.. v^^\^^' "o^^^^/ V-^V \'^' * AT V^ o " a : -"-o^ :^ iO -7*. * ^^K^^^ * < O ^ « V-^ *oko' ^^ 1- A^ o * ^ <^ 'o-.;* G^ \ *.T7r»' A >^ .. I V o » • -OV* •^0 HO ^0^aJ '2'° hum of civilization. Only thirty-six years have passed since the period of which I speak. I then stood here in the vigor of youthful manhood. I stand before you to-day, having numbered but little over half a century of the years allotted to man — still in my prime and able as ever to do battle in the cause of Liberty — and yet I may lay claim among the mil- lions who inhabit the great North West, to be that mysterious person of whom everybody has heard, but who is so rarely seen — " the oldest inhabitant". When Rip Van Winkle awoke from his twenty year's sleep in the caverns of the Cats-kills, he knew not the facesof the neighbors with whom he sup- posed he had parted on the previous day ; and in like manner, when I wake as from my sleep of more than a third of a century, I look in vain for the old land- marks of my hunting grounds, and the familiar faces of companions of the hunt and the mess-room. All, all have been gathered to their rest ; but I find in their stead, millions of people, in whose stalwart forms and smiling faces, I perceive at once, the evidences of universal prosperity, ind a manly, fearless independence, which delights in honest labor and reaps its never-failing ewards. Your faces are all unknown to me ; but God has planted his image there ; and I know that in the heart of every man in this vast assemblage, there dwells a spirit of Liberty which will never suc- cumb to any power which seeks to undermine the free institutions bequeathed us by those who pledged "their lives, their liberties, and their sacred honor" in sup- port of freedom of thought, freedom of action, free- dom of speech, freedom of the Press, and Freedom for man. And yet I cannot help exclaiming, whence came this army of freedom ? Come ye from the sunny South ? No. Man there, is taught that labor belongs solely to bondsmen and to slaves — that it is beneath the dignity of freemen ; and of course, ye came not thence. But ye have come from the Free North, — offshoots of that noble band of Pilgrims who planted the Tree of Liberty on the Rock of Plymouth and the Banks of the Hudson, and watered its roots with their blood, freely spilt on the fields of Concord, of Lexington, and of Banker Hill, until its branches have overshadowed a vast Continent, and given dignity to labor and freedom and civil and religious liberty, to a mighty people. But you are not alone in this work ofcausing the wilderness to blossom as a rose. I perceive everywhere, stand- ing around and amid yon, cliildren of another clime, who have been driven from the despotisms of the old world, to find a home and freedom and prosperity in the land of Washingto.n, and under laws which have their foundations in the everlasting truths of revealed religion and the principle of equal rights to all who bear the image of our Maker. We welcome all such to a free and full participation in the bless- ings of our free institutions ; and may God in his in- finite goodness, teach them, one and all, that they can best exhibit their gratitude for the liberty and prosperity which they now enjoy, but which were not their birthright, by devoting all their energies, to the preservation of the glorious constitution which se cures to us the institutions in which they have been permitted so freely to participate. Men of the North- West — freemen of the soil— descen- dants of the Pilgrim Fathers; and ye who have proved your love of freedom by forsaking your Fader-land to dwell in this " the land of the free, and the home of the brave", — what is it that brings you here to-day? What is it that has brought together here, in the very orssence of the spirits of those^wbo laid down their lives in their country's service, such avast concourse of the bone and sinew of our land ? Need I reply? Does not the heart of every man leap to his tongue, ready to exclaim, " We come in the cause of Freedom " and to vindicate the Constitution'and the institu- " tions of the country, against those who would " trample both under foot, and establish in their stead " an odious oligarchy, the very existence of which * pre-supposes the presence of SLAVERY with aU " its attendant demoralization, in a region where " free white labor is now honored and respected, and " gives law and order, and peace and prosperity to the " land". Such, fellow-citizens, is the purpose of your assembling in council on this occasion; and would to God that I were more capable of placing vividly be- fore you, the momentous crisis at which we have arrived in our nation's history. But my vocation is to write and not to speak; and although I could not but obey the call to be with you to day, I well knew that I should find here, good soldiers and true, whose impassioned eloquence and matured wisdom, would abundantly compensate for all my deficiencies. When our fathers gravely determined to resist the aggressive acts of the Mother Country, and appeal to the God of battles for that redress which their rulers refused, the civilized world conceded the justice of their 'cause and the necessity of their ap peal. But great as their grievances were — oppressive as were the acts of their rulers — history will hereafter vindicate the truth of the deliberate declaration which I now utter in the presence of my God and of this vast multitude of Freemen, that according to the best of my judgment and belief, based upon a candid and careful ex- amination of the whole subject, resistance to the administration of the so-called Democra- tic party and its murderous and bloodstained acts of oppression towards our brethren of Kansas, is more imperatively demanded at our hands now, than was resistance to George the III and his min- ions by our patriot sires in 1775. In the whole cata- logue of grievances so vividly set forth by the immor- tal Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence, we find but a very faint foreshadowing of what has actually been practised by the existing Administra- tion at Washington, and for which, they were so elo- quently arraigned by the Liberty-loving Jefferson of the present day, (William H. Seward) in his admir- rable speech in the Senate of the United States in February last. No one charge did our fathers make against their oppressors, which we may not make with equal truth, against the President of the Uni- ted States and the miserable tools who have base- ly sold themselves to do the execrable work of the Slaveocracy of the land. And in addition, we can make out against them a record of blood, such as our fathers never dreamed of", and which would havp driven them to extremities, which we, having a source of redress in the Ballot-Box, cannot even impgine. But our fathers had no ballot-boxes, through which and to which, they could appeal; and therefore, they appealed to arms and to "the Supreme ruler of the Universe" lor that justice which their King withheld. But they gave us a more simple and effectual remedy for all our grievances, when they bequeathed to us the blessing of self- government, and gave us the ballot-box for its preservation. And the knowledge of this fact, has rendered us quiet and submissive under outrages to which they were strangers. Our remedy is in our ov\n hands; and they who bequeathed to us our Liberties, our tree institutions, and the noble charter by which they are guaranteed, inculcated the all im- portant duty of submission to the powers that be, until, such time as we have failed to secure a redress of griev- ances by an honest end intelligent exercise of the elec- tive franchise. We have thus submitted; and the hour is at hand for redress. The call for the gathering of Freemen, has gone forth ; and we are here to-day in obedience to that call. And in this vast assemblage, and the spirit which animates it, maybe distinctly read the hand-writing on the wall, which proclaimed to B.iLTHAZAR and his minions, that their hour had come. Fellow-Citizens, this is no party gathering. Party is the life-blood of a Republic, and I do not wish to see the day when there shall be no parties in our country. But there are periods in the history of nations, when all party lines and all personal differences, and all selfish considerations, are thrust aside as the idle wind which no man regard- eth, and give place to vital questions of principle upon which depend the very existence of Govern- ment itself. In monarchies and despotisms, the people have no remedy but in revolution and an appeal to the sword. But thank God and our Patriot fathers, we have a simpler and more certain remedy. We have both the right and the power, peaceably to redress ourselves and to vindicate our principles ; and that we may do so understandingly, and cheer each other on in the noble and patriotic work, and induce all lovers of freedom to join us, we are now assembled together in council, on ground consecrated to liberty by the blood of Patriots, freely poured out in defence of our common country. If there bejamong us any who, still clinging to party recollections, are anxiously looking for the merits of the pending strife between Slavery and Freedom, to them I would say in the spirit of kindness and of truth, that there is but one solitary question to be decided by the approaching Presidential contest ; and that is — "Shall the Institution of Slavery be restricted " to the line of 36° 3(y of North latitude as was " solemnly covenanted by our fathers thirty-six years " ago, or shall that blighting curse be extended into " the free territories of ihe United States, to the de- " moralization of our people, the dishonoring of free " labor, and the ultimate destruction of even the "semblance of Liberty and the principles of the " Constitution by which it is fostered ?" This I say, is the sole and only question to be determined in the coming Presidential contest ; and in the determin- ing of this all important matter, which is to affect the destinies of this great country through all future time, men are as nothing. You have been told that this is a war against the institution of Slavery, and the rights of our fellow-citizens of the Slave-holding States under the Constitution of the Union. But all this is false, and known to be false by those who make the charge. We war not against Slavery, but against its extension into territory now free; and if I know my- self, I would sooner sever this right arm from my body, than stand before you this day, advocating any, the slightest interference with the purely local in- stitution of Slavery where it rightfully exists. For twenty-nine consecutive years, I have stood before the public the only responsible editor.of one of the leading journals of the United States ; and during twenty-seven years of that time, the South have never had a more determined or zealous advocate for all their constitutional rights. And