The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-03-30
Con. Cushing's Speech.

On the 9th inst, Gen. CALEB CUSHING
made speech at New Haven, Conn.,, from
which we make the following extract, which,
for want of space is all that we can give
to-day. 1t puts complete extinguisher
upon Stewards theory of "Capital States
and Labor States" Read it:
What propose especially now to discuss
is the political relation of this great ques-
tion-to consider whether, in fact or in
truth, there is in these United States that
irrepressible conflict between the northern
and southern states that must hurry us on
in civil discord and public disorder to civil
war and to the dissolution of our government.
That alleged irreprissible confict-the prem
Uses upon which it is assumed-is my topic
this evening. Gentlemen, this idea you
know has for its author or inventor-or if
not its author or inventor, its most conspic~
uous expostor-him who is, in truth, a
representative man and the exponent of his
party. I mean Mr.. VIM. H. Seward-who
may be the standard bearer of his party in
the approaching contest for possession of the
power of the government. Be it so, gentle
men. Mr.. Seward is a gentleman-a man
of superior intelligence and education-dig
nified in debate and in act. gladly and
proudly accept him as the exponent of re-
publican opinions-for then we all known
whom we are to meet; and we have argu>
ment to encounter, not defamation. shall
deal with him and his opinions, therefore,
in that sense, eriticising them, not him, or
only criticising him in the same degree and
proportion that he presents himself as the
artifcer of the contents of bis arsenal of ruin
and destruction which is being hurled upon
these United States. What, then, do we
learn to be the first element of this irrepres
sible conflict between the Northern and
Southern States? We were told not many
years ago by this same exponent of this
doctrine, that the people might appeal from
the constitu ion and laws of the land to
some higher law. Gentlemen, can appre-
ciate the act of man who, feeling the con-
cientious objections to law, cannot VOL
unfairly obey it, and who is ready to
suffer and to die as martyr to bis opinion
in the face of that law. can appreci-
ate the sentiment of one who thus repu-
dates and repels the constitution and laws
of this country even though it be at the
imminent hazard of civil war and the des-
truction of the liberties of his country. But
I cannot appreciate the motives of that man
who afirms that his own interior thought is
to be the exposition of the law, above the
law, and who disregards the law because of
his conscientious objection to it, when he
himself has voluntarily taken an oath to obey
that law. No, he who does that, adds to
the folly of illogical, irrational reasoning,
deliberate perjury. I say that I cannot
appreciate that contentious rule of action.
I understand the motives and conduct OF
the Quaker, who, in his Reproduction of war,
steadily refuses to bear arms, and who is
ready to suffer any wrong rather than do vi
oence to his conscience. But if man VOL
unfairly enlists for the war for any purpose
of gain, or ambition, and afterwards refuses
to obey upon the ground of higher law, he
deserves, not to be drummed out of the
camp, but to be shot as traitor. And just
so with man who has taken an oath of
obedience upon his conscience, and then sets
up conscience as a reason to excuse that
voluntary perjury. Gentlemen, state this
point in its naked deformity--a deformity so
patent that this illusion of abolitionism, this
folly of the higher law, has passed away into
the limbo of vanity and is laid up among
the discarded lumber of the last Presidential
canvass. No man talks now of the higher
law. Everybody is glad enough to have it
forgotten. We come, then, to the next pre-
text for this pretended necessity for discord
and disunion, and that is another thought
from the same quarter. 1t is the so called
slave power. We have depicted to US in
terms of prejudice and reproach the fact
that in the fifteen Southern States only some
half a million persons own slaves, and that,
therefore, they are an oligarchy, an aristo-
cracy, as compared with the rest of the
population of the Southern States and of the
United States. This suggestion, in the first
place, is mere fallacy Of fact--an error in
its inception. Those who assert it forget to
consider that the master of the family, in
whose name the property stands, represents
at least five times the number of souls. He
is a father--wife, children, and male or fe-
male connections are dependent upon him.
And so it is that every proprietor, North or
South, represents not himself only, but the
family of which he is the head, and it would
be just as competent and reasonable to say
nay, it would be just as bad an argument
to address to human prejudice-that the land
holders in the Northern States are oligar,
chists and aristocrats. For, if you will
count up the number of men at the North
who can be deemed to be to any considera~
BILE degree proprietors of the soil, you will
find that it is relatively small. There is no
part of the world in which wealth is more
unequally distributed than in the N orthern
States. So that this argument of an oligar.
chy applies with equal force to the great
wealthy proprietors in the Northern States,
and any Southern speaker or debater, might
with equal propriety reproach US in the
North as an oligarchy, and insultingly point
to the multitude of working men who are
not large proprietors. Gentlemen, the argu-
ment is not only fallacious in fact but it is
an appeal to the worst prejudices and pas.
sions Of the heart. a., ..., s.s.
Associated with that assumption is am
other assertion that the Southern States ex-
ert an undue influence in the nation. That
deny. I say the people of the Northern
States have at all times had their due share
of power in the government. They have
had it both as persons and communities, and