Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1860-06-15

lLaugultI anu applause. lou produce your
proof, and what is it2 Why, that our party
has no existence 10 your section gets no votes
in your section. The fact is substantially
trae; but does it prove the issuel 1t il does,
then, in case we should, without change of
principle, begin to get votes in your section,
we should thereby cease to be sectional
[Great merriment.J You cannot escape this
conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide
by 1t! If you are, you will probably soon find
! that we have ceased to be sectional, for we
shall get votes in your section this very year.
Loud cheers You viii then begin to dis
cover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof
does not touch the issue. The fact that we
get no votes in your section is fact of your
making and not ours. And if there be fault
iu that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and
remains until you show that we repel you by
some wrong principle or practice. IF we do
repel you by any wrong principle the fault is
ours, but this brings you to where you ought
to have started-to a discussion of the right
or wrong of our principle. Loud appause.l
WAsHINGToN's FAREWELL ADDRESS
If our principle, put in practice, would
wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or
for any other object, then our principle, and
We with it, are sectional, and are justly oppo-
sed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on
the question of whether our principle, put in
practice, would wrong your section; and SO
meet it as if it were possible that something
may be said ON our side. [Laughter.l Do
you accept the challenge! No. Then do you
really believe that the principle which our "a
Tiers, who framed the government under which
we live, thought SO clearly right as to adopt it,
and endorse it again and again, upon their Of
fetal oaths, is in fact, SO clearly wrong as to
demand your condemnation without a moments
consideration. [Applause.l
Some of you delight to haunt in our faces
The warning against sectional parties given BY
Washington in his Farewell Address. Less
than eight years before Washington gave that
warning, be had, as President of the United
States, approved and signed an act of Con.
sgress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery iu
toe Northwestern Territory, which act embod-
led the policy Of the Governmant upon that
subject, upon thai subject, ap to and at the
very moment he penned that warning; and
about one year after he penned il be wrote to
Lafayette that he considered that prohibition
wise measure, expressing in the same cou-
necton his hope that We should some time
have confederacy of Free States. Zap
plause.] Bearing this in mind, and seeing
that seetionalism has since garrison upon this
same subject, is that warning a weapon iu your
hands against US, or in our hands against you?
Gould Washington himself speak, would he
cast the blame Of that seetionalism upon us.
who sustain his policy, or upon you who repu-
diate l.? [Appiause.l We respect that warn
ing of Washington, and we commend it to you
together with his example pointing to the right
an af Ar D.k
you are coDseIV eIVatiVe-emneptiy conservative
while we revolutionary, destructive, or
something of the sort.
POLITICAL CONSERVATISM DEFINED.
What is conservatism! Is il not adherence
to the old and tried, against the new and uu-
trledt We stick to, contend for, the identi-
cal old policy OF the point il controversy which
was adopted by our fathers who framed the
government under which we live; while you,
with one accord reject, and scout, and spit up
on the old policy and insist upon substituting
something new. True, you disagree among
yourselves as to what that substitute shall be.
You have considerable variety of new propo-
sitions and plans, but you are unanimous in
rejecting and denouneing the old policy of the
fathers. Some of you are for reyiying the
foreign slave trade; some for Congressional
slave code for the Territories; some for Con-
gress forbidding the Territories to prohibit
slavery within their limits; some for maintain
ing slavery 10. the Territories through the Ju-
dietary; some for the 'sgur-reat pur-rinciple"
-[laughterl that if one man would enslaye
another, no third man should object, fautas,i-
caliy called "popular sovereignty renewed
laughter aud applause but never a man
among you in favor of federal prohibition of
slavery in Federal Territories, according to the
practice of our fathers who framed the govern
ment under which we live.
Net one of your various plans can show a
precedent or an advocate in the century
within which our government originated. Con-
slider, then, whether your claim of conserva-
tism for yourselves, and yeur charge of de-
structiveness against US, are based on the most
clear and stable foundations. Again you say
we have made the slavery question mere prom
inent than 1t formerly was. We deny it. We
admit that it IS moro prominent, but we deny
that we made 1t so. 1t was not US, but you,
who discarded the old policy of the fathers
We resisted, and still resist, your innovation
--your want of conservatism; and thence
comes the greater prominence OF the question.
Would you have that question reduced to its
former propoItionsa Go back to that old pol
icy. What has been will be again under the
same conditions. If you would have the peace
of the old times, readopt the precepts and poll
icy of the old times. [Applausel
JOHN BROWN AND HARPER'e FERRY
You charge that we stir up insurectons among
your slaves. We deny it; and where is your
proof! Harper's Ferry. [Great laughter John
Brown. Renewed laughler.l John Brown was
no Republican, and you have tailed to n,plicate
single Republican in his darper;s Ferry enier-
prise. Loud applause.] If any member Of
our party is guilty in. thai matter, you know ii or
you do not know it. If you do know it, you are
incxcnsahle to not designate the man and prove