The Slave Question Speech of Hon. WM. H. Bissell, of Illinois: In The House of Representatives, February 21, 1850, In Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, on the Resolution, referring the President's Message to the appropriate Standing Committees

              1-/°
THE SLAVE QUESTION.
SPEECH
OF
HON. WM. H. BISSELL, OF ILLINOIS,
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 21, 1850*
In Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, on the Resolution referring the
President's Message to the appropriate Standing Committees.
t        	
Mr. BISSELL said:
Mr. Chairman: Our discussions in this Committee have already produced a profound and painful sensation throughout the Union. The public
mind has become agitated and anxious, and oppressed with apprehensions of impending calamity.
This state of things, sir, ought not to continue;
or, at any rate, that uncertainty which makes the
future more terrible than would perhaps the realization of our worst fears, ought to be removed.
If this Government of ours is really so near its
end as gentlemen here declare it to be; or if its
longer continuance depends upon contingencies so
uncertain, it were well that we knew it now, that
we might make timely preparation. If, on the
other hand, the apprehensions I have spoken of
are groundless, the people ought, in mercy, to be
undeceived. They ought to be undeceived at
once, sir, in order that they may have that repose
and conscious security to which they are entitled
under a government created and sustained by their
own hands.
Reluctant as I am to add to the public anxiety,
I yet do not feel at liberty to withhold the expression of my own opinion upon the absorbing
topic of this discussion, and of the day. And
I do not hesitate to declare, as my settled conviction, that, unless representatives who have assumed to speak for the slaveholding States have
greatly mistaken the purposes and intentions of
the people of those States, war and bloodshed, consequent upon an attempt to overthrow this Government, are inevitable. This declaration 1 desire
should go forth to the country; and with it the
reasons upon which my opinion is based. These
reasons are found in the extracts which I shall
quote, first, from the speech of the honorable
gentleman from Mississippi, [Mr. Brown.] Here
are tire extracts:
" Whilst you have been heaping outrage upon outrage, add-
ing insult to insult, our people have been calmly calculaiing
the value ofthe Union. The question has been considered
in all its bearings, and our minds are made up."
" We owe it to you, to ourselves, to our common country,
to the friends of freedom throughout the world, to warn you
that we intend to submit no longer."
" Long years of outrage upon our feelings and disregard of
our rights have awakened in every southern heart a feeling
of stern resistance. Think what you will, say what you
will, perpetrate again and again if you will, these acts of lawless tyranny ; the day and the hour is at hand when every
southern son will rise in rebellion, when every tongue will
say, give us justice or give us death."
" Go home and tell your people the issue is made up ;
they must now choose between non-interference with southern rights on the one side, and a dissolution ofthe Union on
the other."
* If you fancy that our devotion to the Union will keep u§
in the Union, you are mistaken. Our love for the Union
ceases with the justice of the Union. We cannot love oppression, nor hug tyranny to our bosoms."
" I tell you candidly, we have calculated the value ofthe
Union. Your injustice has driven us to it. Your oppression justifies me to-day in discussing the value of the Union,
and I do so freely and fearlessly. Your press, your people,
and your pulpit, may denounce this as treason; be it so.
You may sing hosannas to the Union—it is well. British
lords called it treason in our fathers when they resisted
Britisli tyranny. British orators were eloquent in their eu-
logiums on the British Crown. Our fathers felt the oppression, they saw the hand that aimed the blow, and resolved
to resist. The result is before the world. We will resist,
and trust to God and our own stout hearts for the consequences."
" The South afraid of dissolving the Union!—why should
we fear ? What is there to alarm us or awaken our apprehensions? Are we not able to maintain ourselves?
Shall eight millions of freemen, with more than one hundred millions of annual exports, fear to take their position
among the nations of the earth ? With our cotton, sugar,
rice, and tobacco, products of a southern soil, yielding us
annually more than a hundred millions of dollars, need we
fear the frowns ofthe world ? '
" Have we any reason to fear a dissolution ofthe Union ?
Look at the question dispassionately, and answer to yourselves the important inquiry, Can anything be expected from
the fears of the southern people ? Do not deceive yourselves
—look at things as they really are. For myself, I can say with
a clear conscience, we do not fear it; we are not appalled
at the prospect before us; we deprecate disunion, but we do
not fear it; we know our position too well for that."
" Have we anything to fear from you in the event of dissolution ? A little gasconade, and sometimes a threat or two."
" As to there being any conflict of arms growing out of a
dissolution, 1 have not thought it at all probable. You
complain of your association with slaves in the Union. We
propose to take them out of the Union—to dissolve the unpleasant association. Will you seek a battle-field to renew,
amid blood and carnage, this loathsome association ? I take
it for granted that you will not. But if you should, we point
you to the record of the past, and warn you, by its bloodstained pages, that we shall be ready to meet you."
These extracts from the speech of the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Brown] are sufficient
for our present purpose.
The gentleman from North Carolina, [Mr.
Clingman,] tells us " what is the view presented in
prospect to many of the highest intellects of the South;''
and it is substantially this: that as a separate Confederacy the slaveholding States " might expend
as much as the United States ever did in time of
peace up to the beginning of Gen. Jackson's administration, and still have on hand twenty-five
millions of dollars to devote to the making railroads, opening harbors and rivers, and for other
domestic purposes." The same gentleman has
thus disposed, in advance, of some little matters
pertaining to the interior regulations ofthe " southern confederacy" to be : " The nothern tier of
counties in Kentucky," says he, " would perhaps
be obliged to remove their slaves to the South. But