Our party has its origin in the exigencies of the hour. Vowing ourselves against Slavery, wherever it exists, whether enforced by Russian knout, Turkish bastinado, or lash of Carolina planter, we do not seek to interfere with it at Petersburg, Constantinople, or Charleston; nor does any such grave duty rest upon us. Political duties are properly limited by political responsibilities; and we are in no just sense responsible for the local law or usage by which human bondage in these places is upheld. But wherever we are responsible for the wrong, there our duty begins. The object to which, as a party, we are pledged, is all contained in acceptance of the issue which the Slave Oligarchy tenders. To its repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and its imperious demand that Kansas shall be surrendered to Slavery, we reply, that Freedom shall be made the universal law of all the national domain, without compromise, and that hereafter no Slave State shall be admitted into the Union. To its tyrannical assumption of supremacy in the National Government we reply, that the Slave Oligarchy shall be overthrown. Such is the practical purpose of the Republican Party.
SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON THE USURPATION OF THE SENATE IN THE ORIGINATION OF APPROPRIATION BILLS, FEBRUARY 7, 1856.
On the 11th of December, 1855, Mr. Brodhead, of Pennsylvania, introduced a resolution directing the Committee on Finance to consider the expediency of reporting the appropriation bills for the support of the Government. The resolution was allowed to lie on the table till January 7, 1856, when it was called up for consideration, and adopted. On the 4th of February, Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, Chairman of the Committee on Finance, reported to the Senate the following resolution:--
“_Resolved_, That the Committee on Finance be instructed to prepare and report such of the general appropriation bills as they may deem expedient.”
The resolution was adopted by the Senate, February 7, but this was all. Nothing was done under it.
This attempt was prompted by the protracted contest in the organization of the House of Representatives, when, after one hundred and thirty-three ballotings, Mr. Banks was chosen Speaker, February 2, and the Slave Power received its first check.