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such right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to others to show that neither the word "glave" nor 66 Slavery" is to be found in the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any connection with the language alluding to the things slave, or Slavery, and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a " person;" and wherever his master's legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of "service or labor due," as a "debt" payable in service or labor. Also, it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and Slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man.

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To show all this is easy and certain.

When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their notice, it is not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?

And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live"-the men who made the Constitution-decided this same Constitutional question in our favor, long ago-decided it without a division among themselves, when making the decision; without division among themselves about the meaning of it after it was made, and so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts. Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government, unless such a court decision as yours is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action?

But you will not abide the election of a Republican President. In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us?

That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me-my money-was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though the southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them? Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them, from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call Slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly-done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated-we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that Slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to Slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

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I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what you please about Slavery. But we do let them alone-have never disturbed them-so that, after all, it is what we say, which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying.

I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the overthrow of our Free State Constitutions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of Slavery, with more solemn emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, that Slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.

Nor can we justifiably withhold this, on any ground save our conviction that Slavery is wrong. If Slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality-its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension-its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought Slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think Slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States?

If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored-contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man-such as a policy of" don't care" on a question about which all true men do care-such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance-such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.

MR. BRECKINRIDGE ON NATIONAL POLITICS.

SPEECH AT FRANKFORT, KY.

THE HON. JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE delivered | pealed, and we passed the act known as the Kansas-Nethe following speech on the general political topics of the day before the Legislature of Kentucky at Frankfort in Dec. 1859. Mr. Breckinridge had been recently elected to the United States Senate, by the Kentucky Legislature; and after returning his thanks for the distinguished honor, and promising to serve the State to the best of his ability, he continued as follows:

the United States were constantly contending that it was braska bill. The Abolition, or quasi Abolition party of the right of Congress to prohibit Slavery in the common Territories of the Union. Mr. Breckin- Territories of the Union. The Democratic party, aided by most of the gentlemen from the South, took the opposite view of the case. Our object was, if possible, to withdraw that question from the Halls of Congress, and place it where it could no longer risk the public welfare and the public interest. In the Congress of the United States it had been agitated all the time, to the disadvantage of the South; accordingly (I have not a copy of the bill before me now, but I remember its leading provisions), a bill was passed, repealing the Missouri line, ard leaving those Territories upon the contract and the assertion that the bill made. Did we intend by it to legislate Slavery into Kansas and Nebraska? We denied that, and denied it upon the face of the bill itself. The settlement thus made, afterward received the approval of the people of the whole country. The bill said within itself, not that we intend to legislate Slavery into the Territories, but to leave the people free to form their own domestic institutions, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. That was as much as we could agree upon. There was a point upon A considerable portion of the which we could not agree. Northern Democracy held that Slavery was in derogation of common right, and could only exist by force of positive law. They contended that the Constitution did not furnish that law, and that the slaveholder could not go into the Territories with his slaves with the Constitution to authorize him in holding his slaves as property, or to protect him. The South, generally, without distinction of party, held the opposite view. They held that the citizens of all the States may go with whatever was recognized by the Constitution as property, and enjoy it. That did not seem to be denied to any article of property except slaves. Accordingly, the bill contained the provision, that any question in reference to Slavery should be referred to the court of the United States, and the understanding was, that whatever the judicial decision should be, it would be binding under the obligation of the citizens to respect the authorupon all parties, not only by virtue of the agreement, but ity of the legally constituted courts of the country.

The election took place on Monday. The day before I received a letter signed by a number of gentlemen in the Legislature, asking my opinion in reference to the DRED SCOTT decision, in reference to Territorial Sovereignty, and the power of Congress to protect the property of citizens within the Territories. I received that letter with profound respect, and only regret it did not come to my hands in time, that I might answer it before the election. But yet I am glad that I could not answer it before that day, for your choice is a sort of indorsement of my soundness upon those questions. I confess I was somewhat gratified that the election took place before I had those questions to answer. It was utterly impossible for me to have returned an answer before the time fixed by your law for the election, but, I never intended to fail in this answer. I never should have failed. Had it been one who signed it, instead of twenty, the result would have been precisely the same.

