"Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, called up the bill for the relief of the American Colonization Society. The slaves that were recaptured on the barque Pons were turned over to the Colonization Society, by the authority of the United States, sent to Liberia, and there kept at the expense of the society for one or two years. Most of them were children of twelve, fifteen, and sixteen years of age. The society thinks that the expense of feeding, clothing, and educating these people, which was thus devolved on them by the action of the Government, ought to be repaid them. It was certainly an expense incurred by the society, through the action of the Government in throwing these young negroes upon them for maintenance, instead of taking them, as the Government was bound to do by law, and providing for them. That is the nature of the claim. They simply ask that so much shall be paid them as the society, from its own experience, pays in reference to its own emigrants. The claim was reported upon favorably two years ago. A similar report has again been made; and as the necessities of the society require that they should have the money, I hope, said Mr. U., the Senate will consent to take up the bill. The Senate agreed to take up the bill, and proceeded to consider it as in Committee of the Whole.
"Mr. Turney asked for the reading of the report of the Committee.
"The Secretary read the report accordingly. It sets forth that a liberal construction of the act of Congress of March 3d, 1819, would require that the Government should provide for the support of these recaptured Africans, for a reasonable time after they had been landed in Liberia, and that it is beneath the dignity of the Government to devolve this duty upon the society. The petition of the executive committee of the society which the Committee incorporated in their report, states that on the 16th of December, 1845, the United States Ship Yorktown, Commodore Bell, landed at Monrovia, in Liberia, from the slaver Pons, seven hundred and fifty recaptured Africans, in a naked, starving, and dying condition, all of them excepting twenty-one being under the age of twenty-one. The United States made no provision for their support after they were landed....
"The services of providing for the destitute negroes were not required to be performed by the society under their constitution, but the alternative was to leave these recaptured Africans to starve and die, and the society therefore cheerfully took charge of them, relying upon the Government of the United States to refund the cost to them."
The question was discussed at length as to whether the United States would pay these just and legal demands; and on the vote being taken for the engrossment of the bill to a third reading, Mr. Fremont's name is found recorded in the negative—as follows:
"Yeas—Messrs. Badger, Baldwin, Bell, Chase, Clayton, Davis of Mass., DAYTON, Dodge of Wis., Dodge of Iowa, Douglass, Ewing, Felch, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Jones, Mangum, Pearce, Pratt, Seward, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Underwood, Wales, Walker, Whitcomb, and Winthrop—29.
"Nays—Messrs. Atchison, Barnwell, Benton, Butler, Dawson, Dickinson, Downs, FREMONT, Hunter, King, Mason, Rusk, Sebastian, Soule, Turner, and Yulee—16."
Look Again!—On the 18th day of September, 1850, the bill to prevent persons from enticing away slaves from the District of Columbia was under consideration, and John P. Hale "moved that it be committed to the Committee on the District of Columbia, with instructions to so amend it as to ABOLISH SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA." On the vote being taken, FREMONT'S name was recorded in the NEGATIVE. (See Cong. Globe, 31st Congress, part 2, p. 1859.)
Such is Mr. Fremont's record of Statesmanship. It shows his nomination by the "Republicans" to have been a hollow mockery—"a dishonest farce,"—an insult to the intelligence of the American people.