The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-09 00:00:00

gress, and there it will be battled by you. Then com es tbe
issue about December, 1857, upon the admission of
Kansas into the Union before the next Congress. I
would that I had a trumpet voice to proclaim to every
man in this land that the man he votes for as represen-
tative in the house in the fall of 1856 will be the man
who must choose between the Free State constitution,
adopted at Topeka, and between the Slave State consti-
tution which will be adopted somewhere else. (Ap-
plause.) I want this country to see that this issue will
come, and I want every man to fix his eye upon this
event which is coming, and, just as certainly as the sure
will rise to-morrow, I want him to see the time and the
place where it will come. I want him to be faithful to
his duty to the premises, and to see that when it comes
it will be properly met. (Applause.) When that does
come, every man, every member of Congress, and every
political party in the Union, must meet that issue, and
must take ground in favour of the admission of Kansas
as a Free State under the Topeka constitution, or its
admission under a Slave State constitution. Here let
me say that I differ from some of my friends in regard
to Toombs' bill, passed by fie United States' Senate..
I was not unwilling that that bill should pass the Howie
as it did the Senate, with one alteration, which it is rot
necessary for me now to mention. Not that I differ
from my friends as to its effect, for I believed then, as I
believe now, that it would bring a Slave State constitu-
tion to the Halls of Congress. I believed that a Slate
State constitution would come there any how, and, find-
ing it wa3not coming by Douglas's and Toombs's bill,
I knew it would be brought about by the coming elec-
tions. When this issue comes in December, 1857, you

will find some men going for a Slave State constitution,
and you will find a set of men, half-way men, who will
be seeking places of refuge between the two sides of the
question, who will want to set those constitutions aside
and adopt some measure which will require the people
of the territory to vote upon that question again. I was
in hopes that experiment would be tried now, that the
question would be out of the way, and by December,
1857, that bill would come back in the way which
we predicted, and bring this issue square out before
the American people—before every man in office. I have
nothing further to say on that question. Now, to return
to the subject of this country in the selection of their re-
presentatives in the Lower House of Congress. They
must be selected with a view to the question which they
will inevitably have to vote upon. I have shown you
that this work is almost consummated, and so far as I
have followed it in its political aspects, passing over for
the time the condition of the people of the territory, it is
for you to look on and see the two remaining acts in this
drama, for it is almost completed. I undertake to pre-
dict here, and do so fearlessly, that you will see the
election carried in October by an invasion from Missouri
—you will see the delegates adopt a pro-slavery constitu-
tion, and it will go to the halls of Congress. Watch the
result, and you will find these predictions verified, and it
is for you to shape your course with reference to them.
Will this state of things affect Kansas alone ? Let any
man in the audience take the map of his cousitry, and he
will perceive that the territory of Kansas is only 200
miles wide north and south, and extending nearly 900
miles to the summit of the Rocky Mountains ; but be-
yond that, to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, he will
find that there is territory enough to make six states as
large as Pennsylvania. With a majority of free men upon
the plains of Kansas, and it a slave State, I will thank any
man to tell me how he is going to save the second, the
third, or the fourth, each ora3 further and further out of
your reach—each one with more slave states intervening.
Is the thing possible ? Is it not obviously palpable that if
we lose the State of Kansas we lose that entire body of
states at the Pacific Ocean, and when we have lost them
and have thus isolated the territory of New Mexico which
lies below, and left it to be carried by the slave states on
the north, will any reflecting man tell me how much of the
territory of New Mexico we will get? Will he tell me how
this is to be had I Will he tell me that sufficient numbers
can be got there through the slave states to prevail
against the violence and the force of the slave states that
will be brought to subdue it! No, they will all be lost,
and this entire territory will be handed over to slavery.
This half of a continent is all lost to the North and to
freedom. This is a momentous question in many re-
spects. Let me direct your attention to a few of them,
These Northern States may be likened to a tub under a
fountain, all the time boiling over with a surplus popu-
lation, and streaming over the vast West and hunting
homes in that fair territory—a constant stream of sur-
plus population running west ward like avast river, which,
were it concentrated, would build up a new State every
five or six years. Will any man deny that slave labour
and free white labour cannot exist together? It is a pro-
position admitted by everbody that where one is the other
cannot be. Well, then, suppose you dedicate one-half of
this continent to negro and to slave labour, you shut off
this enlare stream of northern emigration—you shut the
gates of the whole vast West, Kansas, Deseret, and New
Mexico to the North, and turn back this human tide to
throw itself upon the States of the north and the north-
west. If you deny this great territory to the free la-
bouring man, you see that to him the gates shall be
closed for ever, and all of it dedicated to the negro, and
not to the white man. Have the labouring men of the
North considered the import of this question to them—
the drayman, the hodman, the mechanic, the day la-
bourer / Every man who earns his bread by the sweat
of his brow, or who by• the changes of fortune may be
compelled to do so—every man who expects to leave a
posterity to find homes in this country, has a deep in-
terest in it. Let us illustrate this by the North-West
territory. Suppose these things had occurred 20 years
ago instead of now. Suppose the gate of that territory
had been shut against free white emigration, and all that
great territory had been dedicated to negroes • suppose
the white labourers had been shut away, and the millions
who now swarm over the West were all turned back
upon these, what would be the fate of the labourer I
This is not a matter to dispute about ; it has been demon-
strated in Ireland and in China, and the result will be the
same here and everywhere. When you refuse to let the
free white labourers of the country go West to make
themselves a home, and lay the foundation of homes for
their children, you refuse to let them better their own
condition or the condition of those they leave behind.
Our labourers go West, and thus the walks of labour at 1
home are prevented from the surplus which reduces to
starvation. But suppose you throw back this vast tide '
of emigration, and refuse to let the free labourers occupy
this soil, what then can they hope I All the walks of
labour at home are filled and filled again, until they are
choked up ; the wages of the labourer decrease in pro-
portion, until at last the immense mass of honest labour
becomes one vast body of degradation, poverty, ignor-
ance, and crime. (' That's true.') This is not proble-
matical. It has been clearly demonstrated in the history
of the world again and again. Look at Ireland, where a
few years ago the walks of labour were choked up, and
the supply was greater than the demand, till an able-
bodied, intelligent man could earn barely enough to keep
body and soul together, and 51. or 61. was the price for
a year's labour. What was the cause ? Just precisely
what it would be in this case I have supposed. The
supply choked the demand till the price of labour was
reduced to almost nothing. (A. Voice—' Ton cents,
Jimmy.' Laughter.) Ido not hear the remarks of my
friend. (' Ten cents. a day.' Renewed laughter and ap-
plause.) Si. or 61. for the labour cf an intelligent, able-
bodied man for a year—and you see the cause in the sys-
tem of Ireland. You have seen also its remedy, and that
is precisely the remedy I would apply here—emigration.
Ireland became flooded with a surplus of labourers.
Labour became subservient to capital, and the la-
bourer almost the slave, and the capitalist almost
his master. Ireland poured out its exodus of la-
bourers ; and now behold the labouring men of that
country earning the comforts and even the luxuries of
life, and you sea the effects of the depletion of over-
burdened ranks of labour. Go to China. This system
has been in operation there ; and again the truth
of this position has been demonstrated. There
has been no emigration—no seeking of new homes—
no interest of the soil ; and the people, denied the emi-
gration, have been filling up and thickening year by
year, until they have become, as I have already re-
marked, one mass of degradation, poverty, ignorance,
and crime ; and now depletion at length takes place,
by selling them as slaves to the West Indies and this
continent. Is there any man in the North who wishes
to see this state of things here I Are we ready to de-
dicate all that vast territory to the negro ? If it were
to be dedicated to the profitable labour of the negro,
that would be bad enough ; but it is to be given to the
South to be wasted ; for there is not a Slave State
that is half full, but the soil is wasted and abused.
My time does not allow me to enter into any elaborate
consideration of this question, but it is replete with
interest to every man who loves his country and has
his hopes invested in its future, It is a question be-
tween the labouring men of the North and the negroes
of the South. The free labouring man of the North
should know that the people of Kansas are fighting
his battles, and fighting to settle the question whether
he shall have a right to go there and build a home
for himself mad children. (Great applause.) It
is, in fact and in truth, a question between
white men and negroes, and nothing less.
* * * * * *