Besides this, it would have been of but little consequence, be the answer before or after. I belong to that school of politics that believes in instruction, and whenever I am not ready to receive the instructions of the State, I stand ready to give back the trust confided in my hands.

THE DRED SCOTT DECISION.

Gentlemen, I bow to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States upon every question within its of the United States upon every question within its proper jurisdiction, whether it corresponds with my private opinion or not; only, I bow a trifle lower when it happens to do so, as the decision in the Dred Scott case does. I approve it in all its parts as a sound exposition of the law and constitutional rights of the States, and citizens that inhabit them. (Applause.) It may not be improper for me here to add that so great an interest did I take in that decision, and in its principles being sustained and understood in the commonwealth of Kentucky, that I took the trouble, at my own cost, to print or have printed a large edition of that decision to scatter it over the State, and unless the mails have miscarried, there is scarcely a member elected to the Legislature who has not received a copy with my frank.

To approve the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case would seem to settle the whole question of Territorial Sovereignty, as I think will presently appear; but, in order that no one may misunderstand my views on that question, I will, with your leave, detain you with a brief review of what was done as to the Slavery question up to the time of that decision, referring also to the duties imposed by it.

THE MISSOURI LINE.

I was in the Congress of the United States when that Missouri line was repealed. I never would have voted for any bill organizing the Territory of Kansas as long as that odious stigma upon our institutions remained upon the statute-book. I voted cheerfully for its repeal, and in doing that I cast no reflection upon the wise patriots who acquiesced in it at the time it was established. It was re

WHAT HE SAID IN 1856.

It was under these circumstances, while the Territory of Kansas was in a state of commotion, and when that question had not been determined by the courts, that the canvass of 1856 came on. It became my duty, by the request of my friends, to visit the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania. In all those States I made speeches. In all those States I uttered the same opinions and declared the same principles that I have ever done in the commonwealth of Kentucky, and am ready to do again. None other!

It has been charged that the Democratic party of the country, and particularly of the South, desired to employ the Federal Government for the purpose of propagating Slavery and slave legislation in the Territories. I denied that the Democratic party desired to use the Federal Government for the propagation of Slavery, and I never conceded what we believed to be our constitutional right to its protection, and what the decision of the Supreme Court has allowed to be our right, I said yes! I did say that the Democratic party of this country, in its federal aspect, was neither a Pro-Slavery nor an Anti-Slavery party, but a constitutional party, and I repeat it here to-night. (Applause.) I do not believe it is. I do not believe that the Federal Government was organized for either purpose, but to protect the rights adjudicated by the courts. All these belong to the States themselves.

These were the declarations that I made, of which something has been heard in all the States. I made the

declarations that I am willing to make before my own constituents; I made the declarations that I am willing to stand here and repeat. (Applause.) We had confidence in our own view of our own rights. Our northern friends had their views. It was a paradoxical question, and we gave it to the Courts.

"And whatever the political department of the Government shall recognize as within the limits of the United States, the minister in it the laws of the United States, so far as they apply, Judicial Department is also bound to recognize, and to adand to maintain in the territory the authority and rights of the Government, and also the political right and rights of property of individual citizens as secured by the Constitution. All we Well, the Courts did decide the very question, which mean to say on this point is, that as there is no express reguhad been submitted to them, not upon a case from Kan-lation in the Constitution defining the power which the General sas, but in another case. Without going into the argu-citizen in a territory thus acquired, the Court must necessarily Government may exercise over the person or property of a look to the provisions and principles of the Constitution and its distribution of powers, for the rules and principles by which its decision must be governed.”

ment, for time does not permit of that, let me give you the conclusion. In the opinion of the Court in the case of Dred Scott, it is said:

'Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court that the act of Congress which prohibits a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the Territory of the United States, north of the line herein mentioned. is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself nor any of his family were made free by being carried into this Territory, even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident."