it is my pride, as it is my duty to declare, that now and hereafter, they will always find in me, in my Press, and in my ac- complished associates, the same devotion to their constitutional rights, which has heretofore called forth their admiration and applause. But when Slavery becomes aggressive — when its advocates cease to be content with its being a local institution and with the protection which the Constitution gives it, and aim to render it national; when the Slareocracy openly repudiate the most solemn compacts, and glorying in their dishonor, demand that it shall be extended into territory now free, by the direct legis- lation of Congress ; when they shamefully boast of their violation of plighted faith,and impudently threat en to "conquer" the freemen of the North and com- pel their submission; when they proclaim that Slavery is a blessing and not a curse, as they have always admitted in times past ; when they repudiate the sentiments of Washington and Jefferson, and ridicule the principles of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and denounce it as " a Rhetorical Flor- ish"; and an abstraction ; and when they impudently threaten disunion if the North will not tamely submit to their impudent and arrogant demands — it becomes the duty of every honest citizen to rally in defence of Freedom, and sternly to decree, that the institution of Slavery shall not be exten led north of the Compromise line of 1820. In so doing, we shall not lose sight of our duty to our Southern brethren and of the Constitu- tion ; and palsied be the tongue that would utter one word in derogation of either. That Slavery is a curse to the master and to the country where it exists, rather than to the race held in bondage, all must admit ; and I cheerfully admit, too, that the only remedy yet devised (emancipa- tion) is worse than the disease. Let no man therefore, taunt our Southern brethren with this / \ plague-spot, or seek to ^intermeddle with an institu. tion, the existence of which among them, is their misfortune and not their fault. They are entitled to our sympathy and condolence ; and I speak advised- ly when I say, that they have it. The whole North, with a few miserable exceptions, commiserate the misfortune of those who are born with this curse in their midst, and only take exception to the impudence and the arrogance which un- blushingly seeks to extend it in violation of the most sacred pledges and contracts which can be made between men. Who is there among you, if he have a neighbor or relative, afflicted with some horrid and disgusting disease, will not give to the afflicied, his warmest sympathy and his deepest commisseration ? He will, if necessary, cheerfully divide with him his purse, and do all that it is in the power of man to do to ameliorate his condition ; but when the afflicted neighbor, asks him to share his disease, and begs to be permitted to communicate it to his family, without thereby in any way re- lieving himself, will he not draw back and reject with horror the selfish and impudent proposition? And so it is with Slavery. We commisserate those, who in the Providence of God, are afflicted with this moral leprosy, and deeply sympathise with them in their misfortunes, and will abstain from interfering, or upbrading them with their Plague-spot ; we will faithfully discharge towards them all our constitutional obligations, and do all in our power to mitigate their sufferings from this blighting curse. But when they ask us to permit its extension into Territory which God and man have alike devoted to freedom, and thereby destroy forever, the respecta- bility of free labor amid unborn millions ; and all to enable a class at the South to "put money in their purse," our duty to ourselves and to our posterity — to freedom, to humanity, to our christian faith, and to God himself— demands at our hands a decided re- pudiation of the impudent proposition. That repu- diation ha§ gone forth on the wings of the wind, and has been responded to from every hamlet in the occu- pancy of honest and intelligent Freemen; and we are assembled here this day, to record our approbation of the Decree. But the Slaveocracy boast, that they will force upon the Freemen of the North, the curse under which they labor— that they will " conquer " the Free Territory of Kinsas from the men of the North— that their peculiar institution, shall be restor- ed in the places whence it has been driven by the laws of God and man — and that, ere long the Slave- owner of Georgia, will be at liberty to call the roll of his human chattels within the shadow of the great monument raised to Freedom on Bunker Hill. Shall this be? Will the men of the North, among whom labor is honorable as instituted by God himself when man first fell from his high Estate, bow their necks in tame submission to a mere handful of arrogant mortals, so utterly deficient in the qualities ne- cessary to make good their boasts, that the Freemen of this region alone, where a quarter of a century ago the voice of the white man was rarely heard, could drive them all into the ocean as easily as in the coming political struggle, they can if they will, rescue forever the Free Soil of our country from the curse which threatens it? No, never, never, never. I doubt not that a majority of this vast assemblage, can with me, boast of their descent from those who nobly won for themselves and for their posterity forever, the civil and religious liberty we enjoy ; and I trust in God, that the day is far distant, when any of us can be unmindful of our duty in a crisis like the present. But let us not be unheedful of the signs of the times. Threats have been followed by acts ; and those who have under- taken the herculean task of " conquering " the far North, are at this very moment making rapid strides towards the achievement of their purpose, through the weakness, the imbecility, and the treachery of Northern demagogues, who have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage, and now seek to consummate the infamous bargain. Our enemies will deny this; but look at Kansas and the scenes of outrage, robbery, rapine and murder, which have been perpetrated there, during the last year, under the asgis of the Stars and Stripes, and with the full sanction of the officers of the General Government, including the Execu- tive himself — scenes which would have demanded an appeal to arms long since, if the valor and the wisdom of our Revolutionary fathers,had not provided for us the more peaceable remedy of the Ballot- Box. Cunning and chicanery, backed by the power of a venal and corrupt Executive, have attempted to cover up with color of Law, their robberies and murders, and their driving away from the Free soil of Kansas, the Freemen, who, in the exercise of their Constitutional rights, had there made their homes, and were rapidly building up institutions con- secrated to Freedom. But the intelligence of the peo- ple — of the Freemen of the great North— cannot be thus imposed upon. What are the facts of the case which now so imperatively addresses itself to the hearts and the consciences of Freemen, and demands at their hands the sacrifice of all minor questions, that by a united struggle, they may forever secure to the Free North, exemption from the curse which an all-wise Providence has inflicted upon our less fortunate brethren of the South ? Let History tell the tale ; and let us, one and all, clearly understand the great issue which we are Jibout to determine for all time. In pursuance of that provision of the Constitution which declares that Congress may admit into the Union new States, the Territory of Missouri framed a State Constitution in 1819, and at the following session of Congress, asked admission into the Union as a Slave State. The Statesmen and Patriots of the North, with one voice, said, — "No, not as a Slave ' State. We have already sufficient of Slavery repre- ' sentation in Congress ; and the Free Territories ' of the North, shall never be polluted with ' the blighting and demoralizing curse. That ' fairest portion of our Continent, is destined to be ' the future home of our children and their children's * children, and of the oppressed of Europe, wh'-' V ' loving freedom, may desire to find here an asylum ' from the tyranny and oppression of the old world. ' We are ready to welcome Missouri into our Union, ' but not with the bar sinister of Slavery, emblazoned ' upon her escutcheon". At this the handful of slave- holders at the South, blus'^ered and bullied, and threatened a dissolution of the Federal Union. We were an infant nation then, and the bonds of the Union had not been cemented by the inseparable interests whicli now make us one people. Our fa- thers loved their Southern brethern with an affection as pure as th.it which now burns in every patriot bosom of the North ; and what is more to the pur- pose, they not only loved the Union, but they had already determined that it should never he dissolved. The South too, at that time, loved the Union, because their Patriots of the Revolution, who stood side by side with our fathers on the battle- grounds of freedom, were still among them and counciled peace and conciliation. " There were Giants in those days". Wkbster, Clay, Calhoun, Kins, Lowndes, Pinckney, and their compeers, had all come upon the stage of life, mighty in council and in debate, and still mightier in purpose, because they could sit at the feet of the Gamaliels of the Revolution, and receive instruction for those who battled for, and founded our Republic Prompted by the purest patriotism, and guided by the same spi- rit of compromise and concession which presided over the framing of our Constitution, they resolved that the unforiunate dissensions which threatened the very existence of our Govern- ment, should forever be allayed, by a com- promise whicli should be alike just to all, and to which all could assent without dishonor. It was therefore, resolved by the People's Represen- tatives in the House, and by the Representatives of the States in the Senate, and by the Executive of the Nation — James Mo^fROE, of Virginia, a soldier and statesman of the Revolution, and himself a Slave holder — and approved byJuFFERsoK and Madison and the people of the United States, that Missouri should be admittel into the Union as a sovereign State with Slavery inscribed upon her banner, upon the express an:l sole condition, and none other, that thereafter, Slavery should FOREVER be excluded from all the territory of the Uiaon lying north of 36°30'of north lat- itude. And for the sacred maintenance of this compact, the South and the North, solemnly pledged their faith one to th3 other, and caused the pledge thus solemn- ly given, to constitute a part of the compact itself. Then the note of discord ceased ; the cry of disunion was heard no more ; peace and happiness prevailed throughout the land ; and we were indeed one people. But