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AMERICA FREE— OR AMERICA SLAVE.

AN ADDRESS ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY.

DELIVERED BY

-'*fe

1

JOHN JAY, esq.,.,;;^.^^^

AT BEDFORD, WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NEW YdlRKT

OCTOBER St/i, 1856.

"Let it ever be remembered that the rights for which we have contended are the rights of human

Stlature." — Address of the first Congress.

Fellow-Citizens of "Westchester.

Whatever local incentives may be found in other parts of our country, arising from historic association, or the memory of tlie departed, to keep alive a spirit of patriotism and a love of freedom, no spot in America has more of such associations than this, our native county of Westchester. During the first year of our Revolutionary struggle — the memnrable year of the Declaration of Independence !— Seventy-Six — the active operations of the war were confined to this region, and the two hos- tile armies were constantly on the alert under their respective commanders-in-chief. The British, with a numerous army, and a powerful marine, in possession of New York — Washing- ton, with an inferior and badly supplied army, endeavoring to keep them in check — and " the battle of White Plains, on the 28th of Octo- ber," says the historian, '' will long be remem- bered, as well as the dismal prospects of that year, when the patriot fathers of America had still the courage to declare their own indepen- dence, and to assert the rights of nature and of nations."

Westchester was subsequently known— as those of you remember, who have read " The Spy," of Fennimore Cooper, himself a West- chester man— as " the Neutral Ground ; " and its citizens were exposed to the marauding bands of " Cowboys " and of " Skinners'" — their homes plundered, their fields laid waste, their enclosures burnt, their families outraged and insulted by brutal deeds, such as are to-day announced to us by telegraph as being re- enacted on the plains of Kansas ; but, in the patriotism of the farmers of Westchester, there was no neutrality. It breathed in the state

papers of the First Congress, which compelled the admiration of the British Senate — it fought and bled on the battle-field of White Plains, and the other battle-fields of America — and it exhibited its incorruptibility and its "back- bone " in the three captors of Major Andr6, whose virtue — proof against all temptations — saved the country from the treachery of Ar- nold, when that traitor's plot for the betrayal of our liberties was on the verge of comple- tion.

The integrity of Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart — whose descendants are yet among us — is a matter of history, familiar to every school-boy from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and remembered with pride by every American, wherever the story is recalled, — whether he visit the familiar spots, or chances upon a volume in which it is alluded to, or treads the aisles of Westminster Abbey, where the remains of Andr6 repose, and a sculptured monument to his memory reminds the Ameri- can traveller, that, in the darkest period of the Eevolution, Mi country was sated from trea- chery and ruin by the incorruptibility of West- chester farmers.

You are not unmindful of that memorable event, or of the other Revolutionary associa- tions tliat cluster about the Hudson on our west. Long Island Sound upon our south, the Harlem River, the Bronx, the Croton, and the hills and valleys and streams that add so much of beauty to Westchester. They are memories that cannot and ought not to be forgotten. Year by year our National Anniversary revives them iuall their greenness; and at all times they may be invoked to quicken our love of liberty and the common law, if^we cherish the princi-

FoR Sale at the Office of the New York Tribune. Price, per Dozen Copies 25c. ; per Hundred, $1 75; per Thousand, $14.

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pies of the founders of onr Republic — or to i reproach us if we are unfaithful guardiaus of that heritage of freedom which they bequeatlied to us, that we might transmit it, unimpaired, to our children.

This guardianship of American principles — I j say A7nerican principles, because, altliough eter- nal in their origin and their character, they are American in their national development, Ame- rican as contra-distinguished from European theories and modes of government — this guar- dianship of American principles devolves upon us at every election of our rulers, legisla- tive or executive ; but never was the respon- sibility deeper or more solemn than at this moment, when a sectional and aristocratic oli- garchy, trampling upon faith, and encroaching on our rights, aspires to rule tlie American people, and when the Federal Government, converted into a military depotism, is engaged; in the language of its master spirit, in "• crush- ing out" Freedom from our youngest terri- tory.

I have not hesitated to recall to ynu the memories of the past, familiar as tliey are to all of us ; for I believe we are entering upon a contest involving the same great principles as those for which our fathers fought for seven long years. "Let it ever be remembered," was their language, " that the rights for which we have contended are the rights of human nature ;" and changeable as we are said to be — immersed in active pursuits as we undoubt- edly are — I believe there are comparatively few among our countrymen — not one, I trust, among those whom I address — who do not cherish a love for the land of their birth — who do not remember, with emotion, its Revolu- tionary history — who do not contemplate with pride its progress in all that contributes to a nation's greatness, or who do not sometimes recall and dwell upon the glorious mission of the Republic among the nations of the earth, as foreshadowed by her founders. I trust there are, comparatively, but few, in our free States, at least, who do not hope and pray that while in the Old "World we may witness, in a single generation, the rise and fall of dynasties and of empires, this Federal Union may stand till the rights of human nature, proclaimed in our " Declaration of Independence," are practically acknowledged throughout our own borders, and throughout the world.

At this time, it will hardly be contended by any one, that the Federal Government, whether we look to the scenes recently enacted in the Capitol, or to the outrages now being perpe- trated in Kansas, is advancing in that course of wisdom and equal justice, in which its first movements were directed, and in which its founders trusted it would for ever continue. Some will attribute this retrograde course to a general corruption of the American people.

I am unwilling so to regard it. The address of the First Congress to the people of Great Britain, drafted by a citizen of Westchester, commenced with words so signally appro- priate to the present time, that they sound like a voice from the dead — the vi)ice of the Fathers to their Sons.

"When a nation, led to greatness by tlie hand of liberty, and possessed of all the glory that heroism, munificence, and humanity can bestow, descends to the ungrateful task of forging chains for her friends and children, and instead of giving support to freedom, turns advocate for slavery and oppression, there is reason to believe that she has ceased to be virtuous. or has been extremely negligent in the appointment of her rulers."

Let us not believe, despite of all tlie appa- rent evidence to the contrary, in the present cliaracter and conduct of our Fedenil Govern- ment, tliat the virtue which raised us from feeble colonies to a mighty Republic, clasping a continent in its embrace, lias ceased out of the land. Let ns accept the alternative expla- nation of the crimes and inconsistencies that are at this moment startling the world, tliat "we have been extremely negligent in the ap- pointment of our rulers." Dwelling peacefully in free homes — enjoying quietly the reward of labor — acting generously towards our neigh- bors of the South, resting trustfully on ancient compacts, our people have slumbered in a false security. But there is, at last, an uprising throughout the land, thatsliows that the slum- ber is broken, and they find their security was a dream.

And now that another Presidential election approaches, compelling the nation to look its destiny in the face — an election that involves a principle, and an issue, more momentous than any wiiich have been submitted to this people since we became a nation — an election that is to pronounce the solemn judgment of the people on the conduct of the Pierce administration — an election that is to shape, for weal or woe, for Freedom, with its boundless blessings, or slavery with its untold curses, the territories of the great West, and the mighty future of this continent, possibly to the end of time; — we are so searcliingly to consider, and so ad- visedly to act, that the picture drawn by the First Congress of the Motiier Country shall no longer be applicable to ourselves; "that, led to greatness by the hand of liberty, and pos- sessed of all tlie glory that heroism, munifi- cence, and humanity can bestow," our country shall no longer " descend to the task of forg- ing chains for her friends and children;" that from giving support to freedom she shall no longer turn advocate for slavery and oppres- sion. We are so to act, and so to vote, that neither the people of Kansas, and the farther West, nor the future historian, may have occa- sion to declare, that we had either ceased t&

^ ;. be virtuous, or had been extremely negligent I

j» in the appointment of onr rnlers. '

^" But gentlemen, admissible as the plea of

Nsinegligence may be for the past, it will not

avail you for the future. If you endorse the

^conduct of the Pierce administration, as the

JDemocratic party at Cincinnati have endorsed

: ,jit — or if, by the adoption of any side issue,

-^you permit that policy to continue, then the

crime of tlie administration will become your

own, and its future consequences v.-ill rest

upon your heads.

From this responsibility no citizen can exempt himself. By the Cimsiitution of our countr\', every voter is one of its sovereigns — and is charged with the sacred duty of exercising his right of suffrage. A single' vote, a ftw years since, elected a governor of Massachu- setts. Frequently, a single vote in Congress has had an important bearing upon the poh- tics of the country; and, at a moment like this, when the destiny of our countrv — the character of the Great West— our domestic policy among ourselves — our foreign policy towards other nations, all depend upon the coming election, it is the duty of every man, whatever his party ties, whatever his personal preferences, to examine for himself carefully, truthfully, and impartially, tlie real issues in- volved in the contest— the conduct of the Pierce administration — the platform of the rival parties, and the claims to confidence of the rival candidates.

I propose, now, not to institute the tho- rough searching examination which I ask you to make — for, to do tliis, time would fail us — but I propose to direct your attention to the great facts of the case, and then to glance at the platforms and the candidates that are of- fered for your support; and while I confess an interest in this great subject, that dates from my boyhood, and has strengthened with my strength, [ will endeavor, as far as possi- ble, to let my remarks be calm, careful, truth- ful and impartial.

PRESENT ASPECT OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

The Slavery Question, as now presented to us by the administration of Mr. Pierce, and the platform of Mr. Buchanan, however it may hitherto have been regarded, is certainly not, at this moment, a remote theoretical ab- straction, but a stern present practical reality.

Great as are tiie wrongs which slaverv inflicts upon the blacks, it is not these wrong's that have aroused the country. Fearful as may be the consequence both to the soil and the people of the South, of that domestic system, whicli Jefferson declares to be an "unremitting despotism on the one part," and "degrading submission on the other," it is not with the evils of slavery in the States^ that jthe

nation has now to do. What the Ptcpublican party propose, is not interference with the constitutional riglits (;f the slave-holders, but resistance to their aggression upon our rights, and such a reform in the administration of the Federal governfueut, that whatever policy the slave-masters may think proper to pursue on their own plantations, and witliin their own State limits, they shall no longer monopolize the control of the nation — no longer use the Federal government to extend and support their sectional interests — no h)nger interfere as they are now interfering with the rights of free laborer;?, and with the peace, {irosperity and fair fame of the Republic.

THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

It is admitted by all— for the fact ia too plain for denial, that the quiet pervading the country when Mr. Pierce was inaugurated, and wliich he called Heaven to witness should not be disturbed by him, was interrupted, not by any efforts of the Abolitionists, but by the repeal of the Missouri Compnmiise. ThatVeiieal was THE HEAD AND FRONT of all the criuies against Kansas and against freedom, which have'since aroused the people of the Free States to such intense and absorbing indignation; and as such, you will allow me, I trust, to recall to you the prominent features of that compact, now violated and broken.