Again:

The powers over person and property of which we speak, are not only not granted to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are forbidden to exercise them. And this prohibition is not confined to the States, but the words are general, and extend to the whole territory over which the Constitution gives it power to legislate, including those portions of it remaining under Territorial government, as well as that covered by States. It is a total absence of power everywhere within the dominion of the United States, and places the citizen of a Territory, so far as those rights are concerned, on the same footing with citizens of the States, and guards them as firmly and plainly against any inroads which the General Government might attempt, under the plea of implied or incidental power. And if Congress itself cannot do thisif it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government-it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a Territorial government to exercise them. It could confer no power on any local government, established by its authority, to violate the provisions of the Constitution." Thus the highest court in the United States settled the very question referred to it as the disputed point, not legislative in its character, on which Congress could not agree when the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed. The view that we in the Southern States took of it was sustained, that in the Territories, the common property of the Union, pending their Territorial condition, Congress itself nor the Territorial Government had the power to confiscate any description of property recognized in the States of the Union. The Court drew no distinction between slaves and other property. It is true some foreign philanthropists and some foreign writers do undertake to draw this distinction, but these distinctions have nothing to do with our system of Government. Our Government rests not upon the speculations of philanthropic writers, but upon the plain understanding of a written constitution which determines it, and upon that alone. It is the result of positive law; therefore we are not to look to the analogy of the supposed law of nations, but to regard the Constitution itself, which is the written expression of the respective powers of the Government and the rights of the States.

UNFRIENDLY LEGISLATION.

Well, that being the case, and it having been authoritatively determined by the very tribunal to which it was referred that Congress had no power to exclude slave property from the Territory, and judiciously determined that the Territorial Legislatures, authorities created by Congress, had not the power to exclude or confiscate slave property, I confess that I had not anticipated that the doctrines of unfriendly legislation would be set up. Hence, I need not say to you that I do not believe in the doctrine of unfriendly legislation; that I do not believe in the authority of Territorial Legislatures to do by indirec. tion what they cannot do directly. I repose upon the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, as to the point that neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature has the right to obstruct or confiscate the property of any citizen, slaves included, pending the territorial condition. (Applause.)

I do not see any escape from that decision, if you admit that the question was a judicial one; if you admit the decision of the Supreme Court, and if you stand by the decision of the highest Court of the country.

The Supreme Court seems to have recognized it as the duty-as the duty of the Courts of this Union in their proper sphere to execute this constitutional right, thus adjudicated by the Supreme Court, in the following language. In speaking of the acquisition of territory, they pronounce it a political question for Congress to determine what territory they acquire and how many. Now mark the words of the Court:

So that in regard to slave property, as in regard to any other property recognized and guarded by the Constitution, it is the duty, according to the Supreme Court, of all the Courts of the country to protect and guard it by their decision, whenever the question is brought before them. To which I will only add this, that the judicial decisions in our favor must be maintained-these judicial decisions in our favor must be sustained. (Applause.)

SLAVE CODE.

cisions, I would have nothing more done. I, with many If present remedies are adequate to sustain these deother public men in the country, believe they are able If they are not-if they cannot be enforced for want of the proper legislation to enforce them, sufficient legislation must be passed, or our Government is a failure. (Applause.) Gentlemen, I see no escape from that conclusion.

At the same time, fellow-citizens, I make no hesitation in saying to you that I trust the time will never comeI trust the time will never come when it may be deemed necessary for the Congress of the United States in any form to interfere with this question in the Territories. So far it has been only productive of evil to us, and it would portend only evil in the future. At present there is no question before Congress. No Southern Representative or Senator proposes legislation on that point-no complaint comes from any territory-there is no evidence that the existing laws and decisions of the Courts are not adequate to protect every description of property recognized by the several States. None whatever. Therefore, in my opinion, and I submit it humbly and with deference, our true policy is not to anticipate trouble, but to let the matter rest upon the Executive, upon the existing laws, and upon the decisions of the Courts. (Applause.) I will add this: we must never give up the principle, we must never give up the question that has been judiciously decided, that this constitutional right exists. We must stand by that decision. We must hold to our constitutional rights, but I would never prematurely raise the question to distract the country, when there is no voice calling for it, North, East, South or West. (Applause.) I say we must hold to the principle-we must stand by it. We stand in a good position. We have the Executive, we have the laws, we have the decisions of the Courts, and that is a great advance from where we stood ten years ago.