time rolled on. The patriots who made, and the sages who sanctioned the compromise of 1820, one by one, fell into their graves. Jeffer- son andMADisoN, Monroe and Pinckney, Lowndes and Lee, Clay and Calhoun, all of whom had sanc- tioned this great work and represented therein, and plighted thereto, the honor and the good faith of the South ; and the giant Webster and the pure-hearted King, and the host of good men who had united in this great and good work — all, all were in their graves ; when thirty-four years after its inauguration, the Slaveocracy of the pre- sent day, regardless of their plighted faith and of their "sacred honors", aided by a few rene- gade politicians from the North, shamefully and infamously, repudiated and repealed the sacred compromise of our fathers, and gave up to Slavery and to Slavery extension, not only Kansas, but every foot of Free territory which had been so solemnly consecrated to freedom ! Then the Sons of Freedom at the North, buckled on theii armor and marshaled their legions for the fight, in defence of free labor, and free soil and free- men, and against that Slave-power which had basely sacrificed its plighted faith on the altar of mammon. Then Freemen rushed into the newly organized Territory of Kansas, not only to make for themselves comfortable homes, but by their presence, to rescue the Free soil of that fair region from the curse of Slavery, and preserve it for the occupancy of Freemen. But the Slave power, backed by an unprincipled and unscrupulous Execu- tive, had determined that Kansas should be a Slave- State ; and therefore, in defiance of the organic law of the country, armed bands of Missourians marched into the Territory on election day, drove the friends of free soil from the Polls or overwhelmed them by their votes, and elected to the Legis'ature supple tools of their own. The men thus elected by a band of armed Ruffians from Missouri, called them- selves the Legislature of the Territory of Kansas ! and Franklin Pierce, the Executive of the United States, who has sold himself, body and soul, to the Slave power, and unblushingly announced him- self ready to do their bidding in all things, shameful- ly recognized this spurious bof^y, and has used the ar- my and the civil power of the Union, to enforce their odious enactments — enactments falsely dignified with the name of Laws, and which are a'~'solutely dis- graceful to our country and even to the nge in which ve live — -enactments which would ensure resistance and revolution, even in despotic Russia, and to which no subject of the Sultan would for a moment sub- mit. By these so-called Laws— approved by the Democratic Party and enforced with the bayonet by a weak and wicked Executive — to proclaim aloud the principles of the Declaration of Independence, or to read that noble document within the Territory of Kansas, is declared to be a felony, punishable with incarceration in the State Prison for a period of five years ! while to advocate the exclusion of Slavery from the Free Soil of Kansas, is made a crime punishable with Death ! ! And to render morally certain the adoption of a Constitution which shall render Kansas a Slave State forever, no person is permitted to exercise the elective franchise who will not swear that he is in favor of the institu- tion of Slavery in Kansas and the Laws enacted for its support. In proof of this declaration, I read from the enactments to which I refer. Section 4 of the Act entitled SLAVES, punishes with DEATH any person convicted of decoying or carrying away a Slave from the heretofore Free Ter- ritory of Kansas. But not content with this extraor- dinary enactment, they also make punishable with DEATH, the act of carrying away a Slave from Vir- ginia or Kentucky ; while the States from which the Slave is carried away, never dreamed of punishing the offender with anything more than imprisonment ! I quote from the Laws : Sec. 6. If any person shall entice, decoy or carry away out of any State or other Territory of the Uni- ted States any slave belonging to ano'ther, with in- tent to procure or effect the freedom of such slave, or to deprive the owner thereof of the services oi such slave, and shall bring such slave into this Territory, he shall be adjudged guilty of grand larceny, in the same manner as if such slave had been enticed, de coyed or carried away out of this Territory, and in such case the larceny may be charged to have been committed in any county of this Territory, into or through which such slave shall have been brought by suchpeison. and on conviction thereof the person of- fending SHALL SUFFER DEATH, or be imprison- ed at hard labor for 7iot less than ten years. So much for the character of the Slavery establish- ed in the free territory of Kansas, by a set of men calling themselves a Legislature for that Territory, but who notoriously owe their election to a set of Rufhaiis living in the State of Missouri. I quote again from the same Law : Sec. II. If any person'print, write, i/i(ro as it was his right to do under the Laws of the United States, shall venture in that home, to "assert or maintain" the blessings of freedom — or if I, or any person editing a free Press, presume to express my honest convictions in regard to Slavery through that Press, the inhabitant of Kansas who ventures to take such paper, or permits his neighbor to see it, is de clared to be a Felon ; and the court before whom he is tried, has no discretion but to sentence him to two years^ imprisonment at hard labor. And all this is done in the sacred name of Liberty, with the con nivance of the Executive of the United States, under the direction ot the Slave Power of the South' and by virtue of what are called Laws, enacted by a Legislature proved to have been elected by the in habitants of the State of Missouri. A'd to insure the conviction of all persons offending in any way against this most tyrannical slave code, it is provided as follows : Sec 13. No person who is conscientiously oppos- ed to holding slaves, or who does not admit the right to hold slaves in this Territory, shall sit- as a juror on the trial of any prosecution for any violation of any of the sections of this act. Having thus shown that to speak or w.ite against Slavery in Kansas, is a crime punishable with imprisonment of from two to five years at hard labor, let us now turn to the act in rela- tion to criminals, and there learn the nature of the punishment for reading or circulating in the Free Territory of Kansas in the nineteenth century, the Declaration of Independence, or the writings of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Clay, and their fellow-patriots ; — bearing in mind always, that none but the open advocates of Slavery and Slavery-extension, are permitted to sit as Jurors ; and that on conviction by such packed Jury, the Court has no discretion but to sentence the party convicted, to two or five years' imprisonment at hard labor. Five years for circulating the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and two years for reading or circulating an independent newspaper, or for questioning the right ful existence of Slavery in the Free Territory ot Kansas, from which it was forever excluded by the Comproiflise of 1820. Listen to what imprisonment at hard labor is, without power anywhere, to modify or ameliorate it : Sec. 2. Every person who may be sentenced by any court of competent jurisdiction, under any law in force within this Territory, to punishment by con- finement and hard labor, shall be deemed a convict, and shall immediately, under the charge of the keep- er of such jail or public prison, or under the charge of such person as the keeper of such jail or public prison may select, be put to hard labor, as in the first section of this act specified; and such ke per or other person, having charge of such convict, shall cause such convict, whde engaged at such labor, to be securely confined by a chain six feet in length, of not less than four-sixteenths nor more than three- eighths of an inch links, with a round ball of iron, of not less than four nor more than six inches in diameter, attached, which chain shall be securely fastened to the ankle of such convict with a strong lock and key ; and such keeper or other person, hav ing charge oT such convict, may, if nee :ssary, confine such convict, while so engaged in hard labor, by o^AcTcAams or other means in his discretion, so as to keep such convict secure and prevent his escape; and when there shall be two or more convicts under the charge of such keeper, or other person, such convicts shall be fastened together by strong chains, with strong locks and keys, during the time such convicts shall be engaged in hard labor without the walls of any jail or prison. Such fellow-citizens, are some of the odious enact- ments put forth as Laws, by a set of men claiming to be a Legislature for Kansas, but who are proved by a Cominittee of Congress, to h ive been elected by a band of Ruffians living in the State of Missouri. And these enactments the Freemen of Kansas have not only been called upon to respect and obey ; but when, as it was their duty to God and man to do, they refused obedience to mere edicts which had not even the color of law to command the respect of the oeoplfi, the Executive of the United States has em- p'oyed and countenmced the very Gorder Ruffians who eltcted this so-called Legislature, to drive from the Tpr-itory and jhoot down and murder every Ameri- can titizen who had the manhood to resist the most feartu' tyraimy that was ever attempted to be enforced upo I ai intelligent peo;)le. Resistance to tyranny, is, a* all tines and in all places, the most imperative duty of Freemen ; but it was rendered still more i:np'?rati'ely the duty of our brethren in Kansas to resist, wlat are falsely denominated the Laws of thtt Territory; because the same pretended Legisla- ture whicli enacted those Laws, as they are called, not only adopted the entire code of Mis- souri as the Laws of Kansas, but passed test acts, the object of which was to disfranchise thK3 Ireeineu of that Territory, and forever prevent the repeal ol the abominable laws which I have cited. By thea> test acts, no man is permitted to hold a seat in tie Legislature nf Kansas, until he has first taken .i 'olemn oath ''to support the pro- visions of an Act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kans;,"; or in otl^^r words, until he has soleuirdy sworn r, stand by, and sustain the repeal of the Missouri 'ompromise ! And what is still more significant and -ippressive, no man is per. mitted to e.xercise the eective Franchise, unless he will first svear to susim that most infamous proceeding. I read to you from these odious Test Acts : Sec. 11. ♦ • Andprovided further, That if any person offering to vote shall be challenged and re- quired to take an oath or affirmation, to be adminis- tered by one of the judges of the election, that he