In 1802, the Louisiana Territorv, embracing an area of 899,579 square miles— larger than a.11 the then existing States, including the State of Missouri and the Territories of' Kan- sas and Nebraska, was purchased from France. In 1820, Missouri having ai)plied for admis- sion as a State, with a Constitution sanction- ing slavei-y, and having been refused admission by the House of Representatives, on that account, was admitted on the 20th of March of that year, by tlie adoption of the Missouri Compromise. That Compromise was pro- posed by tlje Slave States to the Free States. They said to the Free States, Admit Missouri with slavery, and we will agree that slavery shall never go into the remainder of the Ter- ritory North of 36° 30'. The Free State Representatives yielded, and the compact was embodied in the Act preparatory to admitting Missouri, in these won's:

^'Sec. 8. Be it further enacted, that in all that Ter- ritory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies North of 36° 30' of North latitude, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by this Act, Slavery and invol- untary servitude, otherwise than as the punishment of crime, shall be, and is hereby forevkk pkohibithd."

It has been said that this was simply an agreement made by one Congress, wdiich any subsequent Congress had the right to repeal. Such was not the view taken of it by the

Southern statesmen, who urged its adoption on the North. They declared it to be, in the language of Mr. Louis McLane, of Dela- ware, "A compact which shall be binding upon all parties and all subsequent Legisla- tures— which cannot be changed, and will not fluctuate with the diversity of feeling and of sentiment to which this empire in its march must be destined."

The character of the compromise as an honorable and irrepealable cotnpact, as bind- ing upon the sons as upon the fatliers, was recognized by the Southern press.

"It is true," said ''Niks' Register," pub- lished at Baltimore, "it is true the compro- mise is supported only by the letter of the law, repealable by the authority which enacted it; but the circumstances of the case give this law a moral force equal to that of a positive provision of the Constitution; and we do not hazard anytliing in saying that the Constitu- tion exists in its ohservance.''^

You probably know that it has been said by the facile demagogues of the day, that tlie compromise was unconstitutional, that Con- gress had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories, and that every man who contends for such a power, is a traitor to the country.

I shall not respond at length to this arrogant assumption. It has been most ably disposed of by our own Senator Sewaed, foremost among the statesmen of our land; by Chase, whose clear tones aroused the country to its danger, and who has animated with his brave spirit the great State over which he presides; and by Charles Sumner, at whose name your pulses quicken, and around whose couch cluster the sympathies of the Christian world, hstening to a silence more eloquent than speech. Whe- ther he shall rise from that couch, which may God soon grant, to resume the vacant chair that is now teaching the Senate and the na- tion so profound a lesson, or whether he shall descend to the grave in his early manhood, he will live on the page of history, and in the hearts of his countrymen — among those who, in the language of Burke, are the guide-posts and land-marks of a State.

I need not repeat the elaborate exposures by these Statesmen of the fallacy of "popular sovereignty" in the Territories, as opposed to Congressio'nal legislation, on the subject of slavery ; but let me remind you that the very first Congress under the Constitution, in the year 1789, recognized and affirmed this doc- trine, embodied by Jefferson in the great western ordinance of 1787, which forever ex- cluded slavery from the Territory that now embraces Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Remem- ber that this doctrine was then sanctioned and approved by Washington ; that in 1800 it was approved by John Adams, in the Territoral Act for Indiana ; in 1805, and again in 1804 by

Thomas Jefferson, in the act for Michigan and IlHnois. In 1884 by Andrew Jackson, with reference to Wisconsin and Iowa. In 1836 and 1838 by Martin Van Buren, in reference to the same Territories. In 1848 by James K. Polk, as regards the whole of Oregon, and in March, 1853, by Millard Filltnore, in reference to the Territory of Washington. In all of these acta slavery was expressly prohibited by Con- gress.

The right of Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories is as well settled as any doctrine can be by the contemporaneous authority of the framers of the Constitution ; by its unques- tioned and practical recognition by successive Congresses for nearly 70 years, and by the uniform unbroken acquiescence of tlie Ameri- can people. Whose are the dicta that are to outweigh the recorded judgment and will of the nation, of its Legislatures and its Presidents, from Wasliington to Fillmore 1

The Missouri Compromise, when adopted, was hailed by the South as "a great triumph," in the language of Mr. Pinckney, of South Caro- lina, and at the North was accepted as a de- feat, and most of the Free State men who voted for it, were repudiated by their consti- tuents and retired to private life. The com- pact, however, was regarded as an eternal land- mark, never to be removed, and none dreamed of questioning, in regard to its observance, the good faith of the Southern people.

If ever men were bound in honor to abide by a bargain, the people of the Slave States were bound religiously by that compact. We had yielded to them an organized State, ad- ding on the instant to their political strength ; taking in return only a future and distant right to an unsettled Indian Territory, that was likely to remain unsettled for, at least, another generation.

Years rolled on ; the generation of that day pass from the stage ; their successors repeated- ly approve the principle of the compromise made in the division of the Louisiana Terri- tory. They establish the line of 36° 30' as the limit to slavery in New Mexico. They even propose to us to make a similar bargain in reference to the Territory ceded by Mexico, and to extend the line to the Pacific, and hav- ing thus estopped themselves from ever ques- tioning its constitutionality, or binding force,- these very men, when the time comes for us to occupy our share of the Louisiana Territory, consecrated to freedom, repudiate the bargain; violate their compact, break their faith, and open wide the doors to slavery.

For that deed of infamy, history has no pre- cedent, and language no fitting name.

Of the probability of accoraplishiug so im- mense a fraud, the chief perpetrators themselves entertained, at one time, the greatest doubts. The very author of the bill declared the hand

" ratliless" that should attempt to disturb tlie Missouri Compromise. Even Atchison, the Senator from Mi-;souri, and tlie arch leader in the scheme of perfidy, declared but the session before, on the floor of the Senate, that much as he regretted the ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise, "they are both irremedi- able. There is no reinedy for them. We must submit to them. I am prepared to do it. It is evident that the Missouri Compromise cannot be repealed. * * I have no hope that tlie restriction will ever be repealed."

The attempt, however, was resolved to be made, and the instrument of the slave power, selected for the purpose, was Sthphex Arnold Douglas, a Senator from Illinois, and it was then pretended that the Freemen of the North volunteered by this Free State Senator, to surrender their rights to tliis mighty Territory, and that the South were guiltless of violating their compact in accepting such voluntary surrender.

As reasonable would it have been for the British spy to have claimed tliat the Ameri- can Colonist had commissioned Benedict Ar- nold to surrender West Point to Hessian troops, as for the slave masters to pretend that the freemen of the North had commissioned Ar- nold Douglas, or any other Arnolds, either in the Senate or the House, to surrender to slave labor and slave policy that noble Terri- tory, the " West Point" of our Northern and Eastern States, and yet destined to stand, as I firmly believe, in despite of treachery, and of traitors, the strong hold and citadel of American freedom.

The idle pretence was disposed almost as soon as it was uttered. The Fi-ee States at first utterly incredulous, unable to believe in the possibility of such bad faith on the part of their Southern brethren, were soon convinced that the treachery was real, and there arose from every Free State, from cities, towns and villages, from mass meetings and the public press, from the stump and from the pulpit, one indignant shout of reprobation, and of warn- ing. But the slave power, conscious of its waning political and essential strength, and dreading the sight of Free States prosperous and happy on the plains of Kansas, hazarded all upon this die. The hesitating confederates of Arnold Douglas, startled by the bursts of thunder that reverberated through the North- ren skies, were yet in the hands of masters accustomed to wield the lash and enforce obedience. Backed by a pliant executive, whose inaugural promises were &< chaff scat- tered by the wind, the rules of tlie House of Kepresentatives were violated; tlie proper business of the nation was suspended, and at midnight, on the 30th of May, 1854, the deed was done, and the fact recorded on the page of History, never to be forgotten, never to be

effaced, that while there may be faith among savages, and honor among thieves, the slave masters of America, their tools, aiders, and abettors, know not honor and keep not faith.

That day changed the relation in which the freemen of the North and the slave- holders of the South had before stood to each other. For faith, the great ligament of society, had been broken and confidence was at an end. Freedom had before been yielding to and confiding, ever more generous to the South than just to herself; ready to give and take, and ever giving more than she received, but never expecting to be swindled out of the whole. The settlement of disputes by com- promise had frequently been resorted to, and had been regarded with favor ; but now that a time-honored and solemn compact had been ruthlessly violated, and the too credulous North had been cheated out of her allotted portion, the sentiment of the Free States, applauded to the echo in public a-semblies, has been and will continue to be '* no more compromises uith slavery.''''

The repudiation of good faith by the slave power has been followed by the consequences that might in part have been expected by those who remembered the olden maxim, "false in one thing, false in all," or that other maxim which teaches us that "where law ends, tyran- ny begins."

TREATMENT OF KANSAS.

The treatment of Kansas from that day by the Pierce Administration, surpasses, in au- dacity and in crime, anything heretofore re- corded in the history of America, and were not the facts proven by the sworn testimony of a host of witnesses, and recorded by a Congressional Committee of the House of Re- presentatives, in a volume, swelled to nearly 1,200 pages, they would hardly be credited. Austria and Russia will afford no grosser in- stances of fraud and despotism ; the Middle Ages may be ransacked in vain for more lawless outrages by a more insolent banditti.

Let me briefly remind you of dates and facts. The doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty," or, as Gen. Cass calls it, "Squatter Sovereignty," was the "artful dodge" resorted to by the compMCt-breakers to justify the repeal ot the Missouri Compromise. This novel doctrine, which has been practically repudiated, as you have seen, by the government and the people of the Re])ublic, from the day when we be- came a nation, denies the right of Congress to exclude slavery from a territory, on the ground that the first "squatters" on the soil, have an inherent and sovereign right to shape their own institutions, without interference on the part of any other persons wliatsoever ; not even the Congress of the United States, under whose guardiansliip the Territories are placed bj- tlie

Constitution, and wlio by that instrument are empowered to make all needful rules and regu- lations for their government. The Kansas- Nebraska act, as finally parsed, after several alterations in its phraseology, called forth by the pi-ogre-s of the plot, contained a clause declaring the object of the bill ro be "■ to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Oonsti- tation." Southern senators, who repudiated '•squatter sovereignty," voted for this clause, declaring that the Constitution itself allowed slaveholders to carry their slaves into the ter- ritories, and hold them there independently of the will of the people of the territories; thus attempting to make slavery national, instead of sectional ; to make slavery the rule, and free- dom the exception, and ignoring the ancient principle of law, that slavery, being in viola- tion of natural right, can only exist by virtue of positive local statutes.

