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repudiate your errors and come into our party and stand upon our platform?

MR. WASHBURNE. Will the gentleman just allow me to ask him one question.

MR. JONES. Excuse me. I only want to say a word in reply to the explanation of my friend from Alabama [Mr. Walker]. I can now easily understand how I was mistaken as to the meaning of what he said. He said-using his very words-that his sympathies were with the conservative party-with the national party-with the party which is opposed to the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line, and which aims at a dozen other good things; the portraiture which he drew of this party fitted my party so well, that I thought the gentleman was alluding all the time to the national Democratic party. [Laughter.] Now, if I have committed a mistake in this, I hope the gentleman from Alabama will not find fault with me on that account, because, as I say, he described just the party to which I have the honor to belong. [Continued laughter.] It was, therefore, only a simple misconstruction of an application, and I hope he will pardon me for making the application which I did of his remarks. I certainly did apply all he said to the Democratic party.

My colleague from Pennsylvania [Mr. Allison] has asked me once or twice for the floor, and I now yield it to him.

MR. WASHBURNE. The question I wish to ask, is this: Will the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Jones] and his friends go to the caucus for which they have got so polite an invitation from the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Walker]? [Laughter and shouts of "Oh, to be sure we will; why not?"]

MR. JONES. The Democratic party will meet in no caucus except in a caucus called by that party itself, and on its well-settled principles. That is the only political caucus that we will attend. [Cries of "Good,

good!" and laughter.]

MR. ALLISON. I will not occupy the time of the House long.

MR. WALKER (interrupting). I would like to say a few words in reference to the invitation.

MR. ALLISON. I cannot yield the floor now. It appears, Mr. Clerk, from the statement made by my colleague over the way [Mr. Jones], with which I agree, and from that made by my colleague on the left [Mr. Campbell], from which I differ, that this is a kind of three-cornered game between us. [Laughter.] And yet I think that when we come to understand each other, it will be found that there is no great difference between the three of us. When my colleague from the Berks district [Mr. Jones] put his question, I understood him to say that the opinions of the KnowNothing party, as it is termed, and of the party called by our Southern friends and by others the Free-Soil party of the North, were on the question of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill identical. I agree with him that in Pennsylvania they were the same; that is, that both these parties disapproved of that act; that they went into the election of 1854 on that principle; and that, owing to the fact that the people of Pennsylvania were thus opposed to this measure, agreeing with the Know-Nothings, they had sent here the members of Congress who now represent that State. Now, it appears that my colleague to the left [Mr. Campbell] differs with me on the question. But I think it is a

mere matter of difference as to phraseology, not as to facts.

MR. CAMPBELL. I wish to say one word in explanation.

MR. ALLISON yielded the floor for the purpose.

MR. CAMPBELL. I distinctly stated that the American party of Pennsylvania made no issue whatever on the question of slavery, or of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The American party of Pennsylvania made no issue on that subject. It was an open question, so far as that party was concerned.

MR. ALLISON. I agree with my colleague [Mr. Campbell] in that statement; but at the same time I would say that a large body of the persons attached to the American party condemned that act, and that the members of Congress whom they sent here were elected on that question. That was the issue, the open issue, before the people of Pennsylvania. In almost every Congressional district in the State opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was the issue, the great issue, on which we went before the people.

MR. FLORENCE. That's true.

MR. ALLISON. I know of no district out of the city of Philadelphia, where that was not the all-absorbing question. I have yet to learn of a single district in Pennsylvania, where the question was not fairly made, discussed, and decided by the people against that bill. I want to know from our Know-Nothing friends, if they come here and say that that was not the question in Pennsylvania which decided their election. Was it Americanism? Was it Know-Nothingism? Not at all. That was a quiet question. It was under the rose. The question that was before the minds of the people

of Pennsylvania was the Kansas question. And I have said here, and I say so now, that, so far as my knowledge extends, the opinion of the Know-Nothings and that of the Free-Soilers on the subject of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill were identical in condemnation of the act. If ever there was a question settled fairly, after full and free discussion in Pennsylvania, it was this measure which is so much agitated-this question which we have here so much discussed. I know that my friend [Mr. Campbell], if he understands me, will agree with me in the opinion that a large majority of those who belong to the order, were anti-Nebraskaites. I know that in my section of the country, many united in that order because they believed it to be antislavery, and in opposition to the extension of slavery.

MR. CAMPBELL. Will the gentlemen allow me one moment to reply to him, as he has referred to me? I want it to be distinctly understood that, so far as Americanism was concerned in that canvass, no issue was made on the slavery question. The views which I represent here in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill are the views of a large body of Whigs and of Americans, but no such issue was made by the American party.

MR. ALLISON. True, but was not the issue before the people? I ask my colleague, was the slavery question not an open issue before the people?

MR. CAMPBELL. It was in some districts; but it was not inscribed on the American banner, nor was it made an issue.

MR. ALLISON. Not at all; I do not claim any such thing I claim that the American party, in their acts and through their ballot-boxes, condemned that act,

and therein agreed with the Free-Soil party. I do not say that the American party came out openly against it, but they acted in harmony with those who were known as Free-Soilers.

MR. JONES. Will my colleague [Mr. Allison] allow me to ask him one question? and I am willing to abide by his answer.

MR. ALLISON yielded the floor to his colleague.

MR. JONES. I want to inquire of my colleague on the other side [Mr. Allison] whether there was not, a short time prior to the election in Pennsylvania, in last October, a fusion committee assembled at Harrisburg, and whether one chairman of that committee did not represent the Whig party, another chairman the American party, and a third chairman the Free-Soil or Republican party? I want my colleague to answer me whether that fusion committee did not meet within ten days, or at least within two weeks, of the election? I want him to state whether there was not a proclamation put forth in the State of Pennsylvania, in which every man who was opposed to the Nebraska iniquity should come and cast his vote for Nicholson-that he was the embodiment of anti-Nebraskaism, Whiggism, Know-Nothingism, Free-Soilism, Abolitionism, MaineLawism, and all other isms, knocked into one? And I want my colleague to state whether that statement was not published to the people of the whole State, and made the basis upon which the election was held?

MR. ALLISON. My colleague asks me quite a number of questions, all of which I will answer, but one at a time. In the first place, I will answer that there was an assemblage in Harrisburg of those opposed to the present administration and opposed to the Kansas and

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