New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-09-07
LAST WORDS TO HIRAM KETCHUM.


@.@.-.-.
LAST WORDS TO HIRAM KETCHUM.
SIR: You say that &" this country has from the
" start been divided into two great sections
slayehOlding and nOn-slavehOlding." That is not
the fact. There was no great nOn-slayeholdius
section of the country just before or during the
Revolutionary struggle, any more than there were
any prominent Wings who justified Slavery as right
and advocated its extension and perpetuity. All
the coonies-or nearly all-were savehOlding and
the thinking patriots of all regarded and treated
Slavery as blunder source of We ,kness,
a crime and curse, with which the logical basis
Ct the Revolution was in direct conflict, and over
wnich that basis must surely prevail. The Con-
gress of 1854, to which Jefferson first proposed the
legal exclusion of Slavery from all the Federal Ter
ritOries, represented slaveholdiug States almost
exclusively; the Committee which reported that
ordinance was composed Of representatives, of
slayeholdiDg States; Mr.. Jefferson was himself a
stakeholder; yet he proposed going quite as far
| in the way Of Slavery Restriction as the
| Republicans now do; and sixteen out of
twenty three members present voted for
Ills pIOpUtlLOus luICc years Tue OIu-
nance passed, excluding Slavery by positive law
from all the territory between the Ohio and the
Mississippi, and erery member of the then Con-
gress voted for it except one Yates from New
York. At least three-fourths of the States-New
York among them-weTe then SaveholdiDg. II
was John Randolph, a lifelong stakeholder who
reported from a slaveholdng committee, in 1903
1bott ba, a., ofI rd;
for permission to hold slaves for q limited term
should not be granted and the Congress which
sustained that report was elected from States
whereof q large majority were still slaveholding.
The policy we Republicans contend for was devised
by STAKEHOLDER, sanction ed BY large majority of
sayeholdipg Congressman, adopted by an all but
unanimous vote of another slaveholdng Congress-
and steadily upheld go long as clear majority Of
the States we're slsveholding. Why should If be
reversed now 7
You say it has always been customary TO select
candidates for President one from slageholding
the other from a Notwithstanding State. No, Sir !!
Jefferson and Burr, who were elected in 1900
were both from slayeholding States So were
Monroe and Tompkns. Jackson and Calhoun
were both from slaVeholding States-I think both
natives of South CarOliUa--when they were sup
ported by most Of the Southern and several
Northern States in 1924, and supported again, and
ELF cted, 10 1928. You and million others sup.
ported in 1928 Adams aud Rush, both from Free
States Why should not the West and the East
be represented on the ticket as well as the North
and the South Aie you lot making Slavery and
Anti-Savery paramount, and " neglectng the in
'terests of white men for those Of negroes" in
demanding that one candidate OF the ticket shall
be taken from Slave State Should we have
pleased you any better by eliminating Cassus NJ.
Clay instead of Hannibal Hamlin
You say that the Republican party has its ex-
4" istence only in Free States" Have you never
heard from st. Louis y Do you recolect the name
of Frank Blair Do you not know that the Re-
pubicans Of both Missouri and Delaware are strong
enough to-day to give the Electoral vote Of Mis-
Bell, Breckenridge, or Douglas, if they should see
6t2 When your present allies IN Texas want to
hang OF Danish large portion Of their fellow cti-
zens they cal them AbolitionSts, and falsely pre-
tend that they are somehow instgated or impeed
by the Republicans; but when it suits Jour pur-
pose better to ASSERT that we are not known in the
Slave States, you do it. l firmly believe that a
quarter of the voters OF the Slave States to-day
hope for Lincolos election, and that still larger
proportion would do so if they only understood u.s.
But your allies burn our newspapers and docu-
nents, suppress our meetings, silence our Southern
riends by lawless violence and thereupon you
stigmatize us as sectional, aud as having no party
at the South. That is not so but give us the rights
of Free Speech and Free Press, which the Fed
ersl Constitution guarantees, and we will very
soon have one as large as you can ask for.
You cay that "the Republican party aims at the
A" Abolition of Slavery by the Federal Govern
" ment" That is not So You have to invent
principles for us in order to justify, even to your