said District as merchandize, contrary to the provisions of this act, by such appropriate means as may appear to either of the said corporations expedient and proper. And the same power is hereby vested in the Levy Court of Washington county, if any attempt shall be made, within its jurisdictional limits, to establish a depot or place of confinement for slaves brought into the said District as merchandize for sale contrary to this act.

APPROVED, September 20, 1850.

DRED SCOTT DECISION

DECEMBER TERM, 1856.

DRED SCOTT
versus
JOHN F. A. SANDFORD.

Dred Scott, Plaintiff In Error, v. John F. A. Sandford.

I.

1. Upon a writ of error to a Circuit Court of the United States, the transcript of the record of all the proceedings in the case is brought before this court, and is open to its inspection and revision.

2. When a plea to the jurisdiction, in abatement, is overruled by the court upon demurrer, and the defendant pleads in bar, and upon these pleas the final judgment of the court is in his favor—if the plaintiff brings a writ of error, the judgment of the court upon the plea in abatement is before this court, although it was in favor of the plaintiff—and if the court erred in overruling it, the judgment must be reversed, and a mandate issued to the Circuit Court to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction.

3. In the Circuit Courts of the United States, the record must show that the case is one in which by the Constitution and laws of the United States, the court had jurisdiction—and if this does not appear, and the court gives judgment either for plaintiff or defendant, it is error, and the judgment must be reversed by this court—and the parties cannot by consent waive the objection to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.

4. A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a “citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.

5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were nut numbered among its “people or citizen.” Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being “citizens” within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit.

6. The only two clauses in the Constitution which point to this race, treat them as persons whom it was morally lawful to deal in as articles of property and to hold as slaves.

7. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, no state can by any subsequent law make a foreigner or any other description of persons citizens of the United States, nor entitle them to the rights and privileges secured to citizens by that instrument.

8. A State, by its laws passed since the adoption of the Constitution, may put a foreigner or any other description of persons upon a footing with its own citizens, as to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by them within its dominion, and by its laws. But that will not make him a citizen of the United States, nor entitle him to sue in its courts, nor to any of the privileges and immunities of a citizen in another State.

9. The change in public opinion and feeling in relation to the African race, which has taken place since the adoption of the Constitution, cannot change its construction and meaning, and it must be construct and administered now according to its true meaning and intention when it was formed and adopted.

10. The plaintiff having admitted, by his demurrer to the plea in abatement, that his ancestors were imported from Africa and sold as slaves, he is not a citizen of the Slate of Missouri according to the Constitution of the United States, and was not entitled to sue in that character in the Circuit Court.

11. This being the case, the judgment of the court below, in favor of the plaintiff of the plea in abatement, was erroneous.

II.

1. But if the plea in abatement is not brought up by this writ of error, the objection to the citizenship of the plaintiff is still apparent on the record, as he himself, in making oct his case, states that he is of African descent, was born a slave, and claims that he and his family became entitled to freed in by being taken by their owner to reside in a territory where slavery is prohibited by act of Congress—and that, in addition to this claim, he himself became entitled to freedom being taken to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois—and being free when he was brought back to Missouri, he was by the laws of that State a citizen.

2. If, therefore, the facts he states do not give him or his family a right to freedom, the plaintiff is still a slave, and not entitled in sue as a “citizen,” and the judgment of the Circuit Court was erroneous on that ground also, without any reference to the plea in abatement.

3. The Circuit Court can give no judgment for plaintiff or defendant in a case where it has not jurisdiction, no matter whether there be a plea in abatement or not. And unless it appears upon the face of the record, when brought here by writ of error, that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction, the judgment must be reversed.The case of Capron v. Van Noorden (2 Cranch, 126) examined, and the principles thereby decided, reaffirmed.

4. When the record, as brought here by writ of error, does not show that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction, this court has jurisdiction to revise and correct the error, like any other error in the court below. It does not and cannot dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction here; for that would leave the erroneous judgment of the court below in full force, and the party injured without remedy. But it must reverse the judgment, and, as in any other case of reversal, send a mandate to the Circuit Court to conform its judgment to the opinion of this court.

5. The difference of the jurisdiction in this court in the cases of writs of error to State courts and to Circuit Courts of the United States, pointed out; and the mistakes made as to the jurisdiction of this court in the latter case, by confounding it with its limited jurisdiction in the former.

6. If the court reverses a judgment upon the ground that it appears by a particular port of the record that the Circuit Court had not jurisdiction, it does not take away the jurisdiction of this court to examine into and correct, by a reversal of the judgement, any other errors, either as to the jurisdiction or any other matter, where it appears from other parts of the tenor that the Circuit Court had fallen into error. On the contrary, it is the daily and familiar practice of this court to reverse on several grounds, where more than one error appears to have been committed. And the error of a Circuit Court in its jurisdiction stands on the same ground, and is to be treated in the same manner as any other error upon which its judgment is founded.

7. The decision, therefore, that the judgment of the Circuit Court upon the plea in abatement is erroneous, is no reason why the alleged error apparent in the exception should not also be examined, and the judgment reversed on that ground also, if it disclosed a want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court. It is often the duty of this court, after having decided that a particular decision of the Circuit Court was erroneous, to examine into other alleged errors, and to correct them if they are found to exist. And this has been uniformly done by this court, when the questions are in any degree connected with the controversy, and the silence of the court might cremate doubts which would lead to further and useless litigation.

III.

1. The facts upon which the plaintiff relies did not give him his freedom, and make him a citizen of Missouri.

2. The clause in the Constitution authorising Congress to make all needful rules and regulations for the government of the territory and other property of the United States, applies only to territory within the chartered limits of some one of the States when they were colonies of Great Britain, and which was surrendered by the British Government to the old Confederation of the States, in the treaty of peace. It does not apply to territory acquired by the present Federal Government, by treaty or conquest, from a foreign nation.The case of the American and Ocean Insurance Companies v. Canter (1 Peters, 511) referred to and examined, showing that the decision in this case is not in conflict with that opinion, and that the court did not, in the case referred to, decide upon the construction of the clause of the Constitution above mentioned, because the case before them did not make it necessary to decide the question.

3. The United States, under the present Constitution, cannot acquire territory to be held as a colony to be governed at its will and pleasure. But it may acquire territory which, at the time, has not a population that fits it to become a State, and still govern it as a Territory until it has a population which, in the judgment of Congress, entitles it to be admitted as a State of the Union.

4. During the tine it remains a Territory, Congress may legislate over it within the scope of its constitutional powers in relation to citizens of the United State—and may establish a Territorial Government—and the form of this local Government must be regulated by the discretion of Congress, but with powers not exceeding those which Congress itself, by the Constitution, is authorized to exercise over citizens of the United States, in respect to their rights of persons or rights of property.

IV.

1. The territory thus acquired, is acquired by the people of the United States for their common and equal benefit, through their agent and trustee, the Federal Government. Congress can exercise no power over the rights of persons or property of a citizen in the Territory which is prohibited by the Constitution. The Government and the citizen, whenever the Territory is open to settlement, both enter it with their respective rights defined and limited by the Constitution.

2. Congress have no right to prohibit the citizens of any particular State or States from taking up their home there, while it permits citizens of other States to do so. Nor has it a right to give privileges to one class of citizens which it refuses to another. The territory is acquired for their equal and common benefit—and if open to any, it must be open to all upon equal and the same terms.

3. Every citizen has a right to take with him into the Territory any article of property which the Constitution of the United States recognises as property.

4. The Constitution of the United States recognises slaves as property, and pledges the Federal Government to protect it. And Congress cannot exercise any more authority over property of that description than it may constitutionally exercise over property of any other kind.

5. The act of Congress, therefore, prohibiting a citizen of the United States from taking with him his slaves when he removes to the Territory in question to reside, is an exercise of authority over private property which is not warranted by the Constitution—and the removal of the plaintiff, by his owner, to that Territory, gave him no title to freedom.

V.

1. The plaintiff himself acquired no title to freedom by being taken, by his owner, to Rock Island, in Illinois, and brought back to Missouri. This court has heretofore decided that the status or condition of a person of African descent depended on the laws of the State in which he resided.

2. It has been settled by the decisions of the highest court in Missouri, that by the laws of that State, a slave does not become entitled to his freedom, where the owner takes him to reside in a State where slavery is not permitted, and afterwards brings him back to Missouri. Conclusion. It follows that it is apparent upon the record that the court below erred in its judgment on the plea in abatement and also erred in giving judgment for the defendant, when the exception shows that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the United States. And as the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction, either in the case stated in the plea in abatement, or in the one stated in the exception, its judgment in favor of the defendant is erroneous, and must be reversed.

This case was brought up, by writ of error, from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Missouri.

It was an action of trespass vi et armis instituted in the Circuit Court by Scott against Sandford.

Prior to the institution of the present suit, an action was brought by Scott for his freedom in the Circuit Court of St. Louis county, (State court,) where there was a verdict and judgment in his favor. On a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State, the judgment below was reversed, and the case remanded to the Circuit Court, where it was constituted to await the decision of the case now in question.

The declaration of Scott contained three counts: one, that Sandford had assaulted the plaintiff; one that he had assaulted Harriet Scott, his wife; and one, that he had assaulted Eliza Scott and Lizzie Scott, his children.

Sandford appeared, and filed the following plea:

Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford.

Plea to the Jurisdiction of the Court.

April Term, 1854.

And the said John F. A. Sandford, in his own proper person, comes and says that this court ought not to have or take further cognizance of the action aforesaid, because he says that said cause of action, and each and every of them, (if any such have accrued to the said Dred Scott,) accrued to the said Dred Scott out of the jurisdiction of this court, and exclusively within the jurisdiction of the courts of the State of Missouri, for that, to wit; the said plaintiff, Dred Scott, is not a citizen of the State of Missouri, as alleged in his declaration, because he is a negro of African descent; his ancestors were of pure African blood, and were brought into this country and sold as negro slaves, and this the said Sandford is ready to verify. Wherefore he prays judgment whether this court can or will take farther cognizance of the action aforesaid.

John F. A. Sandford.

To this plea there was a demurrer in the usual form, which was argued in April, 1854, when the court gave judgment that the demurrer should be sustained.

In May, 1854, the defendant, in pursuance of an agreement between counsel, and with the leave of the court, pleaded in bar of the action:

1. Not guilty.

2. That the plaintiff was a negro slave, the lawful property of the defendant, and, as such, the defendant gently laid his hands upon him, and thereby had only restrained him, as the descendant had a right to do.

3. That with respect to the wife and daughters of the plaintiff, in the second and third counts of the declaration mentioned, the defendant had, as to them, only acted in the same manner, and in virtue of the same legal right.

In the first of these pleas, the plaintiff joined issue; and to the second and third filed replications alleging that the defendant, of his own wrong and without the cause in his second and third pleas alleged, committed the trespasses, &c.

The counsel then filed the following agreed statement of facts, viz:

In the year 1834, the plaintiff was a negro slave belonging to Dr. Emerson, who was a surgeon in the army of the United States. In that year, 1834, said Dr. Emerson took the plaintiff from the State of Missouri to the military post at Rock Island in the State of Illinois, and held him there as a slave until the month of April or May, 1836, At the time last mentioned, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff from said military post at Rock Island to the military post at Fort Snelling, situate on the west bank of the Mississippi river, in the Territory known as Upper Lousiana, acquired by the United States of France, and situated north of the latitude of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north, and north of the State of Missouri. Said Dr. Emerson held the plaintiff in slavery at said Fort Snelling, from said last-mentioned date until the year 1838.

In the year 1835, Harriet who is named in the second count of the plaintiff’s declaration, was the negro slave of Major Taliaferro, who belonged to the army of the United States. In that year, 1835, said Major Taliaferro took said Harriet to said Fort Snelling, a military post, situated as hereinbefore stated, and kept her there as a slave until the year 1836, and then sold and delivered her as a slave at said Fort Snelling unto the said Dr. Emerson hereinbefore named. Said Dr. Emerson held said Harriet in slavery at said Fort Snelling until the year 1838.

In the year 1836, the plaintiff and said Harriet, at said Fort Snelling, with the consent of said Dr. Emerson, who then claimed to be their master and owner, intermarried, and took each other for husband and wife. Eliza and Lizzie, named in the third count of the plaintiff’s declaration, are the fruit of that marriage. Eliza is about fourteen years old, and was born on board the steamboat Gipsey, north of the north line of the State of Missouri, and upon the river Mississippi. Lizzie is about seven years old, and was born in the State of Missouri, at the military post called Jefferson Barracks.

In the year 1838, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff and said Harriet and their said daughter Eliza, from said Fort Snelling to the State of Missouri, where they have ever since resided.

Before the commencement of this suit, said Dr. Emerson sold and conveyed the plaintiff, said Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, to the defendant, as slaves, and the defendant has ever since claimed to hold them and each of them as slaves.

At the times mentioned in the plaintiff’s declaration, the defendant claiming to be owner as aforesaid, laid his hands upon said plaintiff, Harriet, Eliza and Lizzie, and imprisoned them, doing in this respect, however, no more than what he might lawfully do if they were of right his slaves at such times.

Further proof may be given on the trial for either party.

It is agreed that Dred Scott brought suit for his freedom in the Circuit Court of St. Louis county; that there was a verdict and judgment in his favor; that on a writ of error to the Supreme Court, the judgment below was reversed, and the same remanded to the Circuit Court, where is has been continued to await the decision of this case.

In May 1854, the cause went before a jury. who found the following verdict, viz: “As to the first issue joined in this case, we of the jury find the defendant not guilty; and as to the issue secondly above joined, we of the jury find that before and at the time when, &c., in the first count mentioned, the said Dred Scott was a negro slave, the lawful property of the defendant; and as to the issue thirdly above joined, we, the jury, find that before and at the time when, &c., in the second and third counts mentioned, the said Harriet, wife of said Dred Scott, and Eliza and Lizzie, the daughters of the said Dred Scott, were negro slaves, the lawful properly of the defendant.”

Whereupon the court gave judgment for the defendant.

After an ineffectual motion for a new trial, the plaintiff filed the following bill of exceptions.

On the trial of this cause by the jury, the plaintiff, to maintain the issues on his part, read to the jury the following agreed statement of facts, (see agreement above.) No further testimony was given to the jury by either party. Thereupon the plaintiff moved the court to give to the jury the following instruction, viz:

“That upon the facts agreed to by the parties, they ought to find for the plantiff. The court refused to give such instruction to the jury, and the plaintiff, to such refusal, then and there duly excepted.”

The court then gave the following instruction to the jury, on motion of the defendant:

“The jury are instructed, that upon the facts In this case, the law is with the defendant” The plaintiff excepted to this instruction.

Upon these exceptions, the case came up to this court.

It was argued at December term, 1855, and ordered to be reargued at the present term.

It was now argued by Mr. Blair and Mr. G. F. Curtis for the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. Geyer and Mr. Johnson for the defendant in error.

Mr. Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the court.

This case has been twice argued. After the argument of the last term, differences of opinion were found to exist among the members of the court; and as the questions in controversy are of the highest importance, and the court was at that time much pressed by the ordinary business of the term, it was deemed advisable to continue the case, and direct a reargument on some of the points, in order that we might have an opportunity of giving to the whole subject a more deliberate consideration. It has accordingly been again argued by counsel, and considered by the court; and I now proceed to deliver its opinion.

There are two leading questions presented by the record:

- Had the Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and determine the case between these parties? And

- If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it has given erroneous or not?

The plaintiff in error, who was also the plaintiff in the court below, was, with his wife and children, held as slaves by the defendant, in the state of Missouri; and he brought this action in the circuit court of the United States for that district, to assert the title of himself and his family to freedom.

The declaration is in the form usually adopted in that State to try questions of this description, and contains the averment necessary to give the court jurisdiction; that he and the defendant are citizens of different States; that is, that he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York.

The defendant pleaded in abatement to the jurisdiction of the court, that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the State of Missouri, as alleged in his declaration, being a negro of African descent, whose ancestors were of pure African blood, and who were brought into this country and sold as slaves.

To this plea the plaintiff demurred, and the defendant joined in demurrer. The court overruled the plea, and gave judgment that the defendant should answer over. And he therefore put in sundry pleas in bar, upon which issues were joined; and at the trial the verdict and judgment were in his favor. Whereupon the plaintiff brought this writ of error.

Before we speak of the pleas in bar, it will be proper to dispose of the questions which have arisen on the plea in abatement.

That plea denies the right of the plaintiff to sue in a court of the United States, for the reasons therein stated.

If the question raised by it is legally before us, and the court should be of opinion that the facts stated in it disqualify the plaintiff from becoming a citizen, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, then the judgment of the Circuit Court is erroneous and must be reversed.

It is suggested, however, that this plea is not before us; and that as the judgment in the court below on this plea was in favor of the plaintiff, he does not seek to reverse it, or bring it before the court for revision by his writ of error; and also that the defendant waived this defeats by pleading over, and thereby admitted the jurisdiction of the court.

But in making this objection, we think the peculiar and limited jurisdiction of courts of the United States has not been adverted to. This peculiar and limited jurisdiction has made it necessary, in these courts, to adopt different rules and principles of pleading, so far as jurisdiction is concerned, from those which regulate courts of common law in England, and in the different states of the Union which have adopted the common-law rules.

In these last-mentioned courts, where their character and rank are analagous to that of a Circuit Court of the United States; in other words, where they are what the law terms courts of general jurisdiction; they are presumed to have jurisdiction, unless the contrary appears. No averment in the pleadings of the plaintiff is necessary, in order to give jurisdiction. If the defendant objects to it, he must plead it specially, and unless the fact On which he relics is found to be true by a jury, or admitted to be true by the plaintiff, the jurisdiction Cannot be disputed in an appellate court.

Now, it is not necessary to inquire whether in courts of that description a party who pleads over in bar, when a plea to the jurisdiction has been ruled against him, does or does not waive his plea; nor whether upon a judgment in his favor on the pleas in bar, and a writ of error brought by the plaintiff, the question upon the plea in abatement would be open for revision in the appellate court. Cases that may have been decided in such courts, or rules that may have been laid down by common-law pleaders, can have no influence in the decision in this court. Because, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, the rules which govern the pleadings in its courts, in questions of jurisdiction, stand on different principles and are regulated by different laws.

This difference arises, as we have said, from the peculiar character of the Government of the United States. For although it is sovereign and supreme in its appropriate sphere of action, yet it does not possess all the powers which usually belong to the sovereignty of a nation. Certain specified powers, enumerated in the Constitution, have been conferred upon it; and neither the legislative, executive, nor judicial departments of the Government can lawfully exercise any authority beyond the limits marked out by the Constitution. And in regulating the judicial department, the cases in which the courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction are particularly and specifically enumerated and defined; and they are not authorized to take cognizance of any case which does not come within the description therein specified. Hence, when a plaintiff sues in a court of the United States, it is necessary that he should show, in his pleadings, that the suit he briars is within the jurisdiction of the court, and that he is entitled to sue there. And if he omits to do this, and should, by any oversight of the Circuit Court, obtain a judgment in his favor, the judgment would be reversed in the appellate court for want of jurisdiction in the court below. The jurisdiction would not be presumed, as in the case of a common-law English or State court, unless the contrary appeared. But the record, when it comes before the appellate court, must show, affirmatively, that the inferior court had authority, under the Constitution, to hear and determine the case. And if the plaintiff claims a right to sue in a Circuit Court of the United States, under that provision of the Constitution which gives jurisdiction in controversies between citizens of discreet States, he must distinctly aver in his pleadings that they are citizens of different States; add he cannot maintain his suit without showing that fact in the pleadings.

This point was decided in the case of Bingham v. Cabot, (in 3 Dall., 382), and ever since adhered to by the court. And in Jackson v. Ashton (8 Pet., 148), it was held that the objection to which it was open could not be waived by the opposite party, because consent of parties could not give jurisdiction.

It is needless to accumulate cases on this subject. Those already referred to, and the cases of Capron v. Van Noorden, (in 2 Cr, 126), and Montalet v. Murray; (4 Cr., 46), are sufficient to show the rule of which we have spoken. The case of Capron v. Van Noorden strikingly illutrates the difference between a common-law court and a court of the United States.

If, however, the fact of citizenship is averred in the declaration, and the defendant does not deny it, and put it in issue by pica in abatement, he cannot offer evidence at the trial to disprove it, and consequently cannot avail himself of the objection in the appellate court, unless the defect should be apparent in some other part of the record. For if there is no plea in abatement, and the want of jurisdiction does not appear in any other part of the transcript brought up by the writ of error, the undisputed averment of citizenship in the declaration must be taken in this court to be true. In this case, the citizenship is averred, but it is denied by the defendant in the manner required by the rules of pleading, and the fact upon which the denial is based is admitted by the demurrer. And, if the plea and demurrer, and judgment of the court below upon it, are before us upon this record, the question to be decided is, whether the facts stated in the plea are sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a citizen in a court of the United States.

We think they are before us. The plea in abatement and the judgment of the court upon it, are a part of the judicial proceedings in the Circuit Court, and are there recorded as such; and a writ of error always brings up to the superior court the whole record of the proceedings in the court below. And in the case of the United States v Smith (11 Wheat., 172,) this court said, that the case being brought up by writ of error, the whole record was under the consideration of this court. And this being the case in the present instance, the plea in abatement is necessarily under consideration; and it becomes, therefore, our duty to decide whether the facts stated in the plea are or are not sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a citizen in a court of the United States.

This is certainly a very serious question, and one that now for the first time has been brought for decision before this court. But it is brought here by those who have a right to bring it, and it is our duty to meet it and decide it.

The question is simply this: Can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights and privileges and immunities guaranteed to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution.

It will be observed, that the plea applies to that class of persons only whose ancestors were negroes of the African race, and imported into this country, and sold and held as slaves. The only matter in issue before the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a State, in the sense in which the word citizen is used in the Constitution of the United States. And this being the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, the court must be understood as speaking in this opinion of that class only, that is, of those persons who are the descendants of Africans who were imported into this country, and sold as slaves.

The situation of this population was altogether unlike that of the Indian race. The latter, it is true, formed no part of the colonial communities, and never amalgamated with them in social connections or in government. But although they were uncivilized, they were yet a free and independent people, a sociated together in nations or tribes, and governed by their own laws. Many of these political communities were situated in territories to which the white race claimed the ultimate right of dominion. But that claim was acknowledged to be subject to the right of the Indians to occupy it as long as they thought proper, and neither the English nor colonial Governments claimed or exercised any dominion over the tribe or nation by whom it was occupied, nor claimed the right to the possession of the territory, until the tribe or nation consented to cede it. These Indian Governments were regarded and treated as foreign Governments, as much so as if an ocean had separated the red man from the white; and their freedom has constantly been acknowledged, from the time of the first emigration to the English colonies to the present day, by the different Governments which succeeded each other. Treaties have beeen negotiated with them, and their alliance sought for in war; and the people who compose these Indian political communities have always been treated as foreigners not living under our Government. It is true that the course of events has brought the Indian tribes within the limits of the United States under subjection to the white race; and it has been found necessary, for their sake as well as our own, to regard them as in a state of pupilage, and to legislate to a certain extent over them and the territory they occupy. But they may, without doubt, like the subjects of any other foreign Government, be naturalized by the authority of Congress, and become citizens of a State, and of the United States; and if an individual should leave his nation or tribe, and take up his abode among the white population, he would be entitled to all the rights and privileges which would belong to an emigrant from any other foreign people.

We proceed to examine the case as presented by the pleadings.

The words “people of the United States” and “citizens” are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the “sovereign people,” and every citizen is one of this people and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them.

It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or injustice, the policy or impolicy, of these laws. The decision of that question belonged to the political or law-making power; to those who formed the sovereignty and framed the Constitution. The duty of the court is, to interpret the instrument they have framed, with the best lights we can obtain on the subject, and to administer it as we find it, according to its true intent and meaning when it was adopted.

In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights. But this character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States. Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Each State may still confer them upon an alien, or any one it thinks proper, or upon any class or description of persons; yet he would not be a citizen in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, nor entitled to sue as such in one of its courts, nor to the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the other States. The rights which he would acquire would be restricted to the State which gave them. The Constitution has conferred on Congress the right to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and this right is evidently exclusive, and has always been held by this court to be so. Consequently, no State, since the adoption of the Constitution, can by naturalizing an alien invest him with the rights and privileges secured to a citizen of a State under the Federal Government, although, so far as the State alone was concerned, he would undoubtedly be entitled to the rights of a citizen, and clothed with all the rights and immunities which the Constitution and laws of the State attached to that character.

It is very clear, therefore, that no State can, by any act or law of its own, passed since the adoption of the Constitution, introduce a new member into the political community created by the Constitution of the United States. It cannot make him a member of this community by making him a member of its own. And for the same reason it cannot introduce any person or description of persons, who were not intended to be embraced in this new political family, which the Constitution brought into existence, but were intended to be excluded from it.

The question then arises, whether the provisions of the Constitution, in relation to the personal rights and privileges to which the citizen of a State should be entitled, embraced the negro African race, at that time in this country, or who might afterwards be imported, who had then or should afterwards be made free in any State; and to put it in the power of a single State to make him a citizen of the United States, and endue him with the tall rights of citizenship in every other State without their consent? Does the Constitution of the United States act upon him whenever he shall be made free under the laws of a State, and raised there to the rank of a citizen, and immediately clothe him with all the privileges of a citizen in every other State, and in its own courts?

The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, the plaintiff in error could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts.

It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens or this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and privileges guarantied to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterwards by birthright or otherwise become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded. It was the union of those who were at that time members of distinct and separate political communities into one political family, whose power, for certain specified purposes, was to extend over the whole territory of the United States. And it gave to each citizen rights and privileges outside of his State which he did not before possess, and placed him in every other State upon a perfect equality with its own citizens as to rights of person and rights of property; it made him a citizen of the United States.

It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted. And in order to do this, we must recur to the governments and institutions of the thirteen colonies, when they separated from Great Britain and formed new sovereignties, and took their places in the family of independent nations. We must enquire who, at that time, were recognized as the people or citizens of a State, whose rights and liberties had been outraged by the English Government; and who declared their independence, and assumed the powers of Government to defend their rights by force of arms.

In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken.

They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern; without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.

And in no nation was this opinion here firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in slavery for their own use; but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more extensively engaged in this commerce, than any other nation in the world.

The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time.

The legislation of the different colonies furnishes positive and indisputable proof of this fact.

It would be tedious, in this opinion, to enumerate the various laws they passed upon this subject. It will be sufficient, as a sample of the legislation which then generally prevailed throughout the British colonies, to give the laws of two of them; one being still a large slaveholding State, and the other the first State in which slavery ceased to exist.

The province of Maryland, in 1717, (ch. 13, s. 5,) passed a law declaring “that if any free negro or mulatto intermarry with any white woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro or mulatto woman, such negro or mulatto shall become a slave during life, excepting mulattoes born of white women, who, for such intermarriage, shall only become servants for seven years, to be disposed of as the justices of the county court, where such marriage so happens, shall think fit; to be applied by them towards the support of a public school within the said county. And any white man or white woman who shall intermarry as aforesaid, with any negro or mulatto, such white man or white woman shall become servants during the term of seven years, and shall be disposed of by the justices as aforesaid, and be applied to the uses aforesaid.”

The other colonial law to which we refer was passed by Massachusetts in 1705, (chap. 6.) It is entitled “An act for the better preventing of a spurious and mixed issue,” &c.; and it provides, that “if any negro or mulatto shall presume to smite or strike any person of the English or other Christian nation, such negro or mulatto shall be severely whipped, at the discretion of the justices before whom the offender shall be convicted.”

And “that none of her Majesty’s English or Scottish subjects, nor of any other Christian nation, within this province, shall contract matrimony with any negro or mulatto; nor shall any person, duly authorised to solemnize marriage, presume to join any such in marriage, on pain of forfeiting the sum of fifty pounds; one moiety thereof to her Majesty, for and towards the support of the Government within this province, and the other moiety to him or them that shall inform and sue for the same in any of her Majesty’s courts of record within the province, by bill, plaint, or information.”

We give both of these laws in the words used by the respective legislative bodies, because the language in which they are framed, as well as the provisions contained in them, show, too plainly to be misunderstood, the degraded condition of this unhappy race. They were still in force when the Revolution began, and are a faithful index to the state of feeling towards the class of persons of whom they speak, and of the position they occupied throughout the thirteen colonies, in the eyes and thoughts of the men who framed the Declaration of Independence and established the State Constitutions and Governments. They show that a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery, and governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings, that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in the parties, but in the person who joined them in marriage. And no distinction in this respect was made between the free negro or mulatto and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation, was fixed upon the whole race.