will sustain the provisions of the above recited acts of Congress, and of the act entitled "An act to organ- ize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas", ap- proved May 30, 1854, and shall refuse to take f^uch oath or affirmation, the vote of such person shall be rejected. Sec. 12. Every person possessing the qualification of a vote, as hereinabove prescribed, a:>d who shall have resided in this Territory thirty days prior to the election, at which he may offer himself as a candi- date, shall be eligible as a delegate to the House of Representatives of the United States, to either branch of the legislative assembly, and to all other offices in this Territory, not otherwise especi;illy provided for : provided, however, that each member of the legislative assembly, and every officer elected or appointed to of- fice under the laws ,jf this Territory, shall, in addition to the oath or affirmation specially provided to be taken by such officer, take an oath or affirmation to support the Constituti'^n of the United States, the provisions of an act entitled " An act respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service of their masters," approved February 12, 1793; and of an act to amend and supplementary to said last mentioned act, approved September 18, 1850; and of an act entitled ".An Ac' to organise the Territories oj Nebraska and Kansas," approved May 30, 1854. Sec. 13 No person who is conscientiously opposed to the holding slaves, or tvho does not admit the right to hold slaves in this Territory, shall be a juror in any cause in which the right to hoM any person in Slavery is involved, nor in any cause in which any injury done to or committed by any slave is in issue, nor in any criminal proceeding for the violation of any law, enacted for the protection, of slave properly, and for the punishment of crimes committed against the right to such property. In like manner, no person may practise Law in the Territory of Kansas, who will not first swear that he' will sustain and support the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ! Fellow-citizens, I feel that it is somewhat tedious thus to examine into the character of the so called Laws of Kmsas, which the President of the United States, in obedience to the Slave power, is now enforcing with the army of the Union, in violation of every principle for which our fathers fought, and upon which our free institutions are based. But I stand here to address myself to your reason, and not to please your ears with well turned periods, and that eloquence which frequently excites when it does not convince. I stand here the advocate of right ; and to maintain and justify the Freemen of Kansas in their resistance now and hereafter, to every jot and tittle of the so- called Laws of Kansas, enacted by a Legislature not elected by themselves, but by the people of Missouri. The tyrannical character of those Laws, not only justifies, hnt demands, resistance from Freemen; and when in addition, they have been proved to emanate from a body of men not elected by the people of Kan- sas, and certain provisions which disfranchise Freemen from taking any part in their repeal — to have acquiesced in them, would have been a crime 8 against Liberty, and have merited the condemnation of the whole American people. I stand here, feJlow- citizens, to demand at your hands, justice for our breth- ren of Kansas, and it is only by demonstrating to you the extent of their grievances, that I can expect at the ballot-boxes in November, that united action against their oppressors, wrhich can alone relieve them from the tyranny which they are suffering, and avert from our beloved country, the horrors of a widely extended civil war. I have placed before you faithfully, and as concisely as possible, a few only, of the so called Laws of Kansas, which the Freemen of that Terri- tory have so manfully resisted; and which are now bein^ enforced by the Executive of the Union, with the Army of the United States and the very Border Ruffians who have been the authors of all the murders and outrages perpetrated upon the defenceless people of Kansas in obedience to the Slaveocracy of the land. Briefly, then, fellow-citizens, the case stands thus : Thirty-six years ago our fathers entered into a solemn compact with the Slave power, by which it was agreed, that Missouri should be admitted into the sisterhood of sovereign and independent States, with Slavery in her Constitution, on the express condition, that in consideration of her being so admitted, SLAVERY or involuntary servitude, should for- ever be excluded from all the territory of the Union lying North of 36° 30' of north latitude. Calhoun and Clay, and Pinckney and Lowndes and Lee, were the immediate representatives of the South in this solemn compact, made for the preservation of the Constitution itself ; and Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, gave it their hearty approval, and hailed it as the harbinger of peace to a distracted country, and as securing to freedom and to free labor forever, the fertile region of the North West. When all these Patriots and their co-laborers at the North, had sunk into the grave— passed " to that bourne whence no traveller returns" — the Slaveocracy of the present day, in disregard of their plighted faith and in viola- tion of every sentiment of honor and honesty, and aided by a handful of reckless . and unprin- cipled Northern Demagogues, shamefully repealed the solemn compact of 1820 ; and by the Kansas- Nebraska act of 1854, actually legislated Slavery into the free territory of Kansas and robbed freedom of its portion of a compact, from which the Slave- ocracy had already reaped all the fruit it was capable of yielding. But in perpetrating this gigantic fraud, in violation of the plighted faith of the nation, and against honor and honesty, the conspirators against Northern rights. Southern honor and national jus- tice, were compelled to hold forth to the cheated and insulted freedom of the North, the plea, at least, that the people of the newly created Territory, should be permitted to determine for themselves the future character of their political institutions, by a free ex- ercise of the elective franchise through the Ballot- box. But the plea was as false, as they themselves had been false to their plighted iaith and to every sentiment of honor and honesty. They knew at the time, that they had bribed the Executive power of the nation, to become their miserable tool in this deep laid scheme of Slavery-Extension, and that he would render absolutely void and of no effect, the pretended submission of the question of Slavery to the free will of the people of Kansas. They knew that Frank- lin Pierce and his co-laborers in the service of their Southern masters, would wield the Executive power of the nation against the interests and the Constitutional rights of freedom. And most faithfully has he executed his part of this dark and most iniquitous bargain. He promptly placed the Territory of Kansas into the hands of those who had already doomed that fair land to the blighting curse of Slavery ; and when the freemen of the North came up to the rescue, and sought through the Ballot-Boxes, the preservation of the free soil of Kansas from the lash of the Ne- gro-Driver and his reckless master, behold their trained bands, armed with Bowie-knives and Rifles, marching from Missouri into the newly acquired Territory, and with the connivance of the Execu- tive of this great Republic, driving her citizens from the Polls and electing tools of their own, to consti- tute a Legislature for the government of Kansas ! That Legislature, thus elected by men living in Missouri — as has been proved and solemnly proclaim- ed to the American People and to the world, by the House of Representatives of the United States — passed the infamous Laws to which I have called your attention ; and then, to prevent the possibility of their repeal, they also enacted, that no person who would not swear to support and sustain the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, should be entitled to a seat in any future L?gislature ; and that every citizen of Kansas who would not take a similar oath of allegiance to the slave power, should be forever disfranchished ! It is said th«t when Lycurgus desired to perpetuate the laws of Sparta, he persuaded the people to swear oledi- ence to them until his return ; and then depirted from among them and put an end to his exis.ence. But the armed Ruffians from Missouri, knew eo such disinterested devotion to their cause. They jecured themselves against a repeal of their iniquitousand in- famous enactments, by test oaths and the disfran- chisement of all who loved freedom ; and then re- turned to their homes, only to make a new inroad upon hapless Kansas, and enforce with the rifle and the bowie-knife, the tyrannical laws they had enacted. In that new inroad upon the defenceless reople of Kansas, they had the connivance and th« tacit ap- proval, of a weak and venal Executive; and of his representatives, as reckless and even more wicked than their miserable master. Witl his and their sanction and connivance, armed b!"ids of unprinci- pled Missouri robbers, swept -"ver the ill-fated plains of Kansas ;, and robbery rape, murder, and the torch of the incendiary, ev-rywhere marked the devastating track of the charp^teristic agents of that reckless and unprincipled h^^ of slaveholders, who commenced their foray up"! freedom by a bold and shameful repudiation of lynor and honesty, and the 9 plighted faith of the nation. Sustained in their fiend- ish work by the Federal Executive, and backed by a venal Judiciary and the Army, freedom has been temporarily crushed in Kansas, because her votaries have either been murdered or driven from her soil. And now, behold the miseraiile tool of that Ex- ecutive, who is himself the pliant tool of the Slave power, calls upon the People of Kansas, to assemble at the Pells on Monday next, and go through (he farce of electing a Delegate to Congress, and a Legislature in which none but a sworn friend of Slavery may take a seat, and the members of which, can only be voted for by white Slaves willing to swoar before God and man, that they approve of, and wiil support the re- peal of the Missouri Compromise ! Such, fellow-citizens, is the simple narrative of the facts in relation to the outrages upon Liberty in Kan- saSi — perpetrated m your name and by your servants — and which you are called upon to endorse in the ap- proaching Presidential contest. And I now ask of you freemen of this great North- west — men of Indiana, of Illinois, and of Wis- •consin, now befora me — I ask of you one and all, whether there has ever been proclaimed in any" civilized country on the face of the globe, sucli infamous enactments against the liberties of man ? And when we bear in mind that the wretches who passed these enactments— Laws they