ana, indeed, stands now upon the Journals of this House and in the Congressional Globe. And there is no other record, thank God, and no act or word or thought of mine, and never has been from the beginning, in public or in private, of which any patriot ought to be ashamed. Sir, it the record, as I made it, and as it exists here to-day; and not as a mendacious and shameless press have attempted to make it up for me. Let us see who will grow tired of his record first. Consistency, firmness, and sanity, in the midst of general madness-these made up my offence. But 'Time, the avenger,' sets all things even; and I abide his leisure."

And am I now to be told, that because of a speech made upon this floor, under the protection of the Constitution, in the exercise and discharge of my solemn right and duty, under the oath which I have taken, that I am to-day to be arraigned here, and the accusation supported by the addition of mere vague rumors and suspicions, which have been bruited over and over again, as I have said, against not myself only, but against hundreds and thousands, also, of other most patriotic and loyal men?

The gentleman from Pennsylvania makes the charge that I attended a certain dinner in the State of Kentucky. Sir, I was invited to that State, and have been frequently, by as true and loyal men as there are in that State to-day. I accepted no invitation, and never went at all I have already named the last and only time when I stood upon the soil of Kentucky. But I know of nothing now-whatever there may have been in the past-certainly nothing to-day about Kentucky that should prevent a loyal and patriotic man from visiting a State which has given birth or residence to so many patriots, to so many statesmen, and to orators of such renown.

Yet that is all, the grand aggregate of the charges, except this miserable falsehood which some wretched scavenger, prowling about the streets and alleys and gutters of the city of Baltimore, has seen fit to put forth in the local columns of a contemptible newspaper; so that the member from Pennsylvania may rise in his place and prefer charges against the loyalty and patriotism of a man who has never faltered in his devotion to the flag of his country-to that flag which hangs now upon the wall over against him; one who has bowed down and worshipped this holy emblem of the Constitution and of the old Union of these States, in his heart's core, ay, in his very heart of hearts, from the time he first knew aught to this hour; and who now would give life, and all that he is or hopes to be in the present or the future, to see that glorious banner of the Union-known and honored once over the whole earth and the whole sea-with no stripe erased, and not one star blotted out, floating forever over the free, united, harmonious old Union of every State once a part of it, and a hundred

more yet unborn. I AM THAT MAN; and yet he dares to demand that I shall be brought up before the secret tribunal of the Judiciary Committee-that committee of which he is chairman, and thus both judge and accuser-to answer to the charge of disloyalty to the Union!

Sir, I hurl back the insinuation. Bring forward the specific charge; wait till you have found something-and you will wait long-something which I have written, or something I have said, that would indicate any thing in my bosom which he who loves his country ought not to read or hear. In every sentiment that I have expressed, in every vote that I have given, in my whole public life, outside this House, before I was a member of it, and since it has been my fortune to sit here, I have had but one motive, and that was the real, substantial, permanent good of my country. I have differed with the majority of the House, differed with the party in power, differed with the Administration, as, thank God, I do and have the right to differ, as to the best means of preserving the Union, and of maintaining the Constitution and securing the true interests of my country; and that is my offence, that the crime, and the only crime, of which I have been guilty.

Mr. Speaker, if, in the Thirty-fifth Congress, I or some other member had seen fit to seize upon the denunciations, long-continued, bitter, and persistent against that member (Mr. Hickman)-for he, too, has suffered, and he ought to have had the manhood to remember, in this the hour of sore persecution, that he himself has been the victim of slanders and detraction, peradventure-for, sir, I would do him the justice which he denies to me--what, I say, if I had risen and made a vile paragraph in some paper published in his own town, or elsewhere, the subject of inquiry and investigation, and had attempted to cast yet further suspicion upon him, by reference to language uttered here in debate, which he had the right to utter, or by charges vague and false, and without the shadow of a foundation except the malignant breath of partisan suspicion and slander, what would have been his record, in the volumes of your reports, and the Congressional Globe, going down to his children after him? But, sir, it is not in the power of the gentleman to tarnish the honor of my name, or to blast the fair fame and character for loyalty which I have earned-dearly earned, with labor, and patience, and faith, from the beginning of my public career. From my boyhood, at all times and in every place, I have never looked to any thing but the permanent, solid, and real interests of my country.

Beyond this, Mr. Speaker, I deem it unnecessary to extend what I have to say. I would have said not a word, but that I know this Committee will find nothing, and that they will be obliged, therefore, to

report-a majority of them cheerfully, I doubt not-that nothing exists to justify any charge or suspicion such as the member from Pennsylvania has suggested here to-day. I avail myself of the occasion thus forced on me, to repel this foul and slanderous assault upon my loyalty, promptly, earnestly, indignantly, yes, scornfully, and upon the very threshold. Sir, I do not choose to delay week after week, until your partisan press shall have sounded the alarm; and till an organization shall have been effected for the purpose of dragooning two-thirds of this House into an outrage upon the rights of one of the Representatives of the people, which is without example except in the worst of times. I meet it and hurl it back defiantly here and now.