We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed opinions concerning that race, upon which the statesmen of that day spoke and acted. It is necessary to do this, in order to determine whether the general terms used in the Constitution of the United States, as to the rights of man and the rights of the people, was intended to include them, or to give to them or their posterity the benefit of any of its provisions.

The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally conclusive:

It begins by declaring “that when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

It then proceeds to say: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.

Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men—high in literary acquirements—high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, and no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.

This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language.

The brief preamble sets forth by whom it was formed, for what purposes, and for whose benefit and protection. It declares that it is formed by the people of the United States; that is to say, by those who were members of the different political communities in the several States; and its great object is declared to be to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity. It speaks in general terms of the people of the United States, and of citizens of the several States, when it is providing for the exercise of the powers granted or the privileges secured to the citizen. It does not define what description of persons are intended to be included under these terms, or who shall be regarded as a citizen and one of the people. It uses them as terms so well understood, that no farther description or definition was necessary.

But there are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the Government then formed.

One of these clauses reserves to each of the thirteen States the right to import slaves until the year 1808, if it thinks proper. And the importation which it thus sanctions was unquestionably of persons of the race of which we are speaking, as the traffic in slaves in the United States had always been confined to them. And by the other provision the States pledge themselves to each other to maintain the right of property of the master, by delivering up to him any slave who may have escaped from his service, and be found within their respective territories. By the first above-mentioned clause, therefore, the right to purchase and hold this property is directly sanctioned and authorized for twenty years by the people who framed the Constitution. And by the second, they pledge themselves to maintain and uphold the right of the master in the manner specified, as long as the Government they then formed should endure. And these two provisions show, conclusively, that neither the description of persons therein referred to, nor their descendants, were embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution; for certainly these two clauses were not intended to confer on them or their posterity the blessings of liberty, or any of the personal rights so carefully provided for the citizen.

No one of that race had ever migrated to the United Slates voluntarily; all of them had been brought here as articles of merchandise. The number that had been emancipated at that time were but few in comparison with those held in slavery; and they were identified in the public mind with the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave population rather than the free. It is obvious that they were not even in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they were conferring special rights and privileges upon the citizens of a state in every other part of the Union.

Indeed, when we look to the condition of this race in the several States at the time, it is impossible to believe that these rights and privileges were intended to be extended to them.

It is very true, that in that portion of the Union where the labor of the negro race was found to be unsuited to the climate and unprofitable to the master, but few slaves were held at the time of the Declaration of Independence; and when the Constitution was adopted, it had entirely worn out in one of them, and measures had been taken for its gradual abolition in several others. But this change had not been produced by any change of opinion in relation to this race; but because it was discovered, from experience, that slave labor was unsuited to the climate and productions of these States: for some of the States, where it had ceased or nearly ceased to exist, were actively engaged in the slave trade, procuring cargoes on the coast of Africa, and transporting, them for sale to those parts of the Union where their labor was found to be profitable, and suited to the climate and productions, And this tragic was openly carried on, and fortunes accumulated by it, without reproach from the people of the States where they resided. And it can hardly be supposed that, in the States where it was then countenanced in its worst form—that is, in the seizure and transportation—the people could have regarded those who were emancipated as entitled to equal rights with themselves.

And we may here again refer, in support of this proposition, to the plain and unequivocal language of the laws of the several States, some passed after the Declaration of Independence and before the Constitution was adopted, and some since the Government went into operation.

We need not refer, on this point, particularly to the laws of the present slaveholding States. Their statute books are full of provisions in relation to this class, in the same spirit with the Maryland law which we have before quoted. They have continued to treat them as an inferior class, and to subject them to strict police regulations, drawing a broad line of distinction between the citizen and the slave races, and leg slating in relation to them upon the same principle which prevailed at the time of the Declaration of Independence. As relates to these States, it is too plain for argument, that they have never been regarded as a part of the people or citizens of the State, nor supposed to possess any political rights which the dominant race might not withhold or grant at their pleasure. And as long ago as 1822, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky decided that free negroes and mulattoes were not citizens within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States; and the correctness of this decision is recognized, canal the same doctrine affirmed, in 1 Meigs’s Tenn. Reports, 331.

And if we turn to the legislation of the States where slavery had worn out, or measures taken for its speedy abolition, we shall find the same opinions and principles equally fixed and equally acted upon.

Thus, Massachusetts, in 1786. passed a law similar to the colonial one of which we have spoken. The law of 1786, like the law of 1705, forbids the marriage of any white person with any negro, Indian, or mulatto, and inflicts a penalty of fifty pounds upon any one who shall join them in marriage; and declares all such marriages absolutely null and void, and degrades thus the unhappy issue of the marriage by fixing upon it the stain of bastardy. And this mark of degradation was renewed and again impressed upon the race, in the careful and deliberate preparation of their revised code published in 1836. This code forbids any person from joining in marriage any white person with any Indian, negro, or mulatto, and subjects the party who shall, offend, in this respect, to imprisonment, not exceeding six months in the common jail, or to hard labor, and to a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred dollars; and like the law of 1786, it declares the marriage to be absolutely null and void. It will be seen that the punishment is increased by the code upon the person who shall marry them, by adding imprisonment to a pecuniary penalty.

So, too, in Connecticut. We refer more particularly to the legislation of this State, because it was not only among the first to put an end to slavery within its own territory, but was the first to fix a mark of reprobation upon the African slave trade. The law last mentioned was passed in October, 1758, about nine months after the State had ratified and adopted the present Constitution of the United States; and by that law it prohibited its own citizens, under severe penalties, from engaging in the trade, and declared all policies of insurance on the vessel or cargo made in the State to be null and void. But up to the time of the adoption of the Constitution, there is nothing in the legislation of the State indicating any change of opinion as to the relative rights and position of the white and black races in this country, or indicating that it meant to place the latter, when free, upon a level with its citizens. And certainly nothing which would have led the slaveholding States to suppose that Connecticut designed to claim for them, under the new Constitution, the equal rights and privileges and rank of citizens in every other State.

The first step taken by Connecticut upon this subject was as early as 1774, when it passed an act forbidding the further importation of slaves Into the State. But the section containing the prohibition is introduced by the following preamble:

“And whereas the increase of slaves in this State is injurious to the poor, and inconvenient.”

This recital would appear to have been carefully introduced, in order to prevent any misunderstanding of the motive which induced the Legislature to pass the law, and places it distinctly upon the interest and convenience of the white population—excluding the inference that it might have been intended in any degree for the benefit of the other.

And in the act of 1784, by which the issue of slaves, born after the time therein mentioned, were to be free at a certain age, the section is again introduced by a preamble assigning a similar motive for the act. It is in these words:

“Whereas sound policy requires that the abolition of slavery should be effected as soon as may be consistent with the rights of individuals, and the public safety and welfare”—showing that the right of property in the master was to be protected, and that the measure was one of policy, and to prevent the injury and inconvenience, to the whites, of a slave population in the State.

And still further pursuing its legislation, we find that in the same statute passed in 1774, which prohibited the further importation of slaves into the State, there is also a provision by which any negro, Indian, or mulatto servant, who was found wandering out of the town or place to which he belonged, without a written pass such as is therein described, was made liable to be seized by any one, and taken before the next authority to be examined and delivered up to his master—who was required to pay the charge which had accrued thereby. And a subsequent section of the same law provides, that if any free negro shall travel without such pass, and shall be stopped, seized, or taken up, he shall pay all charges arising thereby. And this law was in full operation when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, and was not repealed till 1797. So that up to that time free negroes and mulattoes were associated with servants and slaves in the police regulations established by the laws of the State.

And again, in 1833, Connecticut passed another law, which made it penal to set up or establish any school in that State for the instruction of persons of the African race not inhabitants of the State, or to instruct or teach in any such school or institution, or board or harbor for that purpose, any such person, without the previous consent in writing of the civil authority of the town in which such school or institution might be.

And it appears by the case of Crandall v. the State, reported in 10 Conn. Rep., 340, that upon an information filed against Prudence Crandall for a violation of this law, one of the points raised in the defence was, that the law was a violation of the Constitution of the United States; and that the persons instructed, although of the African race, were citizens of other States, and therefore entitled to the rights and privileges of citizens in the State of Connecticut. But Chief Justice Dagget, before whom the case was tried, held, that persons of that description were not citizens of a State, within the meaning of the word citizen in the Constitution of the United States, and were not therefore entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in other States.

The case was carried up to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State, and the question fully argued there. But the case went off upon another point, and no opinion was expressed on this question.

We have made this particular examination into the legislative and judicial action of Connecticut, because, from the early hostility it displayed to the slave trade on the coast of Africa, we may expect to find the laws of that State as lenient and favorable to the subject race as those of any other State in the Union; and if we find that at the time the Constitution was adopted, they were not even there raised to the rank of citizens, but were still held and treated as property, and the laws relating to them passed with reference altogether to the interest and convenience of the white race, we shall hardly find them elevated to a higher rank anywhere else.

A brief notice of the laws of two other States, and we shall pass on to other considerations.

By the laws of New Hampshire, collected and finally passed in 1815, no one was permitted to be enrolled in the militia of the State but free white citizens; and the same provision is found in a subsequent collection of the laws, made in 1855. Nothing could more strongly mark the entire repudiation of the African race. The alien is excluded, because, being born in a foreign country, he cannot be a member of the community until he is naturalized. But why are the African race, born in the State, not permitted to share in one of the highest duties of the citizen? The answer is obvious; he is not, by the institutions and laws of the State, numbered among its people. He forms no part of the sovereignty of the State and is not therefore called on to uphold and defend it.

Again, in 1822, Rhode Island, in its revised code, passed a law forbidding persons who were authorized to join persons in marriage, from joining in marriage any white person with any negro, Indian, or mulatto, under the penalty of two hundred dollars, and declaring all such marriages absolutely null and void; and the same law was again re enacted in its revised code of 1844. So that, down to the last-montioned period, the strongest mark of inferiority and degradation was fastened upon the African race in that State.

It would be impossible to enumerate and compress in the space usually allotted to an opinion of a court, the various laws, marking the condition of this race, which were passed from time to time after the Revolution, and before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In addition to those already referred to, it is sufficient to say, that Chancellor Kent, whose accuracy and research no one will question, states in the sixth edition of his Commentaries (published in 1848, 2 vols., 258, note b,) that in no part of the country except Maine, did the African race, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites in the exercise of civil and political rights.

The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time the Constitution was adopted, and long afterwards, throughout the thirteen States by which that instrument was framed; and it is hardly consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they regarded at that time, as fellow-citizens and members of the sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; whom, as we are bound, out of respect to the State sovereignties, to assume they had deemed it just and necessary thus to stigmatize, and upon whom they had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and degradation; or, that when they met in convention to form the Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents, or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their citizens. It cannot be supposed that they intended to secure to them rights, and privileges, and rank, in the new political body throughout the Union, which every one of them denied within the limits of its own dominion. More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own satiety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.

It is impossible, it would seem, to believe that the great men of the slaveholding States, who took so large a share in framing the Constitution of the United States, and exercised so much influence in procuring its adoption, could have been so forgetful or regardless of their own safety and the safety of those who trusted and confided in them.

Besides, this want of foresight and care would have been utterly inconsistent with the caution displayed in providing for the admission of new members into this political family. For, when they gave to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, they at the same time took from the several States the power of naturalization, and confined that power exclusively to the Federal Government. No State was willing to permit another State to determine who should or should not be admitted as one of its citizens, and entitled to demand equal rights and privileges with their own people, within their own territories. The right of naturalization was therefore, with one accord, surrendered by the States, and confided to the Federal Government. And this power granted to Congress to establish an uniform rule of naturalization is, by the well understood meaning of the word, confined to persons born in a foreign country, under a foreign Government. It is not a power to raise to the rank of a citizen any one born in the United States, who from birth or parentage, by the laws of the country, belongs to an inferior and subordinate class. And when we find the States guarding themselves from the indiscreet or improper admission by other States of emigrants from other countries, by giving the power exclusively to Congress, we cannot fail to see that they could never have left with the States a much more important power—that is, the power of transforming into citizens a numerous class of persons, who in that character would be much more dangerous to the peace and safety of a large portion of the Union, than the few foreigners one of the States might improperly naturalize.

The Constitution upon its adoption obviously took from the States all power by any subsequent legislation to introduce as a citizen into the political family of the United States any one, no matter where he was born, or what might be his character or condition; and it gave to Congress the power to confer this character upon those only who were born outside of the dominions of the United States. And no law of a State, therefore, passed since the Constitution was adopted, can give any right of citizenship outside of its own territory.

A clause similar to the one in the Constitution, in relation to the rights and immunities of citizens of one State in the other States, was contained in the Articles of Confederation. But there is a difference of language, which is worthy of note. The provision in the Articles of Confederation was “that the free inhabitants of each of the States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice, excepted, should be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.”

It will be observed, that under this Confederation, each State had the right to decide for itself, and in its own tribunals, whom it would acknowledge as a free inhabitant of another State. The term free inhabitant, in the generality of its terms, would certainly include one of the African race who had been manumitted. But no example, we think, can be found of his admission to all the privileges of citizenship in any State of the Union after these Articles were formed, and while they continued in force. And, notwithstanding the generality of the words “free inhabitants,” it is very clear that, according to their accepted meaning in that day, they did not include the African race, whether free or not: for the fifth section of the ninth article provides that Congress should have the power “to agree upon the number of land forces to be raised, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State, which requisition should be binding.”

Words could hardly have been used which more strongly mark the line of distinction between the citizen and the subject; the free and the subjugated races. The latter were not even counted when the inhabitants of a State were to be embodied in proportion to its numbers for the general defence. And it cannot for a moment be supposed, that a class of persons thus separated and rejected from those who formed the sovereignty of the States, were yet intended to be included under the words “free inhabitants,” in the preceding article, to whom privileges and immunities were so carefully secured in every State.

But although this clause of the Articles of Confederation is the same in principle with that inserted in the Constitution, yet the comprehensive word inhabitant, which might be construed to include an emancipated slave, is omitted; and the privilege is confined to citizens of the State. And this alteration in words would hardly have been made, unless a different meaning was intended to be conveyed, or a possible doubt removed. The just and fair inference is, that as this privilege was about to be placed under the protection of the General Government, and the words expounded by its tribunals, and all power in relation to it taken from the State and its courts, it was deemed prudent to describe with precision and caution the persons to whom this high privilege was given—and the worn citizen was on that account substituted for the words free inhabitant. The word citizen excluded, and no doubt intended to exclude, foreigners who had not become citizens of some one of the States when the Constitution was adopted; and also every description of persons who were not fully recognised as citizens in the several States. This, upon any fair construction of the instruments to which we have referred, was evidently the object and purpose of this change of words.

To all this mass of proof we have still to add, that Congress has repeatedly legislated upon the same construction of the Constitution that we have given. Three laws, two of which were passed almost immediately after the Government went into operation, will be abundantly sufficient to show this. The two first are particularly worthy of notice, because many of the men who assisted in framing the Constitution, and took an active part in procuring its adoption, were then in the halls of legislation, and certainly understood what they meant when they used the words “people of the United States” and “citizen” in that well-considered instrument.

The first of these acts is the naturalization law, which was passed at the second session of the first Congress. March 26, 1790, and confines the right of becoming citizens “to aliens being free white persons”

Now, the Constitution does not limit the power of Confess in this respect to white persons. And they may, if they think proper, authorize the naturalization of any one of any color, who was born trader allegiance to another Government. But the language of the law above quoted, shows that citizenship at that time was perfectly understood to be confined to the white race; and that they alone constituted the sovereignty in the government.

Congress might, as we before said, have authorized the naturalization of Indians, because they were aliens and foreigners. But, in their then untutored and savage state, no one would have thought of admitting them as citizens in a civilized community. And, moreover, the atrocities they had but recently committed, when they were the allies of Great Britain in the Revolutionary war, were yet fresh in the recollect on of the people of the United States, and they were even then guarding themselves against the threatened renewal of Indian hostilities. No one supposed then that any Indian would ask for, or was capable of enjoying the privileges of an American citizen, and the word white was not used with any particular reference to them.

Neither was it used with any reference to the African race imported into or born in this country; because Congress had no power to naturalize them, and therefore there was no necessity for using particular words to exclude them.

It would seem to have been used merely because it followed out the line of division which the Constitution has drawn between the citizen race, who formed and held the Government, and the African race, which they held in subject on and slavery, and governed at their own pleasure.

Another of the early laws of which we have spoken, is the first militia law, which was passed in 1792, at the first session of the second Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant with the one just mentioned. It directs that every “free able-bodied white male citizen” shall be enrolled in the militia. The word white is evidently used to exclude the African race, and the word “citizen” to exclude unnaturalized foreigners; the latter forming no part of the sovereignty, owing it no allegiance, and therefore under no obligation to defend it. The African race, however, born in the country, did owe allegiance to the Government, whether they were slaves or free; but it is repudiated and rejected from the duties and obligations of citizenship in marked language.

The third act to which we have alluded is even still more decisive; it was passed as late as 1813, (2 Stat, 809,) and it provides: “that from and after the termination of the war in which the United States are now engaged with Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, on board of any public or private vessels of the United States, any person or persons except citizens of the United States, or persons of color, natives of the United States.”

Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word citizens, and they are described as another and different class of persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States.

And even as late as 1820, (chap. 104, sec. 8,) in the charter to the city of Washington, the corporation is authorized “to restrain and prohibit the nightly and other disorderly meetings of slaves, free negroes, and mulattoes,” thus associating them together in its legislation; and after prescribing the punishment that may be inflicted on the slaves, proceeds in the following words: “And to punish such free negroes and mulattoes by penalties not exceeding twenty dollars for any one offence; and in case of the inability of any such free negro or mulatto to pay any such penalty and cost thereon, to cause him or her to be confined to labor for any time not exceeding six calendar mouths.” And in a subsequent part of the same section, the act authorizes the corporation “to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which free negroes and mulattoes may reside in the city.”

This law, like the laws of the States, shows that this class of persons were governed by special legislation directed expressly to them, and always connected with provisions for the government of slaves, and not with those for the government of free white citizens. And after such an uniform course of legislation as we have stated, by the colonies, by the States, and by Congress, running through a period of more than a century, it would seem that to call persons thus marked and stigmatized, “citizens” of the United States, “fellow-citizens,” a constituent part of the sovereignty, would be an abuse of terms, and not calculated to exalt the character or an American citizen in the eyes of other nations.

The conduct of the Executive Department of the Government has been in perfect harmony upon this subject with this course of legislation. The quotation was brought officially before the late William Wirt, when be was the Attorney General of the United States, in 1821, and he decided that the words “citizens of the United States” were used in the acts of Congress in the same sense as in the Constitution; and that free persons of color were not citizens, within the meaning of the Constitution and laws; and this opinion has been confirmed by that of the late Attorney General, Caleb Cushing, in a recent case, and acted upon by the Secretary of State, who refused to grant passports to them as “citizens of the United States.”

But it is said that a person may be a citizen, and entitled to that character, although he does not possess all the rights which may belong to other citizens; as, for example, the right to vote, or to hold particular offices; and that yet, when he goes into another State, he is entitled to be recognized there as a citizen, although the State may measure his rights by the rights which it allows to persons of a like character or class resident in the State, and refuse to him the full rights of citizenship.

This argument overlooks the language of the provision in the Constitution of which we are speaking.

Undoubtedly, a person may be a citizen, that is, a member of the community who form the sovereignty, although he exercises no share of the political power, and is incapacitated from holding particular office. Women and minors, who form a part of the political family, cannot vote; and when a property qualification is required to vote or hold a particular office, those who have not the necessary qualification cannot vote or hold the office, yet they are citizens.

So, too, a person may be entitled to vote by the law of the State, who is not a citizen even of the State itself. And in some of the States of the Union foreigners not naturalized are allowed to vote. And the State may give the right to free negroes and mulattoes, but that does not make them citizens of the State, and still less of the United States. And the provision in the Constitution giving privileges and immunities in other States, does not apply to them.

Neither does it apply to a person who, being the citizen of a State, migrates to another State. For then he becomes subject to the laws of the State in which he lives, and he is no longer a citizen of the State from which he removed. And the State in which he resides may then, unquestionably, determine his status or condition, and place him among the class of persons who are not recognized as citizens, but belong to an inferior and subject race; and may deny him the privileges and immunities enjoyed by its citizens.

But so far as mere rights of persons are concerned, the provision in question is confined to citizens of a State who are temporarily in another State without taking up their residence there. It gives them no political rights in the State, as to voting or holding office, or in any other respect. For a citizen of one State has no right to participate in the government of another. But if he ranks as a citizen in the State to which he belongs, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, then, whenever he goes into another State, the Constitution clothes him, as to the rights of person, with all the privileges and immunities which belong to citizens of the State. And if persons of the African race are citizens of a State, and of the United States, they would be entitled to all these privileges and immunities in every State, and the State could not restrict them; for they would hold these privileges and immunities under the paramount authority of the Federal Government, and its courts would be bound to maintain and enforce them, the Constitution and laws of the State to the contrary notwithstanding. And if the States could limit or restrict them, or place the party in an inferior grade, this clause of the Constitution would be unmeaning, and could have no operation; and would give no rights to the citizen when in another State. He would have none but what the State itself chose to allow him. This is evidently not the construction or meaning of the clause in question. It guaranties rights, to the citizen, and the State cannot withhold them. And these rights are of a character and weald lead to consequences, which make it absolutely certain that the African race were not included under the name of citizens of a State, and were not in the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution when these privileges and immunities were provided for the protection of the citizen in other States.

The case of Legrand v. Darnall (2 Peters, 664) has been referred to for the purpose of showing that this court has decided that the descendant of a slave may sue as a citizen in a court of the United States; but the case itself shows that the question did not arise and could not have arisen in the case.

It appears from the report, that Darnall was born in Maryland, and was the son of a white man by one of his slaves, and his father executed certain instruments to manumit him, and devised to him some landed property in the State. This property Darnall afterwards sold to Legrand, the appellant, who gave his notes for the purchase-money. But becoming afterwards apprehensive that the appellee had not been emancipated according to the laws of Maryland, he refused to pay the notes until he could be better satisfied as to Darnall’s right to convey. Darnall, in the mean time, had taken up his residence in Pennsylvania, and brought suit on the notes, and recovered judgment in the Circuit Court for the district of Maryland.

The whole proceeding, as appears by the report, was an amicable one; Legrand being perfectly willing to pay the money, if he could obtain a title, and Darnall not wishing him to pay unless he could make him a good one. In point of fact, the whole proceeding was under the direction of the counsel who argued the case for the appellee, who was the mutual friend of the parties, and confided in by both of them, and whose only object was to have the rights of both parties established by judicial decision in the most speedy and least expensive manner.

Legrand, therefore, raised no objection to the jurisdiction of the court in the suit at law, because he was himself anxious to obtain the judgment of the court upon his title. Consequently, there was nothing in the record before the court to show that Darnell, who was of African descent, and the usual judgment and award of execution was entered. And Legrand thereupon filed his bill on the equity side of the Circuit Court, stating that Darnall was born a slave, and had not been legally emancipated, and could not therefore take the land devised to him, nor make Legrand a good title; and praying an injunction to restrain Darnall from proceeding to execution on the judgment, which was granted. Darnall answered, averring in his answer that he was a free man, and capable of conveying a good title. Testimony was taken on this point, and at the hearing the Circuit Court was of opinion that Darnall was a free man and his title good, and dissolved the injunction and dismissed the bill; and that decree was affirmed here, upon the appeal of Legrand.

Now, it is difficult to imagine how any question about the citizenship of Darnall, or his right to sue in that character, can be supposed to have arisen or been decided in that case. The fact that he was of African descent was first brought before the court upon the bill in equity. The suit at law had then passed into judgment and award of execution, and the Circuit Court, as a court of law, had no longer any authority over it. It was a valid and legal judgment, which the court that rendered it had not the power to reverse or set aside. And unless it had jurisdiction as a court of equity to restrain him from using its process as a court of law, Darnall, if he thought proper, would have been at liberty to proceed on his judgment, and compel the payment of the money, although the allegations in the bill were true, and he was incapable of making a title. No other court could have enjoined him, for certainly no State equity court could interfere in that way with the judgment of a Circuit Court of the United States.

But the Circuit Court as a court of equity certainly had equity jurisdiction over its own judgment as a court of law, without regard to the character of the parties; and had not only the right, but it was its duty—no matter who were the parties in the judgment—to prevent them from proceeding to enforce it by execution, if the court was satisfied that the money was not justly and equitably due. The ability of Darnall to convey did not depend upon his citizenship, but upon his title to freedom. And if he was free, he could hold and convey property, by the laws of Maryland, although he was not a citizen. But if he was by law still a slave, he could not. It was therefore the duty of the court, sitting as a court of equity in the latter case, to prevent him from using its process, as a court of common law, to compel the payment of the purchase money, when it was evident that the purchaser must lose the land. But if he was free, and could make a title, it was equally the duty of the court not to suffer Legrand to keep the land, and refuse the payment of the money, upon the ground that Darnall was incapable of suing or being sued as a citizen in a court of the United States. The character or citizenship of the parties had no connection with the question of jurisdiction, and the matter in dispute had no relation to the citizenship of Darnall. Nor is such a question alluded to in the opinion of the Court.

Besides, we are by no means prepared to say that there are not many cases, civil as well as criminal, in which a Circuit Court of the United States may exercise jurisdiction, although one of the African race is a party; that broad question is not before the court. The question with which we are now dealing is, whether a person of the African race can be a citizen of the United States, and become thereby entitled to a special privilege, by virtue of his title to that character, and which, under the Constitution, no one but a citizen can claim. It is manifest that the case of Legrand and Darnall has no bearing on that question, and can have no application to the case now before the court.

This case, however, strikingly illustrates the consequences that would follow the construction of the Constitution which would give the power contended for to a State. It would in effect give it also to an individual. For if the father of young Darnall had manumitted him in his lifetime, and sent him to reside in a State which recognized him as a citizen, he might have visited and sojourned in Maryland when he pleased, and as long as he pleased, as a citizen of the United States; and the State officers and tribunals would be compelled, by the paramount authority of the Constitution, to receive him and treat him as one of its citizens, exempt from the laws and police of the State in relation to a person of that description, and allow him to enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizenship without respect to the laws of Maryland, although such laws were deemed by it absolutely essential to its own safety.

The only two provisions which point to them and include them, treat them as property, and make it the duty of the Government to protect it; no other power, in relation to this race, is to be found in the Constitution; and as it is a Government of special, delegated, powers, no authority beyond these two provisions can be constitutionally exercised. The Government of the United States had no right to interfere for any other purpose but that of protecting the rights of the owner, leaving it altogether with the several States to deal with this race, whether emancipated or not, as each State may think justice, humanity, and the interests and safety of society, require. The States evidently intended to reserve this power exclusively to themselves.

No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself, by which it may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to the Government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abregate the judicial character of this court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day. This court was not created by the Constitution for such purposes. Higher and graver trusts have been confided to it, and it must not falter in the path of duty.

What the construction was at that time, we think can hardly admit of doubt. We have the language of the Declaration of Independence and of the Articles of Confederation, in addition to the plain words of the Constitution itself; we have the legislation of the different States, before, about the time, and since, the Constitution Was adopted; we have the legislation of Congress, from the time of its adoption to a recent period; and we have the constant and uniform action of the Executive Department, all concurring together, and leading to the same result. And if anything in relation to the construction of the Constitution can be regarded as settled, it is that which we now give to the word “citizen” and the word “people.”

And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that, upon the facts stated in the plea in abatement, Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts; and, consequently, that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and that the judgment on the plea in abatement is erroneous.

We are aware that doubts are entertained by some of the members of the court, whether the plea in abatement is legally before the court upon this writ of error: but if that plea is regarded as waived, or out of the case upon any other ground, yet the question as to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court is presented on the face of the bill of exception itself, taken by the plaintiff at the trial; for he admits that he and his wife were born slaves, but endeavors to make out his title to freedom and citizenship by showing that they were taken by their owner to certain places, hereinafter mentioned, where slavery could not by law exist, and that they thereby became free, and upon their return to Missouri became citizens of that State.

Now, if the removal of which he speaks did not give them their freedom, then by his own admission he is still a slave; and whatever opinions may be entertained in favor of the citizenship of a free person of the African race, no one supposes that a slave is a citizen of the State or of the United States. If, therefore, the acts done by his owner did not make them free persons, he is still a slave, and certainly incapable of suing in the character of a citizen.

