SUPPLEMENT.

UNDER this head, we add some passages and items of historical value and interest. The collection, as will be seen, is gathered from the whole public life of Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. The design is, to add to the foregoing SPEECHES, as much as our space will admit of, matter best calculated to give a fair and full understanding of what Mr. VALLANDIGHAM has said, written, and done, bearing upon "Abolition, the Union, and the Civil War." These questions are now before the people, and, in some of their varied aspects, determine the estimation of every man, who occupies any public position. By this ordeal every man's record must be tried. And it helps to assure us of the strength and endurance of a man's devotion to the principles held to-day, if, on examining his record, we find that the same principles have been consistently held and advocated through a long series of years.

A brief statement in relation to Mr. VALLANDIGHAM's parentage and education, may gratify a reasonable curiosity on the part of the public.

CLEMENT LAIRD VALLANDIGHAM was born in New Lisbon, Columbiana county, Ohio, July 29th, 1820. His father, a presbyterian clergyman, was a native of Virginia. His grandfather was also a Virginian, born near the now classic fields of "Bull Run." The name, originally, was Van Landeghem; the family came from French Flanders.

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM was educated at Jefferson College, Pa. After leaving college, he was for some time principal of an academy on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Thence, he returned to his native county, where, in December, 1842, at the early age of twenty-two years, he was admitted to the practice of law. Three years later, he was chosen a representative from that county, in the Ohio Legislature of 1845-6-7. This was the opening of his political record. Additions have been continually made, and the record is not closed. A few interesting facts and items here follow, numbered for convenience.

No. I. OPPOSITION TO THE WILMOT PROVISO. The present evil condition of the country began more directly with the renewal of the "Missouri controversy," by the introduction of the "WILMOT PROVISO," in the summer of 1846. Mr. VALLANDIGHAM, while a member of the Ohio Legislature, distinguished himself by his opposition to that measure, and to all the schemes of the Abolitionists and semi-abolitionists, then beginning to lift their hydra head throughout the country.

On the 16th of January, 1847, HARRISON G. BLAKE, now a Republican (229)

member of Congress, moved a joint resolution, in the Ohio House of Representatives, requesting our Senators and Representatives to vote for "the exclusion of slavery from the territory of Oregon, and also from any other territory that now is, or may hereafter be, annexed to the United States."

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM moved the resolution be laid on the table, which motion prevailed. On the 18th of January, it came up again, and, on motion of Mr. TRIMBLE, of Highland, it was again laid on the table, Mr. VALLANDIGHAM Voting in the affirmative. On the 21st of January, it was brought up again, and after a long parliamentary fight, running late into the night, it passed. Mr. VALLANDIGHAM opposed it strongly. (House Journal, 1846–7, pp. 241, 254, 288, 291, 295.) During the struggle, the following debate took place, which we transcribe from the Ohio Statesman, of January 22, 1847:

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Mr. ELLISON, of Brown, moved to add these words:

"Excepting in those cases where the welfare and safety of THE UNION may otherwise require."

Mr. FRANKLIN T. BACKUS, of Cuyahoga, [late Republican nominee for Supreme Judge,] moved to amend, by inserting after the word "Union," the words "in the opinion of the chivalry." (A laugh.)

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM rose, and began by rebuking the laughter, and laughing gentlemen, and asked them, if they had forgotten the great Missouri Compromise? That compromise-the principle of concession which was now (1847) laughed at-had saved the Union in 1820. But for the respect which our fathers felt for this principle, and which was then manifested by none more worthily than by Mr. Clay himself, this Union would have then been dissolved. Mr. V. declared, for himself, that whenever any question might arise, involving the Union in the alternative, he would go with his might on that side—ON THE SIDE OF THE UNION, "NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPERABLE." Would any gentleman relinquish the Union rather than tolerate the existence of slavery in the South?

Mr. BACKUS also believed the compromise (1820) to have been necessary to the perpetuity of the Union. But such an issue was not likely again to occur. The slaveholding States would be the last to secede and dissolve the Union. With what face could gentlemen give out their fears on this subject, when they remember the treatment which John Quincy Adams received at their hands, at the time when he stood up in Congress for a considerate and rational report upon A PETITION TO DISSOLVE THE UNION. What a bluster they made, and they were going to expel the old man from the House! Mr. B. affirmed again that we had all been deceived-the slaveholders themselves, by their acts had manifested the fact, that the very salvation of their system depends upon their remaining in the Union. We had heard enough of these threats to know how to regard them.