But, apart from the sophisms and assump- tions of these slavery extensionists, the popu- lar sovereignty clause in the bill was a pledge given by Congress to the people, that the peo- ple, whether from the North or the South, who might seek homes in Kansas, should be left "perfectly free" to regulate their own in- stitutions in their own way. Gentlemen, the Federal Government, adding perjury to trea- chery, have violated also this pledge.

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill was passed the 30th May, 1854, and on tlie 29th November, 1854, the young territory was to elect a dele- gate to represent it in Congress. The admin- istration were forewarned that attempts would be made by parties from Missouri to violate the purity of the franchise, and to defraud the people of a fair election.

A year before, in the autumn of 1853, Mr. Senator Atchison had madeaspeech at a meet- ing in Western Mis-ouri, the proceedings of which were publicly reported, and one of the resolutions declared " that if the territory (Kan- sas) be opened to settlement, we pledge our- selves to co-operate to extend the in-ititutions of Missouri over the territory, at whatever cost of blooii and treasure'" — and similar resolu- tions had been passed by '"a blue lodge" in Misscmri, the proceedings of which are before me, piiblisiied on the 10th June, 1854, at ajiich time it may be Avell to remember, not a single emigrant tVom a New England Aid Society had entered Kausa-i.

Did the a(!mini>tration, thus forewarned, take measures to protect tlie sacredness of the ballot-box, and to preserve intact tlie " popu- lar sovereignty" of Kansas? They took no such steps; and, when the election came, in- vaders from Missouri, vvitli arms and ammuni- tion, with bowie-knives, revolvers, and two field-pieces, in an organized body, with trains

of wagons, horsemen, munition, tents, and pro- visions, as though marching upon a foreign foe, surrounded the polls, and, with drums beating and banners flying, they drove off many legal voters, and stulied the ballot-boxes with illegal votes. Of 2,871 votes cast, tlie Congressional Committee report that 1,142 were fraudulent; and, on their evidence, Whit- field, wlio claimed to have been then appointed a delegate to Congress, was refused his seat by the House of Representatives.

On the 30th March, 1855, the people of Kansas were to elect a Territorial Legislature. A similar invasion took place, without the slightest opposition from the Pierce adminis- tr.ation, and of 6,820 votes, 4,908 were found by the Congressional Committee to have been illegal ; leaving only 1,412 legal votes ; less than one third of the whole number. Such was the election of that counterfeit Legislature which re-enacted, in a body, a great part of the Mis- souri code, simply substituting the word "Ter- ritory" for "State," with enactments for the establishment, advancement, and support of slavery; so utterly unconstitutional and bar- barous, that even Southern senators could not forbear to pronounce them infamous.

By this bloody code, any person assisting a slave to escape, in obedience to the golden rule, may be punished by death, or ten years' im- prisonment. Any person expressing the opin- ion that persons have no right to hold slaves in the territoi-y, or bringing into the territory any book, pamphlet, or newspaper that main- tains such an opinion, shall be deemed guilty of felony, punishable with two years im[)rison- ment at hard labor.

To secure conviction under these acts, im- ct>nstitutional tests are introduced, and no per- son who is conscientiously opposed to holding slaves, or who does not admit the right to hold slaves in the territory, is alhjwed to sit as juror on the trial of any prosecution under the act.

Novel test-oaths are prescribed for civil offi- cei-s and attorneys, compelling them to swear to support and sustain the Fugitive Slave Act, which the ablest jurists in the country reject, a!ul the Supreme Court of Wisconsin has ad- judged unconstitutional and void. For the punislmient of felons, it is provided that con- victs may be placed under the cliarge of other persons than the keepers of the prisons, with cliain and ball attached to their ankles, and so kept at hard labor — a convenient mode of enabling the pro-slavery gentry of Kansas to retain in slavery, side-by-side with tlieir ne- groes, the free-spoken emigrants from the Free States who, in defiance of the enactments of this sliam Legislature, shall dare to utter the sentiments of Washington and Jefferson, or carry with them to their new homes in the wilderness, the writings of American statesmen,

from tlie times of TTainilton and ITenry to those of Webster and Clay.

Those laws, gentlemen, uns:iiictioned by reason, and baseless in anthority, the Free- State men of Kansas, with a si)irit wortliy of our Revolutionary fathers, steadfastly refused to recognize or obey, altliough backed by Mr. Pierce and the army, and by all the ruffians in Missouri.

At length the people of Kan«as, awakened from tlie delusion that they might expect jus- tice or protection from the Fedc-ral Govern- ment, and forced to recognize the fact that the frauds and outrages of wiiich they were the victims were complacently regarded — if, in- deed, they were not secretly instigated — by the Cabinet at Washington, assembled in their sovereignty, at Topeka, and framed a State Constitution.

Tliat Constitution your House of Represen- tatives— 'the popular branch of Congress, rep- resenting immediately the people of the United States — recognized as embodying the will of the people of Kansas, legitinaately and consti- tutionally expressed. Under that Constitution a Stare Legislature was elected ; and when that Legislature assembled, to consider the affiiirs of their unhappy Territory, their deliberations were interrupted by an armed force, by oriler of Mr. Pierce, acting as Commander-in-Chief of the army of the tjnited States. They were interrupted by Col. Sumner, at the head of a detachment of federal troops, and ordered to disperse. That single act, did it stand ahme, nnsarrounded as it is by a host of crimes, were enough of itself to arouse the country. There was a covp d''etat worthy of Cromwell or Louis JTapoleon. We need not go to Paris or Vienna to study the feats of a military despotism : Mr. Pierce sits in the White House, attended by his Secretary of War — Mr. Jeffer- son Davis, a Southern disunionist — the Consti- tution, descibed by a Southern statesman as "tliat blurred and tattered parchment," is trampled under their feet ; the imperial motto, which is also that of the plantation, Sic volo, sic jxJjeo (my will — that is law), superse<les tlie limitations of constitu ional power, and the President gives the order to his Secretary that a legitimate legislative assembly of the people of Kansas — ttiat i>eople for who.se popular sovereignty he had professed to be so solicit- ous— should be- dispersed, if necessary, at the point of the bayonet !

Is that tlie object, my fellow-countrymen, for winch we maintain a standing army, and place it at the control of the Executive ! Was it to establish this central and despotic oli- garchy, that treats the freemen of a Territory like slaves — deluding them with pledges but to weaken and betray, and subsiiiuting tlie bayonet for the lash! Was it, I ask you, to establish this central oligarchy that our fathers

fouglit the battles of the Revolution, and or- dained the Constitution of these United States! Recall, I pray you, the memories that cluster arouncl our valley.s, and respond to the ques- tion, with your ballot, on the fourth of No- vember.

The history of Kansas from that day to this has been a dreary record of outrage, crime, and murder. The Report of the Congressional committee gives a fearful picture of what oc- curred during the brief period of their stay, and of the bombarding and burning to the ground of houses — the property of private individuals — the destruction of printing-presses and materials; the sacking, pillaging, and rob- bery of houses, stores, trunks, even to the clothing of women and children. "All the provisions of the Constitution of the United States," they remark, "securing person and property, are utteidy disregarded. The offi- cers of the law instead of protecting the peo- ple, were, in some instances, engaged in these outrages, and in no instance did we learn that any man was arrested for any of these crimes. While such oftences were committed with im- punity, the laws were used for indicting men for holding elections preliminary to framing a constitution and applying for admission to the Union as the State of Kansas. Charges of high treason were made against prominent citizens upou grounds which seem to your committee idle and ridiculous; and, under these charges, they are now held in custody, and are refused the privilege of bail."

Recently, a slight concession was made by the new governor. Gov. Geary, in admitting to bail those gentlemen who had been indicted for treason at the instigation of Judge Lecompte, who occupies the same relation to Mr. Pierce that Judge Jeffries did to James IL, and who delivered a charge on the law of treason every way worthy of his prototype ; but the "pacifi- cation of Kansas" by Gov. Geary, which some news[)apers would luTve you believe has re- moved all its evils and left no subject for com- plaint, amounts to naught.

Bad laws are the worst of tyranny — and the bad laws of a bad legislature remain ; and Gov. Geary, backed by Mr. Pierce and the army, declares that he is there to compel the people to obey them.

This were enough — but it is not all. Chief- Ju tice Lecompte is left, ready to charge pro- slavery juries, and to hang for treason or felon}" tlie Free-State leaders. The marshal and other officers — who liave been, as the Congiessional Committee advise you, the abet- tors of border-ruffianism, the instigators and perpetrators of lawless outrages — are all left, a standing insult to the people, as continuing to wield tiie sliam authority of a counterfeit leg- islature. The Missouri border is closed to the Free-State men for ingress or egres", and Kan-

8

sas, in a word, is a conquered territory. Tlie Federal Government, with the border-ruffians at its call, and the army at its back, have van- quished it3 people — have extinguished tlieir sovereigDty, dispersed their legislature, im- prisoned their leaders, and now grinds them in the dust with the iron hoof of a military despotism !

Tliis is the only pacification of Kansas which has been or will be made by the slave power that now governs the country.

•'It is silly to suppose," says the "Squatter Sovereign'' — a paper supported by government advertising, and bearing the banner of " Bu- chanan and Breckinridge" — "it is silly to sup- pose for an instant that there can be peace in Kansas as long as one enemy of the South lives upon her soil, or one single specimen of an abolitionist treads in the sunlight of Kan- sas Territory."

This is the Pacification of Governor Geary. Order reigns in Kansas, as once in Warsaw. They would make a solitude, and call it peace.

