The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1860-08-30

license, so to speak-among you, to be
admitted or permitted to speak at all
Now, can YOU or not be prevailed upon
to pause and to consider whether this is
quite just to us, or even to yourselves :?
Bring forward your charges and specif-
cations, and then be patient long enough
to hear US deny or Justify. You say We
are sectional. We deny it. Loud ap,
plause That makes an issue, and the
burden of proof is upon you. Laughter
and applause You produce your proof;
and what is it? Why, that our party
has no existence in your section-aets no
votes in your section. The fact is sub
stantiaIly true but does it prove the is
sue? If it does, then, in ease we should,
without change of principle, begin to get
votes in YOUR section, we should thereby
cease to be sectional. Great merri-
ment. You cannot escape this conclu-
sion and vet, are you willing to abide
by it? If you are, you will probably
soon find that we have ceased to be sec
tional, for we shall get votes in your sec
tion this very year, Loud cheers, !
You will then begin to discover, as the
truth plainly is, that your proof does not
touch the issue. The fact that We get
no votes in your.sections is fact of your
making, and not Of ours. And if there
be fault in that fact, that fault is primar-
iIy yours, and remains SO until you show
that We repel you by some wrong princi-
pie or practice. If we do repel you by
any wrong principle or practice, the fault
is ours but this brings you to where you
ought to have startcd-to discussion OF
the right or wrong Of our principle
Loud applause. If our principle, put
IN practice, would wrong your section for
the benefit of ours, or for any other OBJ
ject, then our principle, and we with it,
are sectional, and are Justly opposed and
denounced as such Meet US, then, on
the question of whether our principle,
put in practice, would wrong your sec
tion and so meet it as if it were possible
that something may be said on our side
laughter Do you accept the chal-
leuge? No. Then you really believe
that the principle which our fathers who
framed the Government under which We
live thought so clearly right as to adopt
and endorse it again and again, upon the
official oaths, is, in fact, SO clearly wrong
as to demand your condemnation without
moments consideration. Applause.
Some Of you delight to faunt in our faces
the warning against sectional parties given
by Washington in his Farewell Address
Less than eight years before Washington
gave that warning, he had, as President
Of the United States, approved and sigued
an act Of Congress, enforcing the proAi
bition Of slavery in the Northwestern
Territory, which act embodied the policy
Of tie Government upon that subject, up
to and at the very moment lie penned
that warning; and about one year after
he peuned it, he wrote Layfayette that lie
considered that prohibition wise mea
sure, expressing in the same connection
his hope that we should some time have
Conftderacy Of free States. Ap-
/ piause Bearing this in mind, aud see
ing that sectioualism las since arisen
upon this same subject, is that warning
weapon in your hands against US, or il
our hand against you? Couid Washing
ington himself speak, would he cast the
blame Of that scclionaism upon Us who
sustain his policy, or upon You WHO re
pudiate it? Applause. We repeat
that warning Of Washington, aud we
commend it to You, together with his ex-
ample pointing to the right application
Of it. lApplause)
But you say YOU are conservative-em-
incntIy couservative-wAile we are rcvo-
Iu;ionary, destructive, Or something Of
tie sort. What is conservatism ? Is it
not adherence to the old and tried, against
the new and untried? We stick to, con-
tend for, the identical old point in contro-
yersy which was adopted by our fathers
who framed the Government under which
we live, while you with one accord reject
and scout and spit upon that old policy,
and insist upon substituting something
new. Then you disagree among your
selves as to what that substitute shall be.
You have considerable variety Of new
propositions and plans, but you are unan-
imous in rejecting and denouncing the
old policy of the fathers Some Of you
are for reviving the foreign slave trade
some for Congressional slave code for
the Territories; some for Congress forbid
ding the Territories TO prohibit slavery
within their limits some for maintaining
slavery in the Territories through the ju-
dietary some for the "gur-rcat pur-rin-
ciple" laughter that If one man would
enslave another, no third man should OBJ
iect," fantasticaIIy called popular sove-
reignty" [renewed laughter and APP