The principle of law is too well serried to be disputed, that a court can give no judgment for either party, where it has no jurisdiction; and if, upon the showing of Scott himself, it appeared that he was still a slave, the case ought to have been dismissed, and the judgment against him and in favor of the defendant for costs, is, like that on the plea in abatement, erroneous, and the suit ought to have been dismissed by the Circuit Court for want of jurisdiction in that court.

But, before we proceed to examine this part of the case, it may be proper to notice an objection taken to the judicial authority of this court to decide it; and it has been said, that as this court has decided against the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court on the plea in abatement, it has no right to examine any question presented by the exception; and that anything it may say upon that part of the case will be extra-judicial, and mere obiter dicta.

This is a manifest mistake; there can be no doubt as to the jurisdiction of this court to revise the judgment of a Circuit Court, and to reverse it for any error apparent on the record, whether it be the error of giving judgment in a case over which it had no jurisdiction, or any other material error; and this, too, whether there is a plea in abatement or not.

The objection appears to have arisen from confounding writs of error to a State court, with writs of error to a Circuit Court of the United States. Undoubtedly, upon a writ of error to a State court, unless the record shows a case that gives jurisdiction, the case must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this court. And if it is dismissed on that ground, we have no right to examine and decide upon any question presented by the bill of exception, or any other part of the record. But writs of error to a State court, and to a Circuit Court of the United States, are regulated by different laws, and stand upon entirely different principles. And in a writ of error to a Circuit Court of the United States, the whole record is before this court for examination and decision; and if the sum in controversy is large enough to give jurisdiction, it is not only the right, but it is the judicial duty of the court, to examine the whole case as presented by the record; and if it appears upon its face that any material error or errors have been committed by the court below, it is the duty of this court to reverse the judgment, and remand the case. And certainly an error in passing a judgment upon the merits in favor of either party, in a case which it was not authorized to try, and over which it had no jurisdiction, is as grave an error as a court can commit.

The plea in abatement is not a plea to the jurisdiction of this court, but to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. And it appears by the record before us, that the Circuit Court committed an error, in deciding that it had jurisdiction, upon the facts in the case, admitted by the pleadings. It is the duty of the appellate tribunal to correct this error; but that could not be done by dismissing the case for want of jurisdiction here—for that would leave the erroneous judgment in full force, and the injured party without remedy. And the appellate court therefore exercises the power for which alone appellate courts are constituted, by reversing the judgment of the court below for this error. It exercises its proper and appropriate jurisdiction over the judgment and proceedings of the Circuit Court, as they appear upon the record brought up by the writ of error.

The correction of one error in the court below does not deprive the appellate court of the power of examining further into the record, and correcting any other material errors which may have been committed by the inferior court. There is certainly no rule of law—nor any practice—nor any decision of a court—which even questions this power in the appellate tribunal. On the contrary, it is the daily practice of this court, and of all appellate courts where they reverse the judgment of an inferior court for error, to correct by its opinions whatever errors may appear on the record material to the case; and they have always held it to be their duty to do so where the silence of the court might lead to misconstruction or future controversy, and the point has been relied on by either side, and argued before the court.

In the case before us, we have already decided that the Circuit Court erred in deciding that it had jurisdiction upon the facts admitted by the pleadings. And it appears that, in the further progress of the case, it acted upon the erroneous principle it had decided on the pleadings, and gave judgment for the defendant, where, upon the facts admitted in the exception, it had no jurisdiction.

We are at a loss to understand upon what principle of law applicable to appellate jurisdiction, it can be supposed that this court has not judicial authority to correct the last-mentioned error, because they had before corrected the former; or by what process of reasoning it can be made out, that the error of an inferior court in actually pronouncing judgment for one of the parties, in a case in which it had no jurisdiction, cannot be looked into or corrected by this court, because we have decided a similar question presented in the pleadings. The last point is distinctly presented by the facts contained in the plaintiff’s own bill of exceptions, which he himself brings here by this writ of error. It was the point which chiefly occupied the attention of the counsel on both sides in the argument—and the judgment which this court must render upon both errors is precisely the same. It must, in each of them, exercise jurisdiction over the judgment, and reverse it for the errors committed by the court below; and issue a mandate to the Circuit Court to conform its judgment to the opinion pronounced by this court, by dismissing the case for want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court. This is the constant and invariable practice of this court, where it reverses a judgment for want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court.

It can scarcely be necessary to pursue such a question further. The want of jurisdiction in the court below may appear on the record without any plea in abatement. This is familiarly the case where a court or chancery has exercised jurisdiction in a case where the plaintiff had a plain and adequate remedy at law, and it so appears by the transcript when brought here by appeal. So also where it appears that a court of admiralty has exercised jurisdiction in a case belonging exclusively to a court of common law. In these cases there is no plea in abatement. And for the same reason, and upon the same principles, where the defect of jurisdiction is patent on the record, this court is bound to reverse the judgment, although the defendant has not pleaded in abatement to the jurisdiction of the inferior court.

The cases of Jackson v. Ashton and of Capron v. Van Noorden, to which we have referred in a previous part of this opinion, are directly in point. In the last-mentioned case, Capron brought an action against Van Noorden in a Circuit Court of the United States, without showing, by the usual averments of citizenship, that the court had jurisdiction. There was no plea in abatement put in, and the parties went to trial upon the merits. The court gave judgment in favor of the defendant with costs. The plaintiff thereupon brought his writ of error, and this court reversed the judgment given in favor of the defendant, and remanded the case with directions to dismiss it, because it did not appear by the transcript that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction.

The case before us still more strongly imposes upon this court the duty of examining whether the court below has not committed an error, in taking jurisdiction and giving a judgment for costs in favor of the defendant; for in Capron v. Van Noorden the judgment was reversed because it did not appear that the parties were citizens of different States. They might or might not be. But in this case it does appear that the plaintiff was born a slave; and if the facts upon which he relies have not made him free, then it appears affirmatively on the record that he is not a citizen, and consequently his suit against Sandford was not a suit between citizens of different States, and the court had no authority to pass any judgment between the parties. The suit ought, in this view of it, to have been dismissed by the Circuit Court, and its judgment in favor of Sandford is erroneous, and must be reversed.

It is true that the result either way, by dismissal or by a judgment for the defendant, makes very little, if any, difference in a pecuniary or personal point of view to either party. But the fact that the result would be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment, would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment which is patent on the record, and which if sanctioned, might be drawn into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice in some future suit.

We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether the facts relied, on by the plaintiff entitled him to his freedom.

The case, as he himself states it, on the record brought here by his writ of error, is this:

The plaintiff was a negro slave, belonging to Dr. Emerson, who was a surgeon in the army of the United States. In the year 1834, he took the plaintiff from the State of Missouri to the military post at Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, and held him there as a slave until the month of April or May, 1836. At the time last mentioned, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff from said military post at Rock Island to the military post at Fort Snelling, situate on the west bank of the Mississippi river, in the territory known as Upper Louisiana, acquired by the United States of France. and situate north of the latitude of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north, and north of the State of Missouri. Said Dr. Emerson held the plaintiff in slavery at said Fort Shelling, from said last-mentioned date until the year 1838.

In the year 1835, Harriet, who is named in the second count of the plaintiff’s declaration, was the negro slave of Major Taliaferro, who belonged to the army of the United States. In that year, 1835, said Major Taliaferro took said Harriet to said Fort Shelling, a military post, situated as hereinbefore stated, and kept her there as a slave until the year 1836, and then sold and delivered her as a slave, at said Fort Snelling, unto the said Dr. Emerson hereinbefore named. Said Dr. Emerson held said Harriet in slavery at said Fort Snelling until the year 1838.

In the year 1836, the plaintiff and Harriet intermarried, at Fort Snelling, with the consent of Dr. Emerson, who then claimed to be their master and owner. Eliza and Lizzie, named in the third comet of the plaintiff’s declaration, are the fruit of that marriage. Eliza is about fourteen years old, and was born on board the steamboat Gipsey, north of the north line of the State of Missouri, and upon the river Mississippi. Lizzie is about seven years old, and was born in the State of Missouri, at the military post called Jefferson Barracks.

In the year 1838, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff and said Harriet, and their said daughter Eliza, from said Fort Snelling to the State of Missouri, where they have ever since resided.

Before the commencement of this suit, said Dr. Emerson sold and conveyed the plaintiff, and Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, to the defendant, as slaves, and the defendant has ever since claimed to hold them, and each of them, as slaves.

In considering this part of the controversy, two questions arise: 1. Was he, together with his family, free in Missouri by reason of the stay in the territory of the United States hereinbefore mentioned? And, 2. If they were not, is Scott himself free by reason of his removal to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, as stated in the above admissions?

We proceed to examine the first question.

The act of Congress, upon which the plaintiff relies, declares that slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime. shall be forever prohibited in all that part of the territory ceded by France, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, and not included within the limits of Missouri. And the difficulty which meets us at the threshold of this part of the inquiry is, whether Congress was authorised to pass this law under any of the powers granted to it by the Constitution; for if the authority is not given by that instrument, it is the duty of this court to declare it void and inoperative, and incapable of conferring freedom upon any one who is held as a slave under the laws of any one of the States.

The counsel for the plaintiff has laid much stress upon that article in the Constitution which confers on Congress the power “to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States;” but, in the judgment of the court, that provision has no hearing on the present controversy, and the power there given, whatever it may be, is confined, and was intended to be confined, to the territory which at that time belonged to, or was claimed by, the United States, and was within their boundaries as settled by the treaty with Great Britain, and can have no influence upon a territory afterwards acquired from a foreign Government. It was a special provision for a known and particular territory, and to meet a present emergency, and nothing more.

A brief summary of the history of the times, as well as the careful and measured terms in which the article is framed, will show the correctness of this proposition.

It will be remembered that, from the commencement of the Revoluntionary war, serious difficulties existed between the States, in relation to the disposition of large and unsettled territories which were included in the chartered limits of some of the States. And some of the other States, and more especially Maryland, which bad no unsettled lands, insisted that as the unoccupied lands, if wrested from Great Britain, would owe their preservation to the common purse and the common sword, the money arising from them ought to be applied in just proportion among the several States to pay the expenses of the war, and ought not to be appropriated to the use of the State in whose chartered limits they might happen to lie, to the exclusion of the other State, by whose combined efforts and common expense the territory was defended and preserved against the claim of the British Government.

These difficulties caused much uneasiness during the war, while the issue was in some degree doubtful, and the future boundaries of the United States yet to be defined by treaty, if we achieved our independence.

The majority of the Congress of the Confederation obviously concurred in opinion with the State of Maryland, and desired to obtain from the States which claimed it a cession of this territory, in order that Congress might raise money on this security to carry on the war. This appears by the resolution passed on the 6th of September, 1780, strongly urging the States to cede these lands to the United. States, both for the sake of peace and union among themselves and to maintain the public credit; and this was followed by the resolution of October 10th, 1780, by which Congress pledged itself, that if the lands were ceded, as recommended by the resolution above mentioned, they should be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and formed into distinct republican States, which should become members of the Federal Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, and freedom. and independence, as other States.

But these difficulties became much more serious after peace took place, and the boundaries of the United States were established. Every State, at that time, felt severely the pressure of its war debt; but in Virginia, and some other States, there were large territories of unsettled lands, the sale of which would enable them to discharge their obligations without much inconvenience; while other States, which had no such resource, saw before them many years of heavy and burdensome taxation; and the latter insisted, for the reasons before stated, that these unsettled lands should be treated as the common property of the States, and the proceeds applied to their common benefit.

The letters from the statesmen of that day will show bow much this controversy occupied their thoughts, and the dangers that were apprehended from it. It was the disturbing element of the time, and fears were entertained that it might dissolve the Confederation by which the States were then united.

These fears and dangers were, however, at once removed, when the State of Virginia, in 1784, voluntarily ceded to the United States the immense tract of country lying northwest of the river Ohio. and which was within the acknowledged limits of the State. The only object of the State, in making this cession, was to pat an end to the threatening and exciting controversy, and to enable the Congress of that time to dispose of the lands, and appropriate the proceeds as a common fund for the common benefit of the States. It was not ceded because it was inconvenient to the State to hold and govern it, nor from any expectation that it could be better or more conveniently governed by the United States.

The example of Virginia was soon afterwards followed by other States, and, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. all of the States, similarly situated, had ceded their unappropriated lands, except North Carolina and Georgia. The main object for which these cessions were desired and made, was on account of their money value, and to put an end to a dangerous controversy, as to who was justly entitled to the proceeds when the land should be sold. It is necessary to bring this part of the history of these cessions thus distinctly into view, because it will enable us the better to comprehend the phraseology of the article in the Constitution, so often referred to in the argument.

Undoubtedly the powers of sovereignty and the eminent domain were ceded with the land. This was essential, in order to make it effectual, and to accomplish its objects. But it must be remembered that, at that time, there was no Government of the United States in existence with enumerated and limited powers; what was then called the United States, were thirteen separate, sovereign, independent States, which had entered into a league or confederation for their mutual protection and advantage, and the Congress of the United States was composed of the representatives of these separate sovereignties, meeting together, as equals, to discuss and decide on certain measures which the States, by the Articles of Confederation, had agreed to submit to their decision. But this Confederation had none of the attributes of sovereignty in legislative, executive, or judicial power. It was little more than a congress of ambassadors, authorised to represent separate nations, in matters in which they had a common concern.

It was this congress that accepted the cession from Virginia. They had no power to accept it under the Articles of Confederation. But they bad an undoubted right, as independent sovereignties, to accept any cession of territory for their common benefit, which all of them assented to; and it is equally clear that as their common property, and having no superior to control them, they had the right to exercise absolute dominion over it, subject only to the restrictions which Virginia had imposed in her act of cession. There was, as we have said, no Government of the United States then in existence with special enumerated and limited powers. The territory belonged to sovereignties, who, subject to the limitations above mentioned, had a right to establish any form of Government they pleased, by compact or treaty among themselves, and to regulate rights of person and rights of property in the territory, as they might deem proper. It was by a Congress, representing the authority of these several and separate sovereignties, and acting under their authority and command (but not from any authority derived from the Articles of Confederation,) that the instrument usually called the ordinance of 1787 was adopted; regulating in much detail the principles and the laws by which this territory should be governed; and among other provisions, slavery is prohibited in it. We do not question the power of the States. by agreement among themselves, to pass this ordinance, nor its obligatory force in the territory, while the confederation or league of the States in their separate sovereign character continued to exist.

This was the state of things when the Constitution of the United States was formed. The territory ceded by Virginia belonged to the several confederated States as common property, and they had united in establishing in it a system of government and jurisprudence, in order to prepare it for admission as States, according to the terms of the cession. They were about to dissolve this federative Union, and to surrender a portion of their independent sovereignty to a new Government, which, for certain purposes, would make the people of the several States one people, and which was to be supreme and controlling within its sphere of action throughout the United States; but this Government was to be carefully limited in its powers, and to exercise no authority beyond those expressly granted by the Constitution, or necessarily to be implied from the language of the instrument, and the objects it was intended to accomplish; and as this league of States would, upon the adoption of the new Government, cease to have any power over the territory, and the ordinance they had agreed upon be incapable of execution and a mere nullity, it was obvious that some provision was necessary to give the new Government sufficient power to enable it to carry into effect the objects for which it was ceded, and the compacts and agreements which the States had made with each other in the exercise of their powers of sovereignty. It was necessary that the lands should be sold to pay the war debt; that a Government and system of jurisprudence should be maintained in it, to protect the citizens of the United States who should migrate to the territory, In their rights of person and of property. It was also necessary that the new Government, about to be adopted, should be authorized to maintain the claim of the United States to the unappropriated lands in North Carolina and Georgia, which had not then been ceded, but the cession of which was confidently anticipated upon some terms that would be arranged between the General Government and these two States. And, moreover, there were many articles of value besides this property in land such as arms. military stores, munitions, and ships of war, which were the common property of the States, when acting in their independent characters as confederates, which neither the new Government nor any one else would have a right to take possession of, or control. without authority from them; and it was to place these things under the guardianship and protection of the new Government, and to clothe it with the necessary powers, that the clause was inserted in the Constitution which gives Congress the power “to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.” It was intended for a specific purpose, to provide for the things we have mentioned. It was to transfer to the new Government the property then held in common by the States, and to give to that Government power to apply it to the objects for which it had been destined by mutual agreement among the States before their league was dissolved. It applied only to the property which the States held in common at that time, and has no reference whatever to any territory or other property which the new sovereignty might afterwards itself acquire.

The language used in the clause, the arrangement and combination of the powers, and the somewhat unusual phraseology it uses, when it speaks of the political power to be exercised in the government of the territory, all indicate the design and meaning of the clause to be such as we have mentioned. It does not speak of any territory, nor of Territories, but uses language which, according to its legitimate meaning, points to a particular thing. The power is given in relation only to the territory of the United States—that is, to a territory then in existence, and then known or claimed as the territory of the United States. It begins its enumeration of powers by that of disposing, in other words, making sale of the lands, or raising money from them, which, as we have already said, was the main object of the cession, and which is accordingly the first thing provided for in the article. It then gives the power which was necessarily associated with the disposition and sale of the lands—that is, the power of making needful rules and regulations respecting the territory. And whatever construction may now be given to these words, every one, we think, must admit that they are not the words usually employed by statesmen in giving supreme power of legislation. They are certainly very unlike the words used in the power granted to legislate over territory which the new Government might afterwards itself obtain by cession from a State, either for its seat of Government, or for forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, and other needful buildings.

And the same power of making needful rules respecting the territory is, in precisely the same language, applied to the other property belonging to the United States—associating the power over the territory in this respect with the power over movable or personal property—that is, the ships, arms, and munitions of war, which then belonged in common to the State sovereignties. And it will hardly be said, that this power, in relation to the last-mentioned objects, was deemed necessary to be thus specially given to the new Government, in order to authorize it to make needful rules and regulations respecting the ships it might itself build, or arms and munitions of war it might itself manufacture or provide for the public service.

No one, it is believed, would think a moment of deriving the power of Congress to make needful rules and regulations in relation to property of this kind from this clause of the Constitution. Nor can it, upon any fair construction, be applied to any property, but that which the new Government was about to receive from the confederated States. And if this be true as to this property, it must be equally true and limited as to the territory, which is so carefully and precisely coupled with it—and like it referred to as property in the power granted. The concluding words of the clause appear to render this construction irresistible; for, after the provisions we have mentioned, it proceeds to say, “that nothing in the Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.”

Now, as we have before said, all of the States, except North Carolina and Georgia, had made the cession before the Constitution was adopted, according to the resolution of Congress of October 10, 1780, the claims of other States, that the unappropriated lands in these two States should be applied to the common benefit, in like manner, was still insisted on, but refused by the States. And this member of the clause in question evidently applies to them, and can apply to nothing else. It was to exclude the conclusion that either party, by adopting the Constitution, would surrender what they deemed their rights. And when the latter provision relates so obviously to the unappropriated lands not yet ceded by the States, and the first clause makes provision for those then actually ceded, it is impossible, by any just rule of construction, to make the first provision general, and extend to all territories, which the Federal Government might in any way afterwards acquire, when the latter is plainly and unequivocally confined to a particular territory; which was a part of the same controversy, and involved in the same dispute. and depended upon the same principles. The union of the two provisions in the same clause shows that they were kindred subjects; and that the whole clause is local, and relates only to lands, within the limits of the United States, which had been or then were claimed by a State; and that no other territory was in the mind of the framers of the Constitution, or intended to be embraced in it. Upon any other construction it would be impossible to account for the insertion of the last provision in the place where it is found, or to comprehend why, or for what object, it was associated with the previous provision.

This view of the subject is confirmed by the manner in which the present Government of the United States dealt with the subject as soon as it came into existence. It must be borne in mind that the same States that formed the Confederation also formed and adopted the new Government, to which so large a portion of their former sovereign powers were surrendered. It must also be borne in mind that all of these same States which had then ratified the new Constitution were represented in the Congress which passed the first law for the government of this territory; and many of the members of that legislative body had been deputies from the States under the Confederation—had united in adopting the ordinance of 1787, and assisted in forming the new Government under which they were then acting, and whose powers they were then exercising. And it is obvious from the law they passed to carry into effect the principles and provisions of the ordinance that they regarded it as the act of the States done in the exercise of their legitimate powers at the time. The new Government took the territory as it found it, and in the condition in which it was transferred, and did not attempt to undo anything that had been done. And, among the earliest laws passed under the new Government, is one reviving the ordinance of 1787, which had become inoperative and a nullity upon the adoption of the Constitution. Tiffs law introduces no new form or principles for its government, but recite, in the preamble, that it is passed in order that this ordinance may continue to have full effect, and proceeds to make only those rules and regulations which were needful to adapt it to the new Government, into whose hands the power had fallen. It appears, therefore, that this Congress regarded the purposes to which the land in this Territory was to be applied, and the form of government and principles of jurisprudence which were to prevail there, while it remained in the Territorial State, as already determined on by the States when they had full power and right to make the decision; and that the new Government, having received it in this condition, ought to carry substantially into effect the plans and principles which had been previously adopted by the States, and which, no doubt, the States anticipated when they surrendered their power to the new Government. And if we regard this clause of the Constitution as pointing to this Territory, with a Territorial Government already established in it, which had been ceded to the States for the purposes hereinbefore mentioned—every word in it is perfectly appropriate and easily understood, and the provisions it contains are in perfect harmony with the objects for which it was ceded, and with the condition of its government as a Territory at the time. We can, then, easily account for the manner in which the first Congress legislated on the subject—and can also understand why this power over the territory was associated in the same clause with the other property of the United States, and subjected to the like power of making needful rules and regulations. But if the clause is construed in the expanded sense contended for, so as to embrace any territory acquired from a foreign nation by the present Government, and to give it in such territory a despotic and unlimited power over persons and property, such as the confederated States might exercise in their common property, it would he difficult to account for the phraseology used, when compared with other grants of power—and also for its association with the other provisions in the same clause.

The Constitution has always been remarkable for the felicity of its arrangement of different subjects, and the perspicuity and appropriateness of the language it uses. But if the clause is construed to extend to territory acquired by the present Government from a foreign nation, outside of the limits of any charter from the British Government to a colony, it would be difficult to say, why it was deemed necessary to give the Government the power to sell any vacant lands belonging to the sovereignty which might be found within it; and if this was necessary, why the grant of this power should precede the power to legislate over it and establish a Government there; and still more difficult to say, why it was deemed necessary so specially and particularly to grant the power to make needful rules and regulations in relation to any personal or movable property it might acquire there. For the words, other property, necessarily, by every known rule of interpretation, must mean property of a different description from territory or land. And the difficulty world perhaps be insurmountable in endeavoring to account for the last member of the sentence, which provides that “nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States or any particular State,” or to say how any particular State could have claims in or to a territory ceded by a foreign Government, or to account for associating this provision with the preceding provisions of the clause, with which it would appear to have no connection.

The words “needful rules and regulations” would seem, also, to have been cautiously used for some definite object. They are not the words usually employed by statesmen. when they mean to give the powers of sovereignty, or to establish a Government, or to authorise its establishment. Thus, in the law to renew and keep alive the ordinance of 1787, and to re-establish the Government, the title of the law is: “An act to provide for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio.” And in the Constitution, when granting the power to legislate over the territory that may be selected for the seat of Government independently of a State, it does not say Congress shall have power “to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory;” but it declares that “Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District (not exceeding, ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the Government of the United States.

The words “rules and regulations” are usually employed in the Constitution in speaking of same particular specified power which it means to confer on the Government, and not, as we have seen, when granting general powers of legislation. As, for example, in the particular power to Congress “to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, or the particular and specific power to regulate commerce;” “to establish an uniform rule of naturalization;” “to coin money and regulate the value thereof.” And to construe the words of which we are speaking as a general and unlimited grant of sovereignty over territories which the Government might afterwards acquire, is to use them in a sense and for a purpose for which they were not used in any other part of the instrument. But if confined to a particular Territory, in which a Government and laws had already been established, but which would require some alterations to adapt it to the new Government, the words are peculiarly applicable and appropriate for that purpose.

The necessity of this special provision in relation to property and the rights or property held in common by the confederated States, is illustrated by the first clause of the sixth article. This clause provides that “all debts, contracts, and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Government as under the Confederation.” This provision like the one under consideration, was indispensable if the new Constitution was adopted The new Government was not a mere change in a dynasty, or in a form of government, leaving the nation or sovereignty the same, and clothed with all the right, and bound by all the obligations of the preceding one. But, when the present United States came into existence under the new Government, it was a new political body, a new nation, then for the first time taking its place in the family of nations. It took nothing by succession from the Confederation. It had no right, as its successor, to any property or rights of property which it had acquired, and was not liable for any of its obligations. It was evidently viewed in this light by the framers of the Constitution. And as the several States would cease to exist in their former confederated character upon the adoption of the Constitution, and could not, in that character, again assemble together, special provisions were indispensable to transfer to the new Government the property and rights which at that time they held in common; and at the same time to authorize it to lay taxes and appropriate money to pay the common debt which they had contracted; and this power could only be given to it by special provisions in the Constitution. The clause in relation to the territory and other property of the United States provided for the first, and the clause last quoted provides for the other. They have no connection with the general powers and rights of sovereignty delegated to the new Government, and can neither enlarge nor diminish them. They were inserted to meet a present emergency, and not to regulate its powers as a Government.

Indeed, a similar provision was deemed necessary, in relation to treaties made by the Confederation; and when in the clause next succeeding the one of which we have last spoken, it is declared that treaties shall be the supreme law of the land, care is taken to include, by express words, the treaties made by the confederated States. The language is: “and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.”

Whether, therefore, we take the particular clause in question, by itself, or in connection with the other provisions of the Constitution, we think it clear, that it applies only to the particular territory of which we have spoken, and cannot, by any just rule of interpretation, be extended to territory which the new Government might afterwards obtain from a foreign nation. Consequently, the power which Congress may have lawfully exercises in this Territory, while it remained under a Territorial Government, and which may have been sanctioned by judicial decision, can furnish no justification and no argument to support a similar exercise of power over territory afterwards acquired by the Federal Government. We put aside, therefore, any argument, drawn from precedents, showing the extent of the power which the General Government exercised over slavery in this Territory, as altogether inapplicable to the case before us.

But the case of the American and Ocean Insurance Companies v. Canter (1 Pet., 511) has been quoted as establishing a different construction of this clause of the Constitution. There is, however, not the slightest conflict between the opinion now given and the one referred to; and it is only by taking a single sentence out of the latter and separating it from the context, that even an appearance of conflict can be shown. We need not comment on such a mode of expounding an opinion of the court. Indeed it most commonly misrepresents instead of expounding it. And this is fully exemplified in the case referred to, where, if one sentence is taken by itself, the opinion would appear to be in direct conflict with that now given; but the words which immediately follow that sentence show that the court, did not mean to decide the point, but merely affirmed the power of Congress to establish a Government in the Territory, leaving it an open question, whether that power was derived from this clause in the Constitution, or was to be necessarily referred item a power to acquire territory by cession from a foreign Government. The opinion on this part of the case is short, and we give the whole of it to show how well the selection of a single sentence is calculated to mislead.

The passage referred to is in page 542, in which the court. in speaking of the power of Congress to establish a Territorial Government in Florida until it should become a State, uses the following language:

“In the mean time Florida continues to be a Territory of the United States, governed by that clause of the Constitution which empowers Congress to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United States. Perhaps the power of governing a Territory belonging to the United States, which has not, by becoming a State, acquired the means of self government, may result, necessarily, from the facts that it is not within the jurisdiction of any particular State, and is within the power and jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory. Whichever may be the source from which the power is derived, the possession of it is unquestionable.”

It is thus clear, from the whole opinion on this point, that the court did not mean to decide whether the power was derived from the clause in the Constitution, or was the necessary consequence of the right to acquire, They do decide that the power in Congress is unquestionable, and in this we entirely concur, and nothing will be found in this opinion to the contrary. The power stands firmly on the latter alternative put by the court—that is, as “the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory.”

