Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1857-01-10
GOVERNORS ADDRESS.
Gentlemen Of the Senate and Of the House Of
Representatives.

providence through another season OF pros
periiy and happiness, our honored Common
wealth to-day crosses the threshold of new
political year. Called by her suffrages to our
various posts of honor and duty. much of her
future prosperity or adversely depends upon
the acts of US, her servants. Let us each,
realizing the individual responsibility resting
upon us, strive in every thing to advance her
interests and the cause of truth and justice.
May generous patriotism raise US above the
influences Of party, devotion to the inter
ests OF the whole rebuke the suggestions of
section and sect, and the bias of self-nterest
be overcome IN the discharge of the nobler
duties we owe the State.
Our nation has Just passed through another
Presidential contest, under circumstances
which would have imperilled the existence of
any other government on the globe; and yet
SO admirably harmonious are the workings o,
our system, and so readily obedient are ouf
people to the will of the majority, tn t
stranger among us would hardly have sup
posed SO momentous an event had trauspired,
as the struggle between antagonistic theories,
concerning the administration of our govern
ment, which, though nominally for the term
of four years, nevertheless may tell upon its
policy and destiny for generations. And
though no where was the result so great
disappointment to so large proportion of our
citizens as in Massachusetts, and no where
was the real magnitude of the issue more fully
appreciated and hopes of different termina-
ton more earnestly INDUCED yet here, with
q firm reliance ON the ultimate triumph of the
great principles we cherish, our people acqui
ese in the result in the proper spirit of our in
situations. Yet, though as patriots and good
citizens we submit to the will of the ajority,
it is not only our right but our duty to exam
inc thoroughly the causes which produced so
unfavorable -esult-a result not only pref u
dicial, we fear, to the cause Of Freedom, but
portending evil to the integrity of our Union
and TO strive, as far as we may, legally, justly
and honorably, to remove them Tor the fu-
ture.
The issue involved in this great struggle
was declared to be. both while it was pending
and since its termination, directly or more re-
motely, not only whether Freedom or Slavery
should be established in the Territory
of Kauzas, but whether foreign nations
should be absorbed, and Cuba, Mexico,
and Central America, annexed to South
ern borders not only whether the
powers Of the Executive and the legisla.
ton Of Congress should be prosttuted to the
establishment of serfdom III ATTITUDES once
free but also whether the extension of the
area of Slavery by diplomacy, by conquest,and
by purchase, was hot to be, and to continue to
be, the established policy of our government.
Although it was freely asserted and widely
believed that the question of Freedom or
Slavepy in Kanzas would hinge upon the re.
suit Of this election, and although had it ter
minated in different manner, the probability
of her early admission into the Union as a Free
State, would have been materially strength
ened, yet recent developments give strong
6
Territory, in contradistinction to his prede-
cessor, will administer the laws fairly and i'm
partially, will protect the actual settlers in
their just rights and will resist the intrusion
of non residents for illegal purposes. Such
are the convictions of those on the spot most
capable of judging, and most effectively aid
ing in the accomplishment of these deaired
purposes If SO, the energy of our citizens in
the race of colonization, aided by the individ-
ual and associated cooperation of the intellec-
tual influence and material resources OF the
people of the North, will certainly outstrip the
more sluggish tide of Southern emigration,
and insure the triumph of free territory in the
approaching State of kanzas a result glor-
GUS III ITSELF and still more so, as it renders
impotent the violation of a national compact,
and an illegal invasion by people of another
State, for the ayowed purpose OF overawing and
zens, accompanied with inhuman au1 barba-
rous murders, and all the atrocities of actual
and desperate warfare.
Still, SO far as the decision of the Preslden-
tial election is final, so far as the action of the
present is inevitably developed i'll immeasura.
Bile and incomprehensble consequences and
influences on the future, and so far as a step
has been taken which it may require gen.
GRAFTON to retrace. our citizens have the bitter
assurance of knowing that that decision has
been made, that action fixed, and that step ia
ken, by the casting votes of aliens born, aliens
unnaturalized, end aliens entirely ignorant of
our institutions and grossly callous to the vast
interests involved in this stupendous issue
WhileNthis horde of foreign born voters has
thus ttricken down noble cause, which APP
pealed 10 the moral sentiment and enlightened
patriotism of our country, it only affords an
other confirmation of fact which our whole
history establishes, that the foreign vote, with
hardly an exception, always has been, and in
the nature of things ever will and must be- at
tracted to that which, under high-sounding
generalites On the abstract rights of man, al
ways practically cooperates with Slavery at the
South, aud banishes from its platform the NOR.
al questions, and nobler instincts, and more
enlightened sentiments of the age.
All classes of aliens, both high and low, are alb
sorbed, with few exceptions, into this ex-
IRENE and seif-styled progressive party, by
laws of the human mind as inevitable as they
are constant. To the German student chat
ing under the tyranny, and to the German
peasant, strug ling for a livelihood under the
taxation and oppression, of the petty dynas-
ties OF the father land to the Irish repeater,
enthusiastic for the regeneration of his coun-
try, and to the Irish laborer, striving for the
means to flee from his impoverished island !;
to the revolutionist, dazzled with the hopes
of continental republic and national liberty ;
and to the down trodden of all lands, the
word Democracy has magical and irresisti-
bic fascination. 1t is a term prescribed by
the ruling powers Of Europe, and is The
watch word of rebellion and pc itical change
the continent over. To the philosopher and
the serf it bears the same wild and alluring
attraction. 1t is a word having there a
mighty and terrible meaning. 1t incarnates
the utopian dreams of the political visionary,
the ambition of struggling and mex perienced
youth, the aspirations of the revolutionist,
the desires Of the mutnous soldier, the ex-
peetations OF the toiling serf, and the widest
hopes of the disconnected of Europe.
With these pTepossessions the foreigner
lands upon our shores, and irresistibly at.
taches himself to the party bearing this name
he has been taught TO worship So it has
been, aud so il ever will be. And it is this
alien body which has decided in the past
many OF our great national elections, and in
the future, unless checked, is destined to
thwart many Of the nobest movements which
New England, cooperating with the New
England sentiments morality and education
-dlffused through the great West, NAV un-