Year: 1860




urday evening last, some uuintentional injus
tce is done me. May respectfully request
you to publish the following statement in rela.
tion TO it On my way through the Republican
crowd to my hotel, heard their last speaker
declaiming against Office holders, and there
fore asked permission of the audience to re-
ply to him when the meeting adjourned l
subsequently did so from the balcony of the
hotel, because | would on 10 account what.
ever occupy a Republican stand. did say.
as you state, that the Breckenridge party
was minority, which maize it more especially
the duty of every one who believed in the
platform to support it to the utmost; but |
must not be quoted as saying that the Breck.
inridge party is q minority in this state. far
from it. we have six weeks yet for discussion
before the day of election and | have too
much faith in the sagacity, comprehension
and intelligence of the people ever TO suggest
such an idea or Imagine such result.


But you report that "he Uander) said he
believed in the right of any man to go down
into the Southern States with an abolition
document in his carpet bag and to proclaim
his sentiments against the institution of
slavery" Now, am too long student of
the Constitution to have either made or to he
prepared to sRstaiD such ridiculous asser-
lion as this. If during the clamor of the
crowd, endeavoring to silence me, | was un-
derstood, as you report to make such state
ment, permit me to say that was entirely
misapprehended.


To carry an incenliary document into a
sovereign State would expose the possessor of
it to the just penalties of municipal law
Whilst the Constitution guards the individual
against unreasonable searches and sez
ures. and entities the 'ctizen of each S.ate
to all the privileges and immunities of citi-
zens in the several States" can see moth
ing in the Constitution which permits the
Abolition emissary to circulate, or even to
carry for the purpose of circulation, incendi
airy documents into any sovereign State
believe that the most rabid Republican never
maintained that government could intervene





in the social relations of sovereign State ;
and certainly, l, who am not a Republican,
could never have maintained it.


The present discussion in politics is in re-
ference to the Territories, which, in my re-
marks was the only point at issue l did
say, and, to make my observations embrace
the most extreme view on both sides of the
question, maintained that the Northern man
could carry an Abolition speech in a carpet
bag (the old and hackneyed smile of the
carpet,bag man being here appled) into that
Territory which is owned in common by all
the States for, what says the Constitution
Congress shall make no law abridging the
freedom of speech or of the press" and
have not yet reached that point i'll politics
which will enable me to suppose that Terri
tolial Legislature-a mere creature of Con-
gress-can exercise power not pertaining even
to the Federal Government; but ! said, too,
that the Southern man was equally entitled
10 immunity from aggression in holding a
person to service in the Territories, and,
that each of these individuals must be sus-
tanned and protected by all the executive
departments Of the general government.


And SO, let it pass. If you do not choose
10 print what follows certainly cannot re-
quire it; but there is one thing which said
which does not appear in your report yet
which is as important TO you as to myself to
hova apunniotaJ II an,1,rooas tla 90 - J,
and purpose Of my remarks before that Re
publicln audience | said, that the dicta of
the Republican party, in an epleaVor to con-
fine slavery to the old States of the Union,
was terrible aggression upon the North
AS an idea, it was the erection of bulwark
against the grand column of free labor yearly
reinforced by 100000 white men from Eu-
rope. These working men were passing
down into the border slave States, renova-
ting the worn out farms of Virginia, Mary
land and Delaware and occupying the unde-
veloped lands of Missouri. They were pen
etrating every portion of the public domain
adapted by climate and soil to the necessities
of white labor ! said that the Republican
leaders, with no adequ tie comprehension of
the laws of nature or of progress, were en-
gagged in the idle task of endeavoring to pre-
vent slavery from seeking its inevitable out
set into those lands and climates not adapted
to the pursuits of Northern industry. l said
that the opening of the markets Of Japan and
China was to create demand for cotton
fabrics unparalleled in the histories of mod
ern commerce. maintained that the cotton
lands of Tehauntepec and the Gulf were pc
culiarly the heritage of the South and hence
that the expansion of this Republic was a
foregone conclusion. | warned the Young
men then present not to embrace the Rcpub
lican doctrine, not only because of its uncon-
sttutonaty, but because of its interdiction
OF this law of progress. ! asserted that it
was narrow, weak and unstatesmanlike. |
Southern citizen was not entitled to the pro-
lection Of his government against domestic
violence, was to concede that he could not
receive it along the Mexican border against
foreign aggression. | said it was especially
the duty OF California, whose ports would in
the future largely share in this expansion of
Pacific commerce, to sustain the Breckenridge
platform.


If all this has been too Northern to suit
the leaders of my own party, or so Southern
as to merit the animadversion of the leaders
of the Rennblican marty LET me npain be as