And what still more clearly demonstrates that the court did not mean to decide the question, but leave it open for future consideration, is the fact that the case was decided in the Circuit Court by Mr. Justice Johnson, and his decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court. His opinion at the circuit is given in full in a note to the case, and in that opinion he states, in explicit terms, that the clause of the Constitution applies only to the territory then within the limits of the United States. and not to Florida, which had been acquired by cession from Spain. This part of his opinion will be found in the note in page 517 of the report. But he does not dissent from the opinion of the Supreme Court; thereby showing that, in his judgment as well as that of the court, the case before them did not call for a decision on that particular point, and the court abstained from deciding it. And in a part of its opinion subsequent to the passage we have quoted, where the court speak of the legislative power of Congress in Florida, they still speak with the same reserve. And in page 546, speaking of the power of Congress to authorise the Territorial Legislature to establish courts there, the court say: “They are legislative courts, created in virtue of the general right of sovereignty which exists in the Government, or in virtue of that clause which enables Congress to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States.”

It has been said that the construction given to this clause is new, and now for the first time brought forward. The case of which we are speaking, and which has been so much discussed, shows that the fact is otherwise. It shows that precisely the same question came before Mr. Justice Johnson, at his circuit, thirty years ago—was fully considered by him, and the same construction given to the clause in the Constitution which is now given by this court. And that upon an appeal from his decision the same question was brought before this court, but was not decided because a decision upon it was not required by the case before the court.

There is another sentence in the opinion which has been commented on, which even in a still more striking manner shows how one may mislead or be misled by taking out a single sentence from the opinion of a court, and leaving out of view what precedes and follows. It is in page 546, near the close of the opinion, in which the court say: “In legislating for them,” (the territories of the United States,) “Congress exercises the combined powers of the General and or a State Government.” And it is said, that as a State may unquestionably prohibit slavery within its territory, this sentence decides in effect that Congress may do the same in a territory of the United States, exercising there the powers of a State, as well as the power of the General Government.

The examination of this passage in the case referred to, would be more appropriate when we come to consider in another part of this opinion what power Congress can constitutionally exercise in a Territory, over the rights of person or rights of property of a citizen. But, as it is in the same case with the passage we have before commented on, we dispose of it now, as it will save the court from the necessity of referring again to the case. And it will be seen upon reading the page in which this sentence is found, that it has no reference whatever to the power of Congress over rights of person or rights of property—but relates altogether to the power of establishing judicial tribunals to administer the laws constitutionally passed, and defining the jurisdiction they may exercise.

The law of Congress establishing a Territorial Government in Florida, provided that the Legislature of the Territory should have legislative powers over “all rightful objects of legislation; but no law should be valid which was inconsistent with the laws and Constitution of the United States.”

Under the power thus conferred, the Legislature of Florida passed an act, erecting a tribunal at Key West to decide cases of salvage., And in the case of which we are speaking, the question arose whether the Territorial Legislature could be authorised by Congress to establish such a tribunal, with such powers; and one of the parties, among other objections, insisted that Congress could not under the Constitution authorise the Legislature of the Territory to establish such a tribunal with such powers, but that it must be established by Congress itself; and that a sale of cargo made under its order, to pay salvors, was void, as made without legal authority, and passed no property to the purchaser.

It is in disposing of this objection that the sentence relied on occurs, and the court begins that part of the opinion by stating with great precision the point, which they are about to decide.

They say: “It has been contended that by the Constitution of the United States, the judicial power of the United States extends to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; and that the whole of the judicial power must be vested ‘in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as Congress shall from time to time ordain and establish.’ Hence it has been argued that Congress cannot vest admiralty jurisdiction in courts created by the Territorial Legislature.”

And after thus clearly stating the point before them, and which they were about to decide, they proceed to show that these Territorial tribunals were not constitutional courts, but merely legislative, and that Congress might, therefore, delegate the power to the Territorial Government to establish the court in question; and they conclude that part of the opinion in the following words: “Although admiralty jurisdiction can be exercised in the States in those courts only which are established in pursuance of the third article of the Constitution, the same limitation does not extend to the Territories. In legislating for them, Congress exercises the combined powers of the General and State Governments.”

Thus it will be seen by these quotations from the opinion. that the court, after stating the question it was about to decide in a manner too plain to be misunderstood, proceeded to decide it, and announced, as the opinion of the tribunal, that in organizing the judicial department of the Government in a Territory of the United States, Congress does not act under, and is not restricted by. the third article in the Constitution, and is not bound. in a Territory. to ordain and establish courts in which the judges hold their offices during good behaviour, but may exercise the discretionary power which a State exercises in establishing its judicial department, and regulating the jurisdiction of its courts, and may authorize the Territorial Government to establish, or may itself establish, courts in which the judges hold their offices for a term of years only; and may vest in them judicial power upon subjects confided to the judiciary of the United States. And in doing this, Congress undoubtedly exercises the combined power of the General and a State Government. It exercises the discretionary power of a State Government in authorizing the establishment of a court in which the judges hold their appointments for a term of years only, and not during good behaviour; and it exercises the power of the General Government in investing that court with admiralty jurisdiction, over which the General Government had exclusive jurisdiction in the Territory.

No one, we presume, will question the correctness of that opinion; nor is there anything in conflict with it in the opinion now given. The point decided in the case cited has no relation to the question now before the court. That depended on the construction of the third article of the Constitution, in relation to the judiciary of the United States, and the power which Congress might exercise in a Territory in organizing the judicial department of the Government. The case before us depends upon other and different provisions of the Constitution, altogether separate and apart from the one above mentioned. The question as to what courts Congress may ordain or establish in a Territory to administer laws which the Constitution authorizes it to pass, and what laws it is or is dot authorized by the Constitution to pass, are widely different—are regulated by different and separate articles of the Constitution, and stand upon different principles. And we are satisfied that no one who reads attentively the page in Peters’s Reports to which we have referred, can suppose that the attention of the court was drawn to a moment to the question now before this court, or that it meant in that case to say that Congress had a right to prohibit a citizen of the United States from taking any property which he lawfully held into a Territory of the United States.

This brings us to examine by what provision of the Constitution the present Federal Government, under its delegated and restricted powers, is authorized to acquire territory outside of the original limits of the United States, and what powers it may exercise therein over the person or property of a citizen of the United States, while it remains a Territory, and until it shall be admitted as one of the States of the Union.

There is certainly no power given by the Constitution to the Federal Government to establish or maintain colonies bordering on the United States or at a distance, to be ruled and governed at its own pleasure; nor to enlarge its territorial limits in any way, except by the admission of new States. That power is plainly given; and if a new State is admitted, it needs no further legislation from Congress, because the Constitution itself defines the relative rights and powers, and duties of the State, and the citizens of the State. and the Federal Government. But no power is given to acquire a Territory to be held and governed permanently in that character.

And indeed the power exercised by Congress to acquire territory and establish a Government there, according to its own unlimited discretion, was viewed with great jealousy by the leading statesmen of the day. And in the Federalist, (No. 38,) written by Mr. Madison. he speaks of the acquisition of the Northwestern Territory by the confederated States, by the cession from Virginia, and the establishment of a Government there, as an exercise of power not warranted by the Articles of Confederation, and dangerous to the liberties of the people. And he urges the adoption of the Constitution as a security and safeguard against such an exercise of power.

We do not mean, however, to question the power of Congress in this respect. The power to expand the territory of the United States by the admission of new States is plainly given; and in the construction of this power by all the departments of the Government, it has been held to authorize the acquisition of territory, not fit for admission at the time. but to be admitted as soon as its population and situation would entitle it to admission. It is acquired to become a State, and not to be held as a colony and governed by Congress with absolute authority; and as the propriety of admitting a new State is committed to the south discretion of Congress, the power to acquire territory for that purpose, to be held by the United States until it is in a suitable condition to become a State upon an equal footing with the other States, must rest upon the same discretion. It is a question for the political department of the Government, and not the judicial: and whatever the political department of the Government shall recognize as within the limits of the United States, the judicial department is also bound to recognize, and to administer in it the laws of the United States, so far as they apply, and to maintain in the Territory the authority and rights of the Government, and also the personal rights and rights of property of individual citizens, as secured by the Constitution. All we mean to say on this point is, that, as there is no express regulation in the Constitution defining the power which the General Government may exercise over the person or property of a citizen in a Territory thus acquired, the court must necessarily look to the provisions and principles of the Constitution, and its distribution of powers, for the rules and principles by which its decision must be governed.

Taking this rule to guide us, it may be safely assumed that citizens of the United States who migrate to a Territory belonging to the people of the United States, cannot be ruled as mere colonists, dependent upon the will of the General Government, and to be governed by any laws it may think proper to impose. The principle upon which our Governments rest, and upon which alone they continue to exist, is the union of States, sovereign and independent within their own limits in their internal and domestic concerns, and bound together as one people by a General Government, possessing certain enumerated and restricted powers, delegated to it by the people of the several States, and exercising supreme authority within the scope of the powers granted to it, throughout the dominion of the United States. A power, therefore, in the General Government to obtain and hold colonies and dependent territories, over which they might legislate without restriction, would be inconsistent with its own existence in its present form. Whatever it acquires, it acquires for the benefit of the people of the several States who created it. It is their trustee acting for them. and charged with the duty of promoting the interests of the whole people of the whole Union in the exercise of the powers specifically granted.

At the time when the Territory in question was obtained by cession from France, it contained no population fit to be associated together and admitted as a State; and it therefore was absolutely necessary to hold possession of it, as a Territory belonging to the United States, until it was settled and inhabited by a civilized community capable of self-government, and in a condition to be admitted on equal terms with the other States as a member of the Union. But, as we have before said, it was acquired by the General Government, as the representative and trustee of the people of the United States, and it must therefore be held in that character for their common and equal benefit; for it was the people of the several States, acting through their agent and representative, the Federal Government, who in fact acquired the Territory in question, and the Government holds it for their common use until it shall be associated with the other States as a member of the Union.

But until that time arrives, it is undoubtedly necessary that some Government should be established in order to organize society, and to protect the inhabitants in their persons and property; and as the people of the United States could act in this matter only through the Government which represented them, and through which they spoke and acted when the Territory was obtained, it was not only within the scope of its powers, but it was its duty to pass such laws and establish such a Government as would enable those by whose authority they acted to reap the advantages anticipated from us acquisition, and to gather there a population which would enable it to assume the position to which it was destined among the States of the Union. The power to acquire necessarily carries with it the power to preserve and apply to the purposes for which it was acquired. The form of government to be established necessarily rested in the discretion of Congress. It was their duty to establish the one that would behest suited for the protection and security of the citizens of the United States, and other inhabitants who might be authorized to take up their abode there, and that must always depend upon the existing condition of the Territory, as to the number and character of its inhabitants, and their situation in the Territory. In some cases a Government. consisting of persons appointed by the Federal Government, would best subserve the interests of the Territory, when the inhabitants were few and scattered, and new to one another. In other instances, it would be more advisable to commit the powers of self-government to the people who had settled in the Territory, as being the most competent to determine what was best for their own interests. But some form of civil authority would be absolutely necessary to organize and preserve civilized society, and prepare it to become a State; and what is the best form must always depend on the condition of the territory at the time, and the choice of the mode must depend upon the exercise of a discretionary power by Congress, acting within the scope of its constitutional authority, and not infringing upon the rights of person or rights of property of the citizen who might go there to reside, or for any other lawful purpose. It was acquired by the exercise of this discretion, and it must be held and governed in like manner, until it is fitted to be a State.

But the power of Congress over the person or property of a citizen can never be a more discretionary power under our Constitution and form of Government. The powers of the Government and the rights and privileges of the citizen are regulated and plainly defined by the Constitution itself. And when the Territory becomes a part of the United States. the Federal Government enters into possession in the character impressed upon it by those who created it. It enters upon it with its powers over the citizen strictly defined, and limited by the Constitution, from which it derives its own existence, and by virtue of which alone it continues to exist and act as a Government and sovereignty. It has no power of any kind beyond it; and it cannot, when it enters a Territory of the United States. put off its character, and assume discretionary or despotic powers which the Constitution has denied to it. It cannot create for itself a new character separated from the citizens of the United States. and the duties it owes them under the provisions of the Constitution. The Territory being a part of the United States, the Government and the citizen both enter it under the authority of the Constitution, with their respective rights defined and marked out; and the Federal Government can exercise no power over his person or property, beyond what that instrument confers, nor lawfully deny any right which it has reserved.

A reference to a few of the provisions of the Constitution will illustrate this proposition.

For example, no one, we presume, will contend that Congress can make any law in a Territory respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people of the Territory peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government top the redress of grievances.

Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal proceeding.

These powers, and others, in relation to rights of person, which it is not necessary here to enumerate, are, in express and positive terms, denied to the General Government; and the rights of private property have been guarded with equal care. Thus the rights of property are united with the rights of person, and placed on the same ground by the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law. And an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had committed no offence against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.

So, too, it will hardly be contended that Congress could by law quarter a soldier in a house in a Territory without the consent of the owner, in time of peace; nor in time of war. But in a manner prescribed by law. Nor could they by law forfeit the property of a citizen in a Territory who was convicted of treason, for a longer period than the life of the person convicted; nor take private property for public use without just compensation.

The powers over person and property of which we speak are not only not granted to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are forbidden to exercise them. And this prohibition is not confined to the States. but the words are general. and extend to the whole territory over which the Constitution gives it power to legislate, including those portions of it remaining under Territorial Government, as well as that covered by States. It is a total absence of power everywhere within the dominion of the United States. and places the citizens of a Territory. so far as these rights are concerned, on the same footing with citizens of the States, and. guards them as firmly and plainly against any inroads which the General Government might attempt, under the plea of implied or incidental powers. And if Congress itself cannot do this—if it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government—it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorise a Territorial Government to exercise them. It could confer no power on any local Government, established by its authority, to violate the provisions of the Constitution.

It seems, however. to be supposed, that there is a difference between property in a slave and other property, and that different rules may be applied to it in expounding the Constitution of the United States. And the laws add usages of nations, and the writings of eminent jurists upon the relation of master and slave and their mutual rights and duties, and the powers which Governments may exercise over it, have been dwelt upon in the argument.

But in considering the question before us, it must be borne in mind that there is no law of nations standing between the people of the United States and their Government, and interfering with their relation to each other. The powers of the Government, and the rights of the citizen under it, are positive and practical regulations plainly written down. The people of the United States have delegated to it certain enumerated powers, and forbidden it to exercise others. It has no power over the person or property of a citizen but what the citizens of the United States have granted. And no laws or usages of other nations, or reasoning of statesmen or jurists upon the relations of master and slave, can enlarge the powers of the Government, or take from the citizens the rights they have reserved. And if the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the master in a slave, and makes no distinction between that description of property and other property owned by a citizen, no tribunal. acting under the authority of the United States, whether it he legislative, executive, or judicial, has a right to draft such a distinction, or deny to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees which have been provided for the protection of private property against the encroachments of the Government.

Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like an ordinary article of merchandise and property. was guarantied to the citizens of the United States, in every State that might desire it, for twenty years. And the Government in express terms is pledged To protect it in all future time, if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words—too plain to be misunderstood. And no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Confess a greater power over slave property, or which entitles property of that kind to less protection than property of any other description. The only power conferred is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights.

Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.

We have so far examined the case. as it stands under the Constitution of the United States, and the powers thereby delegated to the Federal Government.

But there is another point in the case which depends on State power and State law. And it is contended, on the part of the plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, independently of his residence in the territory of the United States; and being so made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery by being brought back to Missouri.

Our notice of this part of the case will be very brief; for the principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon much consideration in the case of Strader et al. v. Graham, reported in 10th Howard, 82. In that case, the slaves had been taken from Kentucky to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, and afterwards brought back to Kentucky. And this court held that their status or condition, as free or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky, when they were brought back into that State, and not of Ohio; and that this court had no jurisdiction to revise the judgment of a State court upon its own laws. This was the point directly before the court, and the decision that this court had not jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen by the report of the case.

So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that character, his status, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois.

It has, however, been urged in the argument, that by the laws of Missouri he was free on his return, and that this case, therefore, cannot be governed by the case of Strader et al. v. Graham, where it appeared, by the laws of Kentucky, that the plaintiffs continued to be slaves on their return from Ohio. But whatever doubts or opinions may, at one time. have been entertained upon this subject, we are satisfied, upon a careful examination of all the cases decided in the State courts of Missouri referred to, that it is now firmly settled by the decisions of the highest court in the State, that Scott and his family upon their return were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property of the defendant; and that the Circuit Court of the United States had no jurisdiction, when, by the laws of the State, the plaintiff was a slave, and not a citizen.

Moreover, the plaintiff, it appears, brought a similar action against the defendant in the State Court of Missouri, claiming the freedom of himself and his family upon the same grounds and the same evidence upon which he relies in the case before the court. The case was carried before the Supreme Court of the State; was fully argued there; and that court decided that neither the plaintiff nor his family were entitled to freedom, and were still the slaves of the defendant; and reversed the judgment of the inferior State court, which had given a different decision. If the plaintiff supposed that this judgment of the Supreme Court of the State was erroneous. and that this court had jurisdiction to revise and reverse it, the only mode by which he could legally bring it before this court was by writ of error directed to the Supreme Court of the State, requiring it to transmit the record to this court. If this had been done, it is too plain for argument that the writ must have been dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this court. The case of Strader and others v. Graham is directly in point; and, indeed, independent of any decision, the language of the 25th section of the act of 1789 is too clear and precise to admit of controversy.

But the plaintiff did not pursue the mode prescribed by law for bringing the judgment of a State court before this court for revision, but suffered the case to be remanded to the inferior State court, where it is still continued, and is, by agreement of parties, to await the judgment of this court on the point. All of this appears on the record before us and by the printed report of the case.

And while the case is yet open and pending in the inferior State court, the plaintiff goes into the Circuit Court of the United States, upon the same case and the same evidence, and against the same party, and proceeds to judgment, and then brings here the same case from the Circuit Court, which the law would not have permitted him to bring directly from the State court. And if this court takes jurisdiction in this form, the result, so far as the rights of the respective parties are concerned, is in every respect substantially the same as if it had in open violation of law entertained jurisdiction over the judgment of the State court upon a writ of error, and revised and revered its judgment upon the ground that its opinion upon the question of law was erroneous. It would ill become this court to sanction such an attempt to evade the law, or to exercise an appellate power in this circuitous way, which it is forbidden to exercise in the direct and regular and invariable forms of judicial proceedings.

Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

CONSTITUTION OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES

March 11, 1861

Preamble

We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.

Article I

Section 1. All legislative powers herein delegated shall be vested in a Congress of the Confederate States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Sec. 2. (I) The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States; and the electors in each State shall be citizens of the Confederate States, and have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature; but no person of foreign birth, not a citizen of the Confederate States, shall be allowed to vote for any officer, civil or political, State or Federal.

(2) No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained the age of twenty-five years, and be a citizen of the Confederate States, and who shall not when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

(3) Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be included within this Confederacy, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all slaves.,The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the Confederate States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every fifty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of South Carolina shall be entitled to choose six; the State of Georgia ten; the State of Alabama nine; the State of Florida two; the State of Mississippi seven; the State of Louisiana six; and the State of Texas six.

(4) When vacancies happen in the representation from any State the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.

(5) The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment; except that any judicial or other Federal officer, resident and acting solely within the limits of any State, may be impeached by a vote of two-thirds of both branches of the Legislature thereof.

Sec. 3. (I) The Senate of the Confederate States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen for six years by the Legislature thereof, at the regular session next immediately preceding the commencement of the term of service; and each Senator shall have one vote.

(2) Immediately after they shall be assembled, in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year; of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year; and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year; so that one-third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation, or other wise, during the recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies.

(3) No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained the age of thirty years, and be a citizen of the Confederate States; and who shall not, then elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be chosen.

(4) The Vice President of the Confederate States shall be president of the Senate, but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided.

(5) The Senate shall choose their other officers; and also a president pro tempore in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the Confederate states.

(6) The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the Confederate States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present.

(7) Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold any office of honor, trust, or profit under the Confederate States; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law.

Sec. 4. (I) The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof, subject to the provisions of this Constitution; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the times and places of choosing Senators.

(2) The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year; and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall, by law, appoint a different day.

Sec. 5. (I) Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide.

(2) Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds of the whole number, expel a member.

(3) Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either House, on any question, shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.

(4) Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Sec. 6. (I) The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the Confederate States. They shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place. ‘o Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the Confederate States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no person holding any office under the Confederate States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office. But Congress may, by law, grant to the principal officer in each of the Executive Departments a seat upon the floor of either House, with the privilege of discussing any measures appertaining to his department.

Sec. 7. (I) All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments, as on other bills.

(2) Every bill which shall have passed both Houses, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the Confederate States; if he approve, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it, with his objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall become a law. But in all such cases, the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respective}y. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress, by their adjournment, prevent its return; in which case it shall not be a law. The President may approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill. In such case he shall, in signing the bill, designate the appropriations disapproved; and shall return a copy of such appropriations, with his objections, to the House in which the bill shall have originated; and the same proceedings shall then be had as in case of other bills disapproved by the President.

(3) Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of both Houses may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the Confederate States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him; or, being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of both Houses, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in case of a bill.

Sec. 8. The Congress shall have power-

(I) To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederate States.

(2) To borrow money on the credit of the Confederate States.

(3) To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this, nor any other clause contained in the Constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce; except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors and the removing of obstructions in river navigation; in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof.

(4) To establish uniform laws of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, throughout the Confederate States; but no law of Congress shall discharge any debt contracted before the passage of the same.

(5) To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.

(6) To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the Confederate States.

(7) To establish post offices and post routes; but the expenses of the Post Office Department, after the Ist day of March in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be paid out of its own revenues.

(8) To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

(9) To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.

(10) To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.

(11) To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.

(12) To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.

(13) To provide and maintain a navy.

(14) To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

(15) To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Confederate States, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.

(16) To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Confederate States; reserving to the States, respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

(17) To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of one or more States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the Government of the Confederate States; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the. erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings; and

(18) To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the Confederate States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Sec. 9. (I) The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

(2) Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.

(3) The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

(5) No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken.

(6) No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State, except by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses.

(7) No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another.

(8) No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.

(9) Congress shall appropriate no money from the Treasury except by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses, taken by yeas and nays, unless it be asked and estimated for by some one of the heads of departments and submitted to Congress by the President; or for the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies; or for the payment of claims against the Confederate States, the justice of which shall have been judicially declared by a tribunal for the investigation of claims against the Government, which it is hereby made the duty of Congress to establish.

(10) All bills appropriating money shall specify in Federal currency the exact amount of each appropriation and the purposes for which it is made; and Congress shall grant no extra compensation to any public contractor, officer, agent, or servant, after such contract shall have been made or such service rendered.

(11) No title of nobility shall be granted by the Confederate States; and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

(12) Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

(13) A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

(14) No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner; nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

(15) The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

(16) No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

(17) In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

(18) In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved; and no fact so tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the Confederacy, than according to the rules of common law.

(19) Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

(20) Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.

Sec. 10. (I) No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, or ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility.

(2) No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports, or exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the Confederate States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of Congress.

(3) No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty on tonnage, except on seagoing vessels, for the improvement of its rivers and harbors navigated by the said vessels; but such duties shall not conflict with any treaties of the Confederate States with foreign nations; and any surplus revenue thus derived shall, after making such improvement, be paid into the common treasury. Nor shall any State keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. But when any river divides or flows through two or more States they may enter into compacts with each other to improve the navigation thereof.

ARTICLE II

Section 1. (I) The executive power shall be vested in a President of the Confederate States of America. He and the Vice President shall hold their offices for the term of six years; but the President shall not be reeligible. The President and Vice President shall be elected as follows:

(2) Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative or person holding an office of trust or profit under the Confederate States shall be appointed an elector.

(3) The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit, sealed, to the seat of the Government of. the Confederate States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall,in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted; the person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President, whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the 4th day of March next following, then the Vice President shall act as President, as in case of the death, or other constitutional disability of the President.

(4) The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice President shall be the Vice President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have a majority, then, from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice.

(5) But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the Confederate States.

(6) The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the Confederate States.

(7) No person except a natural-born citizen of the Confederate; States, or a citizen thereof at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, or a citizen thereof born in the United States prior to the 20th of December, 1860, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the limits of the Confederate States, as they may exist at the time of his election.

(8) In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President; and the Congress may, by law, provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President; and such officer shall act accordingly until the disability be removed or a President shall be elected.

(9) The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected; and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the Confederate States, or any of them.

(10) Before he enters on the execution of his office he shall take the following oath or affirmation:

Sec. 2. (I) The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the Confederate States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the Confederate States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the Executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices; and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the Confederate States, except in cases of impeachment.

(2) He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties; provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint, ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the Confederate States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law; but the Congress may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

(3) The principal officer in each of the Executive Departments, and all persons connected with the diplomatic service, may be removed from office at the pleasure of the President. All other civil officers of the Executive Departments may be removed at any time by the President, or other appointing power, when their services are unnecessary, or for dishonesty, incapacity. inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty; and when so removed, the removal shall be reported to the Senate, together with the reasons therefor.

(4) The President shall have power to fill all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session; but no person rejected by the Senate shall be reappointed to the same office during their ensuing recess.

Sec. 3. (I) The President shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the Confederacy, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them; and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the Confederate States.

Sec. 4. (I) The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the Confederate States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

ARTICLE III

Section 1. (I) The judicial power of the Confederate States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

Sec. 2. (I) The judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under this Constitution, the laws of the Confederate States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the Confederate States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States; between a State and citizens of another State, where the State is plaintiff; between citizens claiming lands under grants of different States; and between a State or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects; but no State shall be sued by a citizen or subject of any foreign state.

(2) In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to law and fact, with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

(3) The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury, and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.

Sec. 3. (I) Treason against the Confederate States shall consist only in levying war against.them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

(2) The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted.

ARTICLE IV

Section 1. (I) Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State; and the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

Sec. 2. (I) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

(2) A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime against the laws of such State, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.

(3) No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs,. or to whom such service or labor may be due.

Sec. 3. (I) Other States may be admitted into this Confederacy by a vote of two-thirds of the whole House of Representatives and two-thirds of the Senate, the Senate voting by States; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned, as well as of the Congress.

(2) The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make allneedful rules and regulations concerning the property of the Confederate States, including the lands thereof.

(3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.

(4) The Confederate States shall guarantee to every State that now is, or hereafter may become, a member of this Confederacy, a republican form of government; and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the Legislature or of the Executive when the Legislature is not in session) against domestic violence.

ARTICLE V

Section 1. (I) Upon the demand of any three States, legally assembled in their several conventions, the Congress shall summon a convention of all the States, to take into consideration such amendments to the Constitution as the said States shall concur in suggesting at the time when the said demand is made; and should any of the proposed amendments to the Constitution be agreed on by the said convention, voting by States, and the same be ratified by the Legislatures of two- thirds of the several States, or by conventions in two-thirds thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the general convention, they shall thenceforward form a part of this Constitution. But no State shall, without its consent, be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate.

ARTICLE VI

1. The Government established by this Constitution is the successor of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America, and all the laws passed by the latter shall continue in force until the same shall be repealed or modified; and all the officers appointed by the same shall remain in office until their successors are appointed and qualified, or the offices abolished.

2. All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the Confederate States under this Constitution, as under the Provisional Government.

3. This Constitution, and the laws of the Confederate States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the Confederate States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

4. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the Confederate States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the Confederate States.

5. The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people of the several States.

6. The powers not delegated to the Confederate States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people thereof.

ARTICLE VII

1. The ratification of the conventions of five States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.

2. When five States shall have ratified this Constitution, in the manner before specified, the Congress under the Provisional Constitution shall prescribe the time for holding the election of President and Vice President; and for the meeting of the Electoral College; and for counting the votes, and inaugurating the President. They shall, also, prescribe the time for holding the first election of members of Congress under this Constitution, and the time for assembling the same. Until the assembling of such Congress, the Congress under the Provisional Constitution shall continue to exercise the legislative powers granted them; not extending beyond the time limited by the Constitution of the Provisional Government.

Adopted unanimously by the Congress of the Confederate States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, sitting in convention at the capitol, the city of Montgomery, Ala., on the eleventh day of March, in the year eighteen hundred and Sixty-one.

HOWELL COBB, President of the Congress.

South Carolina: R. Barnwell Rhett, C. G. Memminger, Wm. Porcher Miles, James Chesnut, Jr., R. W. Barnwell, William W. Boyce, Lawrence M. Keitt, T. J. Withers.

Georgia: Francis S. Bartow, Martin J. Crawford, Benjamin H. Hill, Thos. R. R. Cobb.

Florida: Jackson Morton, J. Patton Anderson, Jas. B. Owens.

Alabama: Richard W. Walker, Robt. H. Smith, Colin J. McRae, William P. Chilton, Stephen F. Hale, David P. Lewis, Tho. Fearn, Jno. Gill Shorter, J. L. M. Curry.