I am glad-although we did not succeed as we desired in Kansas-I am glad that the territorial question is nearly fought out. It is nearly fought out. I know of no existing Territory where this question can arise. As to the territory south of the line, where slave labor is really profitable, I have not a doubt but that the climate and interest, and the proximity of slaveholders, and the Constitution and laws, and the decision of the Court, will sustain and protect us there in the full enjoyment of our rights, and in making Southern territory out of Southern soil. While I would not give up the principle, I never have believed, and I do not believe now, in the possibility of Slavery planting itself in a territory against the determined opposition of the inhabitants, any more than I believe the institution of Slavery could continue in existence in Kentucky for three years against the desire of the voters of the Commonwealth, even with the constitutional restictions that are here thrown around it.

Still, I would save the question and the principle, and never let go the constitutional right, because our protection in the Union consists in a strict adherence to the tion of the Constitution on any one point, we lose our provisions of the Constitution. provisions of the Constitution. When we allow an infraction of the Constitution on any one point, we lose our claim to the observance of the whole. to the last that the Constitution of the country shall be sustained in every particular. (A voice(A voice-" Good.")

We should insist

THE PERIL OF THE COUNTRY.

Fellow-citizens, if you will allow me, I will offer you some observations upon another aspect of public affairs. We have been talking of things that concern us no more than they concern others, but we have questions to determine that come nearer home-questions that come to our

firesides. According to my humble judgment, the condition of our country was never so perilous as it is at this hour; and if things go drifting on as they have of late, we shall have to determine questions of far nearer vitality than the territorial question.

I hope I do not speak in the spirit of an alarmist or a demagogue, but since I have been acquainted with public affairs (and men older and wiser than myself say the same thing) there never was a time when the interests of this Union were in so much peril, and when the feelings of our people were so much alienated as at this hour. Certainly if the aspect of affairs at Washington is in the slightest degree indicative of the feeling elsewhere, that remark is truth.

ITS CAUSE.

Fellow-citizens, the danger arises, in the opinion of our wisest and best men, from the character and purpose and aim of an organization in the country called the Republican party.

I do not think we fully realize what are the objects, purposes and aims of the Republican party, what it intends, and what would be the consequences to us of their success and dominion in the United States. If you will allow me, therefore, I have gathered together three or four facts-mere expressions-mere illustrations or examples, from many thousands of kindred characters, for the purpose of showing what its objects are-to show what we may expect to follow their success.

HIS VIEWS OF REPUBLICANISM.

First is their platform, made three years ago, but beyond which they have far advanced. Like all aggresLike all aggressive organizations, the rear rank of the Republican party marches up and comes upon the ground that the advanced guard occupied months before, while the advanced guard is going ahead. The Republicans are far in advance of their platform, but we have there enough to put us on our guard.

What are our rights? Have we not a right to have our fugitives returned? If there is a plainer provision than that in the instrument, what is it? Have we not a right to live in peace in this Union? What was the Constitution formed for? When the Constitution was made, was it not made by brethren? Was it not made that this political organization should be carried on in peace and harmony ? Have we not a right to demand of our sister States, that we may live together in peace with our respective State institutions, with our whole domestic policy? And is it not a gross violation of the Constitution not to allow us to live in peace, as to refuse to return our fugitives from labor that have escaped into other States? Do they intend to do it? No, they do not. They begin by declaring the Declaration of Independence is a rule of our political action. Here is the declaration of the Republican platform, adopted three years ago, beyond which they have now far advanced:

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"Resolved, That with our Republican fathers we hold it to be a self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the inalienable right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government were to secure these rights to all persons under its exclusive jurisdiction; that as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished Slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person should be deprived of life, liberty and property, without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of establishing Slavery in the Territories of the United States by positive legislation, prohibiting

its existence or extension therein.

