CHAPTER XII.

Address to the People of Mississippi-Retura to Vicksburg-Second Canvass of the State-Reminiscences of it-Speech at Natchez-Anecdotes illustrating the Effect of his Eloquence-His own Account of Scenes with a Menagerie-Result of the Election-Address to a Jury-Letters-Return to Washington-Claims his Seat under the November Certificate of Election-Characteristic Incident mentioned by Mr. Word-Speech on the Sub-Treasury Bill-Letters-Speech on Small Note Bill-North and South.

ET. 29.-1838.

BEFORE leaving Washington, Mr. Prentiss issued a spirited Address to the People of Mississippi, of which the following passages contain the substance :

FELLOW-CITIZENS-In November last, you elected me one of your Representative to the 25th Congress, by much the largest vote ever polled for that office in the State. The election was holden, as you well know, at the time, places, and in the manner prescribed by your laws, which laws were enacted by your Legislature, under the express authority of the Constitution of the United States. Immediately upon ascertaining the result of that election, I received from the Governor credentials, in pursuance of law, and repaired, with all convenient speed, to the Federal city. I presented my credentials to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and demanded to be sworn in as a member. The Speaker refused; and I was told that the seats belonging to the State of Mississippi were already filled. On examination, I found them occupied by Messrs. Claiborne and Gholson. You probably recollect that, in July last, you selected those gentlemen to

serve you until superseded by such persons as you might select, at the general election in November. On presenting my power of attorney from you, dispensing with their further service, and substituting myself and colleague in their places, they utterly refused to obey, and set your mandate at open defiance. Indeed they had previously asserted, upon the floor of the House, that you had elected them for the whole of the 25th Congress; that they had been candidates for the whole term, and that you so understand it. They demanded and obtained, at the special session, by a resolution introduced by themselves, a decision that they were duly elected to the whole 25th Congress; and relying upon this decision, they objected, both before the Committee and the House, to any examination into the question whether you did, in reality, intend to elect them for a longer period than the special session; thus basing their claims to seats, not upon your will, but upon a decision of the House of Representatives, procured at their own instigation, upon an ex parte examination of the case, and without the production of any legal credentials or certificate of election whatever. Finding the attitude in which the matter stood, I proceeded at once to attack the decision of the House, as unconstitutional, ex parte, and founded upon palpable mistake. I took the ground that whatever might be the validity of the July election, it was not intended to supersede, nor could it constitutionally supersede, the regular election in November, and that the constitutional rights of the people of Mississippi were beyond the control of the House of Representatives. I denied the power of one branch of the Federal Legislature to nullify the admitted constitutional law of the State of Mississippi, fixing the time for the election of her Representatives to Congress. I openly denied, on your behalf, any intention of surrendering your constitutional right of choosing your Representatives at the time, places, and in the manner prescribed by your laws. After a most severe and memorable contest, in which every art and effort was exhausted, for the purpose of sustaining Messrs. Claiborne and Gholson in their usurped places, the House solemnly decided that they were not entitled to seats, as the Representatives of the State of Mississippi, on the express ground that the July election was unconstitutional and void.

So far the House of Representatives honorably rectified an acknowledged error into which they had fallen; and sustained you against the attack which had been made by Messrs. Claiborne and Gholson upon your most sacred constitutional rights, and these gentlemen were justly turned out of the seats to which they had clung with such desperate tenacity. I would, for the honor of the American nation, I could stop here. No sooner, however, had the House decided that the July election was void, because November was the only time at which an election could be valid, than they turned around and again decided that the November election was void, because of the error into which the House had fallen.