Mississippi: Alex. M. Clayton, James T. Harrison, William S. Barry, W. S. Wilson, Walker Brooke, W. P. Harris, J. A. P. Campbell.

Louisiana: Alex. de Clouet, C. M. Conrad, Duncan F. Kenner, Henry Marshall.

Texas: John Hemphill, Thomas N. Waul, John H. Reagan, Williamson S. Oldham, Louis T. Wigfall, John Gregg, William Beck Ochiltree.

THE DECLARATION OF CAUSES OF SECEDING STATES

Georgia

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation.

Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution.

While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time. Therefore such an organization must have resulted either in utter failure or in the total overthrow of the Government. The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade.

Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency.

The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country.

But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded—the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.

All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity. This question was before us. We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it. These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger was great. The case of the South was impregnable. The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections—of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice.

The Constitution delegated no power to Congress to excluded either party from its free enjoyment; therefore our right was good under the Constitution. Our rights were further fortified by the practice of the Government from the beginning. Slavery was forbidden in the country northwest of the Ohio River by what is called the ordinance of 1787. That ordinance was adopted under the old confederation and by the assent of Virginia, who owned and ceded the country, and therefore this case must stand on its own special circumstances. The Government of the United States claimed territory by virtue of the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, acquired territory by cession from Georgia and North Carolina, by treaty from France, and by treaty from Spain. These acquisitions largely exceeded the original limits of the Republic. In all of these acquisitions the policy of the Government was uniform. It opened them to the settlement of all the citizens of all the States of the Union. They emigrated thither with their property of every kind (including slaves). All were equally protected by public authority in their persons and property until the inhabitants became sufficiently numerous and otherwise capable of bearing the burdens and performing the duties of self-government, when they were admitted into the Union upon equal terms with the other States, with whatever republican constitution they might adopt for themselves.

Under this equally just and beneficent policy law and order, stability and progress, peace and prosperity marked every step of the progress of these new communities until they entered as great and prosperous commonwealths into the sisterhood of American States. In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution. After a bitter and protracted struggle the North was defeated in her special object, but her policy and position led to the adoption of a section in the law for the admission of Missouri, prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the territory acquired from France lying North of 36° 30′ north latitude and outside of Missouri. The venerable Madison at the time of its adoption declared it unconstitutional. Mr. Jefferson condemned the restriction and foresaw its consequences and predicted that it would result in the dissolution of the Union. His prediction is now history. The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity. This particular question, in connection with a series of questions affecting the same subject, was finally disposed of by the defeat of prohibitory legislation.

The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party two whom the people of the North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded.
The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.

With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.

For forty years this question has been considered and debated in the halls of Congress, before the people, by the press, and before the tribunals of justice. The majority of the people of the North in 1860 decided it in their own favor. We refuse to submit to that judgment, and in vindication of our refusal we offer the Constitution of our country and point to the total absence of any express power to exclude us. We offer the practice of our Government for the first thirty years of its existence in complete refutation of the position that any such power is either necessary or proper to the execution of any other power in relation to the Territories. We offer the judgment of a large minority of the people of the North, amounting to more than one-third, who united with the unanimous voice of the South against this usurpation; and, finally, we offer the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal of our country, in our favor. This evidence ought to be conclusive that we have never surrendered this right. The conduct of our adversaries admonishes us that if we had surrendered it, it is time to resume it.

The faithless conduct of our adversaries is not confined to such acts as might aggrandize themselves or their section of the Union. They are content if they can only injure us. The Constitution declares that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another shall be delivered up on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property. Our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals who seek to deprive us of this property or who use it to destroy us. This clause of the Constitution has no other sanction than their good faith; that is withheld from us; we are remediless in the Union; out of it we are remitted to the laws of nations.

A similar provision of the Constitution requires them to surrender fugitives from labor. This provision and the one last referred to were our main inducements for confederating with the Northern States. Without them it is historically true that we would have rejected the Constitution. In the fourth year of the Republic Congress passed a law to give full vigor and efficiency to this important provision. This act depended to a considerable degree upon the local magistrates in the several States for its efficiency. The non-slave-holding States generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of that act, and imposed penalties upon those citizens whose loyalty to the Constitution and their oaths might induce them to discharge their duty. Congress then passed the act of 1850, providing for the complete execution of this duty by Federal officers. This law, which their own bad faith rendered absolutely indispensible for the protection of constitutional rights, was instantly met with ferocious revilings and all conceivable modes of hostility.

The Supreme Court unanimously, and their own local courts with equal unanimity (with the single and temporary exception of the supreme court of Wisconsin), sustained its constitutionality in all of its provisions. Yet it stands to-day a dead letter for all practicable purposes in every non-slave-holding State in the Union. We have their convenants, we have their oaths to keep and observe it, but the unfortunate claimant, even accompanied by a Federal officer with the mandate of the highest judicial authority in his hands, is everywhere met with fraud, with force, and with legislative enactments to elude, to resist, and defeat him. Claimants are murdered with impunity; officers of the law are beaten by frantic mobs instigated by inflammatory appeals from persons holding the highest public employment in these States, and supported by legislation in conflict with the clearest provisions of the Constitution, and even the ordinary principles of humanity. In several of our confederate States a citizen cannot travel the highway with his servant who may voluntarily accompany him, without being declared by law a felon and being subjected to infamous punishments. It is difficult to perceive how we could suffer more by the hostility than by the fraternity of such brethren.

The public law of civilized nations requires every State to restrain its citizens or subjects from committing acts injurious to the peace and security of any other State and from attempting to excite insurrection, or to lessen the security, or to disturb the tranquillity of their neighbors, and our Constitution wisely gives Congress the power to punish all offenses against the laws of nations.

These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries and all centuries; but they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them. For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers. These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates.

These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved.

Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs. The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.

Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861

Mississippi

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

South Carolina

Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, “that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.”

They further solemnly declared that whenever any “form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.” Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies “are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments—Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article “that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.”

Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: “ARTICLE 1—His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.”

Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.

In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.

The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.

If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were—separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.

By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May, 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.

Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.

We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

Adopted December 20, 1860

Texas

A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union.

The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery—the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits—a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.

When we advert to the course of individual non-slave-holding States, and that a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.

The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions—a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color—a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States.

By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments. They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a ‘higher law’ than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.

They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.

They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offenses, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.

They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.

They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.

They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.

They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.

And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.

In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.

By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.

For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons—We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.

Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.

Virginia

The Secession Ordinance.
An Ordinance to Repeal the Ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America by the State of Virginia, and to Resume All the Rights and Powers Granted Under Said Constitution.

The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.

Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain that the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in Convention, on the twenty-fifth day of June, eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying or adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the Union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State. And they do further declare that the said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.

This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule to be hereafter enacted.

Done in Convention, in the city of Richmond, on the 17th day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the eighty-fifth year of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

JNO. L. EUBANK, Secretary of Convention

THE ORDINANCES OF SECESSION

The ordinances of secession were the actual legal language by which the seceded states severed their connection with the Federal Union. The declarations of causes, given elsewhere on this Web site, are where they tended to disclose their reasons for doing so, although only four states issued separate declarations of causes.

The political theory of the time among secessionists required that the act of secession be carried out by a specially elected convention or by referendum. In this sense the “secessions” of both Missouri and Kentucky were flawed, as neither was carried out in this manner. The Missouri secession ordinance was passed by a rump legislature and never approved by the people at large. The Kentucky secession ordinance was adopted by a convention of 200 participants representing 65 counties, held in Russellville.

These are offered in chronological order.

South Carolina

An Ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”

We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the “United States of America,” is hereby dissolved.

Done at Charleston the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 1.

Mississippi

An Ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of Mississippi and other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”

The people of the State of Mississippi, in convention assembled, do ordain and declare, and it is hereby ordained and declared, as follows, to wit:

Section 1. That all the laws and ordinances by which the said State of Mississippi became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America be, and the same are hereby, repealed, and that all obligations on the part of the said State or the people thereof to observe the same be withdrawn, and that the said State doth hereby resume all the rights, functions, and powers which by any of said laws or ordinances were conveyed to the Government of the said United States, and is absolved from all the obligations, restraints, and duties incurred to the said Federal Union, and shall from henceforth be a free, sovereign, and independent State.

Sec. 2. That so much of the first section of the seventh article of the constitution of this State as requires members of the Legislature and all officers, executive and judicial, to take an oath or affirmation to support the Constitution of the United States be, and the same is hereby, abrogated and annulled.

Sec. 3. That all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the United States, or under any act of Congress passed, or treaty made, in pursuance thereof, or under any law of this State, and not incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in force and have the same effect as if this ordinance had not been passed.

Sec. 4. That the people of the State of Mississippi hereby consent to form a federal union with such of the States as may have seceded or may secede from the Union of the United States of America, upon the basis of the present Constitution of the said United States, except such parts thereof as embrace other portions than such seceding States.

Thus ordained and declared in convention the 9th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1861.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 42.

Florida

ORDINANCE OF SECESSION

We, the people of the State of Florida, in convention assembled, do solemnly ordain, publish, and declare, That the State of Florida hereby withdraws herself from the confederacy of States existing under the name of the United States of America and from the existing Government of the said States; and that all political connection between her and the Government of said States ought to be, and the same is hereby, totally annulled, and said Union of States dissolved; and the State of Florida is hereby declared a sovereign and independent nation; and that all ordinances heretofore adopted, in so far as they create or recognize said Union, are rescinded; and all laws or parts of laws in force in this State, in so far as they recognize or assent to said Union, be, and they are hereby, repealed.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 54.

[Passed Jan. 10, 1861]

Alabama

An Ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of Alabama and the other States united under the compact styled “The Constitution of the United States of America”

Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and manacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security, therefore:

Be it declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn from the Union known as “the United States of America,” and henceforth ceases to be one of said United States, and is, and of right ought to be a Sovereign and Independent State.

Sec 2. Be it further declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama in Convention assembled, That all powers over the Territory of said State, and over the people thereof, heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States of America, be and they are hereby withdrawn from said Government, and are hereby resumed and vested in the people of the State of Alabama.

And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States,

Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled, That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, be and are hereby invited to meet the people of the State of Alabama, by their Delegates, in Convention, on the 4th day of February, A.D., 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most desirable for our common peace and security.

And be it further resolved, That the President of this Convention, be and is hereby instructed to transmit forthwith a copy of the foregoing Preamble, Ordinance, and Resolutions to the Governors of the several States named in said resolutions.

Done by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, at Montgomery, on this the eleventh day of January, A.D. 1861.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, pp. 43-44.

Georgia

We the people of the State of Georgia in Convention assembled do declare and ordain and it is hereby declared and ordained that the ordinance adopted by the State of Georgia in convention on the 2nd day of Jany. in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the general assembly of this State, ratifying and adopting amendments to said constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded and abrogated.

We do further declare and ordain that the union now existing between the State of Georgia and other States under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

Passed January 19, 1861.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 70.

Louisiana

An Ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of Louisiana and other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”

We, the people of the State of Louisiana, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance passed by us in convention on the 22d day of November, in the year eighteen hundred and eleven, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America and the amendments of the said Constitution were adopted, and all laws and ordinances by which the State of Louisiana became a member of the Federal Union, be, and the same are hereby, repealed and abrogated; and that the union now subsisting between Louisiana and other States under the name of “The United States of America” is hereby dissolved.

We do further declare and ordain, That the State of Louisiana hereby resumes all rights and powers heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States of America; that her citizens are absolved from all allegiance to said Government; and that she is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which appertain to a free and independent State.

We do further declare and ordain, That all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the United States, or any act of Congress, or treaty, or under any law of this State, and not incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in force and have the same effect as if this ordinance had not been passed.

Adopted in convention at Baton Rouge this 26th day of January, 1861.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 80.

Texas

AN ORDINANCE

To dissolve the Union between the State of Texas and the other States united under the Compact styled “the Constitution of the United States of America.”

WHEREAS, The Federal Government has failed to accomplish the purposes of the compact of union between these States, in giving protection either to the persons of our people upon an exposed frontier, or to the property of our citizens, and

WHEREAS, the action of the Northern States of the Union is violative of the compact between the States and the guarantees of the Constitution; and,

WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression; THEREFORE,

SECTION 1.—We, the people of the State of Texas, by delegates in convention assembled, do declare and ordain that the ordinance adopted by our convention of delegates on the 4th day of July, A.D. 1845, and afterwards ratified by us, under which the Republic of Texas was admitted into the Union with other States, and became a party to the compact styled “The Constitution of the United States of America,” be, and is hereby, repealed and annulled; that all the powers which, by the said compact, were delegated by Texas to the Federal Government are revoked and resumed; that Texas is of right absolved from all restraints and obligations incurred by said compact, and is a separate sovereign State, and that her citizens and people are absolved from all allegiance to the United States or the government thereof.

SEC. 2. This ordinance shall be submitted to the people of Texas for their ratification or rejection, by the qualified voters, on the 23rd day of February, 1861, and unless rejected by a majority of the votes cast, shall take effect and be in force on and after the 2d day of March, A.D. 1861. PROVIDED, that in the Representative District of El Paso said election may be held on the 18th day of February, 1861.

Done by the people of the State of Texas, in convention assembled, at Austin, this 1st day of February, A.D. 1861.

[Ratified Feb. 23, 1861 by a vote of 46,153 for and 14,747 against]

Virginia

An Ordinance to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United State of America by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said Constitution.

The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:

Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, That the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

And they do further declare, That said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.

This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day, when ratified by a majority of the voter of the people of this State cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule hereafter to be enacted.

Adopted by the convention of Virginia April 17,1861.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 223.

[ratified by a vote of 132,201 to 37,451 on May 23, 1861]

Arkansas

An Ordinance to dissolve the union now existing between the State of Arkansas and the other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”

Whereas, in addition to the well-founded causes of complaint set forth by this convention, in resolutions adopted on the 11th of March, A.D. 1861, against the sectional party now in power in Washington City, headed by Abraham Lincoln, he has, in the face of resolutions passed by this convention pledging the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity any attempt on the part of such power to coerce any State that had seceded from the old Union, proclaimed to the world that war should be waged against such States until they should be compelled to submit to their rule, and large forces to accomplish this have by this same power been called out, and are now being marshaled to carry out this inhuman design; and to longer submit to such rule, or remain in the old Union of the United States, would be disgraceful and ruinous to the State of Arkansas:

Therefore we, the people of the State of Arkansas, in convention assembled, do hereby declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the “ordinance and acceptance of compact” passed and approved by the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas on the 18th day of October, A.D. 1836, whereby it was by said General Assembly ordained that by virtue of the authority vested in said General Assembly by the provisions of the ordinance adopted by the convention of delegates assembled at Little Rock for the purpose of forming a constitution and system of government for said State, the propositions set forth in “An act supplementary to an act entitled `An act for the admission of the State of Arkansas into the Union, and to provide for the due execution of the laws of the United States within the same, and for other purposes,’” were freely accepted, ratified, and irrevocably confirmed, articles of compact and union between the State of Arkansas and the United States, and all other laws and every other law and ordinance, whereby the State of Arkansas became a member of the Federal Union, be, and the same are hereby, in all respects and for every purpose herewith consistent, repealed, abrogated, and fully set aside; and the union now subsisting between the State of Arkansas and the other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby forever dissolved.

And we do further hereby declare and ordain, That the State of Arkansas hereby resumes to herself all rights and powers heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States of America; that her citizens are absolved from all allegiance to said Government of the United States, and that she is in full possession and exercise of all the rights and sovereignty which appertain to a free and independent State.

We do further ordain and declare, That all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the United States of America, or of any act or acts of Congress, or treaty, or under any law of this State, and not incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in full force and effect, in nowise altered or impaired, and have the same effect as if this ordinance had not been passed.

Adopted and passed in open convention on the 6th day of May, A.D. 1861.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, pp. 287-88.

North Carolina

An Ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of North Carolina and the other States united with her, under the compact of government entitled “The Constitution of the United States.”

We, the people of the State of North Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina in the convention of 1789, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly ratifying and adopting amendments to the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated.

We do further declare and ordain, That the union now subsisting between the State of North Carolina and the other States, under the title of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of North Carolina is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

Done in convention at the city of Raleigh, this the 20th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of said State.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, pp. 335-336.

Tennessee

Declaration of Independence and Ordinance dissolving the federal relations between the State of Tennessee and the United States of America.

First. We, the people of the State of Tennessee, waiving any expression of opinion as to the abstract doctrine of secession, but asserting the right, as a free and independent people, to alter, reform, or abolish our form of government in such manner as we think proper, do ordain and declare that all the laws and ordinances by which the State of Tennessee became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America are hereby abrogated and annulled, and that all the rights, functions, and powers which by any of said laws and ordinances were conveyed to the Government of the United States, and to absolve ourselves from all the obligations, restraints, and duties incurred thereto; and do hereby henceforth become a free, sovereign, and independent State.

Second. We furthermore declare and ordain that article 10, sections 1 and 2, of the constitution of the State of Tennessee, which requires members of the General Assembly and all officers, civil and military, to take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States be, and the same are hereby, abrogated and annulled, and all parts of the constitution of the State of Tennessee making citizenship of the United States a qualification for office and recognizing the Constitution of the United States as the supreme law of this State are in like manner abrogated and annulled.

Third. We furthermore ordain and declare that all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the United States, or under any act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof, or under any laws of this State, and not incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in force and have the same effect as if this ordinance had not been passed.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 290.

[Sent to referendum May 6, 1861 by the legislature, and approved by the voters by a vote of 104,471 to 47,183 on June 8, 1861.]

Missouri

An act declaring the political ties heretofore existing between the State of Missouri and the United States of America dissolved.

Whereas the Government of the United States, in the possession and under the control of a sectional party, has wantonly violated the compact originally made between said Government and the State of Missouri, by invading with hostile armies the soil of the State, attacking and making prisoners the militia while legally assembled under the State laws, forcibly occupying the State capitol, and attempting through the instrumentality of domestic traitors to usurp the State government, seizing and destroying private property, and murdering with fiendish malignity peaceable citizens, men, women, and children, together with other acts of atrocity, indicating a deep-settled hostility toward the people of Missouri and their institutions; and

Whereas the present Administration of the Government of the United States has utterly ignored the Constitution, subverted the Government as constructed and intended by its makers, and established a despotic and arbitrary power instead thereof: Now, therefore,

Be it enacted by the general assembly of the State of Missouri, That all political ties of every character new existing between the Government of the United States of America and the people and government of the State of Missouri are hereby dissolved, and the State of Missouri, resuming the sovereignty granted by compact to the said United States upon admission of said State into the Federal Union, does again take its place as a free and independent republic amongst the nations of the earth.

This act to take effect and be in force from and after its passage.

Approved, October 31, 1861.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, pp. 752-53.

[This act was passed by a rump legislature called into session in Neosho, by Gov. C.F. Jackson (who had been removed from office by the State Convention)]

Kentucky

Whereas, the Federal Constitution, which created the Government of the United States, was declared by the framers thereof to be the supreme law of the land, and was intended to limit and did expressly limit the powers of said Government to certain general specified purposes, and did expressly reserve to the States and people all other powers whatever, and the President and Congress have treated this supreme law of the Union with contempt and usurped to themselves the power to interfere with the rights and liberties of the States and the people against the expressed provisions of the Constitution, and have thus substituted for the highest forms of national liberty and constitutional government a central despotism founded upon the ignorant prejudices of the masses of Northern society, and instead of giving protection with the Constitution to the people of fifteen States of this Union have turned loose upon them the unrestrained and raging passions of mobs and fanatics, and because we now seek to hold our liberties, our property, our homes, and our families under the protection of the reserved powers of the States, have blockaded our ports, invaded our soil, and waged war upon our people for the purpose of subjugating us to their will; and

Whereas, our honor and our duty to posterity demand that we shall not relinquish our own liberty and shall not abandon the right of our descendants and the world to the inestimable blessings of constitutional government: Therefore,

Be it ordained, That we do hereby forever sever our connection with the Government of the United States, and in the name of the people we do hereby declare Kentucky to be a free and independent State, clothed with all power to fix her own destiny and to secure her own rights and liberties.

And whereas, the majority of the Legislature of Kentucky have violated their most solemn pledges made before the election, and deceived and betrayed the people; have abandoned the position of neutrality assumed by themselves and the people, and invited into the State the organized armies of Lincoln; have abdicated the Government in favor of a military despotism which they have placed around themselves, but cannot control, and have abandoned the duty of shielding the citizen with their protection; have thrown upon our people and the State the horrors and ravages of war, instead of attempting to preserve the peace, and have voted men and money for the war waged by the North for the destruction of our constitutional rights; have violated the expressed words of the constitution by borrowing five millions of money for the support of the war without a vote of the people; have permitted the arrest and imprisonment of our citizens, and transferred the constitutional prerogatives of the Executive to a military commission of partisans; have seen the writ of habeus corpus susupended without an effort for its preservation, and permitted our people to be driven in exile from their homes; have subjected our property to confiscation and our persons to confinement in the penitentiary as felons, because we may choose to take part in a cause for civil liberty and constitutional government against a sectional majority waging war agasint the people and institutions of fifteen independent States of the old Federal Union, and have done all these things deliberately against the warnings and vetoes of the Governor and the solemn remonstrances of the minority in the Senate and House of Representatives: Therefore,

Be it further ordained, That the unconstitutional edicts of a factious majority of a Legislature thus false to their pledges, their honor, and their interests are not law, and that such a government is unworthy of the support of a brave and free people, and that we do therefore declare that the people are thereby absolved from all allegiance to said government, and that they have a right to establish any government which to them may seem best adapted to the preservation of their rights and liberties.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 741.

[Adopted Nov. 20, 1861, in Russellville, by a group of Kentuckians styling itself as a “Convention of the People of Kentucky.”]

Lincoln’s Letter to Horace Greeley

Executive Mansion,

Washington, August 22, 1862.

Hon. Horace Greeley:

Dear Sir,

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable [sic] in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,

A. Lincoln.

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

January 1, 1863

By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

“That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.”

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL]

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

Abraham Lincoln

By the President:

William H. Seward,

Secretary of State.

Accomplishments of the Administration

28 October 1871

William Gladstone gave this speech to his constituents at Greenwich. The first part of it deals especially with the Ministerial economy that was causing discontent among the dockyard workers.

I now pass on from the subject of the promises that I made to you in 1868; because I am not aware that there was any other question of very great consequence upon which, at that time, it was my duty materially to dilate. But we have gone on from these to other subjects; and what have they been? They have been three—three, I mean, which I place in the first order of magnitude. One of them is the abolition of purchase in the army, one of them is the education of the people—and one of them is the protection of the voter by the ballot. Well, now, first in attacking purchase in the army, we were perfectly well aware that we were assailing class interest in its favourite and most formidable stronghold, and I rejoice to think that in a single session we have been able to achieve a work so formidable. It is indeed achieved at a great cost; because, when the people of England set about political reforms they never accomplish them in a niggardly spirit, but their practice is to make generous compensations to those who may have suffered, aye sometimes even to those who only may imagine themselves to suffer, by them; and in every doubtful case to adopt the liberal course of action. But what is the real case of the British army? The public has been practised upon by writers who seem to find a kind of luxury in panic and alarm; and who endeavour to propagate these feelings throughout the country without success; although, for my part, I regard them with rather less of charity—I do not mean the people, but the endeavours—with rather less of goodwill and sympathy, than I should regard the propagation of the small-pox or the cattle plague. You have always had in this country, both as to officers and as to men, an army of the noblest and the very best material. Allow me to give you a short anecdote, to vary the wearisomeness of my discourse. I daresay many of you have heard the name of Bewick, who was a famous woodcutter—an artist of great celebrity, a northern man. He lived, I think, in the time of the American War. Besides his woodcutting, he determined that, as it was a time of danger, and he had an English heart in his bosom, he would learn a little soldiering. So he and two or three of his friends sent for the drill sergeant, and the drill sergeant put them through their exercise, but he only troubled them with one precept, and it was this, “Now mind, my lads, what you have to do is this: When you go into action, you must stand like a brick wall.” And that has been the great quality of the British soldier—that under all circumstances he has been ready to stand, and has stood, “like a brick wall.” And there was a time when standing “like a brick wall” was almost enough to win a battle. It will not do now. War, instead of being a rude test of strength, has become one of the most highly developed of all the arts practised by mankind. I know not whether to regret it or to rejoice at it; I simply state the fact that, instead of trusting simply to the native and sterling qualities of the people, we must now endeavour to add to these qualities every advantage that can be imparted by the most skilful and effectual training.

With a view to this training—not merely of the men, where it is comparatively simple, but of the officers, who, even more than the men, are the strength of the army, and the essential condition of its efficiency—we have asked the country to pay a large sum of money. The country has met the call with cheerfulness, and has witnessed with satisfaction the downfall of a great monopoly. And, gentlemen, with respect to our alarmists, what have we lately seen? For the first time, at least the first upon such a scale and under such conditions, we have made a very great step in advance, by endeavouring to put a portion of our forces into mimic action upon the open lands of Hampshire. The performances of those troops have been witnessed by most enlightened and distinguished foreign officers from every great country in Europe. We were told at the end of the session, and told by an ex-Minister, whose words would naturally carry force with his countrymen, that we had an army that could not march; and a gallant colonel rose in the house (A Voice: “One of your own party.”)—if so, all the better for the purpose, but he was an opponent—a gallant colonel told the House of Commons, that he felt obliged to break through the rules of its procedure in order to raise a discussion upon the question of the manoeuvres, for he said such was the course of the Government, that it was a question not merely of the well-being, but of the very existence of the British army. This was the condition to which we were reduced. Well, now, gentlemen, we have had time to receive back from foreign courts the most interesting reports made to their respective Governments by those distinguished officers; and I am rejoiced to inform you that their character is of the most encouraging description. Not only in every case do they declare a warm admiration—I will not say an unbounded admiration, in order that I may avoid anything like hyperbole—for the material of both our officers and our men; but of the various branches of the service, as to their efficiency, they speak in terms of the highest honour; and while as friendly critics they point out, and as we knew they would point out, and as we hoped they would point out many matters upon which we need and may endeavour to improve, they show that the condition of the army, so far from justifying the ridiculous apprehensions that have gone abroad is one that ought to fill all Englishmen with hope and satisfaction, and to prove to us that never were our establishments more efficient; never were we more able, if it should please Providence to bring upon us the necessity, to entrust its defence to troops and to officers worthy of their country, and qualified to make the defence effectual. And now let me say one word with respect to the War Minister. It has been the fashion during the present year to scoff at Mr. Cardwell. I can only say that when he is condemned I, for my part, am glad to share the condemnation. But I venture to affirm that no man, who has held the seals of office since the Secretaryship of War was established, has done so much for the reform and efficiency of the army; and I am quite sure that when he retires from that office, he will leave behind him a name entitled to the approval and the gratitude of the country. There, gentlemen, is our justification, summarily stated, for dealing with the question of purchase. I press on to other matters.