This is a positive pledge, that as soon as that party obtains power, it will recognize the equality of the negro with the white man. Its object will be to give him those rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To maintain that equality what follows? Everybody knows that when they obtain the power in the District of Columbia, they will abolish Slavery there; when they obtain the power, they will undertake to abolish it in the forts, arsenals, and dock-yards of the United States throughout the South; they will undertake to abolish the internal slave-trade. Already they declare that not another Slave State shall be admitted into the Union, and they will go beyond that. How can we expect to live in peace and harmony, when declarations of this

sort are uttered:

"Resolved, That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the Territories of the United States for their government, and that, in the exercise of this power, it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress, to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism-polygamy and Slavery."

Is that in the spirit of our revolutionary ancestors? Is it in the spirit of our revolutionary ancestors for a great and growing party, that now claims, and perhaps

have, dominance in the Northern States of the Union, to say of an institution of their Southern relatives they are harboring a relic of barbarism? That shows you, fellowcitizens, their indomitable purpose, their deep-seated hate. I am sorry that it exists, but it is true. How can you expect a great political organization that obtains power, to fail to exercise that power when in its opinion this Union is stained or defiled as to one-half, perhaps, of its inhabitants, by a relic of barbarism, which it classes with the crime of polygamy.

SEWARD QUOTED.

This is not all. I could have brought here the declarations of its representative and leading men from all parts of the Northern States, going infinitely further than is contained there. Allow me, however, to read one of two of the most striking from the most eminent of their leaders. I beg you, fellow-citizens, though they may be familiar, not to weary with a few extracts, for these utterances are the rallying cry of millions of men. in my hand a speech delivered by a Senator of the State I hold of New-York, who is to-day the most influential public man in this Union, on whose words millions hang, and by whose direction millions move. Is this the Constitution and Union that our fathers founded?

Last year, in a speech delivered at Rochester, that gentleman uttered the following language:

“Our country is a theatre which exhibits, in full operation, two radically different political systems; the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor, the other on the basis of voluntary labor of freemen.

"The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous. But they are more than incongruous. They are incompatible. They never have permanently existed together in one country, and they never can.

"Hitherto the two systems have existed in different States, but side by side within the American Union. This has happened because the Union is a confederation of States. But on another aspect the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of population which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended net-work of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus these antagonistic systems are constitutionally coming into close contact and collision results."

Yes, "collision ensues," and his prophecy was fulfilled in less than twelve months after it was made.

"Shall I tell you what this collision means? It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces; and become entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina, and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New-Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone; or else the rye-fields and surrendered by their farmers to slave culture, and to the prowheat-fields of Massachusetts and New-York must again be duction of slaves, and Boston and New-York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many and Free States, and it is the existence of this great fact that unsuccessful attempts at final compromise between the Slave renders all such pretended compromises, when made, vain

and ephemeral.”

These things would have no consequence if they were $ the individual opinions of their author, but they are the opinions of a large and formidable and growing party in this Union; of a party that now claims a majority in the House of Representatives, and which looks, at no very distant day, tr have a majority in the Senate. I ask they anticipate such a political party would arise to deyou if that was the Union formed by our fathers? Did clare that there "is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces" in the United States? doctrine now, but to set forth what we are to expect and It is not my purpose to characterize or stigmatize this

what we are to meet.

At a later period, in the Senate of the United States, that same distinguished Senator uttered the following language, (I well remember the occasion and the speech:)

"A free Republican Government like this, notwithstanding all its constitutional checks, cannot long resist and counteract the progress of society."

