Speeches Upon The Western Question In The House Of Representatives of The State Of Missouri Jan.10th, 1855 And Also Upon The Senatorial Election: ... In Reply To Mr. Stewart, Of Buchanan County
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Speeches Upon The Western Question In The House Of Representatives of The State Of Missouri Jan.10th, 1855 And Also Upon The Senatorial Election: Delivered In Joint Session, Jan.29th, 1855, In Reply To Mr. Stewart, Of Buchanan County
Benjamin Gratz Brown
Lusk's Steam Power Press, 1855
Freedom for Missouri : letter of B. Gratz Brown, to the "Weekly new era," published at St. Joseph, Mo
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Immediate Abolition of Slavery by act of Congress. Speech of Hon. B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, Delivered in the U.S. Senate, March 8, 1864
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Emancipation as a state policy: letter of B. Gratz Brown, to the Palmyra courier.
(Originally published in 1862. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)
Originally published in 1862. 16 pages. This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format. Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship.
Immediate Abolition of Slavery By Act of Congress: Speech of Hon, B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, Delivered in the U. S. Senate, March 8, 1864 (Classic Reprint)
(The following additional sections were offered by Mr. Bko...)
The following additional sections were offered by Mr. Bkowx by way of amendment to the bill (S enate No.41J to promote enlistments in the Army of the United States: Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the proclamation of the President of January 1, 1863, declaring all persons held as slaves in certain designated States and parts of States then in rebellion against the Government of the United States to be thereafter free, be, and the same is hereby, conflrmed and made of full effeet as law ;and courts of justice are required to recognize the same, and all persons declared to be free by the said proclamation, or by this act or any subsequent act of Congress, shall be entitled to sue and be shed ami give evidence in all courts of justice as other citizens. Sec. 4. And be it. further enacted, That from and after the passage of this act there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of theS tates or Territories of the United States otherwise than iu punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, any law, us.age, custom, or claim to the contrary notwithstanding ;bat all persons shall be held to be born free. Mr. BROWN said: Mr. Presidext, that slavery yet liveth the discussion which has attended every measure introduced bore trenching upon it sufficiently attests. Neither dead nor willing to die bu1 I tig for being by joint and ligature and tissue and nerve, that sonU center of future growfti may lurk under proviso or exception, its vitality is upheld in this hour by appeal toL constitutionalisms and local countenance that, will be swift to maintain it hereafter if this epoch shall pass without its utter extinction. isuch conviction, and resolute to permit no fit occasion for terminating its existence to go unimproved, the sections just read have bejm offered sections assuring freedom not only, as set forth in the ori
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Speech of the Hon. B. Gratz Brown, of St. Louis, on the subject of gradual emancipation in Missouri: delivered in the House of Representatives, February 12, 1857.
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This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
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This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format. Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship.
Benjamin Gratz Brown was a senator and governor of Missouri.
Background
Benjamin Gratz Brown was born on May 28, 1826 at Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Mason and Judith (Bledsoe) Brown. His father, Mason Brown, was a jurist of some note who served as judge of a Kentucky circuit court and, from 1856 to 1859, as secretary of state. His grandfather, John Brown, was the first United States senator from Kentucky. The Browns were related to the Prestons, Breckenridges, Blairs, Bentons, and other well-known Kentucky families.
Education
Brown entered Transylvania University but withdrew in 1845 and entered Yale University, where he was graduated in 1847. He then studied law in Louisville.
Career
After studying law in Louisville, Benjamin Brown was admitted to the Kentucky bar, and, in 1849, moved to St. Louis. The same year he took the stump in support of Thomas H. Benton's attack upon the "Jackson Resolutions" adopted by the Missouri legislature that year. He again came actively to the support of Benton in the Atchison-Benton senatorial contest of 1852-53. Appreciating the importance of the large German vote in St. Louis, he early cultivated its support; and, largely as a result, he was elected, and reelected, to the lower branch of the state legislature between 1852 and 1859.
For upward of two decades the St. Louis Germans constituted the principal element in his political following. In the Missouri legislature of 1857, Brown took an especially prominent part. A joint resolution was introduced declaring emancipation of the slaves to be impracticable, and that any movement in that direction was "inexpedient, impolitic, unwise, and unjust. " In reply to this, Brown, at some personal risk, it is said, made an able and forceful anti-slavery speech in which he advocated and prophesied the abolition of slavery in Missouri on economic grounds--more out of regard to the interest of poor white laborers than as an act of humanity to the slaves.
This incident has been regarded by some as the beginning of the Free-Soil movement in Missouri. Brown's speech apparently made him the Free-Soil Democratic candidate for governor the same year. He failed of election by the narrow margin of about 500 votes.
Between 1854 and 1859, most of Brown's energies were absorbed in newspaper editorial work for the Missouri Democrat--a paper of strong Free-Soil, and, later, Republican, principles. In its columns, Brown persistently assailed the institution of slavery in Missouri and advocated emancipation.
In 1856 he fought a duel with Thomas C. Reynolds over differences growing out of editorials relating to the Know-Nothing movement in St. Louis.
Brown was shot near the knee, and limped during the rest of his life.
At the opening of the Civil War, he became colonel of the 4th Regiment of Missouri (three months) Volunteers, and energetically cooperated with General Lyon and Frank P. Blair, Jr. , in circumventing the Missouri secessionists.