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. The gentleman says that such a portentous issue as that involved in the Missouri question was not likely again to arise. Let him not lay to his soul that flattering unction. But the gentleman from Cuyahoga seems o'er familiar with this talk of dissolving the Union. That gentleman, (Mr. B.,) resided in a district claiming that there now existed cause for dissolving the Union. He belonged to the district of Joshua R. Giddings, who declared of them, that they were dissolved from all political connection with the Southern States, on account of the annexation of Texas. But the mind of the House was not to be drawn off from this question by raising a dispute, whether Mr. Clay ever acted as an honest man. The question was, whether such an exigency as that developed in the Missouri question may not happen again. What had once happened might happen again; and let us not become wise above what comes to us as the lessons of the past. The gentleman from Cuyahoga had not answered the question, "If he were to decide between the exclusion of slavery, with the dissolution of the Union, and the perpetuation of the

Union, in connection with that institution, whether he would prefer to go for dissolution? He, (Mr. V.,) trusted the amendment would carry without the mutilation proposed by the gentleman from Cuyahoga. If we were to throw a firebrand toward the South-if we must needs throw down the gauntlet before them, in the shape of these resolutions, they should, at least, be shaped so AS NOT TO ENDANGER THE UNION; they should, by all means, be put in such a guarded form as not to endanger our favored institutions. Mr. V. felt that, perhaps, he had been too much in earnest upon this question. He had spoken from impulse, and, perhaps, with too much freedom and feeling, because he felt called upon as a patriot and citizen to resist and expose every measure which might work incalculable mischief, not only to ourselves, but to generations yet

unborn.

Mr. BACKUS moved to amend the first resolution, by adding thereto the following: "And strenuously to resist all attempts that may hereafter be made to introduce into this Union any new State, by the Constitution of which slavery is not forever excluded from the territory of such State;" which motion was lost. Yeas 23, nays 37. Among the yeas, Backus, Blake, W. P. Cutler, etc.; among the nays, Vallandigham, etc.

No. II. PETITIONS TO DISSOLVE THE UNION.—At the same session, on the 25th of January, 1847, in the House of Representatives:

Mr. TRUESDALE, of Trumbull, presented the memorial of thirty-eight inhabitants of Lowell, and vicinity, in relation to the annexation of Texas, and asking the Legislature to DECLARE THE UNION DISSOLVED, and to withdraw our Senators and Representatives in Congress.

Mr. TRUESDALE moved that said petition be laid upon the table.
Mr. SMITH, of Hamilton, moved that said petition be rejected.

Upon which motion the yeas and nays being demanded and ordered, resulted-yeas 41, nays 24.-House Journal, 1846-7, p. 321.

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM, of course, denounced the petition, and those who supported it. He and every other Democrat in the House, except one, also several Whigs, voted to reject the petition. Those who voted to lay it on the table were: BEATTY, BENNETT, BLAKE, BRECK, CLARK of Franklin, COTTON, HARSH, HIBBERD, HOGUE, HORTON, JOHNSTON, KILER, MATTHEWS, MOORE, MCGREW, OWEN, PARK, POOR, POTTER, TALLMAN, TRUESDALE, WHITE, WILSON, and the Speaker, Wм. P. CUTLER.

We venture to say that nearly every man among those twenty-four, if alive, is to-day supporting the Abolition party. And those traitors are now denouncing Mr. VALLANDIGHAM for his faithful adherence to the constitution and laws of our country. He is still standing where he then did, contending for the Union of our fathers, while they are battling to destroy it.

Again, at the same session, on the 1st day of February, 1847, in the House of Representatives:

Mr. HOGUE presented the petition of Lot Holmes, and fifty-nine other citizens, of Fairfield township, Columbiana county, asking, as a consequence of the annexation of Texas, that the Legislature may DECLARE THE UNION DISSOLVED, and the recall of our Senators and Representatives in Congress. Mr. HOGUE moved to lay said petition on the table.

Mr. SMITH, of Hamilton, moved that said petition be rejected.

Upon which motion the yeas and nays being demanded and ordered, resulted-yeas 33, nays 21.—House Journal, 1816-7, p. 428.

Among the yeas, for rejection, were VALLANDIGHAM, and every other Democrat in the House, and several Whigs; among the nays were the same members as upon the former vote, with two or three exceptions, and the additional names of BACKUS, FRANKLIN, CORWIN, CURTISS, and TRIMBLE of Muskingum.

In that same Winter, of 1847, Massachusetts passed a secession resolution, which, to this day, remains unrescinded upon its official records.

