The true Democrat., 1856-08-19
Philadelphia, July 26, 1856.

Philadelphia, July 26, 1856.
 GENTLEMEN-Absoute inability to speak in the open air will prevent me from uniting in your mass meeting on the Eth of August, for am very sure you will not be able to compress within any room built by hands all who will be With you Tn doing honor to Mr. Buchanan.- Franklin county, if 1 mistake not, was his birth place. Thence he started to win his way in life, and those, and the children of those amongst whom he was born, will gladly and re- soutely come forward to sustain him now- The intelligent, thrifty men of your county. descendants of the robust Scotch, Irish and German pioneers of the Cumberland Valley Will not be wanting at crisis when civil and religious liberty and the Union of the States are endangered. To the multitude which will be sure to assemble there I could not speak much as l wish it-but my written words of sympathy and encouragement--ofe earnest anx- lety for the success of the democratic ticket at both the approaching elections, Gone scarcely less important than the other,) l cannot with hold. shall have my abundant reward if they infuencca single reader. Take them, beg you, for what they are worth. They are at least sincere and disinterested.
 l have some associations with Franklin county which are peculiar. 1 have had friends there, Tn public and private life who, as contem. porares, were dear to me, and as my seniors, honored me by their counsel. Many of them have passed away-though some are still sur vlvng. l was in the Legislature, on the same side of politics too--for am not ashamed of my antecedents, and you would despse me were 1 to deny them with David Fullerton and Thomas G. McCullock-and am very sure II they were alive now, they would be neither Know Nothlngs nor aboitionists. l served long with Thomas Carson of Mercersburg, an honest and independent man--and if there be any one whose private worth and digni6ed pub- lIcntegrty, l have been taught especially to respect, 1t is he who still lives honored and es- teemed among you-G George Chambers These are the personal associations which affect me May allude to some others?
 remember, years ago, on bright summers afternoon, toiling up the turnpike road on the Cove Mountain, III your county, and when l reached the summit, turning to gaze on as beautiful scene as ever gladdened my eye-the valley of peaceful beauty which stretches of to Maryland and towards the Potomac It is familiar scene to most of you. To me it was new, and its impression has never faded from my mind. As far as the eye could reach, there
 
 was beautifu-al was peaceful--it looked, as it was, like the abode of happy and united people The political ine separating Penn sylvania from Maryland, traced by those old fashioned surveyors, Charles Mason and Jere- miah Dixon, was visible to no eye. The trees on which they marked it had long been feled or disappeared. Many farm was separated by 1t, but, except in the eye of the law, no one knew It or cared about it. 1 have often-for painful thoughts are thrusting themselves up- on me-recalled that scene of actual beauty and united interest, and realized what it would be-what your condition will be-what must be the condition of every county of this con- monwealth lying on the Maryland line; Ches- ter, Lancaster, York, Adams, Franklin, Fulton, Bedford, Somerset, Fayette and Greener; if dlsunion be forced on us, and the fracture be- as It would be, between what are popularly but falsely called the free and the slave States between us and MarylanA. I wish every man could be made to understand what frontier is even that of civilized life. Its daily, hourly vexatlons and dangers-its line of custom houses to keep the smuggler in and out--the crowds ot fugtlves from justice and labor in- festlng every avenue and concealed in every thlckct--the murderer striking down his vic. tim to-day and flying with the fresh blood on his hand to a toreign. territory to- -morrow--the pickering, the strife, the hot blood of conter- minous dispute--all this, would be the daily doom of every southern county of this State; and across the beautiful valley have spoken of would be distressingly visible, the actual, broad, perhaps bloody line which disunon must trace. This is true, though hard to conceive Pennsylvania and you, citizens of Franklin county, have so long reposed in the very cen- Ire of the Union, that you cannot understand how you can become a frontier and how you will suffer when you do.
 There was time, before the Union was framed, unless my reading of history much misleads me, when these fanced dangers were realities. Let the Union be broken and they will be realities again. 1 read in the history of your own county (and it applies to every border county) words which 1t is we'll to think of, for they may become truth again to. morrow:
 ' It surpassed" says writer, "the powers of the settlers to curb the wild and lawless spirit of the traders and frontiers men, The COnococheaque settlements were infested with bands of desperate marauders and counterfeit CTS, who badc defiance to all laws They had an organized line through the Cumberland Val ley into Virginia. They drove brisk trade by stealing horses and cattle After the Brit ish retired, they carried on all extensive trade amongst themselves, by stealing horses at the south; passing them along the line to the north where they could not be recognized, and ex- changing them for others stolen at the north The long narrow valleys and secluded coves of the Blue Mountain, afforded convenient route and secure hiding places. These were no shabby villains: they wore the finest dres- a1 ha baet borcos more guineas and jewelry than any others in the settlements, and though the source of their sudden wealth was suspected, no one dared to prove It against them. When not engaged in stealing, they resorted to counterfeiting cont- mental money, and sauntering round the towns passed 1t on trovelers. If any one resisted or threatened to bring them to justice, his barn or crops were destroyed by fire." This is his tory and why may it not become history again ? It is the Union and the constitution alone which prevent it-and you are asked to put them at risk.
 This Is no rhetorical exaggeration It is the sure forecast of an inevitable truth-and I ex- aggerate as little when say, that never until now, have felt the danger of disunion to be imminent. l tremble, in no imaginary panic but on sober conviction, when think how near 1t may be-how sure in one event 1t must be- Let me in temperate and guarded language say why think there is danger and how Mr. Buell. anan's election can alone avert it.
 There now lies before me as I write, few words of prophetic wisdom, written long be- fore the present division of parties arose, which are very striking. They are the words of John c. Fremonts father-n-law: "The substitn. tion," says MT. Benton in the early pages of his thirty years,' "of geographical parties disc,i; nainated by tue slaue line would, of course, de- stroy the just and proper action of the federal government and lead eventually to separation of the States" " "lf,' wrote Mr. Madison near ly forty years ago, when the danger was very far off "a state of parties should arise found- ed on geographical boundaries, what is to con- trol these great repulsive masses from awful shocks against each other?" Now if these be words of wisdom if such are to be the pro- bable consequences of geographical parties