Were we wrong in dealing with the question of education? (“No, no.”) Very well. Has there ever been, I would next venture to say to the most jealous critic of the [1870] Education Act—has there ever been achieved in this country so great a step in advance towards the attainment of an object which we believe to be vital to the welfare of the nation? It is not all done at once—it cannot be all done at once. A measure so great and comprehensive, and at the same time so novel, cannot be perfect. The differences of opinion that prevail in this free country make it quite impossible to meet the views of all. Indulgence, equity, the sacrifice of extreme opinions, must be asked for in every quarter. But I ask those who are least satisfied with the Education Act this one and simple question—Whether it is not a great step, nay, a great stride, achieved upon the path of real progress? The objects of that measure shall be very shortly stated. The great object of all was to make education universal and effective. This was to be done, and in doing it we sought, and I think reason and common sense required us to seek, to turn to account for, that purpose the vast machinery of education already existing in the country, which had been devised and mainly provided by the Christian philanthropy and the voluntary action of the people. That was the second condition under which the Act was framed. The third was, and I think it was not less wise than the two former, that we should endeavour to separate the action of the State in the matter of education, and the application of State funds, in which I include funds raised by rate, from all subjects on which, unhappily, religious differences prevail. Those, I may say, were three of the principles of the measure; and the fourth principle, not less important than the others, was this: that we should trust for the attainment of these great objects, as little as possible to the central Government, and as much as possible to the local authorities and the self-governing power of the people. And let me say in passing, that in my opinion if there be one portion of our institutions more precious in my view than another, it is that portion in which the people are locally organized for the purposes of acquiring the habits and instincts of political action, and applying their own free consciences and free understandings to dealing with the affairs of the community. A most valuable Act was passed by Mr. Stansfeld in the last Session of Parliament which, I trust, will be the beginning of immense good in that respect, and I refer to it here because it touches upon the principle of the Education Act, which I have just mentioned, viz., that as far as possible the application of the Act should be left in the hands of the local authorities. I am not surprised nor disappointed, and I hope that you are neither the one nor the other, if we find that some difficulties have arisen in working out the detail of the Act. (Mr. Gladstone paused here to refresh his voice from a small bottle of restoratives. As he did so, a voice in the crowd was heard exclaiming, “Give us some,” to which the right honourable gentleman rejoined, amidst much laughter, “Yes, you would want some if you had to do what I have.”) The right honourable gentleman continued:—

Great interest has been excited, both in this and in other constituencies, with respect to the payment of fees to denominational schools for the teaching of those children whose parents are found to be unable to bear the charge of their education. Now, perhaps, it will be a comfort to you to know that at least there is some hope that the extent of this particular grievance and difficulty may not be very wide. In the town of Stockport the Education Board has lately resolved to introduce the principle of compulsion, which, as I have stated, or as I have implied, was one of the principles of the Education Act. They have, by issuing their notices to that effect, added 25 per cent. to the number of children attending schools. In 400 cases they have had to admonish parents, and to warn them that they would be punished unless they complied with the Act; but the whole amount of money—although there are as yet no rate-schools in action, and they have been obliged to allow all children to be sent to denominational schools—which they have as yet paid to these schools in aid of poor parents comes only to £47. But, gentlemen, I have no doubt that this question is a grave and serious question, and I will not attempt to say more upon it than this: On the one hand we shall endeavour to adhere to the principle of the Act which aims at severance between the application of State funds and controverted matters in religion. On the other hand I must pause for my own part, and I believe my colleagues would feel themselves obliged to pause before they could resolve to say to the parent who desires to send his child to a school of his own persuasion, but is unable to pay the charge, and who is compelled by public authority to send it to some school, “If you attempt to send your child to a school of your own Persuasion, if you will not send it to a school of the principles of which you disapprove—namely, to a rate-school,—we will send you to prison.” I do not believe public opinion would sustain us in such a course as that.

Well, gentlemen, with regard to the remaining one of these great subjects—namely, the Ballot [the secret ballot]—I will only say we believe it to be your opinion that we have made a good and wise choice in pressing that important question on the attention of Parliament. The enfranchisement, the wide enfranchisement of the working classes, was intended to give the boon of political power not only to the class, but to every individual in the class. We have, therefore, to secure in the case of these persons, many of them to a considerable extent from their temporal circumstances dependent upon others, that the vote which we invite them to give shall be given freely—freely as respects landlord, freely as respects customer, freely as respects employer, freely as respects combination of the working-class itself; and I rejoice to think, gentlemen, that, although the Royal Assent has not yet been given to a bill for secret voting, yet for every practical purpose, after the proceedings of last Session, the question has very nearly reached the stage of final triumph.

I will now, gentlemen, for the present assume that, as regards the class of greater subjects, on which I had the honour of addressing you at the time of my election, and as regards those greater questions to which we have invited Parliament principally to apply itself, you may be disposed to think we have not made the unreasonable or injudicious selection, although we had to choose from among many matters of deep interest and importance. [A short discussion on the need of future legislation relating to health is omitted.]

There is a question of the future on which we have heard much said of late—I mean the question of the constitution of the House of Lords. (A Voice: “You had better leave that alone.”) My friend there says, “Leave the constitution of the House of Lords alone.” I am not prepared quite to agree with my friend, because the constitution of the House of Lords has often been a subject of consideration among the wisest and the most sober-minded men; as, for example, when a proposal—of which my friend disapproves apparently—was made, a few years ago, to make a moderate addition to the House of Lords, of peers holding peerages for life. I am not going to discuss that particular measure; but I will only say, without entering into details that would be highly interesting, but which the vast range of those subjects makes impossible on the present occasion—I will only say that I believe there are various particulars in which the constitution of the House of Lords might, under favourable circumstances, be improved. And I am bound to say that, though I believe there are some politicians, bearing the name of “Liberal,” who approve of the proceedings of the House of Lords with respect to the Ballot Bill at the close of the last Session—I see a gentleman disposed to differ from me, and I have no doubt that his opinion is entitled to the greatest weight: if he likes to address this assemblage, I daresay they will be delighted to hear him, but, if I do not stand in his way, perhaps he will allow me to go on—I must own that I deeply lament that proceeding on the part of the House of Lords. It seems to me to have been a great error. After the House of Commons, which had been engaged in other and most serious labours for four or five months, had given some six weeks of the Session—six weeks of very arduous labour—mainly to maturing the Ballot Bill, it appears to me to have been a great and grievous error, I cannot call it anything less, on the part of the House of Lords, in the second week in the month of August, to say that really such was the time at which they had arrived as to render it impossible for them to afford to that measure the number of days—not a very large number of days, according to all precedent and likelihood—that it would have required from them. In the year 1835, the House of Lords, which had a Conservative majority in the face of a Whig Government, not only devoted the month of August, but carried into September the labour necessary for a subject not more important than the Ballot, and at that epoch a subject which had come prominently before the public for the first time—I mean the subject of municipal corporations. But the House of Lords at that juncture was led by a great man. The Conservative majority was guided by the Duke of Wellington; and, although, for my own part, I am not able, in all its parts, to admire the statesmanship of the Duke of Wellington, I shall always profoundly admire the tact, and the skill, and the sound constitutional judgment with which he managed the House of Lords, so as to prevent that particular branch of the Legislature from being placed in dangerous conflict with the popular branch or with the sentiment of the country. But the reform of the House of Lords, which has been recommended in many quarters, is briefly this,—and here I think I am coming to a point of probable agreement with my honourable friend, if he will allow me so to call him. The reform recommended is this—that we should eject and expel from the House of Lords what is termed the hereditary principle. Now, gentlemen, I hope I am at least earnest and sincere in my intentions as to being what passes for a Liberal politician; but before I agree, and before I commit myself to expelling from the House of Lords, the hereditary principle, I will think once, I will think twice—nay, I will think even thrice. It is not on account of this or that particular error committed by a public assembly that we are vitally or profoundly to change the established and accustomed usages and principles of the Constitution. Mark what has since happened. Lord Shaftesbury, whom I mention with a profound respect on account of his earnest and devoted philanthropy, went the other day down to Glasgow, and be received a most warm welcome on the part of the vast population of that city—the working population of that city. In consequence of that incident, some politicians threw up their hats, and exclaimed that the people of Glasgow approved of Lord Shaftesbury’s motion with regard to the Ballot Bill. I think that was a precipitate conclusion. But this I conceive was shown by his reception—that the people of Glasgow, being a sagacious people, were not disposed, on account of that particular error, to draw rapid and precipitate conclusions, either against a man or against a body which had performed distinguished services. I will ask you two things; this is a question of so much interest to all, that even after the length to which I have necessarily been drawn, I beg your attention to two points on this portion of our subject. Before you determine to expel the hereditary principle from the House of Lords, I first ask you, what you will substitute for the hereditary principle? (A Voice—“Five years’ election.”) That is a fruitful hint, but yet I have another point to suggest, and it is this: I have a shrewd suspicion in my mind that a very large proportion of the people of England have a sneaking kindness for this hereditary principle.

I do not mean, gentlemen, by these words that a large proportion of the people of England either desire, or intend, or would permit that which I hope that they never will desire, or intend, or permit—namely, that the House of Lords should exercise a paramount control over the legislation of the country. That is quite another matter. But this I do say—that the people of England are not, like the people of France, lovers of naked political equality. England is a great lover of liberty; but of equality she never has been so much enamoured. Gentlemen, in judging of this question, I must say that possibly the observation of the manner in which, for such long periods, and under so many varieties of form, the love of equality in France has proved insufficient to save our generous and distinguished neighbours from the loss of liberty—the observation of these facts may tend to confirm the people of the three kingdoms in the feelings that I think they entertain; but I want to put this to you as a practical question. The only mode of judging whether an Englishman—and I use the word “Englishman” for the people of the three kingdoms—is not unfriendly to social inequalities is by watching the working of our institutions in detail. My observation has not been of a very brief term—I wish it had been, for then I should have been younger than I am now—and it is this: that whenever there is anything to be done, or to be given, and there are two candidates for it who are exactly alike—alike in opinions, alike in characters, alike in possessions, and one is a commoner and the other a lord, the Englishman is very apt indeed to prefer the lord… This I do say, as my own conviction, that the general sentiment most prevailing in this country is that those who compose the House of Lords are men, or are the descendants of men, of whom a very large proportion are, or were in other times, put into that house for public services, and people are disposed to look with considerable favour upon such men, and likewise upon the descendants of such, until they have proved themselves unworthy. And they know that in effect, not by compulsion, but by the free will of the people, this body of gentlemen in the House of Lords exercise throughout the country a vast social and political influence; and lastly, that many of them although the good ones have to carry, as it were, on their backs the dead weight and the responsibility of the bad—many of them perform their duties in an admirable and exemplary manner. Under these circumstances, gentlemen, though I hope I shall, while I remain in public life, be able to act zealously and cheerfully with you for the promotion of Liberal opinions, I, for one, have never understood by Liberal opinions either precipitate conclusions or subversive opinions. And I hope we shall well consider, before we commit ourselves to vast changes, to the introduction of new and far-reaching principles, what the results are likely to be.

Now, gentlemen, I am drawing very near to my close; but I must still detain you while I refer to a sentiment, which undoubtedly has been more perceptible in the country during the present year, than I have noticed it in a good many former years. I mean a suspicion on the part of many members of the working class, that they are not governed as they ought to be, and that their interests are not properly considered. I will not enter upon the particular causes, connected with the uneasy state of Europe, which may go far to account for this sentiment; but I will venture to say this, that I think the working man will do well briefly and calmly to review the history, with regard to himself, of the last eighteen years. I take that period.—I might take a longer one—but I take that period because it enables me to present results in a tolerably simple form, and because it is a period within which I have been most intimately conversant with a multitude of questions, in which the welfare of the mass of the community is deeply and directly concerned. Within these eighteen years, what has taken place affecting all classes of the community, but especially, and more than all others, affecting the working classes of the people. In the first place, perfectly free access has been given for the entry into our ports of everything that they can want from every quarter of the world—I mean perfectly free, whether as regards prohibitions or as regards protective duties. In the second place, we have seen remitted during those eighteen years an amount of taxation which I will not undertake—and which it is not necessary for me at this moment—to state minutely; but I will venture to assert that the taxation upon commodities, which he has seen remitted within that period, is something between £5,000,000 and £20,000,000 sterling per annum. That remission of taxation, in which the working man is so especially interested, has not been purchased by an augmentation of the burdens upon other classes; because the Income-tax, though it is higher now than I should like to see it—namely, at 6d. in the pound—is still one penny lower than it was eighteen years ago, before those fifteen millions of taxes were remitted. Within these eighteen years, his class has been invested largely with the Parliamentary franchise, and he now sees himself at the point where be may reasonably hope that, before he is six or eight months older, he will be protected in the free exercise of that franchise by means of the Ballot. The Parliament has passed an Act which aims at securing for all his children, under all circumstances, a good primary education, and which provides that, if unhappily he is unable himself to meet the cost, it shall be defrayed for him by the State and by his wealthier neighbours. Whilst this provision has been made for primary education, endeavours have been made, through reforming the Universities, through the entire abolition of tests, and through an extensive dealing with the public and the grammar schools of the country, to establish the whole of our schools in a hierarchy of degrees—the several orders of education rising one above the other—so that, whenever there is in a child a capacity to rise, be may, with facility, pass on from point to point, and may find open to him the road through knowledge to distinction. But education would not be of great use to the people unless the materials of study were accessible; and therefore, at no small cost of political effort, the material of paper has been set free of duty, and every restriction, in stamp or otherwise, upon the press has been removed. The consequence has been the creation of a popular press which, for the lowness of its price, for the general ability—aye, for the general wisdom and moderation with which it is written, and for the vast extent of its circulation, I might almost venture to call, not only an honour to the nation, but the wonder of the world. And in order that the public service might indeed be a public service—in order that we might not have among the civil offices of the State that which we had complained of in the army—namely, that the service was not the property of the nation, but of the officers, we have now been enabled to remove from the entry into the Civil Service the barriers of nomination, patronage, jobbing, favouritism in whatever form; and every man belonging to the people of land—if he is able to fit his children for the purpose of competing for public employment—may do it entirely irrespective of the question of what is his condition in life, or the amount of means with which he may happen to be, or not to be endowed. I say confidently, in the face of those of the working community who may hear me, and to the minds of all those who may pay the least attention to these words through any other medium, that when, within such a period as I have described, measures like these have been achieved, while there may remain much to be done—I am the last to deny it, I am the first to assert it—there is reason to look with patience and indulgence upon a system under which such results have been accomplished; some reason for that loyalty to the Throne, and that attachment to the law, which are the happy characteristics of the people of this country.

But while I would exhort you to impose upon the Government and the Legislature every burden that they are, in their own nature, capable of bearing, in my mind they are not your friends, but in fact, though not in intention, your enemies, who teach you to look to the Legislature, or to the Government, for the radical removal of the evils which afflict human life. I read but a few days ago, in a questionable book, verses which I think contain much good sense, and which I will read to you: —

“People throughout the land

Join in one social band,

And save yourselves.

if you would happy be,

Free from all slavery,

Banish all knavery,

And save yourselves.”

It is the individual mind, the individual conscience; it is the individual character, on which mainly human happiness or human misery depends. The social problems which confront us are many and formidable. Let the Government labour to its uttermost, let the Legislature spend days and nights in your service; but, after the very best has been achieved the question whether the English father is to be the father of a happy family and the centre of a United home, is a question which must depend mainly upon himself. Those who propose to you schemes like those Seven Points of which I spoke—who promise to dwellers in towns that every one of them shall have a house and garden in the country—those who tell you that there shall be markets for selling, at wholesale price, retail quantities—I will not say, gentlemen, that these are impostors, because I have no doubt that they are sincere; but I will say that they are quacks—they are misled and beguiled by a spurious philanthropy, and when they ought to give you substantial, even if humble and modest, boons, they are endeavouring, perhaps, without their own consciousness, to delude you with phantasms, and to offer you glowing fruit which, when you attempt to taste it, will prove to be but ashes in your mouth. No, gentlemen, what we have to ask ourselves are questions which depend upon ourselves individually in the main to answer. How are the ravages of strong drink to be checked? In an age when, from year to year, more and more women are becoming self-dependent members of the community, how, without tampering with the cardinal laws that determine providentially their position in the world, how are we to remove the serious social inequalities under which I, for one, hold that they labour? How, in a country where wealth accumulates with such vast rapidity, are we to check the growth of luxury and selfishness by sound and healthy opinion? How are we to secure to labour its due honour?—and I mean not only the labour of the hands, but the labour of the man, with any and with all the faculties that God has given him? How are we to make ourselves believe, and how are we to bring the country to believe, that in the sight of God and man labour in this world is honourable, and idleness is of all things most contemptible? Depend upon it I do but speak the serious and solemn truth when I say that, within and beneath the political questions that are found upon the surface, lie the deeper and more searching questions that enter into the breast, and that strike home to the conscience and the mind of every man; and it is upon the solution of these questions, and other questions such as these, that the well-being of England must depend.

Gentlemen, I use the words of a popular poet when I give vent to the sentiments of hope with which, for one, I venture to look forward to the future of the country. He says —

“The ancient virtue is not dead,

And long may it endure

May wealth in England….”

(and I am sure he means by wealth the higher sense of it—prosperity alone, but healthful and sound prosperity)—

“May wealth in England never fail,

Nor pity for the poor.”

May strength and the means of material prosperity never be wanting to us. But it is far more important that there shall not be wanting the disposition to use those means aright. And now, gentlemen, I shall go home from this meeting, after having given you the best account in my feeble power, within the time and under the circumstances of the day, strengthened by the comfort of your kindness and your indulgence, to resume my share in public labours. And no motive will more operate upon me as an incentive to the discharge of duty than the gratitude with which I look back upon the, I believe, unexampled circumstances under which you chose me for your representative. But I shall endeavour and shall make it my special aim to show that gratitude less by words of sounding compliment or hollow flattery than by a manful struggle, according to the measure of my gifts, humble as they may be, to render service to a Queen who lives in the hearts of the people—and to a nation, with respect to which I will say that through all posterity, whether it be praised or whether it be blamed whether it be acquitted or whether it be condemned, it will be acquitted or condemned upon this issue—of having made a good or bad use of the most splendid opportunities; of having turned to account, or having failed to turn to account, the powers, the energies, the faculties which mark the people of this little island as among the small and select company of great nations that have stamped their name on the page of history as gifted with the qualities that mark the leaders of mankind.

Disraeli’s speech on the Reform Bill

15 July 1867

The first part of the speech traces the history of the attempts for Parliamentary reform since 1852 and tries to vindicate the bill before the House, especially against the attacks of Lord Cranborne and Robert Lowe, who, with the help of forty or more followers of Whig leanings plus the voting power of the Conservative opposition, had brought defeat to Gladstone‘s bill of 1866. Lowe bitterly asserted that the principle of this bill was the principle of numbers as against wealth and intellect. England of necessity must turn her attention, therefore, to the education of the masses. Cranborne, a Conservative seceder from the Cabinet, declared that Disraeli had yielded to the demands of his political opponents: “If it be a Conservative triumph to have introduced a Bill guarded with precautions and securities, and to have abandoned every one of those precautions and securities at the bidding of your opponents, then in the whole course of your annals I will venture to say the Conservative Party has won no triumph so signal as this.” Disraeli’s defense follows.

And, Sir, I think it cannot be said that this was a measure which bristled with securities and precautions that have been given up at the bidding of our opponents. That a great many of them have been given up I shall not deny; but they have been given up not always or in the greatest degree at the bidding of our opponents, and some of them have been given up to the general feeling of the House.1

Now, Sir, the noble lord [Lord Cranborne] says that by yielding to these ten same conditions, I have virtually altered the whole character of the Bill. Now, is that true? Is the whole character of the Bill altered? I contend on the contrary, that the Bill, though adapted of course to the requirements of the year in which we are legislating, is at the same time in harmony with the general policy which we have always maintained. [Laughter from the Opposition.] This is a question which cannot be settled by a jeer or a laugh, but by facts, and by facts and results which many of you deprecate and deplore at this moment, and in consequence of which you tell us that you mean to reopen the agitation—a thing which I defy you to do.

I begin with what the honourable gentleman [Robert Lowe] who smiles so serenely may regard as the most difficult question for us—namely, that of the borough franchise…. has there, I say, been no question, since the Government [the Derby-Disraeli government] of 1859, between retaining the £10 borough franchise [a qualification in the 1832 Reform Bill] and accepting household suffrage? Have you not had the alternative offered of a multitude of schemes? Have you not heard of a franchise to be fixed at £8, £7, £6, and all sorts of pounds?

The question, therefore, for us practically to consider was—whether we were to accept this settlement of the borough franchise, we will say at £5, or whether we should adhere to the conviction at which we had arrived in 1859—namely, that if you reduced the qualification there was no safe resting-place until you came to a household rating franchise? The noble lord says that immense dangers are to arise to this country because we have departed from the £10 franchise. [Viscount Cranbourne: No.] Well, it was something like that, or because you have reduced the franchise. The noble lord is candid enough to see that if you had reduced it after what occurred in 1859, as you ought according to your pledges to have done, you would have had to reduce it again by this time. It is not likely that such a settlement of the difficulty would have been so statesmanlike that you could have allayed discontent or satisfied any great political demands by reducing the electoral qualification by 40s. or so. Then the question would arise—is there a greater danger from the number who would be admitted by a rating household franchise than from admitting the hundreds of thousands—the right honourable gentleman the member [Gladstone] for South Lancashire calculated them at 300,000—who would come in under a £5 franchise? I think that the danger would be less, that the feeling of the large number would be more national, than by only admitting what I call the Praetorian guard, a sort of class set aside, invested with peculiar privileges, looking with suspicion on their superiors, and with disdain on those beneath them, with no friendly feelings towards the institutions of their country and with great confidence in themselves. I think you would have a better chance of touching the popular heart, of evoking the national sentiment by embracing the great body of those men who occupy houses and fulfil the duties of citizenship by the payment of rates, than by the more limited and, in our opinion, more dangerous proposal.

So much for the franchise. I say that if we could not carry out our policy of 1859, the logical conclusion was that in settling the question we should make the proposition which you, after due consideration, have accepted, and which I hope you will to-night pass. Let us look at the other divisions of the subject. I will not test by little points the question of whether we have carried substantially the policy which we recommended. I say look to the distribution of seats. I am perfectly satisfied on the part of Her Majesty’s Government with the distribution of seats which the House in its wisdom has sanctioned. I think it is a wise and prudent distribution of seats. I believe that upon reflection it will satisfy the country. It has been modified in one instance, to a certain degree, in favour of views which in principle we do not oppose [a minority representation scheme]; but we have succeeded in limiting the application of that principle; and, on the whole, the policy which is embodied in the distribution of seats, which by reading this Bill a third time I hope you are going to adopt, is the policy of redistribution which on the part of the Conservative party I have now for nearly twenty years impressed on this House. And what is that policy? That you should completely disfranchise no single place; that it would be most unwise without necessity to disfranchise any centre of representation; that you should take the smaller boroughs with two members each and find the degree of representation which you wanted to supply in their surplus and superfluity of representation. You have acted upon that principle. But, above all, year after year I have endeavoured to impress on this House the absolute necessity of your doing justice to those vast, I may almost say, unrepresented millions, but certainly most inadequately represented millions, who are congregated in your counties. You may depreciate what you have agreed to, but in my opinion you have agreed to a very great measure. At any rate it is the first, and it is a very considerable, attempt to do justice in regard to the representation of the counties.

Then although I am the last person in any to under-rate the value of the assistance which Her Majesty’s Government have received from the House in the management of this measure; although I believe there is no other example in the annals of Parliament when there has been such a fair interchange of ideas between the two sides of the House, and when, notwithstanding some bitter words and burning sentiments which we have occasionally listened to—and especially to-night—there has been, on the whole, a greater absence of party feeling and party management than has ever been exhibited in the conduct of a great measure; although personally I am deeply grateful to many honourable gentlemen opposite for the advice and aid I have received from them, yet I am bound to say that in the carrying of this measure with all that assistance, and with an unaffected desire on our part to defer to the wishes of the House wherever possible, I do think the Bill embodies the chief principles of the policy that we have professed, and which we have always advocated.

Well, but there is a right honourable gentleman who has to-night told us that he is no prophet, but who for half an hour indulged in a series of the most doleful vaticinations that were ever listened to. He says that everything is ruined, and he begins with the House of Lords [Robert Lowe]. Such a singular catalogue of political catastrophes, and such a programme of the injurious consequences of this legislation, were never heard of. The right honourable gentleman says, “There is the House of Lords; it is not of the slightest use now, and what do you think will happen to it when this Bill passes?” That was his argument. Well, my opinion is, if the House of Lords is at present in the position which the right honourable gentleman describes—and I am far from admitting it—then the passing of the Bill can do the House of Lords no harm, and it is very likely may do it a great deal of good. I think the increase of sympathy between the great body of the people and their natural leaders will be more likely to incite the House of Lords to action and to increased efforts to deserve and secure the gratitude and good feeling of the nation. “But,” says the right honourable gentleman, “what is most terrible about the business of carrying this Bill is the treachery by which it has been accomplished.” What I want to know from the right honourable gentleman is, when did the treachery begin? The right honourable gentleman thinks that a measure of Parliamentary Reform is an act of treachery, in consequence of what took place last year, when those who now bring it forward were in frequent council and co-operation with those who then and now oppose it. I can only say, for myself, that I bear of these mysterious councils for the first time. But if a compact was entered into last year, when we were in Opposition, that no measure of Parliamentary Reform should pass, or any proposal with that object be made by us—if such a proposal is an act of treason, then the noble lord the member for Stamford [Lord Cranborne] and his friends are as guilty of treachery as we who sit on these benches. Really I should have supposed that the right honourable gentleman would have weighed his words a little more; that when he talks of treachery he would have tried to define what he means, and that he would have drawn some hard and straight line to tell us where this treachery commenced. The right honourable gentleman, however, throws no light on the subject. He made a speech to-night which reminded me of the production of some inspired schoolboy, all about the battles of Chaeronea and of Hastings. I think he said that the people of England should be educated, but that the quality of the education was a matter of no consequence as compared with the quantity. Now, the right honourable gentleman seems to be in doubt as to what may be his lot in the new Parliament, and what I should recommend him to be—if he will permit me to give him advice—is the schoolmaster abroad. I should think that with his great power of classical and historical illustration the right honourable gentleman might soon be able to clear the minds of the new constituency of all “perilous stuff,” and thus render them as soundly Conservative as he himself could desire.

I must, however, remind the right honourable gentleman when he tells us of the victims at Chaeronea, to whom he likens himself, that they died for their country, and died expressing their proud exultation that their blood should be shed in so sacred a cause. But this victim of Chaeronea takes the earliest opportunity, not of expressing his glory in his achievements and his sacrifice, but of absolutely announcing the conditions on which he is ready to join with those who have brought upon him so disgraceful a discomfiture. He has laid before us a programme to-night of all the revolutionary measures which he detests, but which in consequence of the passing of this Bill he is now prepared to adopt. The right honourable gentleman concluded his attack upon us by accusing us of treachery, and by informing us that he is going to support all those measures which he has hitherto opposed in this House—though I believe he advocated them elsewhere—and that he will recur, I suppose, to those Australian politics which rendered him first so famous.2

The right honourable gentleman told us that in the course we are pursuing there is infamy. The expression is strong; but I never quarrel with that sort of thing, nor do I like on that account to disturb an honourable gentleman in his speech, particularly when he happens to be approaching his peroration. Our conduct, however, according to him, is infamous—that is his statement—because in office we are supporting measures of Parliamentary Reform which we disapprove, and to which we have hitherto been opposed. Well, if we disapprove the Bill which we are recommending the House to accept and sanction to-night, our conduct certainly would be objectionable. If we, from the bottom of our hearts do not believe that the measure which we are now requesting you to pass is on the whole the wisest and best that could be passed under the circumstances, I would even admit that our conduct was infamous. But I want to know what the right honourable gentleman thinks of his own conduct when, having assisted in turning out the Government of Lord Derby in 1859, because they would not reduce the borough franchise, he—if I am not much mistaken, having been one of the most active managers in that intrigue—the right honourable gentleman accepted office in 1860 under the Government of Lord Palmerston, who, of course, brought forward a measure of Parliamentary Reform which, it would appear, the right honourable gentleman also disapproved of, and more than disapproved, inasmuch as, although a member of the Government, he privately and successfully solicited his political opponents to defeat it. And yet this is the right honourable gentleman who talks of infamy.

Sir, the prognostications of evil uttered by the noble lord I can respect, because I know that they are sincere; the warnings and prophecies of the right honourable gentleman I treat in another spirit. For my part, I do not believe that the country is in danger. I think England is safe in the race of men who inhabit her; that she is safe in something much more precious than her accumulated capital—her accumulated experience; she is safe in her national character, in her fame, in the traditions of a thousand years, and in that glorious future which I believe awaits her.

↑1 It is true that Disraeli yielded to amendments on many points: a residence requirement which came to be twelve months instead of two years, inclusion of a lodger franchise, elimination of a dual-vote proposition, a lower occupation franchise in the counties, etc., but he did not yield to Gladstone’s demand for a £5 rating franchise; rather he insisted on the proposition that every householder paying his own rates, if he met other qualifications, should have the right to vote. When a later amendment did away with compounding, thereby putting all occupiers of tenements upon the electoral lists, Disraeli’s acceptance of the proposition really brought household suffrage to the nation’s borough population.

↑2 Robert and Mrs. Lowe returned to London in 1850 after a long sojourn in Australia where he had displayed very liberal tendencies in politics.

PROCLAMATION OF AMNESTY AND RECONSTRUCTION

Andrew Johnson

May 29, 1865

Whereas, the President of the United States, on the 8th day of December, A.D. 1863, and on the 26th day of March, A.D. 1864, did, with the object to suppress the existing rebellion, to induce all persons to return to their loyalty, and to restore the authority of the United States, issue proclamations offering amnesty and pardon to certain persons who had, directly or by implication, participated in the said rebellion; and

Whereas, many persons who had so engaged in said rebellion have, since the issuance of said proclamations, failed or neglected to take the benefits offered thereby; and

Whereas, many persons who have been justly deprived of all claim to amnesty and pardon thereunder by reason of their participation, directly or by implication, in said rebellion and continued hostility to the Government of the United States since the date of said proclamations now desire to apply for and obtain amnesty and pardon.

