American free, or America slave. An address on the state of the country

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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-

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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

17

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

18

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."

19

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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