No. III. THE MEXICAN WAR, 1846-7.-On the 15th of December, 1846, in the Ohio House of Representatives, Mr. VALLANDIGHAM offered the following resolutions, which he supported in two speeches, boldly advocating the vigorous prosecution" of that foreign war to an honorable peace:

That the war thus brought about and commenced by the aggressions and act of Mexico herself, having been recognized by Congress, according to the forms of the Constitution, is a Constitutional war, and a war of the whole people of the United States, begun, (on our part,) and carried on in pursuance of the constitution and laws of the Union.

That this General Assembly has full confidence in the wisdom and the ability of the Executive of the United States to prosecute the war to a successful and speedy termination by AN HONORABLE PEACE; and that we hereby tender the cordial sympathies and support of this commonwealth, to the said Executive, in the further prosecution of the war.

These resolutions were smothered in committee, and never received a single Whig vote.

No. IV. AS EDITOR OF THE DAYTON EMPIRE.-At the conclusion of his term in the Legislature of Ohio, Mr. VALLANDIGHAM removed to Dayton, and on the 2d of September, 1847, assumed the editorial control of the Dayton Empire. In that position, he distinguished himself as a vigorous and able journalist, and as a patriot, who sought to preserve the principles of constitutional liberty which were born of our Revolution. He took a prominent part, among the friends of the Union in Ohio, in favor of the compromise measures of 1850, the work of CLAY and WEBSTER, and other true men and patriots, who then saved the ship of state from splitting on the rock of Abolitionism. The following, from his "Introductory Address," will give an idea of the principles to whose advocacy and defense his labors, as editor, were devoted:

We will support the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, in its whole integrity, as it came to us from "the Fathers," believing it to establish, in principle, the very best form of government which the wisdom of man ever devised.

We will protect and defend, according to our opportunities and abilities, THE UNION OF THESE STATES, as in very deed the "Palladium of our political prosperity," "the only rock of our safety," less sacred only than Liberty herself; and we will pander to the sectional prejudices, or the fanaticism, or wounded pride, or disappointed ambition, of no man or set of men, whereby that Union shall be put in jeopardy.

To the present Administration (James K. Polk's) we will lend that support (whatever it is worth) which an honest and independent man may and ought to extend to the administration of the party to which he belongs. Above all, and to the very uttermost of our energy and abilities, we will defend and support it in the war now waged against Mexico, till it shall have been terminated by AN HONORABLE PEACE.

On the 27th of June, 1849, Mr. VALLANDIGHAM's connection with the Empire, terminated. In his "Valedictory" is the following. Referring to the principles announced by him in his Introductory, he says:

We would stand or fall by them now as then, and throughout life. Of the vital importance to the welfare of the whole country in general, and the Democratic party in particular, of two, in an especial manner, to these principles, every hour has added to our deep conviction. And we would write them as in the rock, upon the hearts of our friends forever:

First, that which is really and most valuable in our American liberties, depends upon the preservation and vigor of THE UNION OF THESE STATES; and therefore, all and every agitation in one section, necessarily generating counter-agitation in the other, ought, from what quarter soever it may come, by every patriot and well-wisher of his country, to be "indignantly frowned upon, and arrested ere it be "too late."

No. V. COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850.-On the 19th of October, 1850, a public meeting was held in the City Hall, Dayton, Ohio, to denounce the "Compromise Measures" of 1850. The following is one of the resolutions:

Resolved, That the Congress which could be so far frightened from its propriety, by the insolent bluster and bravado of a few slaveholders, as to pass an act (the Fugitive Slave Act) so fraught with injustice, and so odious, deserves the rebuke of the people of these United States.

From the official proceedings, we quote the following:

C. L. Vallandigham, Esq., replied in opposition to the resolutions, and in favor of the compromise policy which gave birth to the law.

From the Dayton Journal, (Whig) editorial, we quote the following:

C. L. Vallandigham, Esq., followed in opposition to the resolutions. His speech was ingenious and eloquent. His objection to the course proposed by the resolutions was, that it would lead to further agitation, and TEND TO ENDANGER THE UNION.

The Empire noticed Mr. VALLANDIGHAM'S speech as follows:

C. L. VALLANDIGHAM, Esq.-The speech of this gentleman, at the meeting on Saturday night, is universally spoken of as a most eloquent and patriotic effort; and the positions he took in favor of such measures as would tend to restrain undue excitement and agitation, rather than increase them, can not but receive the approbation of every cool and reflecting mind.

His remarks were earnest, dignified, and appropriate. He strongly deprecated every new attempt to inflame the public mind, while he enforced, in strains of lofty and impassioned eloquence, the duty of every good citizen to observe and maintain the sanction of law as the only way to secure the peace, order, and happiness of society anywhere. The sentiments he uttered were warmly and enthusiastically applauded at the time, and are sich, we doubt not, as will be approved and sustained by our citizens generally.