Such, gentlemen, is the Kansas question as it is now presented for your solution. That brave and long-suffering people, whose devo- tion to the Federal Union has continued un- shaken, even when the bayonets of its soldiery dispersed their legislature or carried away captive their chosen leaders, await your de- cision. They have appealed from Franklin Pierce to the American people. They appeal from the Executive servant whose brii f autho- rity is expiring, to you his master . They appeal to you, the permanent sovereigns of this land ; and if tlie American people, or a majority of them, shall approve and confirm the conduct of the present Administration in crushing out their liberties, and forcing upon them, by fraud and violence, the curse of slavery, then I believe they will appeal to their own strength and to the God of right, to resist the bloody enactments of their mock legislature, though backed by a perjured Ex- ecutive and willing officers — by convenient judges and packed juries, and all the soleiim mockery of pro-slavery law. I believe they will defend their rights and their homes as their fathers before tliem, and fight as their fathers fouglit for the ])rinciples of the Decla- ration of Independence and the everlasting rights of human nature. It is impossible that the sons of New-England and New-York, and of those Western States that have grown to greatness under the protecting shade of the great Ordinance of freedom — men in whose veins flows the blood of the Pilgrims and the Huguenots that in other ages refused to bow

to the tyrants of Europe, and in the last cen- tury, true to the principles of English liberty, defied the power of tlie British Em[)ire, and laid deep the foundations of a free republic. It is impossible that the descendants of such men, in the nineteenth century and in the heart of our continent, should tamely submit to be defrauded of their heritage, and yield themselves meekly to the yoke of slavery-.

THE SLAVE POWER.

Let us see, gentlemen, what this slave power is, which, trampling upon compacts, and defy- ing the Constitution, controls the federal go- vernment, and employs its army and its trea- sury to force slavery upon an unwilling people.

It has long been believed by those who have carefully scrutinized the institutions and policy of the slave-holding States, that but a small proportion of their citizens were holders of slaves; but until the publication of the last census of 1850, the statistics were wanting to confirm this belief. That census disclosed the astounding fact that the slaveholders of the South, men, women, and children, including the hirers of slaves, all told, numbered only 347,820 — about half the number of persons residing in the city of New York and its im- mediate vicinity ; that of these 68,820 own but a single slave, and 105,683 less tiian five slaves each. So that, deducting those who have only a few home-servants for convenience, and are not specially interested in the perpetuation and extension of the system, there remain but about 200,000 slaveholders composing that slave power which rules as with a rod of iron not only the 6,000,000 of non-slaveholders at the South, but the 20,000,000 of the whole nation.

It has been said with truth that the privi- leged aristocracy of England is far less power- ful, and infinitely less arrogant, than this aris- tocratic oligarchy of slaveholders.

The census further discloses the relative proportion between the slaveholders and non- slaveholders in each State, and shows us that there is not one slaveholding State in the Union where the slaveholders constitute one- tenth of the white population, and in some of them not a thirtieth part.

The following table, taken from the census, and which I find ready to my hand in an able speech of the Hon. Mr.'TAPPAN, of New Ham])- sliire — but to which I have added the i)ropor- tion of the white population to the slaveholders in eacli State, is enough to surprise the coun- trv :

9

Proportion of SUveholdore Whits White Popu-

States. in each. Population. lation to

Slavfhold.rs.

Alabama .... 29,295 427,513 1M9

Arkansas .... 5,999 162,189 27-38

District of Columbia . 1,477 37,941 25-68

Delaware .... 809 71,169 87-97

Florida 3,520 47.203 13-40

Georgia 38,456 521,592 13-56

Kentucky .... 38,385 761,413 19-70

Louisiana .... 20,670 255,491 12-34

Maryland .... 16,040 417,943 25-43

Mississippi .... 23,116 394,718 17-07

Missouri 19.189 692.006 35-05

North Carolina . . 28,303 553.028 19-50

South Carolina . . 25,596 274,563 10-72

Tennessee .... 23.864 756,836 30-29

Texas 7,747 154,634 19-08

Virginia 55,063 894,800 16-30

Total .... 347,525 6,222,318

The value of the slaves held by this handful of men, from whose lawless ambition come all the disturbances to our peace, is estimated by Mr. Shater, of Alabama, at two thousand mil- lions of dollars — a large advance on Mr, Clay's estimate, a few years ago, of twelve hundred millions ; but, whether the amount be correctly estimated or not, it constitutes an immense capi- tal, hardly to be realized and comprehended without some mental effort; a capital which, firmly united and skillfully wielded, is now waging so fierce a war with the free labor of the Northern States,

Discarding for the present all those conside- rations of right and justice which instinctively occur to every right-minded person when slavery is mentioned — foregoing, on this occa- sion, all expression of sympathy for the mil- lions of beating hearts that in the arithmetic of slavery count but as units under the sign of dollars— dispensing with aught that might seem to savor of philanthropy, or, as some style it, fanaticism, and leaving the entire question of slavery in the States to the people of those States, who, in the language of Mr, Faulkner, of Virginia, "have a right to demand jts extermination," let me direct your attention to the bearing of the question upon yourselves^ to the direct, permanent, practical, and pecu- niary interest which you and your children liave in the rescue of Kansas from the grasp of slavery.

I need not remind you that slave labor and free labor are antagonistic. ;They cannot flourish, they hardly co-exist together. Tliis fact was declared in tlie strongest terms by the ablest statesman of Virginia in the Constitu- tional Convention of 1830.

The Hon. C, J, Faulkner said, " Slavery is an institution which presses heavily against the best interests of the State. It Danishes free white laior, it exterminates the mechanic, the artisan, the manufacturer ; it deprives them of occu])ation, it deprives them of bread ; it con- verts the energy of a community into indo-

lence, its power into imbecility, its efficiency into weakness. Sir, being thus injurious, liave we not a right to demand its extermination? Shall society suff"er tliat the slaveholder may continue to gather his crop of human flesh ? Must the country languish, droop, and die that the slaveholder may flourish?" Shall all inte- rests be subservient to one, all right subordi- nate to those of the slaveholder ? Has not the mechanic, have not the middle classes their rights — rights incompatille with the interests of slavery ?

The Hon. T. J. Randolph : " Slavery has the effect of lessening the free jjopuladoii of a country. * * * Those who remain, relying upon the support of casual employment, often become more degraded in their condition than the slaves themselves.''''

The Hon. James Maeshall said : " Where- fore, then, object to slavery ? Because it is ruinous to the ichites, retards improvement, roots out an industrious population, banishes the yeomanry of the country, deprives the spinner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter of employment and support. The evil admits of no remedy ; it is increasing, and will increase, until the whole country will be inundated by one black wave,' with a few wliite faces here and there floating on the sur- face. The master has no capital but what is invested in human flesh ; the father, instead of being richer for his sons, is at a loss to pro- vide for them. There is no diversity of occu- pation, no incentive to enterprise. Laior of every species is disreputaile, hecause performed by slaves. Our towns are stationary, our villages everywhere declining, and the general aspect of the country marks the course of a wasteful, idle, reckless population, who have no interest in the soil, and care not how much it is impoverished."

We may assume, therefore, that if Kansas is given up to Slavery, it will be thereby closed to the better class of free-laborers not only of our own country, but of Europe. The great body of emigration westward-bound from our At- lantic States, never seeks, and never will seek slave soil where not labor but the laborers themselves are bought and sold, and where labor is stripped of the dignity that belongs to it, and is treated with contempt.

Now look on the map, blackened by slavery, and you will see that Kansas is the key to the large territory lying to the west of it, tlie boundless regions of Utah and New- Mexico, extending Imndreds of miles till they meet the eastern boundary of California. Is it not clear, that if we lose Kansas we shall in all probability lose not only the Indian Territory lying to the south of it, but those vast tenitories stretching to the westward, and large enough to make more than six States of the size of Pennsylvania? Go-

11

vernor Rekder, in a speech at New-York, put this grave question in the clearest light. He said: "With Kansas a slave State — and you will remember that Eansas is 900 miles long — I will thank any one to tell me hovv^ he is going to save the second, the third, or the fourth, each one further and further out of reach — each one with more slave States inter- vening." If Kansas is lost to Freedom, those territories are all lost. We are fighting tlie battle once for all. Now or never — now and forever. Secure Kansas and all the blessings of Freedom — free-labor, free-schools, free- speech, a free press, enlightened legislation, humane institutions, and that priceless heri- tage, the common law, are secured for our children. Lose Kansas, and what will be the result? Not only will the curse of Slavery fasten like a cancer upon that beautiful terri- tory— spreading desolation physical and moral in its extending course, but the vast emigra- tion from abroad that is now poured into our midst and overflows westward, stopped sud- denly by a line of slave States, will fall back upon our free States, giving us a surplus popu- lation that we do not want, and which will necessarily interfere with the employment and the wages of our own citizens. This is a practical view of the case which every farmer, every mechanic, and every laborer in the free States should carefidly consider.

Conipare again, the relative addition made to the commercial prosperity of the Atlantic States, and particularly of the city of New Yoi'k, by Ohio and Kentucky, and then glan- cing forward to the future, if but for fifty or an hundred years hence, endeavor to es- timate the superior benefits to accrue to the Atlantic States, from these western territories if organized as free States, over those to accrue from their estnblishnieut as slave communities. Think, too, of the ditference it will make to your children and grandchildren if they wish to emigrate to those territories whether they are to enter a State on an equal footing with the highest citizen, or as one whose condition is re- garded a? inferior to that of the Soitthern slave.

Of its hatred to free society, the democratic party at the South do not pretend to make a secret. "Free society," says the Muscogee (Ala.) Herald, a Buchanan organ — " we sicken at the name. What is it, but a conglomera- tion of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theo- rists? All the Northern, and especially the New-England States, are devoid of society fitted for well-bred gentlemen. The prevail- ing class one meets with is that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and small farmers who do their own drudgery, and yet who are hardly fit. for association with a Southern gen- tleman's body servant."

Contrast, gentlemen, with that sentiment,

now reiterated by the Buchanan organs at the South, the sentiment expressed by the leader of the Republican party: — "Free labor — the natural capital which constitutes the real wealth of this great country, and creates that intelligent power in the masses alone to be relied on as the bulwark of free institutions."

You have in these rival sentiments the gist of the issue now submitted to the American people. It is a struggle between Slavery and Freedom — between the small oligarchy of slave masters with its capital of $2,000,000,000 invested in human flesii, and the great body of free laborers who constitute the bulk of the nation for the possession of the unorganized territories of the United States. These terri- tories exceed in extent by some thirty-three thousand square miles all of the United States both free and slave States ; and whose area is more than twice as large as that of the Free States now admitted to the Union.* The Slave States have already secured for Slavery an area of 857,508 square miles, wliile the free States embrace only 012,596 square miles, and with this immense preponderance in their favor, with millions of acres yet unoccupied, they seek to defraud us of Kansas and Ne- braska territories, doubly ours by divine right and by human compact, and to force Slavery into every part of the continent where the flag of our Union waves, and Federal authority has sway.