never were, — were elected by the Bouler Rutfians of Missouri to legislate for the Fice P. ople of Kansas, is it to be wondered at, that those patriots, breathing the air of freedom, and nurtured in the principle of our Revolu- tion, have refused obedience to the so-called laws of this spurious and truly infamous body? Nay, would they not have been disgraced in the estima- tion of every man within the sound of my voice, and of every friend of civil and religious liberty throughout the world, if they had tamely yielded themselves the pliant instruments of such iniquitous legislation ? And because they have refused such obedience to tyranny— because being fre?, they have asserted and maintained the rights of freemen — they have been shot down in cold blood, murdered in the public highways and in their beds, and had their dwellings burnt over their heads ; and to complete their mise- ry, have been doomed to see their wives and daugh- ters ravished by the fiends in human form, who pro- claim that their mission is "the extension of Slavery ' over the free soil of Kansas, and the expulsion ' therefrom, of every damned Yankee and Abolition- ' ist who has dared to violate the Laws of the Terri- ' tory by preaching in favor of Free soil, in defiance ' of their enactment punishing the offence with im- ' prisonment and death". Aye, fellow citizens, I assert on my responsibility as a man and a Christian, that there have been more murders, jobberies, and rapes, committed by the minions of Pro-Slavery on the free soil of Kansas dur- ing the last eighteen months — and that too, with the connivance, both direct and indirect, of the Executive of the Nation and the Democratic Party — than were committed by the minions of George the Third and his soldiery in these colonies, from 1774 till the close of our Revolutionary struggle. Yes, the sufferings of the free people of Kansas from the hands of the brutal agents of the Slave power, during eighteen months, and that, too, with the con- nivance of the President of the United States, exceed — very far exceed — all the suffering, oppres- sion and outrages, which forced our fathers to take up arms against their Sovereign, and led to the Independence of the United States! And yet there has been no revolution — no driving from power and from his Presidential seat at Washington, the time- serving Executive who has countenanced these outra- ges on law, justice, and right — no appeal to arms by the people of the United States. A.ndwhyT Because we love and cherish our Constitution and have un abated reliance in the omnipotence of the Ballot-Box. We are a law-abiding people; and we cherish above all things, the Constitution and its provisions for the redress of grievances. And it is for the purpose of securing that redress through the Ballot-Boxes in the approaching Presidential Election, that we are now assembled here, peaceably to take council one of another, how we may best and most certainly, arouse the people to the vinlication of their liberties against those who have so shamefully trampled upon every thing we hold most sacred. Our Hearts bleed for the suflerings of our fellow- citizens of Kansas ; and our blood boils with indignation and the desire to ayenge their wrongs, when we think upon what they have suffered, and what they are destined still to suffer, before they will be permitted to live in safety, surrounded by free institutions in the land of the free. But I know that we have all of us resolved — firmly and unalterably resolved — and I desire to proclaim it here as I did from the National Convention of the Republican Party at Philadelphia ; that even if we should be struck down in our appeal to the Ballot- Boxes, and cheated out of that Constitutional mode of redress by the employment of the People's money and the People's servants, to vote down the honest yeomanry of the country for the benefit of the Slave Power ; — I say we are all resolved, that even in such a contingency, the Free People of Kansas shall never be subdued by the Border Ruffians of Missouri, backed by the Federal authority, into obedience to the infamous enactments of a so-called Legislature of Kansas, elected by the People of another State. We revere the Constitution, and we will obey and maintain the Laws — be they good or bad; and we will if needs be, freely shed our blood in preserving to our Southern brethren al I their vested rights in relation to Slavery where it now exists ; but we will never stand tamely by, and see our brethren in Kansas, forced to obey the enactments of a band of Ruffians, in whose election they were not permitted to take part, and which punish with imprisonment and death, freedom of speech and the avowal of attachment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. No, never, never, never ; and I now repeat what I said in the National Convention assembled in Philadelphia, and which has been so basely 10 / perverted for the basest of Party purposes. I then said and I now repeat, that "we shall appeal " to the Ballot-Box and seek by the election " of a Republican President, to arrest the civil war " now raging in Kansas. And if we fail in this' " what then ? Will we consent to see our free-soil " brethren in Kansas, forced to yield obedience to " enactments which are not Laws, or be driven from " the Territory and murdered by a band of Ruffians " acting with the connivance of the Executive of the " United States ? Never, Never ; but we will drive " back the oppressors, sword in hand ; and so help " me God, believing that to be right, I am with them." Aye, such was my declaration before the most au- gust assemblage which ever convened on this Conti- nent, save that which put forth our Declaration of Independence ; and for making it, I have been abused and slandered, as few men living have had poured upon them the wrath and indignation of the Slave power. On the floor of Congress, in the Press, and from the stump, the vials of their wrath have been let loose upon me ; and my language and my purpose, have been distorted into every form which falsehood and malignity could devise. But I stand here to-day, before you my fellow-citizens of the great North-West, and in the presence of my God, reiterating every word and every sentiment I uttered at Philadelphia ; and ready when the time shall arrive, which may God in his mercy avert, to carry into execution my pur- pose, then and now, fearlessly proclaimed. And fellow citizens of the North-West, when that ti.ne comes — as come it surely will if the African Democracy of our country are permitted to triumph in the approaching battle for freedom — 1 expect of y ju a cordial and united co-operation. [^1^ this appeal, l/ie forty thousand freemen who were listening to the wrongs of Kansas, sent forth a united shout of approval, with the cry ''we are all with them" — we are all ready to do battle for the freedom of Kansas". "God bless the freemen of Ka7isas" .] I thank you fellow-citizens for this endorsement of an honest purpose frankly expressed; ar;d now that the Slave power know precisely what I did say at Philadelphia, in all its length and breadth, let them make the most of it; and let our brethren in Kansas, take heart, and feel assured, that it is not the intention of the Freemen of the United States calm- ly to stand by and witness a continuation of their wrongs. Like good citizens, we intend in the first place, to seek redress through the Ballot-boxes; and failing in that, we will then say to a corrupt Gov- ernment : — "We respect and will obey the laws; but at your peril, dare to enforce upon our brethren of Kansas the odious edicts of the Slave Ruffians of Missouri, without t#ie color of law, and in violation of every principle of the Constitution, and we will imitate our fathers of old, and appeal to arms and to the God of battles for the vindication of the great principle, that no obedience can ever be due to laws in the enactment of which the people have not been in mediately or remotely, directly or indirectly, re- presented". It is the duty of every freeman throughout this broad land — I care not whether his lot has been cast in the North or the South, in the East or in the West — to standby the principles of the Constitution, and by all the laws passed in conformity with its provisions. And in the dischar^fi of that duty, the people of every section, are bound to render obedience to the Kansas-Nebraska Law, infamous as it has been declared to be by nine-tenths of the people of the land, because of its deliberate violation of the plighted faith of the Southern States, and its incendiary attempt to extend the Institution of Slavery into the free Territories of the Union by the direct higjsla- tion of Congress. I counsel no resistance ^^-rrfiat Law. Under the law itself, faithfully administered by an honest Executive, Kansas would now have been a free and sovereign State of ihis glorious Union; because that Law, vile as it is, gives equal rights to all, and promises to every inhabitant of th3 Territory, the free exercise of the elective franchise. In obedi- ence to its provisions, freemen made their homes in Kansas; and determined by theirvotes, to make it the land of the free, whence the blighting curse of the South should forever be excluded, and the free laborer of the North bs protected against the coiitaminatrng and demoralizing contact of African Slavery. But a corrupt ami unscrupulous Executive, in obedience to the demands of the Slave-power, bartered away the freedom of Kansas for a re-nomination to the Presi- dency; and in pursuance of the infamous bargain, winked at, and encouraged the Border Ruffians of Missouri in violating the Free soil of Kansas, and with bowie-knives and rifles, driving her freemen from the polls and then electing creatures of their own, to accomplish the infamous purpose of making her a Slave State. Againtt this treason to the Con- stitution — this deliberate violation of a law of the land — this conspiracy with the Slave-pow- er against the Free North — the people of the non-slaveholding States, have arisen in their majesty and demanded redress. For this great and good, and holy purpose, we are assembled here this day ; and at the hazard of being tedious, I must now endeavor to demonstrate to you what must be the inevitable consequences, now and through all future time, if you fail in your duty to yourselves, to your countiy, and to posterity, and permit the Institution of Slavery to be extended into and over the territory of the Union so solemnly de- voted to freedom by the great Compromise of our fathers made thirty-six years ago. I stand not here to war against Slavery as an ab- stract question, but against its extension into Terri tory now free. You and I might differ in our esti- 1 mate of Slavery in its bearing upon the condition of I the negro, because I hold that the race is far better f cared for in their existing bondage South of 36° 30', j than they could care