To the end, therefore, that the authority of the Government of the United States may be restored and that peace, order, and freedom may be established, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do proclaim and declare that I hereby grant to all persons who have, directly or indirectly, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves and except in cases where legal proceedings under the laws of the United States providing for the confiscation of property of persons engaged in rebellion have been instituted; but upon the condition, nevertheless, that every such person shall take and subscribe the following oath (or affirmation) and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate, and which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation and shall be of the tenor and effect following, to wit:

I, _______, do solemnly swear (or affirm), in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will in like manner abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves. So help me God.

The following classes of persons are excepted from the benefits of this proclamation:

First. All who are or shall have been pretended civil or diplomatic officers or otherwise domestic or foreign agents of the pretended Confederate government.

Second. All who left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebellion.

Third. All who shall have been military or naval officers of said pretended Confederate government above the rank of colonel in the army or lieutenant in the navy.

Fourth. All who left seats in the Congress of the United States to aid the rebellion.

Fifth. All who resigned or tendered resignations of their commissions in the Army or Navy of the United States to evade duty in resisting the rebellion.

Sixth. All who have engaged in any way in treating otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war persons found in the United States service as officers, soldiers, seamen, or in other capacities.

Seventh. All persons who have been or are absentees from the United States for the purpose of aiding the rebellion.

Eighth. All military and naval officers in the rebel service who were educated by the Government in the Military Academy at West Point or the United States Naval Academy.

Ninth. All persons who held the pretended offices of governors of States in insurrection against the United States.

Tenth. All persons who left their homes within the jurisdiction and protection of the United States and passed beyond the Federal military lines into the pretended Confederate States for the purpose of aiding the rebellion.

Eleventh. All persons who have been engaged in the destruction of the commerce of the United States upon the high seas and all persons who have made raids into the United States from Canada or been engaged in destroying the commerce of the United States upon the lakes and rivers that separate the British Provinces from the United States.

Twelfth. All persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain the benefits hereof by taking the oath herein prescribed, are in military, naval, or civil confinement or custody, or under bonds of the civil, military, or naval authorities or agents of the United States as prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind, either before or after conviction.

Thirteenth. All persons who have voluntarily participated in said rebellion and the estimated value of whose taxable property is over $20,000.

Fourteenth. All persons who have taken the oath of amnesty as prescribed in the President’s proclamation of December 8, A.D. 1863, or an oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States since the date of said proclamation and who have not thenceforward kept and maintained the same inviolate.

Provided, That special application may be made to the President for pardon by any person belonging to the excepted classes, and such clemency will be liberally extended as may be consistent with the facts of the case and the peace and dignity of the United States.

The Secretary of State will establish rules and regulations for administering and recording the said amnesty oath, so as to insure its benefit to the people and guard the Government against fraud.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, the 29th day of May, A.D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

Andrew Johnson

REPORT OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON RECONSTRUCTION

June 20 1866

A claim for the immediate admission of senators and representatives from the socalled Confederate States has been urged, which seems to your committee not to be founded either in reason or in law, and which cannot be passed without comment. Stated in a few words, it amounts to this: That inasmuch as the lately insurgent States had no legal right to separate themselves from the Union, they still retain their positions as States, and consequently the people thereof have a right to immediate representation in Congress without the imposition of any conditions whatever…. It has even been contended that until such admission all legislation affecting their interests is, if not unconstitutional, at least unjustifiable and oppressive.

It is believed by your Committee that these propositions are not only wholly untenable, but, if admitted would tend to the destruction of the government.

It must not be forgotten that the people of these States, without justification or excuse, rose in insurrection against the United States. They deliberately abolished their State governments so far as the same connected them politically with the Union…. They opened hostilities and levied war against the government. They continued this war for four years with the most determined and malignant spirit…. Whether legally and constititionally or not, they did, in fact, withdraw from the Union and made themselves subjects of another government of their own creation. And they only yielded when they were compelled by utter exhaustion to lay down their arms… expressing no regret, except that they had no longer the power to continue the desperate struggle

It cannot, we think, be denied by any one, having tolerable acquaintance with public law, that the war thus waged was a civil war of the greatest magnitude. The people waging it were necessarily subject to all the rule which, by the law of nations, control a contest of that character, and to all the legitimate consequences following it. One of those consequences was that, within the limits prescribed by humanity, the conquered rebels were at the mercy of the conquerors. That a government thus outraged had a most perfect right to exact indemnity for the injuries done, and security against the recurrence of such outrages in the future, would seem too clear for dispute..

Your committee came to the consideration of the subject referred to them with the most anxious desire ascertain what was the condition of the people of the States recently in insurrection, and what, if anything, was necessary to be done before restoring them to the full enjoyment of all their original privileges. It was undeniable that the war into which they had plunged the country had materially changed their relations to the people of the loyal States. Slavery had been abolished by constitutional amendment. A large proportion of the population had become, instead of mere chattels, free men and citizens. Through all the past struggle these had remained true and loyal, and had, in large numbers, fought on the side of the Union. It was impossible to abandon them, without securing them their rights as free men and citizens…. Hence it became important to inquire what could be done to secure their rights, civil and political. It was evident to your committee that adequate security could only be found in appropriate constitutional provisions. By an original provision of the Constitution, representation is based on the whole number of free persons in each State, and three-fifths of all other persons. When all become free, representation for all necessarily follows. As a consequence the inevitable effect of the rebellion would be to increase the political power of the insurrectionary States, whenever they should be allowed to resume their position as States of the Union…. It did not seem just or proper that all the political advantages derived from their becoming free should be confined to their former masters, who had fought against the Union, and withheld from themselves, who had always been loyal…. Doubts were entertained whether Congress had power, even under the amended Constitution, to prescribe the qualifications of voters in a State, or could act directly on the subject. It was doubtful… whether the States would consent to surrender a power they had always exercised, and to which they were attached. As the best if not the only method of surmounting the difficulty, and as eminently just and proper in itself, your committee came to the conclusion that political power should be possessed in all the States exactly in proportion as the right of suffrage should be granted, without distinction of color or race. This it was thought would leave the whole question with the people of each State, holding out to all the advantage of increased political power as an inducement to allow all to participate in its exercise. Such a provision would be in its nature gentle and persuasive, and would lead, it was hoped, at no distant day, to an equal participation of all, without distinction, in all the rights and privileges of citizenship, thus affording a full and adequate protection to all classes of citizens, since all would have, through the ballot-box, the power of self-protection…

With such evidence before them, it is the opinion of your committed

1. That the States lately in rebellion were, at the close of the war, disorganized communities, without civil government, and without constitutions or other forms, by virtue of which political relations could legally exist between them and the federal government.

2. That Congress cannot be expected to recognize as valid the election of representatives from disorganized communities, which, from the very nature of the case, were unable to present their claim to representation under those established and recognized rules, the observance of which has been hitherto required.

3. That Congress would not be justified in admitting such communities to a participation in the government of the country without first providing such constitutional or other guarantees as will tend to secure the civil rights of all citizens of the republic; a just equality of representation; protection against claims founded in rebellion and crime; a temporary restoration of the right of suffrage to those who had not actively participated in the efforts to destroy the Union and overthrow the government, and the exclusion from positions of public trust of, at least, a portion of those whose crimes have proved them to be enemies to the Union, and unworthy of public confidence.

GENERAL ACT OF THE BERLIN CONFERENCE ON WEST AFRICA

26 February 1885

GENERAL ACT OF THE CONFERENCE AT BERLIN OF THE PLENIPOTENTIARIES OF GREAT BRITAIN, AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, BELGIUM, DENMARK, FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, THE NETHERLANDS, PORTUGAL, RUSSIA, SPAIN, SWEDEN AND NORWAY, TURKEY AND THE UNITED STATES RESPECTING: (1) FREEDOM OF TRADE IN THE BASIN OF THE CONGO; (2) THE SLAVE TRADE; (3) NEUTRALITY OF THE TERRITORIES IN THE BASIN OF THE CONGO; (4) NAVIGATION OF THE CONGO; (5) NAVIGATION OF THE NIGER; AND (6) RULES FOR FUTURE OCCUPATION ON THE COAST OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT

In the Name of God Almighty.

Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India; His Majesty the German Emperor, King of Prussia; His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, etc, and Apostolic King of Hungary; His Majesty the King of the Belgians; His Majesty the King of Denmark; His Majesty the King of Spain; the President of the United States of America; the President of the French Republic; His Majesty the King of Italy; His Majesty the King of the Netherlands, Grand Duke of Luxemburg, etc; His Majesty the King of Portugal and the Algarves, etc; His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias; His Majesty the King of Sweden and Norway, etc; and His Majesty the Emperor of the Ottomans,

WISHING, in a spirit of good and mutual accord, to regulate the conditions most favourable to the development of trade and civilization in certain regions of Africa, and to assure to all nations the advantages of free navigation on the two chief rivers of Africa flowing into the Atlantic Ocean;

BEING DESIROUS, on the other hand, to obviate the misunderstanding and disputes which might in future arise from new acts of occupation (prises de possession) on the coast of Africa; and concerned, at the same time, as to the means of furthering the moral and material well-being of the native populations;

HAVE RESOLVED, on the invitation addressed to them by the Imperial Government of Germany, in agreement with the Government of the French Republic, to meet for those purposes in Conference at Berlin, and have appointed as their Plenipotentiaries, to wit:

[Names of plenipotentiaries included here.]

Who, being provided with full powers, which have been found in good and due form, have successively discussed and adopted:

1. A Declaration relative to freedom of trade in the basin of the Congo, its embouchures and circumjacent regions, with other provisions connected therewith.

2. A Declaration relative to the slave trade, and the operations by sea or land which furnish slaves to that trade.

3. A Declaration relative to the neutrality of the territories comprised in the Conventional basin of the Congo.

4. An Act of Navigation for the Congo, which, while having regard to local circumstances, extends to this river, its affluents, and the waters in its system (eaux qui leur sont assimilées), the general principles enunciated in Articles 58 and 66 of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, and intended to regulate, as between the Signatory Powers of that Act, the free navigation of the waterways separating or traversing several States—these said principles having since then been applied by agreement to certain rivers of Europe and America, but especially to the Danube, with the modifications stipulated by the Treaties of Paris (1856), of Berlin (1878), and of London (1871 and 1883).

5. An Act of Navigation for the Niger, which, while likewise having regard to local circumstances, extends to this river and its affluents the same principles as set forth in Articles 58 and 66 of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna.

6. A Declaration introducing into international relations certain uniform rules with reference to future occupations on the coast of the African Continent.

And deeming it expedient that all these several documents should be combined in one single instrument, they (the Signatory Powers) have collected them into one General Act, composed of the following Articles:

CHAPTER I

DECLARATION RELATIVE TO FREEDOM OF TRADE IN THE BASIN OF THE CONGO, ITS MOUTHS AND CIRCUMJACENT REGIONS, WITH OTHER PROVISIONS CONNECTED THEREWITH

Article 1

The trade of all nations shall enjoy complete freedom—

1. In all the regions forming the basin of the Congo and its outlets. This basin is bounded by the watersheds (or mountain ridges) of the adjacent basins, namely, in particular, those of the Niari, the Ogowé, the Schari, and the Nile, on the north; by the eastern watershed line of the affluents of Lake Tanganyika on the east; and by the watersheds of the basins of the Zambesi and the Logé on the south. It therefore comprises all the regions watered by the Congo and its affluents, including Lake Tanganyika, with its eastern tributaries.

2. In the maritime zone extending along the Atlantic Ocean from the parallel situated in 2°30′ of south latitude to the mouth of the Logé.

The northern boundary will follow the parallel situated in 2°30′ from the coast to the point where it meets the geographical basin of the Congo, avoiding the basin of the Ogowé, to which the provisions of the present Act do not apply.

The southern boundary will follow the course of the Logé to its source, and thence pass eastwards till it joins the geographical basin of the Congo.

3. In the zone stretching eastwards from the Congo Basin, as above defined, to the Indian Ocean from 5 degrees of north latitude to the mouth of the Zambesi in the south, from which point the line of demarcation will ascend the Zambesi to 5 miles above its confluence with the Shiré, and then follow the watershed between the affluents of Lake Nyassa and those of the Zambesi, till at last it reaches the watershed between the waters of the Zambesi and the Congo.

It is expressly recognized that in extending the principle of free trade to this eastern zone the Conference Powers only undertake engagements for themselves, and that in the territories belonging to an independent Sovereign State this principle shall only be applicable in so far as it is approved by such State. But the Powers agree to use their good offices with the Governments established on the African shore of the Indian Ocean for the purpose of obtaining such approval, and in any case of securing the most favourable conditions to the transit (traffic) of all nations.

Article 2

All flags, without distinction of nationality, shall have free access to the whole of the coastline of the territories above enumerated, to the rivers there running into the sea, to all the waters of the Congo and its affluents, including the lakes, and to all the ports situate on the banks of these waters, as well as to all canals which may in future be constructed with intent to unite the watercourses or lakes within the entire area of the territories described in Article 1. Those trading under such flags may engage in all sorts of transport, and carry on the coasting trade by sea and river, as well as boat traffic, on the same footing as if they were subjects.

Article 3

Wares, of whatever origin, imported into these regions, under whatsoever flag, by sea or river, or overland, shall be subject to no other taxes than such as may be levied as fair compensation for expenditure in the interests of trade, and which for this reason must be equally borne by the subjects themselves and by foreigners of all nationalities. All differential dues on vessels, as well as on merchandise, are forbidden.

Article 4

Merchandise imported into these regions shall remain free from import and transit dues.

The Powers reserve to themselves to determine after the lapse of twenty years whether this freedom of import shall be retained or not.

Article 5

No Power which exercises or shall exercise sovereign rights in the abovementioned regions shall be allowed to grant therein a monopoly or favour of any kind in matters of trade.

Foreigners, without distinction, shall enjoy protection of their persons and property, as well as the right of acquiring and transferring movable and immovable possessions; and national rights and treatment in the exercise of their professions.

PROVISIONS RELATIVE TO PROTECTION OF THE NATIVES, OF MISSIONARIES AND TRAVELLERS, AS WELL AS RELATIVE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Article 6

All the Powers exercising sovereign rights or influence in the aforesaid territories bind themselves to watch over the preservation of the native tribes, and to care for the improvement of the conditions of their moral and material well-being, and to help in suppressing slavery, and especially the slave trade. They shall, without distinction of creed or nation, protect and favour all religious, scientific or charitable institutions and undertakings created and organized for the above ends, or which aim at instructing the natives and bringing home to them the blessings of civilization.

Christian missionaries, scientists and explorers, with their followers, property and collections, shall likewise be the objects of especial protection.

Freedom of conscience and religious toleration are expressly guaranteed to the natives, no less than to subjects and to foreigners. The free and public exercise of all forms of divine worship, and the right to build edifices for religious purposes, and to organize religious missions belonging to all creeds, shall not be limited or fettered in any way whatsoever.

POSTAL REGIME

Article 7

The Convention of the Universal Postal Union, as revised at Paris 1 June 1878, shall be applied to the Conventional basin of the Congo.

The Powers who therein do or shall exercise rights of sovereignty or Protectorate engage, as soon as circumstances permit them, to take the measures necessary for the carrying out of the preceding provision.

RIGHT OF SURVEILLANCE VESTED IN THE INTERNATIONAL NAVIGATION COMMISSION OF THE CONGO

Article 8

In all parts of the territory had in view by the present Declaration, where no Power shall exercise rights of sovereignty or Protectorate, the International Navigation Commission of the Congo, instituted in virtue of Article 17, shall be charged with supervising the application of the principles proclaimed and perpetuated (consacrés) by this Declaration.

In all cases of difference arising relative to the application of the principles established by the present Declaration, the Governments concerned may agree to appeal to the good offices of the International Commission, by submitting to it an examination of the facts which shall have occasioned these differences.

CHAPTER II

DECLARATION RELATIVE TO THE SLAVE TRADE

Article 9

Seeing that trading in slaves is forbidden in conformity with the principles of international law as recognized by the Signatory Powers, and seeing also that the operations, which, by sea or land, furnish slaves to trade, ought likewise to be regarded as forbidden, the Powers which do or shall exercise sovereign rights or influence in the territories forming the Conventional basin of the Congo declare that these territories may not serve as a market or means of transit for the trade in slaves, of whatever race they may be. Each of the Powers binds itself to employ all the means at its disposal for putting an end to this trade and for punishing those who engage in it.

CHAPTER III

DECLARATION RELATIVE TO THE NEUTRALITY OF THE TERRITORIES COMPRISED IN THE CONVENTIONAL BASIN OF THE CONGO

Article 10

In order to give a new guarantee of security to trade and industry, and to encourage, by the maintenance of peace, the development of civilization in the countries mentioned in Article 1, and placed under the free trade system, the High Signatory Parties to the present Act, and those who shall hereafter adopt it, bind themselves to respect the neutrality of the territories, or portions of territories, belonging to the said countries, comprising therein the territorial waters, so long as the Powers which exercise or shall exercise the rights of sovereignty or Protectorate over those territories, using their option of proclaiming themselves neutral, shall fulfil the duties which neutrality requires.

Article 11

In case a Power exercising rights of sovereignty or Protectorate in the countries mentioned in Article 1, and placed under the free trade system, shall be involved in a war, then the High Signatory Parties to the present Act, and those who shall hereafter adopt it, bind themselves to lend their good offices in order that the territories belonging to this Power and comprised in the Conventional free trade zone shall, by the common consent of this Power and of the other belligerent or belligerents, be placed during the war under the rule of neutrality, and considered as belonging to a non-belligerent State, the belligerents thenceforth abstaining from extending hostilities to the territories thus neutralized, and from using them as a base for warlike operations.

Article 12

In case a serious disagreement originating on the subject of, or in the limits of, the territories mentioned in Article 1, and placed under the free trade system, shall arise between any Signatory Powers of the present Act, or the Powers which may become parties to it, these Powers bind themselves, before appealing to arms, to have recourse to the mediation of one or more of the friendly Powers.

In a similar case the same Powers reserve to themselves the option of having recourse to arbitration.

CHAPTER IV

ACT OF NAVIGATION FOR THE CONGO

Article 13

The navigation of the Congo, without excepting any of its branches or outlets, is, and shall remain, free for the merchant ships of all nations equally, whether carrying cargo or ballast, for the transport of goods or passengers. It shall be regulated by the provisions of this Act of Navigation, and by the rules to be made in pursuance thereof.

In the exercise of this navigation the subjects and flags of all nations shall in all respects be treated on a footing of perfect equality, not only for the direct navigation from the open sea to the inland ports of the Congo, and vice versa, but also for the great and small coasting trade, and for boat traffic on the course of the river.

Consequently, on all the course and mouths of the Congo there will be no distinction made between the subjects of riverain States and those of non-riverain States, and no exclusive privilege of navigation will be conceded to companies, corporations or private persons whatsoever.

These provisions are recognized by the Signatory Powers as becoming henceforth a part of international law.

Article 14

The navigation of the Congo shall not be subject to any restriction or obligation which is not expressly stipulated by the present Act. It shall not be exposed to any landing dues, to any station or depot tax, or to any charge for breaking bulk, or for compulsory entry into port.

In all the extent of the Congo the ships and goods in process of transit on the river shall be submitted to no transit dues, whatever their starting place or destination.

There shall be levied no maritime or river toll based on the mere fact of navigation, nor any tax on goods aboard of ships. There shall only be levied taxes or duties having the character of an equivalent for services rendered to navigation itself, to wit:

1. Harbour dues on certain local establishments, such as wharves, warehouses, etc, if actually used.

The tariff of such dues shall be framed according to the cost of constructing and maintaining the said local establishments; and it will be applied without regard to whence vessels come or what they are loaded with.

2. Pilot dues for those stretches of the river where it may be necessary to establish properly qualified pilots.

The tariff of these dues shall be fixed and calculated in proportion to the service rendered.

3. Charges raised to cover technical and administrative expenses incurred in the general interest of navigation, including lighthouse, beacon and buoy duties.

The lastmentioned dues shall be based on the tonnage of vessels as shown by the ship’s papers, and in accordance with the rules adopted on the Lower Danube.

The tariffs by which the various dues and taxes enumerated in the three preceding paragraphs shall be levied shall not involve any differential treatment, and shall be officially published at each port.

The Powers reserve to themselves to consider, after the lapse of five years, whether it may be necessary to revise, by common accord, the abovementioned tariffs.

Article 15

The affluents of the Congo shall in all respects be subject to the same rules as the river of which they are tributaries.

And the same rules shall apply to the streams and river as well as the lakes and canals in the territories defined in paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 1.

At the same time the powers of the International Commission of the Congo will not extend to the said rivers, streams, lakes and canals, unless with the assent of the States under whose sovereignty they are placed. It is well understood, also, that with regard to the territories mentioned in paragraph 3 of Article 1 the consent of the Sovereign States owning these territories is reserved.

Article 16

The roads, railways or lateral canals which may be constructed with the special object of obviating the innavigability or correcting the imperfection of the river route on certain sections of the course of the Congo, its affluents, and other waterways placed under a similar system, as laid down in Article 15, shall be considered in their quality of means of communication as dependencies of this river, and as equally open to the traffic of all nations.

And, as on the river itself, so there shall be collected on these roads, railways and canals only tolls calculated on the cost of construction, maintenance and management, and on the profits due to the promoters.

As regards the tariff of these tolls, strangers and the natives of the respective territories shall be treated on a footing of perfect equality.

Article 17

There is instituted an International Commission, charged with the execution of the provisions of the present Act of Navigation.

The Signatory Powers of this Act, as well as those who may subsequently adhere to it, may always be represented on the said Commission, each by one delegate. But no delegate shall have more than one vote at his disposal, even in the case of his representing several Governments.

This delegate will be directly paid by his Government. As for the various agents and employees of the International Commission, their remuneration shall be charged to the amount of the dues collected in conformity with paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 14.

The particulars of the said remuneration, as well as the number, grade and powers of the agents and employees, shall be entered in the returns to be sent yearly to the Governments represented on the International Commission.

Article 18

The members of the International Commission, as well as its appointed agents, are invested with the privilege of inviolability in the exercise of their functions. The same guarantee shall apply to the offices and archives of the Commission.

Article 19

The International Commission for the Navigation of the Congo shall be constituted as soon as five of the Signatory Powers of the present General Act shall have appointed their delegates. And, pending the constitution of the Commission, the nomination of these delegates shall be notified to the Imperial Government of Germany, which will see to it that the necessary steps are taken to summon the meeting of the Commission.

The Commission will at once draw up navigation, river police, pilot and quarantine rules.

These rules, as well as the tariffs to be framed by the Commission, shall, before coming into force, be submitted for approval to the Powers represented on the Commission. The Powers interested will have to communicate their views with as little delay as possible.

Any infringement of these rules will be checked by the agents of the International Commission wherever it exercises direct authority, and elsewhere by the riverain Power.

In the case of an abuse of power, or of an act of injustice, on the part of any agent or employee of the International Commission, the individual who considers himself to be aggrieved in his person or rights may apply to the consular agent of his country. The latter will examine his complaint, and if he finds it prima facie reasonable he will then be entitled to bring it before the Commission. At his instance then, the Commission, represented by at least three of its members, shall, in conjunction with him, inquire into the conduct of its agent or employee. Should the consular agent look upon the decision of the Commission as raising questions of law (objections de droit), he will report on the subject to his Government, which may then have recourse to the Powers represented on the Commission, and invite them to agree as to the instructions to be given to the Commission.

Article 20

The International Commission of the Congo, charged in terms of Article 17 with the execution of the present Act of Navigation, shall in particular have power—

1. To decide what works are necessary to assure the navigability of the Congo in accordance with the needs of international trade.

On those sections of the river where no Power exercises sovereign rights the International Commission will itself take the necessary measures for assuring the navigability of the river.

On those sections of the river held by a Sovereign Power the International Commission will concert its action (s’entendra) with the riparian authorities.

2. To fix the pilot tariff and that of the general navigation dues as provided for by paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 14.

The tariffs mentioned in the first paragraph of Article 14 shall be framed by the territorial authorities within the limits prescribed in the said Article.

The levying of the various dues shall be seen to by the international or territorial authorities on whose behalf they are established.

3. To administer the revenue arising from the application of the preceding paragraph (2).

4. To superintend the quarantine establishment created in virtue of Article 24.

5. To appoint officials for the general service of navigation, and also its own proper employees.

It will be for the territorial authorities to appoint sub-inspectors on sections of the river occupied by a Power, and for the International Commission to do so on the other sections.

The riverain Power will notify to the International Commission the appointment of sub-inspectors, and this Power will undertake the payment of their salaries.

In the exercise of its functions, as above defined and limited, the International Commission will be independent of the territorial authorities.

Article 21

In the accomplishment of its task the International Commission may, if need be, have recourse to the war vessels of the Signatory Powers of this Act, and of those who may in future accede to it, under reserve, however, of the instructions which may be given to the commanders of these vessels by their respective Governments.

Article 22

The war vessels of the Signatory Powers of this Act that may enter the Congo are exempt from payment of the navigation dues provided for in paragraph 3 of Article 14; but, unless their intervention has been called for by the International Commission or its agents, in terms of the preceding Article, they shall be liable to the payment of the pilot or harbour dues which may eventually be established.

Article 23

With the view of providing for the technical and administrative expenses which it may incur, the International Commission created by Article 17 may, in its own name, negotiate loans to be exclusively guaranteed by the revenues raised by the said Commission.

The decisions of the Commission dealing with the conclusion of a loan must be come to by a majority of two-thirds. It is understood that the Governments represented on the Commission shall not in any case be held as assuming any guarantee, or as contracting any engagement or joint liability (solidarité) with respect to the said loans, unless under special Conventions concluded by them to this effect.

The revenue yielded by the dues specified in paragraph 3 of Article 14 shall bear, as a first charge, the payment of the interest and sinking fund of the said loans, according to agreement with the lenders.

Article 24

At the mouth of the Congo there shall be founded, either on the initiative of the riverain Powers, or by the intervention of the International Commission, a quarantine establishment for the control of vessels passing out of as well as into the river.

Later on the Powers will decide whether and on what conditions a sanitary control shall be exercised over vessels engaged in the navigation of the river itself.

Article 25

The provisions of the present Act of Navigation shall remain in force in time of war. Consequently all nations, whether neutral or belligerent, shall be always free, for the purposes of trade, to navigate the Congo, its branches, affluents and mouths, as well as the territorial waters fronting the embouchure of the river.

Traffic will similarly remain free, despite a state of war, on the roads, railways, lakes and canals mentioned in Articles 15 and 16.

There will be no exception to this principle, except in so far as concerns the transport of articles intended for a belligerent, and in virtue of the law of nations regarded as contraband of war.

All the works and establishments created in pursuance of the present Act, especially the tax collecting offices and their treasuries, as well as the permanent service staff of these establishments, shall enjoy the benefits of neutrality (placés sous le régime de la neutralité), and shall, therefore, be respected and protected by belligerents.

CHAPTER V

ACT OF NAVIGATION FOR THE NIGER

Article 26

The navigation of the Niger, without excepting any of its branches and outlets, is and shall remain entirely free for the merchant ships of all nations equally, whether with cargo or ballast, for the transportation of goods and passengers. It shall be regulated by the provisions of this Act of Navigation, and by the rules to be made in pursuance of this Act.

In the exercise of this navigation the subjects and flags of all nations shall be treated, in all circumstances, on a footing of perfect equality, not only for the direct navigation from the open sea to the inland ports of the Niger, and vice versa, but for the great and small coasting trade, and for boat trade on the course of the river.

Consequently, on all the course and mouths of the Niger there will be no distinction made between the subjects of the riverain States and those of non-riverain States; and no exclusive privilege of navigation will be conceded to companies, corporations or private persons.

These provisions are recognized by the Signatory Powers as forming henceforth a part of international law.

Article 27

The navigation of the Niger shall not be subject to any restriction or obligation based merely on the fact of navigation.

It shall not be exposed to any obligation in regard to landing-station or depot, or for breaking bulk, or for compulsory entry into port.

In all the extent of the Niger the ships and goods in process of transit on the river shall be submitted to no transit dues, whatever their starting place or destination.