They don't expect the provisions of the Constitution and its checks to prevent them from taking their onward, progress. Indeed, they have a facility of construing that instrument, which makes it as dust in the balance. They construe it to authorize them not to return fugitive slaves; to authorize them to make a war upon one half of the nation. There is no provision of the Constitution which has stood in their way as to any right of ours that we have claimed upon this great question. Not only did he announce in the Senate of the United States,

that constitutional checks cannot stand for any time against the progress of Northern opinion, but,

"Free labor," says Mr. Seward, "has at last apprehended its rights and its destiny, and is organizing itself to assume the government of the Republic. It will henceforth meet you Goldly and resolutely here (Washington;) it will meet you everywhere, in the Territories and out of them, wherever you may go to extend Slavery. It has driven you back in California and in Kansas; it will invade you soon in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri and Texas. It will meet you in Arizona, in Central America, and even in Cuba."

Not content with confining it to the Territories, he adds:

crops of cotton, and a trifle over, to do it. That was
indorsed, I tell you again, by sixty-eight or sixty-nine
members of the House of Representatives, and the very
gentleman who they are running for Speaker of that
body indorsed it. It is true, his friends say that he
indorsed it without having read it.
true, he has again and again, when called upon, refused
Admit that to be
to disavow those sentiments, hence the excuse is paltry.
HARPER'S FERRY.

That is the condition of affairs, and that is the condition of the Republican organization of this country, "You may, indeed, get a start under or near the tropics. if any reliance is to be placed in their record, in their and seem safe for a time, but it will be only a short time, declarations, in their public attitude, in the attitude Even there you will found States only for free labor to main- which they defiantly assume before the country. Their tain and occupy. The interest of the white race demands the purpose is to make war, eternal war, upon the instituultimate emancipation of all men. Whether that consumma- tions of one half of the States of the Union. Gradually tion shall be allowed to take effect, with needful and wise pre- we approach the crisis until at last is not the legitimate cautions against sudden change and disaster, or be hurried on by violence, is all that remains for you to decide. The white result of the irrepressible conflict of which they speak, man needs this continent to labor upon. His head is clear, his of the crime of which they say we are guilty, to put arm is strong, and his necessaries are fixed. It is for your- down these relics of barbarism? selves and not for us to decide how long and through what fanatical throw off the obligations of the Constitution The ignorant and further mortifications and disasters the contest shall be pro-and invade by violence the Southern States of the tracted, before freedom shall enjoy her already assured triumph! You may refuse to yield it now, and for a short period, but your refusal will only animate the friends of freedom with the courage and the resolution, and produce the union among them, which alone are necessary on their part, to attain the position itself, simultaneously with the impending overthrow of the exciting Federal Administration, and the Constitution of a new and more independent Congress,"--and they think they have that Congress.

I tell you again, fellow-citizens, this is not the opinion of Mr. SEWARD alone. It is Mr. SEWARD and, with one or two exceptions, the other Republican Senators in the Senate of the United States, and nine-tenths of the Republican members of the House of Representatives. Could that language have been uttered with impunity or been sustained at the epoch of 1779, when the Constitution was formed? Did not the Constitution languish and s.op just because there was some question about inserting these checks about the institution of the Southern States? Were they not put into the Constitution by the great men who formed it, and are not all the citizens of all the States bound to respect the relations that exist between them, and to give the Southern States peace in this Union? How do you receive the declaration that there is an irrepressible conflict waging that there shall be no peace? There is no use attempting to turf over the volcano, there is no use crying peace when there is It is the avowed purpose of the Republican party to agitate, agitate; to overturn the Constitution itself, until they succeed not only in drawing a cordon around you, and shutting you within your present limits, but to put you in a position where you were about, for peace sake, to emancipate your slaves.

no peace.

Well might we say, as was once said in France, "Oh, Constitution! what crimes are committed in thy sacred name!"

HELPER'S CRISIS.

