humanity in this Hall, like "bread cast upon the waters," are now "to return after many days" and find vindication of their purposes in a decree of freedom. The command of God to let the oppressed go free, is declared to be our duty, not only by our patriotic President, but by both branches of our national Congress; and let us hope that from this time henceforth and forever, this nation is never again to be humiliated and disgraced by being responsible for the existence and continuance of human slavery. No longer within our national jurisdiction, where Congress has constitutional power to prohibit it, shall slavery be tolerated. The nation is to-day entering upon a policy which cannot be reversed; and justice is vindicated, humanity recognized, and God obeyed. In the words of Mrs. Howe's patriotic anthem:

"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment

seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on."

SPEECH

OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 8, 1862.

ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORY OF ARIZONA.

The bill (H. R. No. 357) to provide a temporary government for the Territory of Arizona being under consideration, MR. ASHLEY addressed the House as follows:

MR. SPEAKER. When this bill came up, two or three weeks since, for the consideration of the House, I stated in my place that I did not desire to have it put upon its passage then, if any member wished to discuss it. No gentleman rising at that time, I demanded the previous question on the third reading. I did so at the suggestion of a gentleman at my side, a better parliamentarian than I profess to be. And when I declined to yield to my colleague on the committee [Mr. Wheeler], it was in consequence of a misunderstanding. I was told that if I yielded, as the morning hour would expire in three minutes, I would lose control of the bill. I

Letter from Hon. B. K. Bruce, LL. D., Washington, D. C. The records show that Mr. Ashley introduced the bill for the organization of the Territory of Arizona. There was some opposition to the bill, as his speech discloses. But Mr. Ashley was anxious for the passage of the bill, for the reasons which he states, and also because he desired Congress, in the face of a great war, to treat with the contempt which it deserved, the pro-slavery declaration of the Supreme Court, touching the right of Congress to prohibit slavery in national territories. This was practical legislation in favor of freedom. Mr. Ashley aided during his congressional life in securing by law the prohibition of slavery in the Territories; the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. This is a historic record which time cannot obscure B. K. BRUCE. or change.

B. K. BRUCE.

therefore declined to yield, not from a desire to cut off my colleague, for I understood then, as I do now, that ordering the main question on the third reading left debate open, but prohibited amendments, which I desired to do. I think this explanation due to the House and to my colleague on the committee.

Mr. Speaker, the strange spectacle is presented to-day in this House, of a people who have no protection from this government asking it through their Representative, and, if the motion to postpone prevails, of its being practically refused, by the very men, who, of all others, are pledged to the protection of the citizens who emigrate to the Territories of the United States. For the first time, I believe, in the history of our legislation, have the people of a Territory asked that a portion of such Territory which, from physical disabilities, they were not able to protect, should be taken off, and organized into a separate government. I do not intend to take up the time of the House in discussing our duty to resident citizens who have gone there. Shame and disgrace attach to a nation that is incapable, or which neglects or refuses to protect its citizens. Citizens from my own State, and of my own acquaintance, have gone into this Territory with the positive assurances of the late Administration that they would be protected, who have not only sacrificed all their wealth invested there, but many of them have lost their lives. For the first time in the history of our government have the white settlers in the Territory been driven from their homes, leaving their property, to the amount of millions, at the mercy and control of savage Indians. I knew but little of that Territory, except as I gathered it from friends who had gone there, and from gentlemen who had called on me to urge the necessity of establishing a territorial government there. Not on my motion, sir, was a bill first introduced here for the organization of this Territory. On the 24th of December last, the delegate who represents that people, who is supposed to know their wants quite as well as gentlemen residing thousands of miles away, introduced a bill for that purpose. It was drawn up in the usual phraseology, and contained forty or fifty sections. But I preferred to have a short bill, something like the old bills organizing govern

ments under Jefferson's administration, such as the bill organizing Ohio. I therefore reported this bill, which has but three sections, and contains the Jeffersonian proviso, without which I could not consent to the organization of this Territory. I therefore declined to yield to my colleague [Mr. Cox] to move to strike it out, for if it is organized by this Congress it must be free.

I did not report this bill without having satisfied myself that the people of this Territory had sufficient population to entitle them to a territorial government. I will state, for the information of the House, some facts in connection with the history of the population of other Territories at the time of their organization. The Territory of Indiana was organized on the 7th of May, 1800, with a white population of 4,517. The Territory of Mississippi was organized on the 10th day of May, 1800, with a white population of 5,170. The Territory of Michigan was organized on the 11th of January, 1805, with a population of 4,818. The Territory of Illinois was organized on the 11th of February, 1809, having been detached from the Territory of Indiana, and it had a population of 11,501. The Territory of Minnesota was organized on the 3d day of March, 1849, with a population of 6,038. The Territory of Washington was organized on the 2d of March, 1853, having been detached from the Territory of Oregon. There is no statistical information giving the exact number of inhabitants of that Territory at the time of its organization; but I have consulted the delegate from the Territory of Washington, who was then and is now resident of that Territory, who thinks that its population. could not have exceeded 2,000 or 2,500. At all events, after a territorial organization of nearly ten years, its population at the census in 1860 was only 11,578.

The Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, as gentlemen are aware, were organized on the 30th of May, 1854, when there was not a resident white inhabitant in either of them, by authority of law. Those who were there were intruders, in contravention of a law excluding every white man from the Territory who was not connected with the Indian agencies. The Territory of Nevada was organized on the 2d of March, 1861, when it had a population of 6,857. It

was detached from the Territory of Utah, over which there was at that time a territorial government, as there is to-day a government of form merely over the people of Arizona, who ask for this territorial government. The delegate from Nevada informed me to-day that the recent census, taken some six months only after the organization, shows a population of 17,000 souls, with two daily newspapers in the Territory; proving that that organization which secures life and property, and which gives civil protection, had brought these people to the Territory, where, with the teeming wealth that everybody knows exists there, they will have within a year a population greater than that of the State of Oregon. On the 2d of March, 1861, the Territory of Dakota was organized with a population of 4,839. The Territory of Arizona, as proposed to be organized, has in that part of it alone which is called Arizona county, 6,466 white inhabitants, 21 colored, and 4,040 civilized Indians, who live in their homes and till the soil. The Census Bureau have no official returns from the remaining part of the country proposed to be included in the limits of the new Territory.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this is the position of that Territory to-day. It is said, and I suppose with some truth, that a large portion of this population has been driven out. But my information from the Territory and from General Heintzelman, who called upon me, and who was there for a number of years, and built Fort Yuma, is, that those people are driven into the State of Sonora, and that the moment the Indians and the secessionists, who have control of the Territory, retire, they will go back to their homes and resume their claims on the mines. General Heintzelman said to me, in a conversation I had with him about the importance and necessity of organizing a government for this Territory, that, had it been organized five years ago, it would have contained today from fifty to seventy-five thousand population, who have been in the Territory, and failed to remain there because of the insecurity of person and property. That is the statement of a man who was there as a military officer of the United States.

Now, sir, let us see what has been the opinion of men who have had this subject-matter under consideration before