No maritime or river toll shall be levied based on the sole fact of navigation, nor any tax on goods on board of ships. There shall only be collected taxes or duties which shall be an equivalent for services rendered to navigation itself. The tariff of these taxes or duties shall not warrant any differential treatment.

Article 28

The affluents of the Niger shall be in all respects subject to the same rules as the river of which they are tributaries.

Article 29

The roads, railways or lateral canals which may be constructed with the special object of obviating the innavigability or correcting the imperfections of the river route on certain sections of the course of the Niger, its affluents, branches and outlets, shall be considered, in their quality of means of communication, as dependencies of this river, and as equally open to the traffic of all nations.

And, as on the river itself, so there shall be collected on these roads, railways and canals only tolls calculated on the cost of construction, maintenance and management, and on the profits due to the promoters.

As regards the tariff of these tolls, strangers and the natives of the respective territories shall be treated on a footing of perfect equality.

Article 30

Great Britain undertakes to apply the principles of freedom of navigation enunciated in Articles 26, 27, 28 and 29 on so much of the waters of the Niger, its affluents, branches and outlets, as are or may be under her sovereignty or protection.

The rules which she may establish for the safety and control of navigation shall be drawn up in a way to facilitate, as far as possible, the circulation of merchant ships.

It is understood that nothing in these obligations shall be interpreted as hindering Great Britain from making any rules of navigation whatever which shall not be contrary to the spirit of these engagements.

Great Britain undertakes to protect foreign merchants and all the trading nationalities on all those portions of the Niger which are or may be under her sovereignty or protection as if they were her own subjects, provided always that such merchants conform to the rules which are or shall be made in virtue of the foregoing.

Article 31

France accepts, under the same reservations, and in identical terms, the obligations undertaken in the preceding Articles in respect of so much of the waters of the Niger, its affluents, branches and outlets, as are or may be under her sovereignty or protection.

Article 32

Each of the other Signatory Powers binds itself in the same way in case it should ever exercise in the future rights of sovereignty or protection over any portion of the waters of the Niger, its affluents, branches or outlets.

Article 33

The arrangements of the present Act of Navigation will remain in force in time of war. Consequently, the navigation of all neutral or belligerent nationals will be in all time free for the usages of commerce on the Niger, its branches, its affluents, its mouths and outlets, as well as on the territorial waters opposite the mouths and outlets of that river.

The traffic will remain equally free in spite of a state of war on the roads, railways and canals mentioned in Article 29.

There will be an exception to this principle only in that which relates to the transport of articles destined for a belligerent, and considered, in virtue of the law of nations, as articles contraband of war.

CHAPTER VI

DECLARATION RELATIVE TO THE ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN ORDER THAT NEW OCCUPATIONS ON THE COASTS OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT MAY BE HELD TO BE EFFECTIVE

Article 34

Any Power which henceforth takes possession of a tract of land on the coasts of the African continent outside of its present possessions, or which, being hitherto without such possessions, shall acquire them, as well as the Power which assumes a Protectorate there, shall accompany the respective act with a notification thereof, addressed to the other Signatory Powers of the present Act, in order to enable them, if need be, to make good any claims of their own.

Article 35

The Signatory Powers of the present Act recognize the obligation to insure the establishment of authority in the regions occupied by them on the coasts of the African continent sufficient to protect existing rights, and, as the case may be, freedom of trade and of transit under the conditions agreed upon.

CHAPTER VII

GENERAL DISPOSITIONS

Article 36

The Signatory Powers of the present General Act reserve to themselves to introduce into it subsequently, and by common accord, such modifications and improvements as experience may show to be expedient.

Article 37

The Powers who have not signed the present General Act shall be free to adhere to its provisions by a separate instrument.

The adhesion of each Power shall be notified in diplomatic form to the Government of the German Empire, and by it in turn to all the other signatory or adhering Powers.

Such adhesion shall carry with it full acceptance of all the obligations as well as admission to all the advantages stipulated by the present General Act.

Article 38

The present General Act shall be ratified with as little delay as possible, the same in no case to exceed a year.

It will come into force for each Power from the date of its ratification by that Power.

Meanwhile, the Signatory Powers of the present General Act bind themselves not to take any steps contrary to its provisions.

Each Power will address its ratification to the Government of the German Empire, by which notice of the fact will be given to all the other Signatory Powers of the present Act.

The ratifications of all the Powers will be deposited in the archives of the Government of the German Empire. When all the ratifications shall have been sent in, there will be drawn up a Deposit Act, in the shape of a Protocol, to be signed by the representatives of all the Powers which have taken part in the Conference of Berlin, and of which a certified copy will be sent to each of those Powers.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF the several plenipotentiaries have signed the present General Act and have affixed thereto their seals.

DONE at Berlin, the 26th day of February, 1885.

[Signatures included here.]

BRITISH MISSIONARY LETTERS

URGING THE ANNEXATION OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS

1883

Letter Published by John G. Paton, New Hebrides Mission:

For the following reasons we think the British government ought now to take possession of the New Hebrides group of the South Sea islands, of the Solomon group, and of all the intervening chain of islands from Fiji to New Guinea:

1. Because she has already taken possession of Fiji in the east, and we hope it will soon be known authoritatively that she has taken possession of New Guinea at the northwest, adjoining her Australian possessions, and the islands between complete this chain of islands lying along the Australian coast.

2. The sympathy of the New Hebrides natives are all with Great Britain, hence they long for British protection, while they fear and hate the French, who appear eager to annex the group, because they have seen the way the French have treated the native races in New Caledonia, the Loyalty Islands, and other South Sea islands.

3. Until within the past few months almost all the Europeans on the New Hebrides were British subjects, who long for British protection.

4. All the men and all the money used in civilizing and Christianizing the New Hebrides have been British. Now fourteen missionaries and the Dayspring mission ship, and about 150 native evangelists and teachers are employed in the above work on this group, in which over #6000 yearly of British and British-colonial money is expended; and certainly it would be unwise to let any other power now take possession and reap the fruits of all this British outlay.

5. Because the New Hebrides are already a British dependency in this sense–all its imports are from Sydney and Melbourne and British colonies, and all its exports are also to British colonies.

6. The islands on this group are generally very rich in soil and in tropical products so that if a possession of Great Britain, and if the labor traffic stopped so as to retain what remains of the native populations on them, they would soon, and for ages to come, become rich sources of tropical wealth to these colonies, as sugar cane is extensively cultivated on them by every native of the group, even in his heathen state…The islands also grow corn, cotton, coffee, arrowroot, and spices, etc., and all tropical products could be largely produced on them.

7. Because if any other nation takes possession of them, their excellent and spacious harbors, as on Efate, so well-supplied with the best fresh water, and their near-proximity to Great Britain’s Australasian colonies, would in time of war make them dangerous to British interests and commerce in the South Seas and her colonies.

8. The thirteen islands of this group on which life and property are now comparatively safe, the 8000 professed Christians on the group, and all the churches formed from among them are, by God’s blessing, the fruits of the labors of British missionaries, who, at great toil, expense, and loss of life have translated, got printed, and taught the natives to read the Bible in part or in whole in nine different languages of this group, while 70,000 at least are longing and ready for the gospel. On this group twenty-one members of the mission families died or were murdered by the savages in beginning God’s work among them, not including good Bishop Peterson, of the Melanesian mission, and we fear all this good work would be lost if the New Hebrides fall into other than British hands.

For the above reasons, and others that might be given, we sincerely hope and pray that you will do all possible to get Victoria and the other colonial governments to help and unite in urging Great Britain at once to take possession of the New Hebrides group. Whether looked at in the interests of humanity, or of Christianity, or commercially, or politically, sure it is most desirable that they should at once be British possessions.

Letter Published by Dr. Steel, Sydney:

Some ten years ago, when an abortive effort was made by a number of private individuals to form a settlement on New Guinea, representations were made to some of the colonial governments on the importance of the annexation of New Guinea by the British government. At the same period simultaneous efforts were made by Presbyterian churches to the governments of Australian colonies respecting the annexation of the New Hebrides. The labor traffic at that time excited great interest on account of its many inhumanities.

The government of New South Wales, at the period referred to, formally agreed to recommend the annexation of New Guinea, the Duke of York islands, New Britain, New Ireland, and the New Hebrides. Sir John Robertson, then colonial secretary of New South Wales, addressed a communication to the Earl of Kimberley, the British minister for the colonies, urging the importance of annexation. The answer of the Earl was unfavorable, but the correspondence, which was published by the government of New South Wales, show that this proposal is not now urged for the first time.

The population of natives in the New Hebrides is rapidly declining, and these islands will certainly be annexed by some power, as they are so well fitted to grow all kinds of tropical spices and other fruits. They were discovered for the most part by British navigators, traded with by British vessels, regularly visited by her Majesty’s ships of war, and finally evangelized by the labors and munificence of British subjects.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE KING OF BELGIUM

1890

George Washington Williams, “An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo By Colonel, The Honorable Geo. W. Williams, of the United States of America”

Good and Great Friend,

I have the honour to submit for your Majesty’s consideration some reflections respecting the Independent State of Congo, based upon a careful study and inspection of the country and character of the personal Government you have established upon the African Continent.

It afforded me great pleasure to avail myself of the opportunity afforded me last year, of visiting your State in Africa; and how thoroughly I have been disenchanted, disappointed and disheartened, it is now my painful duty to make known to your Majesty in plain but respectful language. Every charge which I am about to bring against your Majesty’s personal Government in the Congo has been carefully investigated; a list of competent and veracious witnesses, documents, letters, official records and data has been faithfully prepared, which will be deposited with Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, until such time as an International Commission can be created with power to send for persons and papers, to administer oaths, and attest the truth or falsity of these charges.

There were instances in which Mr. Henry M. Stanley sent one white man, with four or five Zanzibar soldiers, to make treaties with native chiefs. The staple argument was that the white man’s heart had grown sick of the wars and rumours of war between one chief and another, between one village and another; that the white man was at peace with his black brother, and desired to “confederate all African tribes” for the general defense and public welfare. All the sleight-of- hand tricks had been carefully rehearsed, and he was now ready for his work. A number of electric batteries had been purchased in London, and when attached to the arm under the coat, communicated with a band of ribbon which passed over the palm of the white brother’s hand, and when he gave the black brother a cordial grasp of the hand the black brother was greatly surprised to find his white brother so strong, that he nearly knocked him off his feet in giving him the hand of fellowship. When the native inquired about the disparity of strength between himself and his white brother, he was told that the white man could pull up trees and perform the most prodigious feats of strength. Next came the lens act. The white brother took from his pocket a cigar, carelessly bit off the end, held up his glass to the sun and complaisantly smoked his cigar to the great amazement and terror of his black brother. The white man explained his intimate relation to the sun, and declared that if he were to request him to burn up his black brother’s village it would be done. The third act was the gun trick. The white man took a percussion cap gun, tore the end of the paper which held the powder to the bullet, and poured the powder and paper into the gun, at the same time slipping the bullet into the sleeve of the left arm. A cap was placed upon the nipple of the gun, and the black brother was implored to step off ten yards and shoot at his white brother to demonstrate his statement that he was a spirit, and, therefore, could not be killed. After much begging the black brother aims the gun at his white brother, pulls the trigger, the gun is discharged, the white man stoops… and takes the bullet from his shoe!

By such means as these, too silly and disgusting to mention, and a few boxes of gin, whole villages have been signed away to your Majesty.

When I arrived in the Congo, I naturally sought for the results of the brilliant programme: “fostering care”, “benevolent enterprise”, an “honest and practical effort” to increase the knowledge of the natives “and secure their welfare”. 1 had never been able to conceive of Europeans, establishing a government in a tropical country, without building a hospital; and yet from the mouth of the Congo River to its head-waters, here at the seventh cataract, a distance of 1,448 miles, there is not a solitary hospital for Europeans, and only three sheds for sick Africans in the service of the State, not fit to be occupied by a horse. Sick sailors frequently die on board their vessels at Banana Point; and if it were not for the humanity of the Dutch Trading Company at that place—who have often opened their private hospital to the sick of other countries—many more might die. There is not a single chaplain in the employ of your Majesty’s Government to console the sick or bury the dead. Your white men sicken and die in their quarters or on the caravan road, and seldom have Christian burial. With few exceptions, the surgeons of your Majesty’s Government have been gentlemen of professional ability, devoted to duty, but usually left with few medical stores and no quarters in which to treat their patients. The African soldiers and labourers of your Majesty’s Government fare worse than the whites, because they have poorer quarters, quite as bad as those of the natives; and in the sheds, called hospitals, they languish upon a bed of bamboo poles without blankets, pillows or any food different from that served to them when well, rice and fish.

I was anxious to see to what extent the natives had “adopted the fostering care” of your Majesty’s “benevolent enterprise” (?), and I was doomed to bitter disappointment. Instead of the natives of the Congo “adopting the fostering care” of your Majesty’s Government, they everywhere complain that their land has been taken from them by force; that the Government is cruel and arbitrary, and declare that they neither love nor respect the Government and its flag. Your Majesty’s Government has sequestered their land, burned their towns, stolen their property, enslaved their women and children, and committed other crimes too numerous to mention in detail. It is natural that they everywhere shrink from “the fostering care” your Majesty’s Government so eagerly proffers them.

There has been, to my absolute knowledge, no “honest and practical effort made to increase their knowledge and secure their welfare.” Your Majesty’s Government has never spent one franc for educational purposes, nor instituted any practical system of industrialism. Indeed the most unpractical measures have been adopted against the natives in nearly every respect; and in the capital of your Majesty’s Government at Boma there is not a native employed. The labour system is radically unpractical; the soldiers and labourers of your Majesty’s Government are very largely imported from Zanzibar at a cost of £10 per capita, and from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Accra and Lagos at from £1 to £1/10 per capita. These recruits are transported under circumstances more cruel than cattle in European countries. They eat their rice twice a day by the use of their fingers; they often thirst for water when the season is dry; they are exposed to the heat and rain, and sleep upon the damp and filthy decks of the vessels often so closely crowded as to lie in human ordure. And, of course, many die.

Upon the arrival of the survivors in the Congo they are set to work as labourers at one shilling a day; as soldiers they are promised sixteen shillings per month, in English money, but are usually paid off in cheap handkerchiefs and poisonous gin. The cruel and unjust treatment to which these people are subjected breaks the spirits of many of them, makes them distrust and despise your Majesty’s Government. They are enemies, not patriots.

There are from sixty to seventy officers of the Belgian army in the service of your Majesty’s Government in the Congo of whom only about thirty are at their post; the other half are in Belgium on furlough. These officers draw double pay—as soldiers and as civilians. It is not my duty to criticise the unlawful and unconstitutional use of these officers coming into the service of this African State. Such criticism will come with more grace from some Belgian statesman, who may remember that there is no constitutional or organic relation subsisting between his Government and the purely personal and absolute monarchy your Majesty has established in Africa. But I take the liberty to say that many of these officers are too young and inexperienced to be entrusted with the difficult work of dealing with native races. They are ignorant of native character, lack wisdom, justice, fortitude and patience. They have estranged the natives from your Majesty’s Government, have sown the seed of discord between tribes and villages, and some of them have stained the uniform of the Belgian officer with murder, arson and robbery. Other officers have served the State faithfully, and deserve well of their Royal Master.

From these general observations I wish now to pass to specific charges against your Majesty’s Government.

First.—Your Majesty’s Government is deficient in the moral military and financial strength, necessary to govern a territory o 1,508,000 square miles, 7,251 miles of navigation, and 31,694 square miles of lake surface. In the Lower Congo River there is but One post, in the cataract region one. From Leopoldville to N’Gombe, a distance of more than 300 miles, there is not a single soldier or civilian. Not one out of every twenty State-officials know the language of the natives, although they are constantly issuing laws, difficult even for Europeans, and expect the natives to comprehend and obey them. Cruelties of the most astounding character are practised by the natives, such as burying slaves alive in the grave of a dead chief, cutting off the heads of captured warriors in native combats, and no effort is put forth by your Majesty’s Government to prevent them. Between 800 and 1,000 slaves are sold to be eaten by the natives of the Congo State annually; and slave raids, accomplished by the most cruel and murderous agencies, are carried on within the territorial limits of your Majesty’s Government which is impotent. There are only 2,300 soldiers in the Congo.

Second.—Your Majesty’s Government has established nearly fifty posts, consisting of from two to eight mercenary slave-soldiers from the East Coast. There is no white commissioned officer at these posts; they are in charge of the black Zanzibar soldiers, and the State expects them not only to sustain themselves, but to raid enough to feed the garrisons where the white men are stationed. These piratical, buccaneering posts compel the natives to furnish them with fish, goats, fowls, and vegetables at the mouths of their muskets; and whenever the natives refuse to feed these vampires, they report to the main station and white officers come with an expeditionary force and burn away the homes of the natives. These black soldiers, many of whom are slaves, exercise the power of life and death. They are ignorant and cruel, because they do not comprehend the natives; they are imposed upon them by the State. They make no report as to the number of robberies they commit, or the number of lives they take; they are only required to subsist upon the natives and thus relieve your Majesty’s Government of the cost of feeding them. They are the greatest curse the country suffers now.

Third.—Your Majesty’s Government is guilty of violating its contracts made with its soldiers, mechanics and workmen, many of whom are subjects of other Governments. Their letters never reach home.

Fourth.—The Courts of your Majesty’s Government are abortive, unjust, partial and delinquent. I have personally witnessed and examined their clumsy operations. The laws printed and circulated in Europe “for the Protection of the blacks” in the Congo, are a dead letter and a fraud. T have heard an officer of the Belgian Army pleading the cause of a white man of low degree who had been guilty of beating and stabbing a black man, and urging race distinctions and prejudices as good and sufficient reasons why his client should be adjudged innocent. I know of prisoners remaining in custody for six and ten months because they were not judged. T saw the white servant of the Governor-General, Camille Janssen, detected in stealing a bottle of wine from a hotel table. A few hours later the Procurer-General searched his room and found many more stolen bottles of wine and other things, not the property of servants. No one can be prosecuted in the State of Congo without an order of the Governor-General, and as he refused to allow his servant to be arrested, nothing could be done. The black servants in the hotel, where the wine had been stolen, had been often accused and beaten for these thefts, and now they were glad to be vindicated. But to the surprise of every honest man, the thief was sheltered by the Governor General of your Majesty’s Government.

Fifth—Your Majesty’s Government is excessively cruel to its prisoners, condemning them, for the slightest offences, to the chain gang, the like of which can not be seen in any other Government in the civilized or uncivilized world. Often these ox-chains eat into the necks of the prisoners and produce sores about which the flies circle, aggravating the running wound; so the prisoner is constantly worried. These poor creatures are frequently beaten with a dried piece of hippopotamus skin, called a “chicote”, and usually the blood flows at every stroke when well laid on. But the cruelties visited upon soldiers and workmen are not to be compared with the sufferings of the poor natives who, upon the slightest pretext, are thrust into the wretched prisons here in the Upper River. I cannot deal with the dimensions of these prisons in this letter, but will do so in my report to my Government.

Sixth.—Women are imported into your Majesty’s Government for immoral purposes. They are introduced by two methods, viz., black men are dispatched to the Portuguese coast where they engage these women as mistresses of white men, who pay to the procurer a monthly sum. The other method is by capturing native women and condemning them to seven years’ servitude for some imaginary crime against the State with which the villages of these women are charged. The State then hires these woman out to the highest bidder, the officers having the first choice and then the men. Whenever children are born of such relations, the State maintains that the women being its property the child belongs to it also. Not long ago a Belgian trader had a child by a slave-woman of the State, and he tried to secure possession of it that he might educate it, but the Chief of the Station where he resided, refused to be moved by his entreaties. At length he appealed to the Governor-General, and he gave him the woman and thus the trader obtained the child also. This was, however, an unusual case of generosity and clemency; and there is only one post that I know of where there is not to be found children of the civil and military officers of your Majesty’s Government abandoned to degradation; white men bringing their own flesh and blood under the lash of a most cruel master, the State of Congo.

Seventh.—Your Majesty’s Government is engaged in trade and commerce, competing with the organised trade companies of Belgium, England, France, Portugal and Holland. It taxes all trading companies and exempts its own goods from export-duty, and makes many of its officers ivory-traders, with the promise of a liberal commission upon all they can buy or get for the State. State soldiers patrol many villages forbidding the natives to trade with any person but a State official, and when the natives refuse to accept the price of the State, their goods are seized by the Government that promised them “protection”. When natives have persisted in trading with the trade-companies the State has punished their independence by burning the villages in the vicinity of the trading houses and driving the natives away.

Eighth.—Your Majesty’s Government has violated the General Act of the Conference of Berlin by firing upon native canoes; by confiscating the property of natives; by intimidating native traders, and preventing them from trading with white trading companies; by quartering troops in native villages when there is no war; by causing vessels bound from “Stanley-Pool” to “Stanley-Falls”, to break their journey and leave the Congo, ascend the Aruhwimi river to Basoko, to be visited and show their papers; by forbidding a mission steamer to fly its national flag without permission from a local Government; by permitting the natives to carry on the slave- trade, and by engaging in the wholesale and retail slave-trade itself.

Ninth.—-Your Majesty’s Government has been, and is now, guilty of waging unjust and cruel wars against natives, with the hope of securing slaves and women, to minister to the behests of the officers of your Government. In such slave-hunting raids one village is armed by the State against the other, and the force thus secured is incorporated with the regular troops. I have no adequate terms with which to depict to your Majesty the brutal acts of your soldiers upon such raids as these. The soldiers who open the combat are usually the bloodthirsty cannibalistic Bangalas, who give no quarter to the aged grandmother or nursing child at the breast of its mother. There are instances in which they have brought the heads of their victims to their white officers on the expeditionary steamers, and afterwards eaten the bodies of slain children. In one war two Belgian Army officers saw, from the deck of their steamer, a native in a canoe some distance away. He was not a combatant and was ignorant of the conflict in progress upon the shore, some distance away. The officers made a wager of £5 that they could hit the native with their rifles. Three shots were fired and the native fell dead, pierced through the head, and the trade canoe was transformed into a funeral barge and floated silently down the river.

Tenth.—Your Majesty’s Government is engaged in the slave-trade, wholesale and retail. It buys and sells and steals slaves. Your Majesty’s Government gives £3 per head for able bodied slaves for military service. Officers at the chief stations get the men and receive the money when they are transferred to the State; but there are some middle-men who only get from twenty to twenty-five francs per head. Three hundred and sixteen slaves were sent down the river recently, and others are to follow. These poor natives are sent hundreds of miles away from their villages, to serve among other natives whose language they do not know. When these men run away a reward of 1,000 N’taka is offered. Not long ago such a recaptured slave was given one hundred “chikote” each day until he died. Three hundred N’taka—brassrod-—is the price the State pays for a slave, when bought from a native. The labour force at the stations of your Majesty’s Government in the Upper River is composed of slaves of all ages and both sexes.

Eleventh.—Your Majesty’s Government has concluded a contract with the Arab Governor at this place for the establishment of a line of military posts from the Seventh Cataract to Lake Tanganyika territory to which your Majesty has no more legal claim, than I have to be Commander-in-Chief of the Belgian army. For this work the Arab Governor is to receive five hundred stands of arms, five thousand kegs of powder, and £20,000 sterling, to he paid in several instalments. As I write, the news reaches me that these much- treasured and long-looked for materials of war are to be discharged at Basoko, and the Resident here is to be given the discretion as to the distribution of them. There is a feeling of deep discontent among the Arabs here, and they seem to feel that they are being trifled with. As to the significance of this move Europe and America can judge without any comment from me, especially England.

Twelfth—The agents of your Majesty’s Government have misrepresented the Congo country and the Congo railway. Mr. H. M. Stanley, the man who was your chief agent in setting up your authority in this country, has grossly misrepresented the character of the country. Instead of it being fertile and productive it is sterile and unproductive. The natives can scarcely subsist upon the vegetable life produced in some parts of the country. Nor will this condition of affairs change until the native shall have been taught by the European the dignity, utility and blessing of labour. There is no improvement among the natives, because there is an impassable gulf between them and your Majesty’s Government, a gulf which can never be bridged. Henry M. Stanley’s name produces a shudder among this simple folk when mentioned; they remember his broken promises, his copious profanity, his hot temper, his heavy blows, his severe and rigorous measures, by which they were mulcted of their lands. His last appearance in the Congo produced a profound sensation among them, when he led 500 Zanzibar soldiers with 300 camp followers on his way to relieve Emin Pasha. They thought it meant complete subjugation, and they fled in confusion. But the only thing they found in the wake of his march was misery. No white man commanded his rear column, and his troops were allowed to straggle, sicken and die; and their bones were scattered over more than two hundred miles of territory.

Conclusions—Against the deceit, fraud, robberies, arson, murder, slave-raiding, and general policy of cruelty of your Majesty’s Government to the natives, stands their record of unexampled patience, long-suffering and forgiving spirit, which put the boasted civilisation and professed religion of your Majesty’s Government to the blush. During thirteen years only one white man has lost his life by the hands of the natives, and only two white men have been killed in the Congo. Major Barttelot was shot by a Zanzibar soldier, and the captain of a Belgian trading-boat was the victim of his own rash and unjust treatment of a native chief.

All the crimes perpetrated in the Congo have been done in your name, and you must answer at the bar of Public Sentiment for the misgovernment of a people, whose lives and fortunes were entrusted to you by the august Conference of Berlin, 1884—1 885. I now appeal to the Powers which committed this infant State to your Majesty’s charge, and to the great States which gave it international being; and whose majestic law you have scorned and trampled upon, to call and create an International Commission to investigate the charges herein preferred in the name of Humanity, Commerce, Constitutional Government and Christian Civilisation.

I base this appeal upon the terms of Article 36 of Chapter VII of the General Act of the Conference of Berlin, in which that august assembly of Sovereign States reserved to themselves the right “to introduce into it later and by common accord the modifications or ameliorations, the utility of which may be demonstrated experience”.

I appeal to the Belgian people and to their Constitutional Government, so proud of its traditions, replete with the song and story of its champions of human liberty, and so jealous of its present position in the sisterhood of European States—to cleanse itself from the imputation of the crimes with which your Majesty’s personal State of Congo is polluted.

I appeal to Anti-Slavery Societies in all parts of Christendom, to Philanthropists, Christians, Statesmen, and to the great mass of people everywhere, to call upon the Governments of Europe, to hasten the close of the tragedy your Majesty’s unlimited Monarchy is enacting in the Congo.

I appeal to our Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect love, in witness of the purity of my motives and the integrity of my aims; and to history and mankind I appeal for the demonstration and vindication of the truthfulness of the charge I have herein briefly outlined.

And all this upon the word of honour of a gentleman, I subscribe myself your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant,

Geo. W. Williams

Stanley Falls, Central Africa,

July 18th, 1890.

Table of Contents

- THE HOLY ALLIANCE TREATY

- CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION

- A BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF HIS MAJESTY’S ROMAN CATHOLIC SUBJECTS

- SIR ROBERT PEEL’S FINAL SPEECH
- A NEW RESULT OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION
- GARIBALDI: TO HIS SOLDIERS

- GREAT HUNGER IN IRELAND

- THE GALWAY STARVATION RIOTS
- IRELAND AND THE IRISH
- THE POTATO DISEASE
- INDIAN CORN IN CORK
- THE LATE FOOD RIOTS IN IRELAND
- FAMINE AND STARVATION IN THE COUNTY OF CORK
- MORTALITY IN SKIBBEREEN
- SKETCHES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND
- SOUP STORE AT CORK
- SKETCHES IN IRELAND
- EVICTIONS OF PEASANTRY IN IRELAND
- CONDITION OF IRELAND

- THE TIDE OF EMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES AND TO THE BRITISH COLONIES

- THE DEPOPULATION OF IRELAND
- THE IRISH GLEANER
- SKETCHES OF IRISH LIFE

- ACCOUNTS OF ENGLISH MILL WORKERS
- MISSOURI COMPROMISE
- COMPROMISE OF 1850
- DRED SCOTT DECISION
- CONSTITUTION OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES

- THE DECLARATION OF CAUSES OF SECEDING STATES

- THE ORDINANCES OF SECESSION
- LINCOLN’S LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY
- EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
- ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE ADMINISTRATION
- DISRAELI’S SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL
- PROCLAMATION OF AMNESTY AND RECONSTRUCTION

- REPORT OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON RECONSTRUCTION

- GENERAL ACT OF THE BERLIN CONFERENCE ON WEST AFRICA

- BRITISH MISSIONARY LETTERS

- AN OPEN LETTER TO THE KING OF BELGIUM