It is idle to talk of pacification or compro- mise; it is idle to speak of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as a thing to be regret- ted, but at the same time to be acquiesced in. That repeal has not yet made Kansas a Slave State, and if we are true to ouselves it never will make Kansas a Slave State. It was but the commencement, not the end of the battle. Its passage shows, not that we have lost Kan- sas, but only that .slaveholders have lost their honor. It shows that henceforth against the slave power which mocks at faith and tramples

* The following interesting and important table is taken from the New-York Herald : —

Worthy of Note. — Since the peace of 1783, our territo- rial expansion has been uninterruptedly progressing. We give a tabular statement showing the date and amount of each addition : —

Square Jfiles.

1TS3 Area of the tJnion at the Peace S-2o,6S0

1S03 Purchase of Louisiana 899,579

1819 Acquisition of Florida CG,250

1S45 Admission of Texas r>-(8,U00

1S4G Oregon Treaty 3(«,053

1S4S Treaty of Guadalope Hidalgo, ) .... 550,-145 1855 With Mesilla Valley, ) . . . .

1855 Whole Area of the United States . . . . 2,953,666

1855 Area of the Slave States 857,503

" Free " 612,596

Total Area of the States 1,404,105

Total Area of the Territories 1,497,561

The Territories exceed the States in extent, by 33,456 square miles, and the real issue of the present contest is, shall those which remain unsetUed be seized by the South- ern slaveholders by force of arms.

12

on compacts; which glories in the brutality that struck down a defenceless Senator, and insulted at one blow the sovereignty of Massa- chusetts, and the right of the people, and which now holds Kansas by the throat — that against this power our only safety is in the rescue of the Government from its control, and its absolute restriction of Slavery to the States where it now exists. "With a foe that treaties cannot bind, and that glories alike in national perfidy, and social treachery, eternal vigilance must be the price of liberty, — vigilance to protect the people from the betrayal of their dearest rights ; vigilance to shield their re- presentatives in Congress, in unsuspecting mo- ments, from the stealthy blow of the assassin.

Without lingering gentlemen upon the pro- Slavery despotism that is now enthroned in our Federal Government, let me remind you that it has grown to its present fearful strength not tlirough the actual power of the slaveholders, but by our neglect of the warn- ing of "Washington, "Let there be no change by usurpation. * * Resist with care the spirit of innovation upon the principles of the Constitution. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the power of all depart- ments in one, and thus to create a real despo- tism."

And now with the principles of the Consti- tution as our guide, and the appeal of Kansas in our ear, and the day fast approaching when the vote of each of us is to be cast for a successor to Mr. Pierce, let us look at the candidates and the platforms that are offered for our suffrages.

AND FIRST, THE DEMOOKATIO PLATFORM AND MR. BUCHANAN.

"Were Mr. Buchanan to be judged only by his recorded sentiments on the subject of the Missouri Compromise, even so recently as 1848, he might be regarded, perhaps, as a fitting candidate, in that regard, for those who hold the doctrines of the Republican party ; but as he has found it convenient to disclaim his identity, and to exchange his principles for those now current with his party, his former record is only useful as affording whatever weight may once have belonged to his charac- ter as an independent statesman to the truth and soundness of the doctrines to which his party and himself are now in opposition.

In a letter to Mr. Sandford, dated August 21, 1848, reproduced in the Mobile Advertiser, after referring to his advocacy and approval of the Missouri Compromise, he said —

"Having urged the adoption of the Missouri Com- promise, the inference is irresistible that Congress^ in my opinion, possesses the poiver to legislate upon the sub- ject of slavery in the territories. What an absurdity would it then be, if whilst asserting the sbvereign

power in Congress, which power, from its very na- ture, must be exclusive, I should in the same breath also claim the identical power for the population of a territory in an unorganized capacity. * * * I cling to the Missouri Compromise with greater tenacity than ever."

But Mr. Buchanan has recently advised his countrymen that he " is no longer James Bu- chanan." He has been nominated by the Democratic Convention at Cincinnati, which endorsed with its approval the Administration of Franklin Pierce, and embodied the princi- ples of that Administration in its platform. Mr. Buchanan says, " I have been placed on a platform of which I heartily approve, and I must square my conduct by that platform, and insert no new plank, nor tahe one from ity

It may be remarked in passing that, apart from the principles and policy thus swallowed in a lump, this extreme concession to his party, this humble merger of individuality, past and future, in a platform patched together to serve the purposes of a campaign, has not been regarded with too much favor, even by liis own friends. A certain degree of dignity, of self-restraint and of self-respect, is desirable in a presidential candidate. His past character and services, his antecedents, his principles, his opinions, are all viewed with interest by his supporters, as reflecting credit upon their choice, and it is hardly flattering to their pride to see their candidate so extremely " willing" as to condescend to such entire abnegation ; to forego, from the moment of his nomination, his independence of thought, and speech, and principle, and, in a word, to merge his indi- viduality in the planks, rotten or sound, of a temporary platform. It is a characteristic that contrasts unfavorably with the manly independence and resolution which our people admire in their Presidents, whether exhibited in the calm defiance of popular tumult shown by "Washington, or in the impetuous and immovable will of Jackson. Mr. Buciianan's letter will not disi)el the impression given of his character by Col. Benton, in his Congres- sional history, wliere he styles him, " the facile Mr. Buchanan ;" nor will it encourage a belief on the part of those who hope he may be in- clined to deal fairly towards the people of Kansas, that he will be permitted to counter- act the designs of the men into whose hands he has resigned himself, that they will allow him to resume the manhood which he has voluntarily abandoned, instead of compelling him to fulfill his pledge of fealty, and to square his conduct by their platform.

"What that platform is you may learn some- what from Mr. President Pierce, who said at Washington, " I congratulate you that j-our choice has fallen on a man wlio stands on the identical platform that I occupy, and that he will take the same with the standard lowered

13

never aa inch !" Nest hear Arnold Douglas. He said in New York, " Buchanan and myself have for several years back held the same posi- tion on the slavery question from beginning to end:'

The language of the pro-slavery press and pro-slavery men at the South, has been : — "Mr. Buchanan is as sound on the question as "Was Mr. Calhoun, and the Northern Democrats are better Southerners to-day than many Democrats even at the South."

I will not multiply authorities to prove Mr. Buchanan's readiness to do everything that the South may demand. Look at his pledges, look at his supporters. xV man is known by his friends, and Mr. Buchanan istlie candidate not only of Pierce and of Douglas, but of Herbert, who shot the Irishman, of Brooks who as- saulted Sumner, of Keitt, who proposes, if Fremont is elected, to march to Washington and rob tlie Treasury. His election would be an endorsement of the policy of Pierce; liis administration would be a continuance of the administration which is so widely repudiated and despised for its broken pledges, its faith- lessness to freedom, its abject subserviency to the slave power, its treachery to the confiding settlers in Kansas, its audacious establishment of a military despotism, its tolerance, if not encouragement, of fraud, outrage, robbery, and murder.

The attempt to discover from platform man- ifestoes the actual policy and intent of the Democratic party, is not always as easy as you might suppose. The Democratic leaders are accustomed to act on the motto of Louis XL, which has been the guiding rule of a good many rulers before and since the times of that monarch — that "he who knows not how to dissemble, knows not to govern." Arnold Douglus, it would seem, in stumping some anti- slavery district, represents himself as an anti- slavery statesman, but in the present campaign the universal agitation of the slavery question has led to frequent and frank avowals both at the Nortli and the South, by whose aid we may read with clearness the platform with which Mr. Buclianan is to square his conduct. One of the resolutions declares " that by the uniform application of the Democratic princi- ple to the organization of Territories and the admission of new States, with or witliout do- mestic slavery as they may elect, the equal rights of the States will be preserved in- tact."

We have already seen that they claim the right for slavery to overrun all the Territories, whether at the North or the South, and by their endorsement of Mr. Pierce's administra- tion they have approved the forcing of slavery upon a Territory by election frauds, by border violence, and a corrupt judiciary. Now let us see what they mean by " the equality of

States,^^ which they pledge themselves to ob- serve intact.

The Charleston Mercury thus defines it:

" If the North really entertains that affectionate regard for our property, of which it makes occasion- al professions— (/■ it is willing to place our system of political economy upon an equality with its oum, and allow the conditions of our form of society to be pushed to their logical results, then let us import our labor from such sources and in such quantities as pleases us. Let us HAVE THE Sla\'e Trade. "

But the mere re-opening of the African Slave Trade from Soutliern ports, revolting aa is the thought, does not embrace the full idea which begins to possess the Slave Power of the Equality of the States. It is argued, with a certain sort of plausibility, that if the Afri- can Trade is again legalized, every port on the coast would be in the s; ine degree open to it, for the reason that the Oonstitution provides that " no preference shall be given, by any regulation of commerce or revenue, to the ports of one State over another ;" and New York and Boston are looked to as the ports from which the slavers are to be fitted for the African coast, and from which they are to re- turn freighted with cargoes of despair.

As regards the general extension and estab- lishment of slavery, the aims of the Buchanan party are clear and definite.

The Richmond Enquirer.^ in an article, " The True Issue," says : —

" The Democrats of the South, in the present can- vass, cannot rely on the old grounds of defence and excuse for slavery— /or theij seek not merely to retain it where it is, but to extend it into regions where it is unknown. * * * We propose to introduce into new territory human beings whom we assert to be unfit for liberty, self-government, and equal associa- tion with other men. We must go a step further. We must show that African slavery is a moral, reli- gious, natural, and — probably in the general — a ne- cessary institution of society. This is the only line of argument that will enable Southern Democrats to maintain the doctrines of State equality, and slavery extension."

Of Kaxsas, the Squatter Sovereign says :—

"We are determined to repel this Northern inva- sion, and make Kansas a Slave State, though our rivers should be covered with the blood of their vic- tims, and the carcasses of the Abolitionists should be so numerous in the territory as to breed disease and sickness, we will not be deterred from our pur- pose."

Of Cuba, the design to annex it, is intimated in the last resolution of the Cincinnati plat- form, where it is declared that " the Demo- cratic party will expect of the next administra- tion, that every proper effort be made to ensure our ascendency in the Gulf of Mexico." And Mr. Keitt recently declared, in public, that Cuba would be taken, and that " the Demo- cratic party would take it."

14

" The proper efforts," to this end, wliich are expected of Mr. Buchanan, should he be elected to the Presidency, were disclosed by him, in advance, in the Ostend Manifesto. A price is to be offered to Spain for Cuba far beyond its present value ; when that has been refused, as it has been, and as in all probability it will be again, then the question is to be considered — " Does Cuba, in the possession of Spain, seriously endanger our peace and the existence of our cherished Union ? " " Should this question be answered in the affirmative, then^ hy every law, human and divine, we shall he justified in ioresting it from Spain, if we have THE power!"

