The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1860-09-20
SPEECH OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
ATDEZROI7, SEPT A, 1860.
TIE Failures in our National Policy.

ATDETROIT, SEPT A, 1860.
The Failures in our National Policy.
Fsllo,c- Citizens
We claim that our political system is
. judicious one, and that we are an in
telligent and virtuous people. The
Government ought, therefore, not only
to secure respect and good will abroad,
but also to produce good order, con-
tentment and harmony at home. 1t
fails to attain these ends. The Cana
dians certainly neither envy nor love
as. All the Independent American
powers, from the Rio Grande to Cape
Horn, while they strive to construct
governments for themselves after our
models, fear, and many of them hate
US. European nations do indeed re-
we're our constitutions and admire our
progress, but they generally agree in
pronouncing US inconsistent with our
organic principle, and capricious. The
President inveighs against corruption
among the people. The immediate
representatives of the people in Con-
gress charge the President with immor-
al practices, and the President protests
against their action, as subversive Of
the Executive prerogative. The House
of Representatives organizes itself con-
vulsively, amid confessed dangers of
popular commotion. The Senate lis
tens unsurprised, and almost without
excitement, to menaces of violence, Sc
cession and disunion. Frauds and vi
olence in the Territories are palliated
and rewarded. Exposure and resis-
tance to them are condemned and pun
ished, while the just, enlightened and
reasonable will of the people there,
though constitutionally expressed, is
circumvented, disobeyed and disregar-
ded. States watch anxiously for un-
lawful intrusion and invasion by citi-
zens of other States, while the FEEDER
al courts fail to suppress piracies on the
high seas, and even on our own coasts.
The Government of the Union, courts
and submits to State espionage of the
Federal mails, while the States scarce
ly attempt TO protect the personal rights
of citizens of other States, peacefully
pursuing harmless occupations within
their fraternal Jurisdictions.
Are the people satisfied and content?
Let their several parties and masses
answer. Certainly you, the Republi-
cans of Michigan, as well as tie Re-
publicans throughout the whole coun-
try, are not satisfied. But you are in
terested in a change of administration,
and therefore perhaps prejudiced. Ask,
:hen, the Constitutional and Union
men, few and inefficient indeed here,
but numerous and energetic elsewhere.
They are not satisfied. If they were
they would not be engaged, as they are
now, in hopeless attempt to organ
ize new party without any principles
at all, after their recent failures to com.
bine such a party on obnoxious princi-
Piles. But they also are interested, and
possibly prejudiced like the Republi-
cans. Appeal then to the Democratic
party, which enjoys and wields the
patronage and power of the Federal
Government. Even the Democrats
are not less dissatisfied. They certain.
ly are dissatisfied with the Republicans,
with the National Union men, with
their own administration, with each
other, and as think, even Individually
with themselves. The North is no,
satisfied. It's masses want a suppress
sion of the African slave trade, and an
effectual exclusion of slavery from the
Territories, so that all the new and fu
ture States may surely be free States
The South is not satisfied. Its masses
by whatever means, and at whatever
cost, desire the establishment and pro
lection of slavery in the Territories. SC
: that none of the new States may fai
to become slave States. The East j.
disseminated with the neglect of it,
fishery, manufacture and navigation
and the West is impatient under th'
operation of national policy hostile t.
its agricultural, mining and social de
velopments. What government in th'
world, but ours, has presistently refused
to improve rivers, construct harbors
and establish lighthouses, for the pro
, lection of its commerce New ant
anomalous combinations of citizens ap
pear in the North, justifying armed in
stigators of civil and servile war, il
the South devising means for the dis
ruption and ACKNOWLEDGMENT of tn
Union. 1t is manifest, that we are sui
fering in the respect and confidence il
the foreign States, and that disorde
and confusion are more fragrant anon,
ourselves now than ever before.
do not intend to be understood tha
$ these evils are thus far productive O
. material suffering of intolerable em
! barrassment, much less that the countr
is as SO many extravagant persons say
on the high road to civil war or dissc
luton. On the contrary, this fair Ian
: we live in is so blessed with all the ele
ments of human comfort and happiness
e and its citizens are at once so loyal an
+ wise and so we'll surrounded by yet ur
: broken guarantees of civil and religion
liberty, that our experience of misrul
at the very worst never becomes s
!, painful as to raise the question ho'
m n much more of public misery we can er
,e dure; but it leaves us at the liberty {
ID stop now as heretofore with the inauir
N how much more of freedom, prosperit
d and honor, we can secure by the prat