The highest political right which appertains to you was suspended, and the State of Mississippi totally disfranchised, not by any fault of her own, but through the acknowledged ignorance of the House. While the House was in error, you could not exercise your rights; and a simple resolution of the Federal House of Representatives, by this decision, is sufficient, at any time, not only to modify, but destroy, the right of representation of any or every State in the Union. No one denied that, in pursuance of the law and the constitution, you had elected me as your representative. It was your right to elect anybody that was denied. It was decided that your election in July was void, on account of the November election, and that the November election was void, on account of the erroneous decision of the House in favor of the July election. Thus, at a period when, of all others, your interests most require attention, and questions of vital importance are agitating the country, you are juggled out of your whole right of representation in the popular branch of the National Legislature, and the reason assigned is, that the blunders of the House of Representatives are constitutional laws, and paramount to the admitted constitutional laws of the States, and of force sufficient to annul the same. Doctrines so federal were never before advanced in this government; and if they be correct, then is the House of Representatives a despot, and the rights of the States exist only in imagination. If such doctrines are correct, what prevents Congress from declaring itself per

petual-a rump parliament-and then asserting, as they have ir the present instance, that so long as that decision remains unrescinded, the constitutional power of the States to hold their regular elections is suspended, and their laws nullified?

Upon the question of the validity of the November election, the vote stood at a tie, and the Speaker had the glorious infamy of deciding it against you. A single representative from another State exercised the power of denying your right to any repre sentation, and the still, small voice of James K. Polk deprived you of that which a hundred thousand bayonets could not have forced from you.

I wish you distinctly to understand that your right of election, either in July or November, has been solemnly denied and repudiated. I told the House that you would not submit quietly to have your elective franchise trodden beneath the iron heel of federal despotism, and that there was no possession you would not sooner part with than your right of representation, that great legacy of the Revolution. Was I right or wrong in thus speaking for you? Whether right or wrong, I spoke my own sentiments when I denounced, as I did, the action of the House as a plain and palpable violation of the Constitution—a foul, highhanded and tyrannical usurpation. I looked with scorn and derision upon the juggling and hypocritical pretence of sending the election back for the purpose of ascertaining your wishes, when you had spoken, through all your legal and constitutional forms, in a voice which an idiot could not fail to have understood. The House has decided that both your election in July and November are void; and yet they permit the representative from Arkansas to hold his seat under two elections precisely parallel.

I tell you candidly and honestly my own opinion of the whole transaction, and I have been a close and attentive observer. I believe you have been basely defrauded of your elective franchise, simply because you did not choose, in exercising it, to consult the political taste and complexion of the majority in the House. It is for you to say whether you will bow in submission to the rod and sacrifice your great and sacred rights at the shrine of party

dictation, or whether you will assert your right, free and untram melled, to elect whom you please as your representatives.

The true contest now is, whether you or the House of Representatives shall designate the individuals who shall serve you in that body. To the honorable and highminded of all political parties, I appeal for a dignified and determined assertion of the right of election. Believing as I do, before Heaven, that I am your constitutional representative, in spite of the tyrannical and arbitrary action of the House; and believing, too, that the honor and character of the citizens of Mississippi are deeply involved in the action which they may take in relation to this matter, I have deemed it my duty to address to you some account of the result of the high errand upon which you sent me. I regret that my task has been but half accomplished. The usurpers have been driven from the Capitol; but your representatives have been denied admittance. To the best of my humble ability, I have obeyed your high behest. It now devolves upon you to assert, in such manner as honor and duty may dictate, your violated rights.

On his return home, the citizens of Maysville and Louisville tendered him a public dinner; but in both instances he modestly declined the compliment. "Defeated as I have been, in the high errand upon which I was sent, I feel that it would hardly be proper for me to tarry by the way and partake of those honors and rewards, which belong rather to the victor than the vanquished."

The citizens of Vicksburg had long been upon the lookout for him, and, on the night of his arrival, welcomed him with repeated rounds of cannon. A friend, writing under date of March 16, 1838, says: "Your brother was received with shouts and congratulations, and demonstrations of joy which burst all bounds. His reception must have been to him a source of most gratifying pride. A public dinner has been given to him since his return, and I