Year: 1859

the Filth Congressional District OF Massa
chusetts, on the 10th inst, and delivered a
speech that was eloquent and sound din tn.
main. We make an extract:


If We arc told, to-day, that Sfe are III o.
lance with the South, to control and carr
on the government Of the United States,
we answer that we do but follow the exam.


pie Of the revolutionary fathers Of New
England, who fastened to unite themselves
with Southern men to achieve independence,
frame the constitution, and establish gov
ernment under it. Applause If We ar .
told that, by our party association and con
duct, we countcnance and uphold slavery,
we answer that property in slaves is couL


tenanced and upheld by the constitution:


Applause. If we are told that when com.
manded by law we do not refuse to surren.
der fugltivcS from service we answer tina.
we regret there is either slave to flee or !.
master to pursue, but it is written in tn,
bond that the slave ''shall be delivered up"
and the supreme tribunal of the land, speak.
ing not the higher but the highest law, has
pronounced the mode and manner laid down.
in the statute book to be constitutional and
thus conclusive upon us. If We are told by
some man more wise, more sensible, than
are the professed philanthropists OF tn,
hour, who ayow their willingness to tram
pie on the constitution to-day, and the Biblc
tomorrow, to effect a revolutionary change
in the condition Of the black laborcrs Of TIC
South,-sonle man who denies that he
would interfere with slavery in the State:
where it exists, who feels no moral respon.
sibility for it there, who ayows his obcdi.
encc to the clause Of the constitution in re-
lation to fugitives from service and labor,
who ridculcs the idea of negro emancipation
in the South,--if we are told, say, bv
such q man, that we seek to introduce slave
ry into the new possessions of the United
States, we deny the charge, and reply that
we only seek to extend over the territorial
acquisitions that constitution under which:
the new dominion was obtained. IAp-
plause. If ve are told that by our votes
in Congress we repealed the Missouri re-
striction, and so opened up The territory of
Kansas to slave labor, we answer that the
act of Congress did not announce what the
Supreme Court had before decided, which
was that any act Of Congress which, like
the Missouri restriction, prescribed in ad
vance the particular institutions to be form
cd on any public territory, was unconsttu
tional, and so nullity, because itrestricted
the free action Of new States formed out of
those territories, and prevented their rising
to condition of co-equality with old States
If we are told that we believe the constitu-
ton, of its own vigor, establishes slavery in
a new territory, we deny that such is our
belief, and reply that the sacred instrument
recognizes the right of each one of the
joint owners Of the public domain to go
there, carrying with him whatever is prop
erty by the laws of the United States or of
the State from which he cmigrates, and if
he go from slave labor State, and carry
property in a slave, the constitution permits
the holding such property there till the peo,
pie Of the territory, clothed in the garments
Of sovereignty, are admitted to be a State,
and decide the question for themselves. If
we arc told that such opinions, when acted
upon, permit shareholders to fasten upon a
virgin soil, and fix upon it the hand of
slave labor not easily to be shaken off, we
reply that deplore the fact as we may, yet
Congress permits it., the Supreme Court per-
mits it, more than all and above all the con-
stitution permits it. If we are told that this
is opposition to free labor, then we say
that Washington and Franklin, Madison
and Hamilton, Robert Morris and Rufus
King, John Langdon and Roger Sherman,
made constitution, and the people Of thir
teen States, adopted a constitution in oppo-
sition to free labor. If we are told, in the
cant phrase of the day, that the slave oil.
garchy" has been paramount in the United
States for seventy years, debating and con-
trolling the federal policy, and that we are
aiding to perpetuate the rule of that ''oli-
garchy,' we answer that we have no meth
cd of Judging the future but by the past,
and looking to the past, to the amazing sue
cess and prosperity, material, moral and in
tellectual, which has attended tile republic
since it first started on the highway of ma
tions, we see nothing to induce us to con-
denim the policy which has so promoted the
common good, uplifted the down trodden,
and showered upon all men, white and
black, multiplied and multiplying blessings.
If we arc told that we seek to reopen the
African slave trade, we fling back the false
and dishonoring charge, and say to whoever
makes it, that he knows it to be no more
true than would be the charge that the men
of New England are seeking to employ their
ships in the diSgraceful traffic. If we are
pressed with the common phrases of phi
lanthropy, about the lot of the bondmar.,
we say that though we may deplore it as
much as they, but that with it all, we have
a country to keep, a nation to love, a con-
stitution to be proud Of to maintain, to up
hold against all enemies. Great applause. I
We tell them that we intend to avoid the
besetting sin of dwelling on those things
| tritling and transient, and losing sight of
those large and lasting. We tell them that,
so long US this constitution cndures, there
shall be with us true loyalty to all its re-
quirements; that "sink or swim, survive Or
PERISH" as a party, we arc for this consti-
tuition, cxpounded by the high tribunal into
whose charge alone our fathers gave its ex-
position; that we are for this constitution,
which makes the only Union possible to
have, the only Union possible to preserve.


Cheers We may regret that there is Il
slave on earth, as we regret the necessity
of any restraints upon the liberty of the
idle and vicious; but yet we insist that tho
advantages, the blessings, the unspeakablc
| glories Of this constitutional Union of States
outweigh million million times all the harm
which has or ever can come from the rela-
ton Of the white race to the black, which
exists in the Southern States. We will see
to it that the alien who comes to our shores
has all the rights and privileges held out by
public law, which invited him here, and in
duced him to contribute to the bone, ana
sinew, and wealth of the United States
We will secure to every sect and creed lib
erty to worship God in their own way, and,
in that sense, will give protection to Prot
estant and Catholic alike, not because they
are Catholics or Protestants, but because
they are citizens. We will not violate their
equality in the State by refusing to respect
their religion.


w We clip the following notice Of
Senator HAMMER from the Marengo (Ill. J