Secession Era Editorials Project

Mr. Brooks's Speech

Charleston, South Carolina, Mercury [Democratic]

(21 March 1854)

We publish this morning the speech of the HON. PRESTON S. BROOKS on the Nebraska bill. It is characterised both by ability and dignity; and while it places the claims of the bill to Southern support on the true ground of the equal constitutional rights of all the States in the Territories, it carefully guards this claim from the consequences, which some have drawn, that the Territorial Governments, set up by Congress, have the sovereign character of States. MR. BROOKS'S vindication of the South, in regard to her practical influence on the prosperity and strength of the Confederacy, is as spirited as it is true.