This is the '"• proper method," approved by Mr. Iveitt, and which, in a certain contingency, he proposes to apply not only to the gem of Spain, but to tlie Treasury of the United States.

" the good old plan,

That they shall take who have the power, And they shall keep who can."

It was to the credit of Mr. Marcy that fliis proposal was repudiated, and its morality denied. But, if Mr. Buchanan shall become the President of the Republic, and his piratical doctrines, avowed at Ostend, become, as Mr. Keitt expects, a leading principle of his ad- ministration, we niay live to see our once gal- lant navy manned with lawless bucaneers, setting forth to seize Cuba — " if tliey have the power "— ^with the black flag of slavery and the death's head and cross-bones of the pirate flaunting defiance to the world, above the star- spangled banner of our country.

On the question of disunion, as on that of the Missouri Compromise, the fact that the candidate of the Democratic party is " no longer James Buchanan," is evidemt, when we recall his former sentiments on the subject, and compare them with that of the platform which he has now adopted as "his guide, phi- losopher, and ft-iend." "Disunion," said Mr. James Buchanan, " is a word which ought not to be breathed even in a whisper. The word ought to be considered one of direful omen, and our children taught tliat it is sacrilege to pronounce it."

Mr. A. G. Brown, one of the committee who announced the Cincinnati nomination to Mr. Buchanan, in anticipating the possible success of the Republican party, said, in a recent speech, "If, indeed, it has come to this, that the Union is to be used for these accursed pur- poses, then, sir, by the God of my fathers, I am against the Union ; and, so help me Hea- ven, 1 will dedicate the remainder of my life to its dissolution."

Mr. Keitt frankly avows that he " has leen a disunionist since he began to think."

The Richmond Enquirer declares, after enu- merating the preparations of Virginia for war ;

"Virginia makes no boast of these preparations, but, sure as the sun shines over her beautiful fields, she will treat the election of an abolitionist candidate as a breach of the treaty of 1789, and a release of evei-y sovereign State in the South from all part and lot in its stipulations."

The Southern Democracy are aware, in the language of the Nashville Banner, that if the Republican party succeeds, they " can have no more fortunate wars — no more judicious pur- chases of territory — no more annexing of in- dependent States on the southern border."

They are using every effort to secure Kansas and our other territories; with Cuba, Nicara- gua, and a part or the whole of Mexico, as also Southern California, with the view of forming an independent Southern Empire. The thought of disunion, to some of them, is an ever-present thought. The South Caro- linian declares that "the success of Buchanan might stave off the dissolution of the Union for a time, but that the event is inevitable."

Another South Carolina paper esultingly declares that " the Southern skies are looking bright, and all the auguries foretell Southern union. Southern independence, and the coming greatness of a Southern Republic."

" Disunion," a word that Mr. Buchanan would not have spoken in a whisper, the can- didate of tlie Democratic party hears shouted exultingly in crowds ; and he has added fuel to the treasonable flames that his partisans are kindhng in the South, by unjustly intimating that tlie people of the North are "intermed- dling" with the domestic concerns of the South when they resist pro-slavery aggression upon rights secured to them by compact.

I have detained you too long upon the Cin- cinnati platform, and we will pass from Mr. Buchanan, slavery extension, piracy, and dis- union, to

the ameeican party aotj theie candidate, mr. fillmore.

The American party and its candidate have, as I am advised, many supporters in this town, and some, ]ierhaps, in this assembly. I will assume, as I tliink I have a right to do, that being Westchester men, they are opposed to treachery and to traitors — that they are in favor of Kansas being free, of equal justice to the Free States, and of a stop being put to those aggressions of the slave power, which, in the violation of the Missouri compact, and the results that followed it, have so wantonly disturbed our national repose and our national harmony. Assuming these to be their sFnti-> ments and this their object, let me ask Liivra whether Mr. Fillmore is the man to accom-

15

plish their objects; and, furllier, if Mr. Fillmore lias even a probable cliance of being elected ; for, as practical men, if be cannot be elected, they will hardly desire to throw aw^y their votes, and lose their influence in determining this tremendous issue.

The j)latforin of the American (sometimes called the Know-iSTothing) party practically ignores the one great issue now agitating the country ; and, as regards the rights of Kansas on the one band, and the schemes for j)ro- slavery extension on tlie other, iireserves so significant a silence and so positive a neutral- ity, that those entertaining the most opposite opinions on the-e points are expected to meet in liarmony and elect a President upon the ground of proposed reforms in the naturaliza- tion of aliens, witli neitlier pledges nor princi- ples on the one question of the day. The Northern members of tlie National Conven- tion at which the platform was adopted, offered a resolution to the effect ''thac we will nomi- nate no candidate for Pre.-ideut or Vice-Presi- dent who is not in favor of interdicting the introduction of slavery north of 86° 80'." The resolution was laid on the table, by a vote of yeas 141 to nays 52 ; and Mr. Fillmore was nominated on this neutral platform, wbieii offers no opposition whatsoever to the exten- sion of slavery. Mr. Fillmore liimself stands before the country, a perfect cipher on the question of Kansa:>, whose wrongs have elicit- ed from him neither sympathy nor rebuke.

Mr._ Fillmore, however, has referred his fel- bw-citizens to his past career as the guarantee of the course he will pursue if elected to tlie Presidency. Taking him at his word, let us see how far that career entitles him to the confidence of the country.*

Mr. Fillmore has been in public life since 1829. He was a member of the Ilou.se of Eepresentatives from 1837 to 1843, a period of slavery agitation ; and he then voted, with persistent firmness, on the side of freedom, •with the late venerable Jonx QmscY Adams, and that staunch champion of the right — now the senior member of the House, whom may God long preserve ! — JosnuA E. Giddings. In 1838, Mr. Fillmore, in response to a committee of the Anti-Slavery Society of the County of Erie, declared himself "opposed to the annex- ation of Texas to the tJnion under any circum- stances, so long as slaves are held therein ;" and ''in favor of Congress exerting all the constitutional power it possesses to abolish the internal slave-trade between the States ;" and "in favor, also, of immediate legislation for the abolition of slavery in the District of Co- lumbia"—going, you will observe, far beyond

* The facts here stated are chiefly taken from a speech of the Hon. E. B. Morgan, of New-York, in the House of Rep- resentatiyes.

the very restricted anti-slavery platform of the Eepublican party.

During the same year, 1848, Gen. Taylor, a Southern man and a slaveholder, was nomina- ted for tlje Presidency by the whig party, and Mr. Fillmore was nominated on the' same ticket for the Vice-Presidency, with the view of conciliating the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, and reconciling Northern voters to tlie support of Gen. Taylor. The ticket was successful by a liandson)e majority, receiving 163 electoral votes.

The term of General Taylor's Presidency, as you remember, was a brief one. The gallant old man v.'ho had survived the jjerils and ex- poj.ui-e of the camp, was not proof a<];ainst the wearing importunities incident to his new po- sition. He had escaped the tomaljaivk of the Indian on our borders, and the rifles of tlie Mexicans at Monterey and Buena Vista, but he succumbed before the army of ofiic^seek- era that besieged him in the capitol, and the unaccustomed cares of the Presidential office. But to his eternal credit be it remembered, that slaveholder as he was, he never permit- ted himself to be the representative of a sec- tion, or the tool of a biction, but lived and died the faithful executive of the whole peo pie.

Gen. Taylor died on the 9th day of July, 1850, and Millard Fillmore became acting President of the United Slates.

And now I ask your attention to a remark- able development in regard to Mr. Fillmore's administration, made sometime since by tije Hon. Henry S. Foote, at that time a Senator from Mississippi, and prominent leader of the Southern wing of the Democratic party. Mr. Foote's name, you may perhaps remember, as having obtained for a while some little noto- riety, from au invitation which he gave on the floor of the Senate to the Hon. John P. Hale, of New-Hampshire— the true-hearted and eloquent representative of the Granite State — to visit him in Mississippi, accompa- nying the invitation with an assurance that he should be hung on the first convenient tree, and that Mr. Foote would, with great pleasure, assist in the operation. Before Mr. Hale had fmind it consistent with his senatorial duties to accept this cordial tender of Southern hos- pitality, Mr. Foote emigrated to California, which he perhajjs regarded as a favorable si)ot for the exercise of his benevolence, in exten- ding to others the courtesies which Mr. Hale de- clined. Before his departure from Wa.shing- ton, he addressed a i)arting speech to a meet- ing of several hundred persons Convened at the National Hotel, including many members of Congress, and in the course of it he said that he " would tell a little history nevkr be- fore DIVULGED," and after recapitulating the points in one of his speeches, in the Senate, in

16

which he had denounced Gen. Taylor for no- minating for office in the Northern States gentlemen known or suspected of holding free soil sentiments, he proceeded :—

" I had not long taken my seat before Mr. Badger, of North Carolina, one of the purest and most patri- otic men that ever occupied a place in the national council, came to me and stated that Vice-President Fillmore, the then presiding officer of the Senate, had requested him to make known to me that he perfectly concurred in the views which I had just ex- pressed,and that he would be pleased to have an inter- view with me on the subject in the official rooms of the Capitol, at the hour of nine o'clock the next morning. I promised to attend upon him at the time and place specified. I did so.

'"^" Without going into particulars, at present, it is sufficient for me to say, that I obtained by the direc- tion of Mr. Fillmore from the hands of an accredited friend of his, a list of the nominees subject to the objection of being agitators on the question of sla- very. This whole catalogue of worthies loas disposed of in the Senate, in other words, they were sacrificed to the peace of the country ; save one or two, whose nominations remained to be acted upon on the last night of the session of Congress. They were dis- posed of by Mr. Fillmore himself, on the same night ; for just before the clock struck twelve, this gentle- man being then President, sent in a special message, withdrawing all the offensive nominations, and substi- tuting others in their stead.

