JOHN S. RIDDLE, Esq., then nominated the following gentlemen as Vice Presidents and Secretaries of the meeting, to wit:

VICE PRESIDENTS.

Peter Sken Smith.
SECRETARIES.

Mr. Sergeant, upon taking the chair, said he must first express to his fellow-citizens, his deep sense of the honor they had done him in calling him to the chair of such a meeting, upon such an occasion. He would say, with sincerity, that he heartily united with them in its purposes. He verily believed they were of one mind and of one heart-and he believed, nay, he was firmly convinced, that there was the same unanimity throughout the whole of this great Commonwealth. There was not, he was sure, a single individual within her borders, who was a disunionist or a secessionist, or was so dissatisfied with his associates as to be willing to apply a blazing torch to the common ark of our safety, and make one great conflagration of it in order to get rid of them. No! They were one in feeling, they were one in conviction, and—be it remembered they would be one in the performance of whatever duty they owed their country.

He felt, very painfully, that thus honored, he was disabled by indisposition to address them as the occasion deserved. He must, however, say—or endeavor to say-a very few words, and leave the rest to those who were to come after him, who were fully competent to embody and express the thoughts and feelings which belonged to the great subject.

This UNION bears date the fifth day of September, 1774, and every American should remember, that to maintain it, is a duty always binding upon him. He has no choice about it-he must take care that the Constitution and Laws are maintained and enforced, and the Union preserved. The right is as clear as that of an individual to preserve his own life.

The Constitution was the work of the Union-the whole of the united people of the United States made it. They declared that the Constitution itself; and treaties and laws made under it should be the supreme law of the land. They bind, conclusively, all States and all individuals. Provision is made for alterations of the Constitution. Until alterations are made according to that compact, it is the duty of the government to maintain it, and of the whole people of the United States to aid them to do so. If there be doubt about the constitutionality of a law, there is a tribunal under the Constitution to decide it, and the decision is final. To that, also, submission is due by our own compact.

And here, the argument terminates. If the powers given by the Constitution be rightfully given, as they undoubtedly are-and if it be the duty of the government to enforce, and of the people to support them-if the powers given by an Act of Congress be constitutional, and if it be (as it certainly is) the duty of the government to carry law into effect, thus it is our duty to sustain the law by aiding the government. He, therefore, had no further duty to perform than to declare the meeting organized, and ready to proceed to business.

MR. DALLAS, on being announced, was received with tumultuous applause, which having subsided, he proceeded as follows:

Fellow Citizens !-The Committee of Arrangement, through their Chairman, General Patterson, have handed me a series of Resolutions, prepared by themselves, to be submitted for the consideration and adoption of this meeting. That duty shall be performed. Before, however, these supposed expressions of your sentiments on the present occasion are read, you will allow me to claim your indulgent attention while I make a very few prefatory remarks explanatory, in advance, of their character, scope, and tone.

It is not my purpose to argue or to persuade. You are all aware of what has brought us together:—and if there be any one fellowcitizen here to whom argument or persuasion may be necessary, he need not listen to me. I will not waste or degrade my words, by arguing or persuading that Pennsylvanian who hesitates to stand by his country in her hour of trial.

No frame of government, fellow-citizens, is more difficult to construct than a Federal Union of Sovereign Republican States. History and experience prove how rarely such a task has been accomplished. It exacts, for its achievement, so much forbearance, so much sacrifice of local ambitions, prejudices, and interests, so much mutual conciliation and respect, indeed, there is a necessity for the exercise of so much disinterested virtue for the general public good-that, amid the passions and follies of the world, mankind have mostly regarded it in despair, as a social and political work, too arduous, if not impossible of attainment.

To frame such a government is a labor only equalled in difficulty by that of maintaining it. Yet, when once established, and continued steadily in operation, all reasoning and reflection as well as experience convince us that it is the very best form by which to effect and secure the great aims and blessings of society. A federal Union of republican states gives to commerce, trade, and navigation, almost unbounded expansion and perfect security :-to arts and sciences, impulse, encouragement, refinement, and reward :—and to private rights, superadded and powerful guaranties. It is essential for the purposes of national eminence, national strength, national character and alone, it furnishes a rallying symbol, importing to the eye and the heart of every patriot its lofty and endeared principles, beneath whose floating folds, in all quarters of the earth, its citizen finds shelter and respect.

Such a government—a federal union of sovereign republican states—has been made for us, and has, thus far, unimpaired and unchanged, been transmitted to our guardianship. I will not unnecessarily remind you of the venerated men who formed it. You know quite as well as I do that their names are signals which awaken the affectionate homage of the good and great every-where, and that if it be possible for human excellence and wisdom to outlive the storms of wicked and vaporing malice, those Sages of the Convention of '87 must enjoy undying fame and universal gratitude. Our government, fellow-citizens, was formed by them, after long and painful and patient consultation. Their deliberations were conducted in this our city of Independence, close to the very Hall where most of them had, eleven or twelve years before, confronted, with recorded

signatures, the policy and power of foreign tyranny. The Constitution, which they matured, underwent the scrutiny of every state successively: both in the ranks of the people, and in the councils of conventions:-it was ratified by the universal voice, and hailed as a work nobly done. Since the 30th of April 1789, the day on which George Washington took the oath of office as its Chief Magistrate in the city of New York;--I say, from that hour to the present, the government there prescribed has fulfilled every hope, and has accomplished for the American people all the great purposes of its crea

tion.

