Year: 1860

succumbed as reluctantly rs thr1ce sedUced
damsel to her lover. l believe it was Mira
beau who said "lhe presents of despotism are al
ways dangerous" he should have included in
his remark, the threat Of the tyrant IS well as
/ his reward.


The allegation that Southern combinations are
formed for the purpose of countosacting opposi-
ton extremist, is sheer false pretense. resorted
| to as blind and cheat. No fears ever sprung
from such parentage. Slavery does not exist by
| legal enactment anywhere: 1t Is the child OF
force; and as the sentiment of the world Is
against it, it cannot live without the sustaining
hand of power Surrounded by an atmosphere
of freedom. it is necessarily unsafe, and statute
~ safe guards and defenses become necessary.
Vassalage and subiection never impress them
selves, without violence, upon the natural man,
whilst, on the contrary, the sentiment of free
dom must forever disturb the subjects OF despot-
ism. The South, 10 be safe must therefore ex-
tend through and beyond all the eountervailing
influences 10 which | have referred, and conse-
quenly our frontier possessions must be captur-
| ed. But as the inherent weakness OF the South
is not equal to the task, craft Is resorted to TO
supply the needed assistance. Upon whom can
this be more advantageously brought to bear
than President without courage, Judge with
out eandor, or Legislator without integrity
We are sold or betrayed hourly, and if We had
not more forbearance than discretion we would
| terrify traitors.


Millions of acres of fertile lands, every now
and then are filched from our industrial classes,
who require them for the support and education
of their families, TO be turned into barren wastes
by those who have already blasted more than
one-half of our soil as with an avalanch of fire.
Factories and workshops are tottering IN ruins,
and families and neighborhoods left starving and


in rags, because fostered in iustry is not required
in that region where the laboring man has no
rights which the owner of men is bound to re-
speet. And ships rot at our wharves. and store
Houses become but a rendezvous for ldlerS and
vagrants for the reason that uncompensated
chattel sinews yield fruits more cheap than
skill, and require no shield against the pauper
products of Europe. If change of tariff laws
were required by the South instead of the North
| they could not fail Of its accomplishment. In
that case the President would advocate it with
sincerity and our Senators would again Illus
| trate the fact of their trucking subsection to
those who secretly abhor their baseness and in
fidelity.


Our earnest wishes are not only constantly dis
| regarded, but our prosperity Is remorsely para
| lived by our servants, without an audible muir
mur on our part; and We are not much ayerse,
as we have often proven. to eonferrlng new leases
of office upon such as deceive us. to afford them
further opportunities for mischief. Does this
seem unaccountable? l suggest no, in view of
the truth have but Just stated, that the party
selecting them has its heart and brain in the
South, and lis obeying members, merely, In the
North. The remedy for this shameless evil is as
easy as it is simple We need but initiate the
example set US by those who have caused this
condition of things. Concord and infiexibility
of purpose will accomplish all we ask. Nothing
else ever can or ever will. We might as well ex-
pect divided and discordant army, marshaled
under opposing generals, to capture the power
full and thoroughly disciplined and guarded city,
as for Northern rights and Northern honor to be
sustained by men in the pay and keeping Of
| those who would weaken and reduce US. In
| the ordinary business of life we never trust the
faithless and dishonest; can imagine no reason
for engaging such as sentinels over our entire
fortunes. just so long as our Custom Houses,
Post Offices, Navy Yards and Mints shall be
stocked with thousands, selected virtually by
those who are in banded opposition to US, and
whose principal business. We are instructed to
believe, is eompounding politics with perfidy, it
will be impossible TO render our condition better
than it is. These leper yards must be eleansed.
Their occupants load the air with contagious
corruption.


Throughout their bodies and their souls, they
bear the marks of the distemper with which
the aristocratic pollutionist has touched them.
/ risk but little in saying, that at the very hour
this mighty phalanx, scattered throughout eigh-
teen Northern States, having a common and
powerful bond of Union, are devising measures
to despoil our il dustrial classes by conlnIng
them in densely crowded fields of labor, or forc-
ing them to enter into competition and compan-
ionship with ignorant and brutallzed bondmen.
They all-yes, all-have been brought to be-
lieve that the doctrines of the Declaration of In
dependence are but stereotyped lies; that they
had but sorry conception of inalienable rights;
the constitution which they framed was intend
ed as an instrument of cruelty and crime; and
that the fairest feature of free republican asso-
citation is a union of States peopled with the
lowest grade of slaves. Am right? What is
the trouble against which We have to contend?
Is it not the steady influence of what may with
propriety be called political conspiracies to mis-
lead the public mind and faint the public heart?
Is it not an Administration blaekened with
treachery. and crooked and tottering under the
weight Of its depravity, using all the patronage
of office, and all the destinations of position to
utterly destroy us, by making the Territories of
the country but garrisons for the enemies of
freedom, and the labor of white men degrading
and fruitless, beyond the limits of the present
States? If am In error, what is the correctin-
terpretation of the political discords of the last
six years?


anticipate fully that my suggested mode of
redress for existing abuses will be denounced as
sectional; to which answer, if 1t be so, the an
tidote to bane may be a bane itself, ''sinailia
si,nili6us c,1rag,t,r" But its liability to the
charge is denied. The real sectionalsm is ar
rayed against US: l do but council systematic
and persistent resistance. In studies of the
| fundamental doctrines of onr common character;
| and in the dispensatlons of the favors OF Gov
ernment, we should never know a North. n
South, an East, or West. My complaint is
that others act as if they thought differently
trust we shall be always able TO command the
exercise of such patriotism and comfy as to
ever preclude US from aggression upon section
inferior to ours In every element OF material
strength and greatness. 1t can never be other
wise than dastardly to press upon the weak and
siekly.


1t will be noticed that l have spoken of the
Democratic party without reference to Its pres
ent distractions. My reasons for SO doing is
found in the opinion l entertain that these dis
| sensions do not affect issues as neither branch
indicates disposition to meet, fairly and open
ly, the great political problem of the times
| In casting our votes we should be accurately in
formed as TO their effect upon the policy we de-
sire to see established. We should not be made
| instruments in the hands of any ambitious man,
or in the hands of any combination OF reckless
| or inscriptions men, to force an unnatural
growth of Slavery in the country, contrary to
| what has heretofore been the understanding of
| the Constitution OF the United States, and in
palpable violation Of what has been regarded
settled and national policy. 1t should have


been matter of singing regret to us, if from
our bearing in the present contest. we could be
fairly charged hereafter with violation of the
principles we have long professed to cherish, or


with having imposed any, the slightest imped-