for themselves in a state of free- dom in the midst of six millions of the white' man. I leave that question therefore, to others, and to that all-wise Providence whose ways are inscrutable to man; and desire to speak of Slavery, only in its relations to those who hold the negro in bon- I dage, and to its unmitigated curse upon the region where it exists. Thank God it is a mere local institu- tion, and exclusively under the control of those who have inherited this curse from our mother country, and against which the colonies from time to time re- monstrated; and the existence of which among us, in opposition to our feelings and v/ishes, was made by Jefferson one of the causes of our rebellion in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence. We of the North-East, have, by the bless- ing of God, rid ourselves of this great evil ; and you of the North- West, are indebted to the horror with which Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Monroe and their fellow patriots of the South, looked upon the demoralizing tendency of this blighting curse, for the ordinance of 1787, which forever exenipted from involuntary servitude all this vast region lying North and West of the Ohio. If it be not then against Slavery itself, that I wa;;e war — if I do not ask of you to interfere with the institu- tion where it constitutionally exists, or seek to pre- judice you against its existence there ; but on the contrary, if in the name of the great Republican Party jf the country, I stand here, in defence of our brethren of the South against the handf\il of aboli- tionists who would interfere with their constitutional rights, and seek only, to accomplish what our fathers prescribed in the ordinance of 1787 and the Compro- mise of 1820, re-enacted by Southern votes in 1841, and recognised by the whole country in 1850 — if I only war against Slavery-extension as our fathers of old guarded against it, because of its demoralizing influences upon the white race — surely the South, the descendants of those who remonstrated with England against this curse in 1760 to '75, and who pro- hibited its extension into the Northwestern Territory in 1787, and who, in 1820, solemnly covananted that it should not be extended North of 36° 30', have no just cause of complaint against us lor humbly walking in their footsteps. Now then, fellow-citizens, our purpose being to oppose the extension of the Institution of Slavery into the Free Territories of the Union, on the ground that it is a curse to every country where it is intro- duced, and that it demoralizes the white race among whom it exists, and degrades free labor and the free laborer to the level of slave-labor and the slave, let us examine the testimony of Southern gentlemen of unquestionable honor and patriotis^n, in regard to the justice of our position and the imperative moral ob- ligation under which we are acting. To begin then, with the immortal Washington, himself. He is said to have bern present at, and partici- pated in the meeting of Freeholders of St. George's County in Virginia, in July, 1774, who, in their re- monstrance against the conduct of the British crown in fostering the Slave trade in opposition to the feel- ings of the Colonies, used this language : " The African trade is injurious to the Colony, because it obstructs the population of it by freemen, prevents manufacturers and other useful people from settling, and occasions an annual increase in the balance of trade against this Colony". 11 In a letter written by Washington to Robert Morris, (see Sparks' Washington,) he says : " I can only say, there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than i do, to see a plan adopted for the abclition of it (Slavery) but there is only one proper and effectual mode in which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority; and this, so far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting". Again, in his celebrated letter to Sir John Sinclair, in relation to investments in the United States, he clnims that because Virginia will certainly abolish Slavery, investments in her lands will pay as well as if made in the free territory of Pennsylvania. He says : ■' There are in Pennsylvania laws for the gradual abolition of Slavery, which neither Virginia nor Maryland have at present, but which nothing is more certain than they n>ust have, and at a period not remote". James Madison of Virginia, in the Convention which framed our Constitution, made it a sine qua non that ihe word slave or slavery, should not appear in the Constitution; so that when abolished, as he looked forward to its being at an early day, the re- cord might not be sullied by the admission that such a curse had ever existed amongst us. His voice was listened to ; and you will look in vain through our Constitution for the word " Slave" or " Slavery". In Congress in 1789, this great patriot and statesman used the folio .ving language : " Every addition the States receive to their num- ber of slaves tends to weaken and render them less capable of self defence. In case of hostilities with foreign nations, I hey will be the means of inviting attLick instead of repelling invasion. It is a neces- sary .luty of the General Government to protect every part of their confines against dangers, as well inter- nal as external. Everything, therefore, which tends to increase danger, though it be a local affair, yet, if it involves national expense or s.ifety, becomes of concern to evrry part of the Union, and is a proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general administration of the Government." " I hold i"^ essential in every point of view, that the general Government should have power to prevent the increase of Slavery". — Madison Papers, Vol. III. p. 1391. " The augmentation of Slaves weakens the States, and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and diser-^ce- ful to mankind. As much as I value a union of these States, / would not admit the Southern States into the Union, unless they agree to a discontinu- ance of this iisgraceful trade".- -In Const. Conven- tion, 1786. Here was a direct appeal to Congress to interfere with the local institution of Slavery as it exists in the States, because it is dangerous to the national wel- fare ! Such language held in the Southern coun- try at this day, would find its reward in a hal- ter and suspension to the nearest tree, convenient for the vindication of the chivalry of that region. And yet this is the identical James Madison who is ever appealed to as the great expounder of the Constitu- tion of which he was the most active franaer. Now then, for the sentiments of Thomas Jeffer- son, the author of the Declaration of Independence; and from time immemorial, the great head of the Democracy of the country. You all know that in 12 that great protest against the wrongs inflicted by the mother country he puts forth the remarkable declaration that " all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inali- enable rights ; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". But this is said by the Slaveocracy, to be only " an abstraction" — a " rhetorical flourish". Let us, therefore, listen to what he said in a letter to John Holmes on the 20th April, 1820, and leave to the advocates of Slave- ry-extension, the task of explaining it away. Mr. Jefferson says : "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. * * With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. Indeed, / tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep Jorever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolu- tion ot the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become proba- ble by supernatural interference ! The Almighty HAS NO ATTRIBUTE WHICH CAN TAKE SIDE WITH US IN SUCH A CONTEST." ****** '' I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach in any practi- cable way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle, which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a genera! emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be". So much for Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, and the great oracle of Democracy by which Henry A. Wise and his brother Virginians, have been wont to swear. Now listen to the testimony of the Hon. George Mason, of the same State; of whom Judge Butler, of South Carolina, recently said on the floor of the Senate, that "he was one of the wisest " one of the most sagacious, and one of the firmest " statesmen that Virginia ever bred, or that ever '• deliberated in the councils of his time." George Mason says : . " Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The slaves produce the most pernicious effects on man- ners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring thb judgmeivt of Heaven UPON A country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in tho next world, they must be in this. By an inevit.ible chain of cau.-ses and effects. Provi- dence punishes national sins by national calamities". Now, what said HENRY CLAY of Kentucky, himself a Slaveholder, as was Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison ? '•Slavery is a practical war against the rights of man". — Letter to Citizens of New Orleans. "And now, sir, coming from a Slave State, as I do, 1 owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of Slavery, where it had not before existed, either south or north of the Missouri Compromise line". — Speech on the Compromises in the Senate, 1850 "If slaves are voluntarily carried into such a juris- diction [where Slavery does not exist] their chains instantly drop off, and they become free, emancipated liberated from their bondage." — Ibid. And in the same great speech when contending lor the binding efficacy of the Missouri Compromise, and repudiating the idea of ever suffering Slavery to dishonor and contaminate one square foot of land, conquered from Mexico and which was free territory, he said : But if unhapvily, we should be involved in war, in a civil war, between the two parts of this Con- federacy, in which the efforts upon the one side should be to restrain the introduction of Slavery into new Territories, and upon the other side to force its introduction there, what a spectacle should WE present to the astonishment of mankind, in AN effort, not to PROPAGATE RIGHTS, BUT — I mUSt say, though I trust it will be understood to be said with no design to excite feeling — a war to propa- gate WRONGS IN THE TERRITORIES THUS ACQUIRED from Mexico. It wou'd be a war in which we should have no sympathies, no good wishes; in which all mankind would be against ms; in which our own history itself would be against us; for from the commencement of the Revolution down to the present time, we have constantly reproached our British ancestors for the introduction of Slavery into this country. And allow me to say that, in my opinion, it is one of the best defences which can be made to preserve the institution of Slavery in this country, that it was forced upon us against the wishes of our ancestors, of our own American Co- lonial ancestors, and l)y the cupidity of our British commercial ancestors." — [Speech on the Compro- mise Acts of 1850. Ponder well fellow-citizens upon these dying words of the immortal Clay, and ask yourselves what would be his position were he now here. No, you need not do that. Had he lived — he or any of his great co-laborers who formed the Compromise of 1820 — the pigmy politicians and dirty demagogues who repealed that great compact in de'ence of freedom, would never have dared lay hands upon it or even suggested its repeal. While Clay and Webster lived, the mousing politician.