Why, sir, suppose that the course which the member from Pennsylvania now proposes, had been pursued in many cases which I could name in years past; suppose that his had been the standard of accusation, and irresponsible newspaper paragraphs had been regarded as evidence of disloyalty or want of attachment to the Constitution and the Union; nay, more, if a yet severer test had been applied, what would have been the fate of some members of this House, or of certain Senators at the other end of the capitol, some years ago? What punishment might not have been meted out to the predecessor (Mr. Giddings, of my colleague on the other side of the House? How long would he have occupied a seat here? Where would the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Sumner) have been? Where the other Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Wilson)? Where the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Hale)? Where the three Senators-Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Hale, two of them now in the Cabinet, and the other in the Senate still-who, in 1850, twelve years ago, on the 11th of February, voted to receive, refer, print, and consider a petition praying for the dissolution of the Union of these States? Yet I am to be singled out now by these very men, or their minions, for attack; and they who have waited and watched, by day and by night, with the vigilance of the hawk and the ferocity of the hyena, from the beginning of this great revolt, that they might catch some unguarded remark, some idle word spoken, something written carelessly or rashly, some secret thought graven yet upon the lineaments of my face, which they might torture into evidence of disloyalty, seize now upon the foul and infectious gleanings of an anonymous wretch who earns a precarious subsistence by feeding the local columns of a pestilent newspaper, and, while it is yet wet from the press, hurry it, reeking with falsehood, into this House, and seek to dignify it with an importance demanding the consideration of the House and of the country.

Sir, let the member from Pennsylvania go on. I challenge the in

quiry, unworthy of notice as the charge is, but I scorn the spirit which has provoked it. Let it go on.

Mr. HICKMAN then replied briefly; and, in the course of his remarks, said: "As the gentleman has called upon me, I will answer further. Does he not know of a camp in Kentucky having been called by his name that disloyal men there called their camp Camp Vallandigham? That would not indicate that in Kentucky they regarded him as a man loyal to the Federal Union.

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. Is there not a town--and it may be a camp, too-in Kentucky by the name of Hickman? (Laughter.)

Mr. HICKMAN. Thank God! disloyal men have never called one of their camps by my name. There are a great many Hickmans in Kentucky, but I have not the pleasure of their acquaintance. I have heard of but one Vallandigham.

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. And there are a great many Vallandighams there, too.

Mr. HICKMAN, after a few words further, withdrew his resolutions; and there the matter ended.

NOTE.-On the 21st of April, 1862, Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, attacked Mr. Vallandigham in the Senate, in the following language:

"I accuse them (the Democratic party) of deliberate purpose to assail, through the judicial tribunals, and through the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, and everywhere else, and to overawe, intimidate, and trample under foot, if they can, the men who boldly stand forth in defence of their country, now imperilled by this gigantic rebellion. I have watched it long. I have seen it in secret. I have seen its movements ever since that party got together, with a colleague of mine in the other House, as chairman of the Committee on Resolutions—a man who never had any sympathy with the Republic, but whose every breath is devoted to its destruction, just as far as his heart dare permit him to go."-Congressional Globe, page 1735.

Quoting the foregoing extract, in the House, on the 24th of April, Mr. Vallandigham said:

"Now, sir, here in my place in the House, and as a Representative, I denounceand I speak it advisedly-the author of that speech as a liar, a scoundrel, and a coward. His name is Benjamin F Wade."

In June, 1862, Shellabarger and Gurley, of Ohio, presented printed petitions from citizens of their own districts-none from Mr. Vallandigham's-asking for his expulsion from the House as "a traitor and a disgrace to the State of Ohio." The petitions were referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, consisting of the following members: John Hickman, chairman; John A. Bingham, William Kellogg, Albert G. Porter, Benjamin F. Thomas, Alexander S. Diven, James F. Wilson, George H. Pendleton, and Henry May-all of them Republicans, except May and Pendleton. This Committee, on the very same day on which the petitions were presented, by a unanimous vote, ordered them to be reported back, and laid upon the table; and

accordingly, on the first day that the Committee was called-July 3, 1862-Mr. Bingham reported them back, and, on his motion, they were laid on the table, no evidence whatever of either "treason" or "disgrace," having been produced to the Committee.

SPEECH ON THE "UNITED STATES NOTE" BILL,

In the House of Representatives, February 3, 1862.

It has been my habit, Mr. Chairman, to premeditate, whenever premeditation was possible, whatever I have had to say in this House; for no man has a right, in my judgment, to obtrude his immature and undigested thoughts and opinions upon a deliberative assembly. From the laboratory of his mind and the store-house of his memory, it is his duty to bring forth, at all times, as the occasion may permit, whatever is most valuable; and there is no such thing as inspiration in matters of either law or legislation, and least of all, certainly, upon questions of finance. And just at this moment, especially, the country and the Government demand sound philosophy and stern facts; not vain theories, or what is worse still, delusive and hazardous experiments and contrivances. Experimentum in vili corpore; and never was the maxim more applicable.

If, therefore, sir, I have prepared myself now a little more elaborately than heretofore, the complexity, delicacy, and magnitude, not to say novelty, of the subject in late years, are my justification. And I do, from my heart, and with the deepest sincerity, lament that I am not now master of the whole science of political economy and finance; and am unable, therefore, and because that I have not that divine order of intellect, which is able to seize hold of it, and to comprehend and fathom it as if by intuition, to discuss it as its immeasurable importance demands. It happened to me, sir, to come into public life, and even to attain majority, after the great questions of currency and revenue, in the administrations of Jackson, Van Buren, and Tyler had, for the most part, been settled, and to be familiar, therefore, chiefly with a subject, the discussion of which I would to God had never been obtruded upon Congress, or the country, and which, even now, I would forever banish from both. But at intervals, in years past, and with labor and diligence for some months past, I have sought to master the facts and principles, and to penetrate somewhat into the philosophical mysteries of these great questions, and to apply them firmly and faithfully