The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1856-05-20
THE ISSUE FOR $50.


J
GENrLEMEN If had not resolved 10 re-
main at my post Of duty here throughout tho
Session, your kind invitation to address the
Republican Mass Meeting in your city next
Wednesday would certainly have attracted
me away. But though cannot be present
in person, ] shall feel none the less interest
cd in your proceeding, which will have 60 in
portant bearing on the Impending canvass.
No man can shut bis eyes to the fact that
the .futwe, historian will look back to the year
1856 as the turning points from which is to
date the ascendancy in our Government Of
tho principles of Slavery or Of Lii erty.--
Heretofore, Southern statesmen have talked
of adjustments, of concessions Of comprom-
ises; but at last the vail is lifted; the himsy
pretext Of Popular Sovereignty having ac-
complished its purpose in securing the repeal
of time honored compact, is now discarded; !;
the South demands that their claim, to Gil
all the Territories with their human ,nerchan-
disc, shall be recognized as their constitution
al right; and State after State threatens, al
most as with one voice, that Congressional
legislation, hostile to this claim, shall be met
on their part by "a disruption Of every lie
which binds them to the Union" II is, in.
deed, period, when these who believe that
this Government was founded "to secure the
blessings of Liberty" as the preamble to our
National Constitution go emphatically de-
clares-to protect the inallenable right Of
all men to life and liberty, as our immortal
Declaration Of Independence so solcmnly as
severatcs and proclaims-cannot, even if they
would, refuse to meet the issue. II is forced
upon the country by unasked for Congress
sional legislation-by Southern platforms
by Judicial decisions, striking down the sov-
ereignty of the Free States-by Presidential
Messages-by unrebuked invasion Of de-
fenseless Territory, which, worse than tramp
ling the ballot box in the. dust, (the utmost
tyranny that Czaror Emperor would think
Of perpetrating,) crowds it with fraudulent
suffrages, and with refinement of cruelty
actually converts it into potent instr ment
of despotism, over those whose rights il was
intended to protect. When outrages, like
the last have alluded to, have been again
and again repeated, accompanied by violence
lynching, and even unpunished murder, and
whole Territory lies conquered and tyran-
nized over, for no other reason than TO fcrcc
Slavery upon its unwilling settlers, and when
such scenes--so disgracoful and so dishonor-
ing TO our reputatior-are alluded to in the
Presidents Message merely as "irrcgularit:es,"
and in the recent elaborate report Of the au-
thor of the Nebraska bill by even the midcr
designation of "allcgcd Irregularities" it is
sa,aaiaSJls Rxiaspt rthqt there arc but
the one is abject submission, surrcndcnng
the Territories to the rule of tho Slave-owncr,
yielding up the right of the States to exclude
either permanent or transient Slavery from
their midst, and renouncing even the distant
hope Of ever limiting the advancing march
of the peculiar institution--while the other
is that which you are assembled to declare:
Freedom for all the National Territories in
1855 as in 1887; no interference with Slave
ry in the States, but calm yet in1exiblc re-
sistancc to the further extension Of its blight
| ing Influences an incorporation of the great
central truth of the American Declaration of
Independence in Territorial legislation; and
a restoration, especially, Of that ancient
landmark of Freedom, which reckless hands
SO ruthlcssly removed in 1854. Thus Crap
ling as you do, fearlessly, with the great,
question Of the age, humanity will applaud
your efforts, aud patriotism, / sircerclp hope,
will both achieve and crown your victory.
You will, know, regard the opprobrious
epithets which our opponents apply to us as
political designations, with the same utter in
difference with which, eighty years ago, cur
forefathcrs treated the contemptuous nick
names that were shoyercd upon "the defend
ers of liberty" In this land of school houses,
of free presses and-but one Territory ex-
cepted-of free speech, the intelligence Of
the people will sufficiently rebukc those who
attempt to sncer down great cause and a
correct principle by title intended to be OBJ
noxious. "B!ack Republicans" is one Of those
cuphonious designations. When the truth is
that the Shareholders themselves insist-nay,
more, demand-that they must have, and
aoM have, wherever they go, "blacks' in
their houses and kitchens, in their fields and
their nurseries, as their men-servants and
maid-servants, about their persons and with
in their sight, while we, on the contrary, de-
mand that instead of making tho new Terri
tories 'Llack" with plantations of Slovcs,
they shall be preserved for homesteads for
white freemcn forever.
What is to be the result next Fall Of this
great struggle remains to be written. You
are yourselves writing, by your acts, part OF
the history Of this cventful year. A union
of freemen, for the sake Of the Union, can
not fail to achieve success; to gladden. the
hearts of the brave men on our frontiers,
who hare defended, against such ovcrwhelni-
ing odds, the Grin o. Of American Free
dom; to restore the Government TO the policy
of Washington and Jefferson, the first q
whom declared to Robert Morris, in 17s6,
that there was not n man living who wished
moro sincerely than he did to plan adopted
for the abolition of Slavery, and the latter
of whom sought, as is we'll known, to pro
cure the passage, in 1884, of an ordinance
drafted, and reported by himself, prohibiting
Slavery in all the Territories of the United
States then owned or afterFard to be acquir
ed South as we'll as North, Every Conven
ton which, like yours, INDICATES that, ]
Frcemen do differ on other questions, they
are willing TO recognize that this great altei
native, not of our making, but forced upoI
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