^ and their dishonored associates in violating the plighted faith of the South, skulked from the light of day ; and it was only when the grave closed over all who made the great Com- promise of 1820, thit they dared to assail it, and by its repeal, bring upon the South dishonor, and upon the whole land the existing fearful agitation. Next to Jefferson and Madison, it may be said with truth, that no man exercised a greater influence in the councils ot the country, than did William PiNCKNEY of Maryland, in 1789. Listen to an extract from his letter to the Maryland Legislature in that year — himself a slaveholder : " Never will your country be productioe, never will its agriculture, its commerce, or its manufac- tures flourish, so long as they depend on reluctant bondmen for their progress. 'Even the very earth,' says Montesquieu; 'which teems with profusion un- der the cultivating hand of the free born laborer, shrinks into barrenness from the contaminating sweat of a slave.' This sentiment is not more figuratively beautiful than it is just". And Marshall, in a speech to the Virginia Legis- lature, bears this testimony to the character of Sla- very in its effects and influences upon the State where it exists. " Slavery is ruinous to the whites, retards improve- ments, roots out our industrious population, banishes the yeomanry of the country, deprives the spinner. 13 the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter, of employment and support. This evil admits no remedy ; it is increasing, and will continue to increase until the whole country will be inundated with one black wave, covering the whole extent, with a few white faces floating on the surface. The master has no capital but what is invested in human flesh. The father, instead of being richer for his sons, is at a loss how to provide for them. There is no diver- sity of occupations — no incentive to enterprise. — Labor OF every species is disreputable, because performed by slaves. Our towns arc stationary, our villages everywhere declining, aiid the general as- pect of the country marks the curse of a wasteful, idle, reckless population, who have no interest in the soil and care n.it how much it is impoverished". In the Convention held in Virginia for the ratifica- tion of the Constitution, Mr. JoH?fsoN spoke as fol- lows — evidently looking to an eirly emancipation of the yiaves, as did Washington. '' They tell us that they see a progressive danger of bringing about emancipation. The principle has begun since the Revolution. Let us do what we will, it will come round. Slavery has been the founda- tion of much of that impiety and dissipation which h ive been so much disseminated among our country- men. If it were totally abolished it would do much good". Mr. BoLLiNGBROKE, of Buckingham county, Vir- ginia, in Convention in 18.32, said : "Sir, that it is an evil,a great and appaUing evil, 1 dare believe no sane man will or can deny. Nor, sir, can it be denied, that it deprives us of many of those advantages, facilities, and blessings which we should enjoy had wc a more dense white population That It is A BLIGHTING, WITHERING CURSE UPON THIS LAND, is clearly demonstrated by this very discussion itself. "Notwithstanding Eastern gentlemen have waxed so warm, there are many, very many, in Eastern Vir- ginia who would rather resign their slaves gratui- tously than submit to the ills of Slaveiy ; many who would rather turn them loose and leave them behind, wiiile they se-^k a happier clime — a land alike a stranger to slaves and Slavery". Mr. Berry, of Jefferson county, Va., said : "Sir, I believe that no cancer on the physical body was ever more certain, steady and fatal in its pro- gress than is this cancer on the political body of the State of Virginia. I admit that we are not to be blamed for the origin of this evil among us ; we are not to be blamed for its exister.ce now : but we shall deserve the severest censure if we do not take mea- sures, as soon .is possitile, to remove it". And in support of this position of things — in cor roboration of the assertion that Slavery is a "blight- ing curse", and should never tie extended into terri- tory where it does not exist, the Hon. J. C. Faulk- ner, of Virginia, a member of the present Congress, and Chairman of the Slaveocracy's National Execu- tive Committee for the election of James Buchanan to the Presidency and the extensio.T of Slavery into the free Territories of the Union — held on the same occasion, the following emphatic language. Compare this, fellow-citizens, with his present labors to extend into free territory this very institution, in relation to which he so recently said — "Must the country languish, droop, die, that the Slaveholder may flourish" ? Mr. Faulkner said in convention : "The idea of a gradual emancipation and removal of the slaves from this Commonwealth is coeval with the declaration of your independence of the British yoke It sprung into existence during the first ses- sion of the General Assembly, subsequent to the formation of your Republican Government. It was proper; there was a fitness of things in the fact that so beneficent an object as the plan for the gradual extinction of Slavery in this State should have been the twin offspring of that mind which gave birth to the bill of rights, and to the act for religious freedom. A fact so honorable to the public spirit and humanity of that age, so worthy of the genius and expanded philanthropy of those with whom it originated, can- not be too often recurred to, nor too proudly cherished. Slavery, it is admitted, is an evil. It is an institution which presses heavily against the best interests of the State. It banishes free white labor ; it exterminates the mechanic, the artisan, the manu- facturer; it deprives them of occupation; it deprives them of bread; it converts the energy o*' a communi- ty into indolence, its power into imbecility, its efficiency into weakness. Sir, being thus injurious have we not a right to demand its extermination? Shall society suffer that the slaveholder may continue to gather his crop of human flesh 1 What is his mere pecuniary claim compared with the great interests of the common weal ? Must the country languish, droop, die, that the slaveholder may flourish ? Shall all interests be subservient to one — a'l rights subordinate to those of the slaveholder? Has not the mechanic, have not the middle classses, their rights — rights incomnatible with the existence of Slavery ?" "• And now, one more qjotation and I have done. And I intend to bring to the witness stand he, who for a quarter of a century, was known as the "North- ern man with Southern Principles " — Ex-President Martin Van Buren. And so he was, just so long as " Southern pnnciples " could be made available to his political advancement. They made him Presi- dent in 1836; and of course " Southern principles " were then his admiration. But in 1844, the South did not consider him an available candidate for the Presidency ; and because they nominated another for tin? Executive Chair, Martin of Kinderhook, all at once discovered, that he had a set of " Northern prin- ciples" which might be made available. He therefore, took the field as a candidate for the Presidency, in opposition to his Southern friends; and he and his hopeful son, made such solemn asseverations of their honesty, that the American people began to think, that for once, both father and son were truthful and honest. I thought so then, and I think so now ; and whatever may have been the inducement for Father and Son to repudiate now, all they said in 1848, I believe that they were then sincere in their declara- tion of attachment to the cause of Free Soil; and, consequently, I quote from Martin Van Buren's letter accepting the Free Soil nomination for the Presidency, the following emphatic paragraphs : " In regard to the chief topic of the resolutions, it is not to be doubted that the present unprecedented movement of the public mind in the non-slaveholding States, upon the subject of Slavery, is caused mainly by an earnest desire to uphold and enforce the policy in regard to it, established by the founders of the Re- public. That policy, in addition to the prospective prohibition of the foreij;n slave trade, was : " Adequate, efficient, and certain security AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY IN rO TERRITORIES WHERE IT DID NOT PRACTICALLY EXIST." 14 That no doubt, came from the Heart ; and could the truth be known, it is unquestionably, one of the few sentiments ever put forth by the "great Magi- cian", in which the simple truth was permitted to escape him. But alas, like the swine that has been washed, he has returned to his wallowing in the mire ; and all who love their country, will mourn with me, that standing as he does, on the verge of the grave, he could not have been gathered to his fathprs without this dishonor falling upon one who has filled with credit, the most exalted station in the world — the Chief-Magistracy of this Mighty Republic. As for his hopeful son, who, in 1848, stood side by side with his venerable father, and called down upon himself " a quick and fearful damnation", if he ever swerved from the great task of resisting the extension of Slavery into Free Terri- tory, the last I heard of him, he was standing on this spot ten days since, and urging upon the people of Indiana, the justice, the policy, and the necessity of Slavery extension for the preservation of the Union, and the success of the African Democracy ! Verily, blood will tell in man as well as animals. True to its instincts, the father has become what was a stern necessity from his origin; and the son has proved himself the natural offspring of the father. But their testimony in behalf of our cause in 1848, cannot be weakened by their unscrupulous abandon- ment of it at this crisis, under circumstances which will forever cover them with infamy and render their names a byeword and reproach through all future time. And now fellow-citizens, you have Slavery and its inevitable consequences, depicted to you by those who were born and lived amid its influences ; and most of whom, have been gathered to their rest after bequeathing to you their