Year: 1860

tions, and to Obstruct the faithful execution
of the laws of the United States.


l trust that the Committee will take cog
nizance of all these and kindred outrages,
and so frame the articles of the bill as to
make any spiracy or combination in any
State or Territory against Government in
habtants properly, or institutions of any
other States or Territories, crime which
consgns the conspirators and confederates
to the felon's doom. Open the prison
and show the conspirators the dismal cells
in which they will drag out miserable ex
istence, unless they abandon this irrepressi-
BILE conflict against the domestic tranquility
of the several States and the harmony of the
Union.


The Constitutional power and duty to
provide this legislation being conceded, the
stern necessity at this time can no longer be
questioned. The events OF the last few years
demonstrate this necessity: A powerful
political party has been organized in behalf
of the States in the Union, on the basis of
irreconcilable and eternal hostility to the
domestic institutions and internal policy of
the other half. The characteristic feature
of the Republican party is, that there is
necessary conflict between the institutions
of the free States and the slaveholding
States, so direct and irreconcilable that they
can not co exist in the same Republic;
and, consequently, the war of sections must
continue to rage until the States of this
Union shall all become free or all slave
until slavery shall be abolished everywhere
or established every where.


This question of the irrepressible con-
fict" was the leading and controlling issue
between Mr.. Lincoln and myself in the
Illinois canvass last year. In his speech
accepting the Republican Abolition nomi-
nation for United States Senator, in June,
1858, MIR. Lincoln stated the question in
these words: In my opinion 1t (the slavery
agitation) will not cease until crisis have
been and passed. A house divided against
itself cannot stand. 1 believe this govern
ment cannot endure permanently half slave
and half free. do not expect the house to
fall, but l do expect it will cease to be
divided it will become all one thing or all
the other. Either the opponents of slavery
will arrest further speed Of it, and place it
where the public mind shall rest in the belief
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction,
or its advocates will push forward until it
becomes alike lawful in all the States-old
as we'll as lew, North as we'll as South"
Here we find embodied, in uneauivocal
terms, the whole blank of the impending
crisis, as previously published by Helper,
and of irrepressible conflict, as proclaimed
by the Senator from New York, in his
Rochester speech, four months afterward,
upon his issue of unceasing war upon the
institution of slavery, with view to its
ultimate extinction.


Throughout the United States the Repub.
lican party appeals to Northern prejudice,
passion, pride and ambition against the
southern States, people and Institutions. 1t
is sectional party, whose object is to rally
all the northern States under one banner,
and drive all the southern States under an
other, under the pretense that free and slave
States cannot permanently endure together,
and consequently the one section must sub
due the other. The Harper's Ferry outrage
is the natural and logical result Of the teach
ings and doctrines of the Republican party,
as inferred in their platforms, partisan presses.
books and pamphlets, and the speeches of
their leaders in and out of Congress.


He trusted that the Investigating Com
mittee might acquit the leaders of that party,
and especially the Republican Senators, of
any completely with John Brown. He was
gratifed at their condemnation of John
Browns acts, but would be more gratified if
they would repudiate and denounce the
doctrines and teachings which produced
those acts. Let them vote for measure
which will not only prevent other invasions,
but will punish all men who form conspira-
cies and combinations to invade, molest or
disturb the people, property, institutions or
government of any State. That would be
the way to repress the irrepressible con.
fict."


But is it true that this Union can not
permanently endure as our fathers formed it,
composed of free States and slaveholding
States? that the conflict must go on, and
the strife rage until the States shall all be-
come free or slave? This theory of the ire
pressible conflict rests on the assumption that
uniformity in the domestic institutions and
internal blank of all the States is indispensa-
BILE to the peace and perpetuity of the Union,
which is contr addicted by our entire history.


The Union is founded on the theory that
uniformity in local laws and domestic insti-
tutions is neither possible nor desirable. Our
fathers knew that country so extensive,
with such a variety of climate, soil, produc-
tions and pursuits must necessarily have a
corresponding variety of interests, requiring
different systems Of institutions and policy
adapted to the wants and necessi ties OF each
locality. They knew that the laws and in.
stitutions which were suitable to the noun
tains and valleys of New England, would be
lilly adapted to the rice plantations and cot
{ ton fields of the Carolinas Hence like wise
men they formed the Republic on the basis
of allowing the people of each State to have
just such laws and domestic institutions as