Union, and although I am far from holding the Repub-
lican party of the North, or any large portion of them,
responsible for the late atrocious proceedings in Vir-
ginia, I do say that that proceeding was the carrying
out of the logical result of their teachings-carrying it
into execution. How did they receive it? Why gentle-
men, the conservative portion of the North abhors it;
public press, what do they say of it? That they regret
but, in the Senate and House, in the great body of their
it-they deplore it-they even condemn it--they say,
because it was against law, and they stand for law.
These are the honeyed and qualified phrases with which
they characterize the most atrocious act of treason,
rapine, and murder combined, that was ever known in
the Republic, and then, as though afraid of what they
have said, they immediately go on to eulogize the man
and his motives, much as they regret the act.

A VOLLEY OF COMPLAININGS.
Gentlemen, have we no complaints in other respects?
Are laws passed for the purpose of punishing those who
make inroads into the border States and rob us of our
property? Suppose a Kentuckian should go into the
State of Ohio and rob a citizen of that State, does any
one doubt that we would pass a law to punish him and
to prevent the recurrence of the outrage? So far from
this being their course, they are encouraged, and we are
subject to constant secret predatory incursions by which
we lose annually hundreds of thousands of dollars,
these people availing themselves of the bond of amity
between us, to perpetrate the outrage.

That is not all! About one half of the Northern States have passed laws and made it a criminal and penal offence for their citizens to give any assistance in the rendition of fugitive slaves. Massachusetts has passed laws closing her jails to us, and making it a penal offence to aid in the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave But, gentlemen, I hold in my hand another book, law, or to appear as council to try such a case, thus which is of no consequence as the opinions of its indivi- nullifying the laws of Congress, and of the United dual author, but is of consequence as indorsed by the States, distinctly, and some seven or eight States have distinguished gentleman from whose productions I have passed similar laws refusing all remedy and making it read, and as indorsed also by sixty-eight or nine Repub-penal in their citizens to obey the behests of the Constilicans of the House of Representatives, who represent a tution. constituency of seven millions of people. This, then, may be considered as the declaration of near seven millions of men. What is it? It is a book called the "Impending Crisis of the South," by a person called by a person called Helper, who professes to be a North Carolinian. Whether he is or not I am unable to say. (I will read very little, gentlemen.) In this book, thus indorsed by nearly seventy members of the House of Representatives, representing nearly seven millions of the people, this sentiment is declared:

The slaveholding oligarchy say we cannot abolish Slavery without infringing on the right of property. Again we tell them we do not recognize property in

men.

But the Constitution does; the bond of our Union does, and the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that it does. Our fathers so considered it. It has been so admitted all the time, until the apostles of the new doctrine spoke. At another point he says:

For the services of the blacks from the 20th of August, 1620, up to the 4th of July, 1869-an interval of precisely two hundred and forty-eight years, ten months and fourteen days-their masters, if unwilling, ought, in our judgment, to be compelled to grant them their freedom, and to pay each and every one of them at least sixty dollars cash in hand.

He goes on to remark that it would only take two

I have not uttered these things for the purpose of
arousing any spirit of disloyalty to the Constitution and
the Union. I hope I love them as reverently as any man
within the sound of my voice, but let us look and see the
facts as they are.
questioned purpose of this organization? It is avowed
What may be set down as the un-
that it is to exclude all and any Slave States from the
Union hereafter. It is to give us no fugitive slave law,
declaring that the States under the Constitution must
States; it is to pass no laws for the purpose of prevent-
provide for that, and then to give no remedy in the
ing the robbery of our property but, on the contrary,
in many States to make it penal to enforce the law; it
abolish the internal slave-trade and the coastwise slave-
is to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia; to
trade, and then to agitate and agitate, giving us no
peace as long as we retain this relic of barbarism"
and crime, as they call it.

6

ready to say we will make no stand in any form for
This is the purpose. Are you ready for it? Are you
your Constitutional rights? I think you are not! Yet
that is the present condition of affairs-but what are we
to do?

PRACTICAL REMEDIES.

I know they will consider the consequences, and carefully consider the consequences of any serious collisions

لیے

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