Mr. Foote, in conclusion, pronounced an eulogium upon Mr. Fillmore, ''as a true pa- triot, who had never^ during his administra- tion, nominated a Free-Soiler.''^

The disclosure of this remarkable secret his- tory not only throws liglit upon the character of Mr. Fillmore, and answers the question, what pledges for iiis future fideliry to his new party and to the whole country, is atforded by his past career, but it elucidates another question that is occasionally asked, and which the future historian will have to answer: "Who killed the Whig party?" Mr. Foote saw that party in its prosperity, and he saw it die. Its requiem has been tolled, and its mourners yet go about our streets. Mr. Foote has ^^ divulged'''' the secret events that preceded its dissolution. He helped Mr. Fill- more to give the blow that prostrated it in the North, and his friends could testify that they caught its blood. The breach of confi' dence involved in his disclosure of State se- crets, compromising one who had confided in him, does not necessarily affect the credibility of tbe witness. The disclosures correspond with the known facts. They were made in the presence of many members of Congress, and they have never, that I am aware, been contradicted. Mr. Fillmore was undoubtedly unfortunate in las choice of a confidant in the scheme he adopted for defeating his old asso- ciates, and sacrificing the Whigs of the North to please the Democrats of the South. He should have remembered that there are men, as Junius said of Weddeburn, " whom even

treachery cannot trust." But wheQ yoU re- member the utter rout of the Whig party in 1852, when Gen. Scott obtained but 42 electoral votes, and Pierce 25-i, and recall its subsequent dissolution almost without a struggle, — to the question, who killed the Whig party ? what name, I ask you frankly, is better entitled to the credit than that of Millard Fillmore?

Recurrmg again to the subject of disunion^ let us ask how does Mr. Fillmore stand on this great question of constitutional right and duty? He stands with Brooks, and Keitt, and Buchanan, and Wise, and Forsyth, and Slidell, and a host of lesser demagogues, who are striving to arouse a sectional disunion spirit, declaring that '*if Fremont is elected, the Union cannot and ought not to be preserved." He openly justifies disunion on the part of the North or South, if a constitutional majority of the country establishes a policy distasteful to the minority of either side.

1 know that this assertion has been denied — ■ that Mr. Botts, of Virginia, who is bearding the lion of disunion in its den, recently declared that if Mr. Fdlraore had uttered a sentiment favoring disunion, he would not vote for him. Now look at the record, and see iiow, with an inexplicable want of delicacy in view of his position as a candidate, he predicts and couu" sels resistance if he is defeated, and his oppo- nent, Mr. Fremont, is elected. At Albany, on the 26th of June, 1856, Mr. Fillmore, in a public speech, declared that " We now saw a political party presenting candidates elected fot the first time from the Free States alone.'''' Tills was an extraordinary misstatement, and one that Mr. Fillmore had no right to make, for he was bound to know that in 1828, the candidates of the Wing party were John Quin* cy Adams, of Massachusetts, for President, and Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, for Vice Presi- dent; and having perpetrated this gross iiistor- ical blunder, he proceeds to found a false assumption on his erroneous premises.

" Can it be possible that those who are engaged in such a measure can have seriously reflected upon the consequences which must inevitably follow, in case of success? [Cheers.] Can they have the madness or the folly to believe that our Southern brethren would submit to be governed by such a Chief Magis- trate ? [Cheers.] Suppose that the South having a majority of the electoral votes, should declare that they would only have slaveholders for President and Vice-President ; and should elect such by their exclu- sive suffrages to rule over us at the North ? do you think we would submit to it ? No, not for a moment. [Applause.] And do you believe that your Southern brethren are less sensitive on this subject than you are, or less jealous of their rights ? "

That the sentiments here expressed were not hastily conceived or carelessly uttered is shown by the fact that they were deliberately re-de- clared at Rochester, and taking the record of

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his own speeches, published by bis friends, it is clear that no Southern secessionist has gone farther, and scarcely a Northern man has ever before gone so far.

Gentlemen, Mr. Fillmore has, I think, done injustice to the People of tiie North, in decl.ir- ing that we would not submit in the contin- gency lie supposes. He should have remem- bered tliat tiie loyalty of the Nortli continued unshaken during all his complicity, as Presi- dent of the United States an<i Chief of the Whig party, witii the slavelioldinir Demncraoy of the Southern section. It endured patiently when he signed the Fugitive law, so revolting to our feelings, and wlien he issued his procla- mation and called out the army to assist in catching slaves in Boston.

No! the Nortii recognize no such doctrine; they hold to the views expressed by the first Chief Justice, in 1801, in a letter to the Free- h(dders of New York, in which, referring to the recent election for President, in the several States, he said:

'• They place us in a new situation, and render it proper for us to consider what our conduct under it should be. I take the liberty, therefore, of suggest- ing whether the patriotic principles on which we pro- fess to act do not call upon us to give (as far as may depend upon us) fair and full effect to the known sense and intention of a majority of the people in every constitutional exercise of their will, and to sup- port every administration of the government of the conntry which may prove to be intelligent and up- right, of whatever party the persons composing it may be."

One other point in regard to Mr. Fillmore as a Presidential candidate. Is it not evident th:it he cannot be elected? He is being deserted both at the North and the South. The Hon. Ephraim Marsh, President of the National Convention by which lie was nomi- nated, has i)ul)lisiied a very able letter, with his reasons for declining any longer to supfxirt him. Mr. Marsh says that Mr. Fillmore's nomination was demanded by the Southern members, and that in that deuiand, American- ism was i)ut a secondary object to slavery ; th it the Nortli having yielded, ihe slave States now find that Fillmore is less popular than they iiad believed witii the North, and accor- dingly tiiey are breaking faith with thjr N'irihern associates, and, repiuliating their nominee, are g'>ing over to Bucha>ian. Mr. Marsh sensibly asks whether the North is to adhere to a iu)mination made at the demand of the South, reluctauily acquiesced in by the North, and now repudiated by tiie South, and lie answers as I think j-ou will answer — no. Senator Geyer, ()f Missouri, who has gone over to Buchanan, declares that lie is "satis- fied that the contest is between Mi-. Buchanan aJid Mr. Fremont ; that Mr. Fillmore cannot tM)ssibly obtaiu more than five Slates; and it 2

is by no means certain that he can carry a single one."

Senator Brown, of Mis.«issippi, savs that there is scarcely a struggle between Fillmore and Buchanan. "Mr. Fillmore has not the ghost of a chance. * * * If Buchanan is not elected, Fremont will be."

A Charleston pa[)er, taking the same view of the matter, says that Mr. Fillmore is fight- ing his own and Buchanan's battle; and Gov- ernor Floyd's recent declaration in New York, that there were bonds of union between the American and Democratic parties, accurds with sundry other indications that the Fill- more ticket is kept in tlie field mainly to dis- tract tlie Republican vote, and to insure the success of the slavery candidate.

To vote for Fillmore, then, is to vote for a Southern candidate, whom the South reject — who does not represent the views and feelings of the North, wlii'Se election is all but hope- less, and every vote for whom, by a voter op- posed to the extension of slavery and the establishment of piracy, is, in reality, a vote for Buchanan — a vote for the Cincinnati plat- form and for ttie candidate of the Romish church. To every member of the American party, who, under this state of things, intends to vote for Mr. Fillmore, tnay be appropriately addres-ed, with slight alteration, the words of Pope Paul to the Duke of Guise when leaving Italy: — '-Go, then, and take with you the satisfaction of having done little for your party, less for your country, and nothing for your own honor."

There have been recent rumors of a plan among the Fillmore and Buchanan leaders to trade otf the votes of the respective parties in support of a Union ticket, to compass the defeat of Fi'emont — so that Democrats, fo- reigners, and Rnmauists, shall be made to elect candidates pledged to Know Nothingisni and Protestantism; and those who Indd to the principles of tiie American party shall assist to elect the opponents of their views, and the reviiers of tiieir principles and motives. I think that those wlio suppose the people can be bought and sold at the pleasure of their leader-, will soon find their mistake. Burke, in an extraordinary figure, that a lesser orator would not have dared to use, described the ill-assorted members of Lord Chatham's cabi- net as '• pig'.nng toiretlier in the same truckle- bed." And hei'e it is proposed to drive tlie Fillmoreites ami Buccaneers, North and South, info one pen, and make them vote as they are bidden. The politicians who have suggested I ills ingenious device, may have found it aa easv tiling lo buy over a convention, or to coiruiit a Congress, but they may learn, as Lord North and tiie Tories learnt, before them, that it is alike useless and dangerous to trifle

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with the honesty of the masses, or to resist the will of an united people.

THE EEPtJBLIOAN PARTY AND ITS LEADER.

It is pleasant, gentlemen, to turn from these schemes for slavery extension, tu glance at the Kepnblican party, that has sprung into exist- ence, like the armed Minerva, from the brain of Jove — beautiful in its proportions, and ter- rible in its strength — with the principles of Washington and the Fathers for its chart, and " tlie pathfinder of empire" to bear aloft its standard.

The platform of the Republicans, as adopted at Philadelphia on the 18th of June, 1856, is at once so simple and comprehensive as to admit all Americans, who are in favor of re- storing the Government to the principles of "Wasliington, and putting a final stop to the ex- tension of slavery, witlioiit compromising their individual preferences, on the other political questions which naturally exist in our govern- ment, but which are, for the time, oversha- dovved by this paramount issue.

Tlie Republican party holds that an adher- ence to the princi[)les of the Fathers, and tlie Declaration of Independence — which the sham democracy of the day ridicules as a tissue of glittering sounding eeneraliiies — is essential to the preservation of our Republican institu- tions, of the Federal Constitution, of the riglits of the people, and the union of the States. It denies tlie authority of Congress, or of any territorial leyislature, or of any association of individuals, to establish slavery in the terri- tories, and claims that it is the right and the duty of Congress to proliibit, in the territories, those twin relics of barbarism — slavery and polygamy. It arraigns the Pierce administra- tion before the country and the world for the crimes it has instigated and per()etrated against Kansas. It declares that Kansas should be admitted as a free State, with its present Free Stale Constitution ; and, having thus declared its j.olicy at home, it denounces the hitrhway- man's plea, that might n)akes right, as declared in the Ostend circular, as unworthy of Ameri- can diplomacy.

Is tiiere a single point in that platform to whicli you cannot heartily subscribe? Do you find there anything that conflicts with the rights of tlie South, with the duties of the North, or with the proper harmony of the Union ? For myself, I believe that the triumph of tiiese principles — making it a fixed fact for all coming time, that slavery shall not be extended beyond its present limits — can alone quiet tlie country, and secure the stabil- ity and repose of the Republic. If the strug- gle is not now ended, it will undoubtedly con- tinue. The election of Buchanan, and the

triumph of slavery, would be not a settlement, but only a postponement of the question.

Such are the principles of the Republicans, which they have not invented in Cincinnati, nor imported from Ostend, but which they find in the writings of the Fathers of the Republic, and in the Constitution, that they ordained for the establishment of liberty and justice. Such is the platform — now for the candidate.