In the state election of 1862 the abolition of slavery was the outstanding issue, especially in the eastern part of the state. Brown led the radicals, who insisted upon immediate emancipation, in opposition to the gradual emancipationists led by his cousin, Frank P. Blair, Jr. Although the policy of the latter was indorsed two years later by the state convention which adopted an ordinance for the gradual extinction of slavery, Brown's faction won a majority of the seats in both branches of the next legislature, and nominated him for the United States Senate.
After a prolonged contest, Brown was elected on the thirty-second ballot (1863) for the unexpired term of W. P. Johnson, who had been expelled as a secessionist. He took the oath of office December 14, 1863, and served until March 4, 1867. In 1864, he was one of the signers of the call for the Cleveland convention of radicals who opposed the renomination of Lincoln and nominated Frémont and Cochrane.
At the same election, constitutional amendments were approved repealing the obnoxious test-oaths. In his messages as governor (1871 - 73), Brown recommended constitutional amendments reorganizing the courts, including the grand jury system, and the better regulation of railroads through the creation of a board of railroad commissioners. The bankruptcy of a number of railroads whose bonds had been guaranteed by the state embarrassed his administration, and resulted in a loss to the state of approximately $25, 000, 000.
The success of the Liberal movement in Missouri encouraged liberals and reformers in other states and led directly to the launching of the Liberal Republican party in 1872 in opposition to the renomination of President Grant and in favor of tariff and civil service reform and abandonment of radical Republican reconstruction policies. Brown's prominence naturally led to serious consideration of his availability as the presidential candidate of this independent movement; and at the Cincinnati convention of the Liberal Republicans, in May 1872, he stood fourth on the first ballot for the presidential nomination, receiving ninety-five votes.
Suspecting that his delegates were being enticed away by the friends of Charles Francis Adams, Brown unexpectedly appeared in Cincinnati, obtained permission to address the convention, and in his speech astonished the delegates by warmly urging the nomination of Horace Greeley. On the sixth ballot Greeley was nominated, and, later, Brown himself received the vice-presidential nomination.
Afterward, Carl Schurz and others charged that the ticket was the result of a deliberate bargain between the friends of Greeley and Brown. Brown's nomination, however, seems to have been of little or no help to the Liberal Republican campaign, although he participated actively in the canvass.
In August he attended a class banquet at Yale, became intoxicated, and made a speech in bad taste, criticizing things eastern. Following this campaign, Brown gave up active participation in politics and devoted himself to the practise of law, making a specialty of railway cases.
Brown's death in 1885 was the direct result of overwork, following close upon a serious illness, in completing a report as referee in an important railroad case pending in the federal court at St. Louis.
(Originally published in 1862. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)
Politics
He was a member of different political parties, such as: Democratic (Before 1854, 1872–1885), Republican (1854–1860, 1866–1870), Unconditional Union (1860–1866), Liberal Republican (1870–1872).
During the formation of the Republican party in Missouri in 1860 Brown took an active part and was a delegate-at-large to the Chicago convention which nominated Lincoln.
Before the end of his senatorial career, Brown became prominently identified with the so-called Liberal movement in Missouri for the repeal of the drastic test-oaths prescribed in the Missouri constitution of 1865 and aimed at sympathizers with the Confederate cause. Later, this Liberal movement, which came to embody a reaction against the radical Republican reconstruction policy and in favor of amnesty for former rebels and reconciliation between the sections, culminated in the nomination of Brown for governor, in 1870, and his triumphant election by a majority of more than 40, 000.
By 1876 he had virtually gone over to the Democratic party. He attended that party's national convention, where "loud calls for Gratz Brown brought that gentleman to the rostrum, accompanied by a round of applause". In his brief response, he expressed sympathy with Democratic demands for reform and the belief that former Liberals would warmly support those demands.
Views
While in the Senate, Brown served upon the committees on military affairs, Indian affairs, Pacific railroad, printing, public buildings and grounds, and also as chairman of the committee on contingent expenses. Although frequently taking part in Senate debates, he made only one extended speech.
This was in support of an amendment to a bill to promote enlistments in the army, confirming and making of full effect as law the President's emancipation proclamation, and adding a section declaring the immediate abolition of slavery in all states and territories of the United States, as a war measure. His next longest speech was in opposition to the proposed reading and writing tests for voting in the District of Columbia and in advocacy of woman suffrage for the District.
He also spoke, or introduced resolutions, in favor of the eight-hour day for government employees, approving retaliation for rebel mistreatment of Northern prisoners of war, advocating government construction, ownership, and operation of telegraph lines, and urging the establishment of the merit system in the civil service. His speeches are noteworthy for their obvious sincerity and absence of buncombe, their dignified simplicity of diction, and unusual directness and incisiveness.
Quotations:
"I stand, " he declared, "for universal suffrage, and as a matter of fundamental principle do not recognize the right of society to limit it on any ground of race, color, or sex . I recognize the right of franchise as being intrinsically a natural right . "
Membership
Benjamin Brown was a member of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity of Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut.
Personality
In person, Brown is described as of medium height, of very slender figure, and "immediately noticeable for his wealth of red hair and beard. "
Connections
Benjamin Brown was married to Mary C. Gunn Brown with whom he had six children.