Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1863-07-25
National Affairs.
SPEECH
OF
EX-PRESIDENT PIERCE.


ex-President Franklin Pierce, on the &C.
casion Of his presiding at the great Demo.
cratic mass meeting al Concord, N. H., on
, the Fourth:
My FRIENDS AND FELLOW COUNTRY
MEN: while | have come to preside at
this meeting, at your bidding, permit me
to say that no command less imperative
than your wish on such an occasion would
have brought me here; and trust that in
view Of tn, great aggregation OF personal
relations which thirty years of manhood
life have formed between us, you will REQ
ognize in this fact q warm reciprocation,
on my part, of the respect and affection
which, in all that time, l have never failed
10 find OH yours. We meet on the anni-
versary of day hallowed by solemn
memories, and sanctified as that of the
birth of the American Union. The Dec
laration of Independence laid the founda-
ton OF our politicol greatness in the two
fundamental ideas of the absolute indepen-
dence Of the American people, and of the
sovereignty OF their respective states. -
Under that standard our wise and heroic
foreathers fought the battle Of the kevo-
luton; under that they conquered-in
this spirit they established the Union,
having the conservative thought ever pres
ent to their minds, Of the original sover-
eighty and independence Of the several
states, oil divers institutions, interests,
opinions and habits, to be maintained in
tact and secure, by the reciprocal stipula-
tions and mutual compromises of the con-
stitution. They were mater builders,
who reared up the gran1 structures OIL the
Union, that august temple beneath whose
dome three generations have enjoyed such
blessings of civil liberty as were never be-
fore vouchsafed by Providence to man
that temple before whose altars you and
l have not only bowed with devout and
grateful hearts, bu. were, with patriotic
vows and sacrifices, we have so frequent
| ly consecrated ourselves to the protection
and maintenance of those lofty columns
of the Constitution by which it is upheld.
No visionary enthusiasts re they dream
| ing vainly OF the impossible uniformity of
some wild Utopia Of their own magma
tions. No desperate relormers were they,
madIy bent upon schemes which ifconsum-
mated, could only result i'll general con-
fusion, anarchy, and chaos. Oh, no high
hearted, but sagaclous and patrctical states.
men, they were, who saw society as liv-
ing fact not as troubled vision; who
knew that national power consists In the
reconcilement of diversiles of inst tulinns
and interests, not their conflict and oblt-
GRAFTON and who saw that variety and
adoption Of parts are necessary elements
of all there is sublime or beautiful in the
works of art or of nature. Majestic were
the solid foundations, the massive masona-
ry, the columncd loftiness of that magnifi
cent structure Of the Union. Glorious
was the career Of prosperity and peace
and power upon which, from its very birth
day, the American Union entered, as
with the assured march of the conscou,
offspring of those giants Of the Revolution.
Such was the Union, as conceived and
administered by Washington anG Adams
by Jefferson and Madison and Jackson.
Such l say, was the Union, ere tho evil
times befel us ere the madness of sec.
tional hatreds, auimosities possessed us
ere the third generation, the all compre.
hensive patriotism of Fathers had died out
and given place to the passionate emotions
of narrow and aggressive sectionalism.
The Eastern States covered the sea with
their ships, the land with their farms and
manufactures so did the middle Atlantic
States with addition of their mineral
wealth of coal and iron; while the South
ern States, with their rich, soft climate and
congenial soil, raised up those great sta
pies of cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice and
corn, which are the life of commerce and
manufactures. and the vast regions of the
West grew to be the grauaries of Europe
and America; and still further on was
revealed the land OF gold and silver, on
the remote shore of the Pacific. These
were the material elements of our national
power-each state with its difference oil
interests, cooperating with the others to
constitute one harmonious whole. And so
was the various European races coexisting
here, though differing in blood, religion,
temper. the Protestant and the Catholic,
the Puritan and the Cavalier, yet, by
their very differences Of character afforded
the mental and moral elements of the
power of the Union, Glorious, sublime
above all that history records of national
greatness, was the spectacle which the
Union exhibited to the world, so long as
the true spirit of the Constitution lived in
the hearts Of the people, and government
was government of men recprocaly re-
speciing one anothcr's rights, and of
states, each moving, plant like, in the or
bit of its proper place in the armament Of
the Union. Then we We're the model
republic Of tho world, honored, loved, or
feared where we were not loved, respected
abroad, peaceful and happy at home. No
American citizen was then subject to be
driven into exile fer opinions sake, or ar.
bitrarily arrested and incarcsrated in mill
tary bastiles even as he may now be-
not for acts or words of imputed treason
but if he do but mourn in silent sorrow
over the desolation of his country no en-
bstiled hosscf Americans were then wsse,