Suppose these territories fall into the hands of the
South, and become States. Each State will send two
senators, the South will have the preponderance of
power, and when do you suppose we will get it back ?
(` Never, never ! not while we have a doughface.') You
say truly. It will be never. Nothing will get it back ex-
cept bloodshed and revolution. It that power passes
into their hands bow will they use it ? Will they be more
scrupulous in using than acquiring it ? If they acquired
it by robbery, and fraud, and murder, will they use it
more magnanimously ? (` No, no.') And their first
measure will be to open the slave trade, filling tho coun-
try with negroes stolen from their native land. Not
only this, but they ill give free transit to slavehold-
ers into the Free States with their slaves, thus taking
the first step towards carrying into executilu the
threat of Senator Toombs, that be would call
the roll of hie slaves beneath the shadow of
Bunker-hill. ('Never, never !—they cannot do that.')
Yes, you say never ; but the man who says never must
do never. (Great applause, and three enthusiastic cheer.;
for Fremont.) Faith is a very good thing ; but ' faith
without works is deal, being alone.' It is a very gr
thing to have faith that the slaveholder shall not call toe
roll of his slaves on the soil of the Free States ; but the
man who would prevent it must begin the work in time.
It will not do for men to say 'Never,' and sit down in
the fulness of their faith till the work is accomplished.
The man who would prevent it must go to work in sea-
son--he must discern the danger in the distance, and use
prevention instead of cure. I have seen not long since
men whose conduct I could not explain or reconcile, ex-
cept on the supposition that if the South shculd demand
it of them they would have slavery among you in the
North. I have seen men in Congress whose votes I could
explain upon no other principle. And I believe there
are men among you now who, were the question raised,
would be ready to introduce it into New York. ('No,
no I') It is so ! (` Yes! no doubt of it.') Yee, there
are Hugh men to be found, and their conduct can be ex•