What has it done for commerce and navigation? It has run up the tonnage from the humblest to the highest figure:-from three hundred and sixty thousand tons in 1790,to three millions five hundred thousand in 1850:-And it has swollen the aggregate value of our exports and imports from forty millions, to two hundred and ninety millions of dollars.

What has it done for population?-and let me say that there is no better or more significant test of the excellence of a government than that furnished by the increase or diminution of the numbers who remain voluntarily its citizens. In 1790, we were but three millions nine hundred thousand souls, we are now more than twenty-five millions,

What has it done for agriculture?-let the rich and extensive valley of the Mississippi reply:-whose fertility knows no exhaustion, and whose overflowing granaries are ready to peaj another starving world.

What has it done for internal intercourse and trade? I will not venture to tell you in figures, the probable enlargement of this vast and bustling scene. It would sound like exaggeration. But as a single fact, whence you may readily deduce an approximation to the wonderful reality of progress, let me say that in 1790, the number of your post-offices was seventy five, all told, and that now, they are nearly seventeen thousand-being the depositories for mails that are transported more than forty two millions five hundred thousand miles annually.

What has this government done for the enlargement of the home of the American people? It has expanded from a narrow oceanic border over an entire continent: with the Atlantic, the Great Lakes, the Pacific, and the Mexican Gulf washing with obedient waves its four fronts.

What has it done for the sciences and the arts?-objects of wise and anxious protection by every civilized people as contributing not merely to the dignity and embellishment of life, but to the resources, power, and security of nations. Were it possible to bring back to earth the shade of Fulton, he might answer, by recounting with astonishment the advance of steam-navigation since he first slowly forced his way with paddles up the Hudson. 10 go ask the single iron track on which the lightning express speeds its flight, enabling New Orleans and Boston to whisper, every minute or two, soft nonsense in each others' ears. Or enquire of the endless and interlacing railways which bring into close cluster our distant cities, pen

etrate to the sources of inexhaustible production, cement with iron clamps the members of the Union, and give unswerving and unerring facilities to the demands of the freest intercourse and the fullest trade. And lastly, as the crowning indication, read that which an English author has proclaimed to his countrymen to be "the handwriting on the wall," the victorious achievement of the American steamer-the Pacific!

What, again, has this government done for the Rights of Man, and the solace of humanity? Seek the pregnant reply in the scowling glances of every despot on earth:-or if you find it not there, consult the countless and welcome throngs of immigrants, as well from oppressed Ireland as the German Fatherland, from Switzerland and from Swed en, who hasten hither to enjoy the freedom, happiness, and consolation which their native lands denied.

And in fine, what has this Government done for the honor and renown of the American name? Go to the graves of Pike,Ripley, Gaines, Perry, Decatur, Hull, Jackson, and Taylor :-and gaze upon the eloquent standard you will find floating over them :-a standard which we all delight to contemplate: which, at home or abroad, fills every bosom with pride and exultation. And remember that a successful blow aimed at the Union prostrates the star-spangled banner for

ever.

Such, fellow-citizens, are some of the ripe fruits of our glorious confederacy. Not one of them, no, not one could have been achieved without it. Their rapid delineation I have thought due to the occasion:-and if I have spoken truly, as I know I have:-if these magnificent and ennobling results have, in the course of sixty years only, flowed from the government of 1789, are you prepared to abandon, repudiate, and destroy it? (loud and pervading cries of No! No! Never!) Or rather, I should ask, are you not ready to bound boldly forward to protect it from the perils of rash domestic strife? Should there, indeed, be supposed by any of our great speakers and great sages of these latter days, some one or more defects to exist in this matchless Constitution of government, bear in mind that they who made it, with the modesty of true wisdom, in.corporated among its provisions the principle and the pathway of amendment :-and let us invite these censorious pretenders to try their hands at improving, in the regular way, the structure of those master-workmen Washington, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, and Pinkney. Do it, if they can.

But, fellow-citizens, the immediate causes of the present danger and the inducement to your meeting, require my attention. At the recent session of Congress various and most interesing measures were enacted into laws. They were, the admission of California as a State into the Union, the arrangement of the northern and north-western boundary of Texas, the formation of territorial governments for our new acquisitions of Utah and New Mexico, the abatement of the slave-pens (as they were called, in the eloquent diction of the peculiar friends of their occupants) in the District of Columbia, and the act to provide for the delivering up of Fugitive Slaves. Involved, directly or incidentally, expressly or by impli