With the history of Fremont, every reading American is familiar. Before he was thirty years old, he had explored the basin of the upper Mississippi, and the passes of the Rocky Mountains, from the frontier of Missouri to the shores of the Pacific. He had fixed the locality and character of the pass through which thousands are pressing to California; had defined the geography and geology of the country, and designated the points from which the flag of the Union now waves from a chain of fortresses in the wilderness. His report, printed by the Senate, was translated into for- eign languages, and his name was enrolled by the savans of Europe am(*ng the great geogra- phers of the world.

Before the age of thirty -five, he had become, in the language of Mr. Buchanan, "'the Con- queror of California," and had assisted to erect that territory into a Free State. At thirty- seven, he was elected, by its legislature, to the Senate of the United States, where he faith- fully maintained lier rights and advanced her interests;* and now, at the age of forty-three, he is the candidate, less of a convention than of the people — tlie chosen candidate of free- dom, for the highest office in the people's gift.

Since his nominaiion, slander has been busy with his name, and invention has been tor- tured to create distrust in his integrity. But go back a little, to a time when he stood in the way of no political aspirants ; search the records of Congress, and you will find the highest testimony to the ability, prudence, and integrity of Fremont, from many of those who are now in the ratiks of his opponents. Not inly from Mr. Buchanan, and from Calhoun, but from Badger, of North Carolina, Clay- ton, of Delaware, Mason, of Virginia, Crit- tenden, of Kentucky, Cass, of Michigan, But- ler, of South Carolina, Dix, of New-York, Atchison, of Missouri, Rusk, Bagby, and Benton.

Lot me quote to you the opinion entertained of Fremont by one of the oldest statesmen

* The California Chronicle says that " durinj; Fremont's brief service in the U. S. Senate, he introductd and advo» cated 17 i>ost-routes, and 18 nther bills for the benefit of California ; a bill for the Pacific wagon-road, and opposed proposition.s to tax mining claims: advocated free labor; and if he had cuntinued at his post, California would this day be further advanced in all the essentials of State pros- perity, than twenty years of Gwin and Weller, with all their political machinery, could bring about."

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of the country, the Honorable and venerable JosiAH QuixcY, who, from liis retirement, ad- dresses words ("f counsel to liis fellow-conntry- men : "I believe iiim," says Mr. Qiiincy, "to be a m:in as nuich marked out by Providence for the present exigency of our nation, as Waslnngton was for that of our American Revolution. He comes from whence great. men usually come, from the nuiss of the i)eo- ple — nursed in difficulties, practiced in sur- mounting them; wise in counsel, full of re- source, self-])o-;sessed in dang t ; fearless, and foremost in every useful enterprise; unexcep- tionable in murals, witii nn intellect elevated by nature and cultivated in laborious fields of duty — I trnst he is destined to save tiiis Union from dissolution, to restore the Constitution to its original purity, and to relieve that in- strument wldch Washington designed for the preservation and enlargement ot freedom, tnun being any longer perverted to the multiplica- tion of Slave States and the extension of slavery."

Such has been the general conviction of his merits and his popularity throiigiiout the country, that there are reasons fur supposing that if it had not heen for his persistent oppo- Fiiion to the repeal of the Missouri Compro- mise, he might have been selecte<l by Gover- nor Fl'iyd and his friends, as the Presidential candidate of the Democratic party.

It is better as it is. He occupies his true position at the iiead of the par'y of constitu- tional freednm, resisting tlie violation of com- pacts, iind the extension of slavery.

The hour for a change lias come, and with the liour appears the man. The country de- mands a change not only of policy but of rulers.

We want no longer men who have made politics a trade — who have grown gray in party traces — who in the pursuit of office have veered from Federalism to Democracy, from Democracy to Slavery Mud Buccaneering, and who now merge principles and ideality in tlie Cincinnati Platform; — nor do we want one who has plunged from abolitioniMU into slave-catching, and from slave-catching by a natural transition, I cannot call it a descent, into sectionalism, and disunionism — viewing tlie while wiih cold inditference the sacri- fice of freedom and the wrongs of Kansas. Our people demand one whose heart beats responsive to their own — who unites the gen- erous enthusiasm of youth, with the matured vigor and wisdom of maidiood.

They need one who ))as given a guarantee in the |iast for his career in the future — one whose identity and individuality is stamped upon his life — who fears not to avow in out- bpoken words, his manly principles, and who would scorn to become the padlocked plank of a platform, or the pliant puppet of a parly.

The day approaches when yon are to do your part towards determining the questioa of Amekioa fhee, or America slave. One of the famous laws promulgated by Solon for the governance of the Athenians, declared dishonored and disfranclnsed every citizen who in a civil sedition stood aloof and took part witli neither side. Here, gentlemen, the very government is in rebellion against the Constitution and the people, and Kansas looks to you to free her from its tyraimic grasp. Remember the dignity of your position — pon- der the importance of your vote. Upon the I ballots cast in your quiet village may depend ' the future of the Republic — the destiny of the I continent.

j The issue is the broad one of Freedom and Slavery. All other issues are for the time I absorbed in this, and personal animosities ' and prejudices should disappear before a com- mon danger, as in the early days of the Re- public. Shall our constitutional liberties be pre- I served ? Shall the mission of the country be ac- complished ? Shall pea<"e and freedom shower I tlieir blessimrs over our Western territories ? or shall club-law rule at Washington ? Shall j honorable murderers stalk unpunished in the [capital? Shall a military despotism trample the life-blood from our territories, and an ar- rogant oligarchy of slave masters rule as with the plantation-whip, twenty millions of Amer- ican citizens?

That is the issue. It concerns not otdy the North, but the South, where an immense ma- jority of non-slaveholders are now shorn of their rights by the exacting influence of slavery. Ours is no sectional party. It is bounded by no geographic lines. We believe with Buike, that virtue <loes not depetid on climate or degrees. We fight not against a section, l)ut a class; not against a peojde, but a system. Our leader is one whom the Soutii has de- lighted to h(mor, and it should not be forgotten riiat to South Carolina, that gave birth to a, Brooks, whom the House of Representatives spurned as the assassin-like assailant of Charles Sumner — to the same South Carolina belongs the credit of having reared Fkemoxt, whom, by God's blessing, we hope to install as the constitu- tional defender of the liberties of the country. Our opponents would liave us believe that, instead of "Fremont and victory," we are on tiie verge of a defeat. VVtiether victory or defuat await us, duty is ours, conse(piences are God's; and I have long regarded the battle for free<lom in America as one that we are to wage steadfastly, if not hopefully, while life la^ts, preserving untarnished the weapons of our fathers, and bequeathing therri, unrusted, to our sons. Stand by the principles of th© Declaration of Iinlependence, whose irresist- ible point and divine temper converted rebeW lion into I'evolutiou — contend, as your fathers

20

contended for " the eights of human na- ture."

Notliing, it is said, can be more uncer- tain than the near future of American poli- tics. Men's judgments in sucli ca~es, are natu- rally biased by t'leir wislie*, and intinenced, perhaps, Tnore or less, by the predominancy of one parry or anotiier in their own neigh- borhood. The New Orleans Delta^ reviewing from that far corner the whole country, de- clares tliat parry leaders, engaged wiih the loaves and fi>hes, liave culpably kept tliem in ignorance of tlie real strengrh of rhe Republi- can party, wliich, it says, tijreatens to swallow up every otiier in the North as the rod of Moses swallowed up those of the Egyptians. It admits that the Republican party has in- creased, is increasing, and is not likely to be diminislied, a fact, that, it remarks has just spoken with 8,000 voices in Iowa. 15,000 in Vermont, and 20,000 in Maine, with Bl lif, a Freinonter, from a Slave S;ate, and that these, as signs of the times, po.ssess the utmost signi- ficMnce. It reminds its readers that like causes produce like etfects, and it anticipates a similar result in all of the Free States.

Tiiere are two disturbing causes that may prevent this result: one, the deception that lias been practi-ed by the Democratic leaders in some of the States in pretending to be op posed to tlie exten&ion of slavery, and the belief which they have been siicees-fiil in pro- pagating, that the rights involved in the Mis- souri Compromise have been delinitely dis|)o- sed ot by its repeal, whereas it is the very question, in an intensified form, that is now di- rectly i)Ut hy rhe people of Kansas to the peo- ple of the United States.

It is no longer, shall slavery be permitted to pass tlie line of 30^ 30' quietly and under the sanction of" popular sovereignty ?"' bat, shall it be permitted to pass that line by the aid of fraudulent elections, a lawless executive and a corru|jt judiciary, by the connivance of tlie Federal Government and the power of the Federal arm, trampling upon the Cuisiitntion of the United States, the sovereignty of Kan- sa.s, and the rights and liberties i>t its people ?

The blood already spilt in consequeiKie of the repeal of the Missouri compact, drips from the hands of every man who aided that breach of faith. But be who now votes for either

Buchanan, who endorses, or for Fillmore, who by his silence approves, the encroachment of slavery upon Kansas, not only incurs, with the original repealer of the compact, the ancient ' curse, •' Cursed be he that removeth his veigh- bor's landmark. And all the people shall say^ AMEN"," but he assumes the responsibility of all the blood that is destined to water the plains of Kansas, if the slave power is now supported in ts attempt to force slavery upon that consecrated soil.

The other disturbing cause is the power of money in the hands of men whose prin- ciples allow them to approve the election frauds perpetrated in Kansas, and who may he ready to rejieat the experiment nearer home. With a certain class of politicians, the importation of illcL'al votes and other frauds upon the purity of elections, seem to be regarded as venial offences, if not acriially en- titling them to the gratitude of their party, when, in truth, no act of treason can strike more directly at the sovei'eignty of the people, and the stahility of the Republic.

Looking at our future prospects, it is to be remembered that the people of the slave States also are awakening to a knowledge of their strength ami a remembrance of their right and truest interest. Not only Missouri, but Virginia too, are jjreparing to throw off the in- solent domination of the slave power, and the manly spiiit shown by Prof. Hedrick, of South C.irol'ina, in avowing his principles, and prefer- ence for Fremont, is an indication tfiat theReign of Terror, which banishes booksellers, silences presses, and gaus all expression of anti-slavery sentiment, will soiui suffer interruption.

Tyranny and treachery, though they may prosper for awhile, irresistibly sow the seeds of their own destruction, and if we are but true to ourselves, true to the principles of our fathers, true to the historic associations that cluster about our soil, lot us trust that we shall soon restore freedom to Kansas and quiet to the Union, and let us resolve and re-resolve never to falter in our course until we have placed the Feder.d Government on the side of Freedom, and re-inaugnrated that olden p.ilic> of Wa-hington and Jefferson, by which they ordained that throughout the vvide extent of our Western Territories "the sun shouldnot rise upon a master, nor set upon a slave."

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