solemn warning against the extension of this plague-spot over the free and virgin soil of the great West. And how do you like the picture ? Is it one which will make you love the in- stitution more, now that is proposed to bring it to your own doors, and to place the labor of the stolid African side by side and on an equality, with the free labor of your wives, your sons and your daugh- ters ? When the Creator doomed Adam and his race, to cultivate the earth, he gave dignity to labor, and honored with his choicest blessings from that time forth to the present, the honest, free-born, and inde- pendent cultivator of the soil. The Almighty Father of the Universe, became himself the companion and councillor of those who labored upon the earth ; and by his signal marks of approbation bestowed upon the husbandman, he made him what he now is, and will forever continue to be where His Word is made th? rule of action— the noblest, the purest, and the most honored and respected of the human race. Such is man in the free cultivation of the soil, without aught created, to stand between him and his Maker ; and reverently looking up from Nature unto Nature's God. But place along side of him the African Bondman — the Ne- gro Slave of the African Democracy ! and what then? Let Washington, and Jefferson, and Madi- son, and Clay, and all the great and wise and good men of our country, whi 'lave been born, and lived, and died amid the Itis't ition of Slavery — let them tell the tale. Let the abj 'ct condition of the six millions of non-3laveho1ding whites now in the Slave States, w'loaro in every ro«iect worse off than the negro —let them answer my question. Fellow ci'izens, you cannot possibly conceive the condition of the slave region of our country, unless you visit it, anl become an eye-witness of the idle- ness, wastefulness, ignorance, vice and moral degrada- tion, which everywhere pervade a population of nine million and a half of human beings who possess im- mortal souls and are responsible here and herea'"tpr, for their conduct. Of these, three millions are Slaves, six millions non-slaveholding Wliites, and only three hundred and scvcn'y-fi'>e thousand slave- holders, including rmn wimen and children. Of this number, only fifty thousand, hold ten slaves and upwards; and this mere handful of aristocratic mas- ters, hold in slavery the three uiillicns of Africans, and in a far more degrading bon I ige, the six millions of non-slav;holding whites. Th ^ con iition of these whites is far worse than that ol the Negro himself; and it is the interest of the slaveholder that it should be. They are too poor to hold I md or to work it, because th? Institution of Slavery requires broad fields and large capital for its existence aid preser- vation: and consequently, the white poor man, be- comes a laborer alongside of the A*"rican Slave, and absolutely degenerates into a more miserab'e and dependent class than the Negro himself. This is no imaginary picture. There are those here, who will bear witness to the truth of what I say; and I hold in my hand a letter from that venerable Democrat, Francis P. Blair, himself a slave-holder, in relation to this all impor- tant matter, which should be printed in letters of gold, and hung up in every dwelling in the land, north of Mason & Dixon's line, and of 36° 30' North. He shows conclusively, that the presence of Slavery, has reduced this large class of free whites in the Slave States, to a condi- tion far below the slave in morals, habits, and com- forts ; and that so thorough is their debasement, that the project is now openly discussed of making them slaves, in order to e/cpa^e them to the moral conli- tion of the Negro! Governor Hammond, of South Carolina, said of these non slave-holding whites : — "They obtain a precarious subsistence by occasional " jobs, by hunting, by fishing, by plundering fields or " folds, and too often, by what is in its efiects, far " worse — trading with slaves, and inducing them to plunder for their benefit". Mr. Fakren, another Southern writer, says : — " In the more southern por- tion of this region, the non-slaveliolders possess generally, but very small means; and the land which they possess is almost universally poor, and so sterile that a scanty subsistence is all that can be derived from its cultivation; and the more fertile soil being in the possession of the slave-holder must forever re- main out of the possession of those who have none". Mr. William Geary of South Carolina, treating 15 upon the same subject, says, that "any man who '• is an observer of things, could hardly pass through " our country without being struck with the fact, " that all the capital, enterprise, and intelligence are " employed, in directing slave labor ; and the conse " quence is, that a large portion of our poor white " people are wholly neglected, and are suffered to " while away an existence in a state but one step " in adoance of the Indian of the forest. It is an " evil of vast magnitude, and nothing but a change " in public sentiment will eHect its cure". Recollect, fellow-citizens, that there are no less than six millions of non-slaveholding whites in the South- ern country, of whom at least fioe millions are re- presented t. jbe snore vicious, more demoralized, and less capable of securing the necessary means of exis. tence from day to day, than is the negro whose bond- age has produced this fearful state of things, — ^and all to give political power and social position to three hundred and fifty tho isand slave holders of the South ! And n )vv that evil has grown to an ext nt which induces the Slaveocracy to ap- prehend an uprising of 'his down trodden mass of white population, what think you is the remedy de- vised for their relief? Why simply, to make slaves of them! Startle not. I stand here, speaking to you great and s. lemn truths, upon which I ask free- men to base their action in the coming Presidential contest ; and I dare not if I would, say one word or utter one sentiment, which I would not reiterate on my dying bed. Listen then, to what a leading South- ern author says, in his recent work upon "the failure of free society". Mr. George Fitzhugh in his book printed at Richmond and entitled "Sociology for the South in tne Failure of Free Society", holds the fol- lowing language : "But for Ciiistianity, Free Society viouXA be ^ wilder ess ot crime ; and Christianity has not fair play and a proper ti'jld of acliaii, vvhire GoViiniinent has failed to institute the peace-begettiag and -pro- tectioc influence of Domestic Slavery". " Make the laboring man the slave of one man, in- st ad of the clave of society, and he would be far better off." "Two hundred years of liberty have made white laboers a pauper banditti. Free so- ciety hasfaile 1, and that which is not free must be substituted." " Say the Abolitionists, ' Man ought not to have property in man., What a dn^ary, cold, bleak, in- hospital world this would be, with such doctrine car- ried into practice!" * * * "Slavery has been loo universal not to be necessary to nature, and man struggles in vain against nature." * * * "Free society is a failure. We slaveholders say, you must recur to domestic slavery, the oldest, the best, and the most common form of sociaiisin." " Free society is a monstrous abortion, and slavery the healthy, beautiful, and natural biding which they are trying unconsciously to adopt. "The slaves are governed far better than the free lali'^rers at the North ate governed, uur negroes are not only bet- ter oti as to physical comfort tiian free laborers, but their moral condition is better." " We do not adopt tlie theory that Ham was the ancestor to the negro race. The Jewish slaves were not negroes; and to confine the justification of slavery to that race, would be to weaken its Scrip- tural authority, and to lose the whole weight of pro- fane authority — for we read of no negro slavery in an- cient times." * » * '< Slavery, black or white, is right and necessary." " Nature has made the weak in mind or body, slaves." * * * " The wise and virtuous, the brave, the strong in mind and body, are born to com- mand." "Men are not born entitled to -equal rights. It would be far nearer the truth to say, that ' some were born with saddles on their backs, and others booted and spurred t- 1 ride them — and the riding does them good. 'They need the reins, the bit, and the spur.' ' Life and Liberty are not inalienable.' The Decla- ration of Independence is exuberantly false, and aborescently fallacious." And the doctrines ol this book are supported by the great organs of the African Democracy of the Sonth — the Richmond h'xaminer and Richmond Enquirer. Listen to the Richmond Enquirer : " Until recently, the defence of slavery has labored under great difficulties, because its apologists — for they were merely apologists — took half-way ground. They confined the defence of slavery to mere negro slavery, thereby giving up the slavery principle, ad- mitting other forms of slavery to be wrong; and yielding up the authority of the Bi^le, and of the history, practices, and experience of mankind. Human experience, sliovving the universal success of slave society, and the universal failure of free society, was unavailing to them, becpuse they were precluded from employing it, by admitting Slavery in the ab- stract to be wrong. The defence of mere negro slavery involved them in still greater difficulty. 2'he laws of all the Southern States justified the holding of white men in. slavery, provided that through the mother they were descended, however remotely, from a ne','ro slave. The bright muUatoes, according to their theory, were wrongfully held in Slavery. " The line of defence, however, is changed now, and the North is completely cornered and dumb as an oyster. The >iouth now maintains that Slavery is right, natural and necessary. It shows that all divine, and almost all human, authority, justifies it. The South fun her charges, that the little experiment of free society in Western Europe has been, from the beginning, a cruel failure, and that symptoms of fdilure are abundant in our North. While it is far more obvious that negroes be slaves than whites — for they are only fit to labor, not to direct — yet the principle of Slavery is in itself right, a7id does not depend on difference of complexion". [From the Kichmoad Examiner.] "This agitation has produced one happy effect, at least— it has compelled us of the South to look into the nature and character of this great Institution, and to correct many false impressions that even we had entertained in relation to it. Many in the South once believed that it was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and sta- ble basis for free institutions in the world. It is im- possible, with us, i hat the conflict can take place be- tween labor and capital, which makes it so difficult to establish and maintain free institutions in all wealthy and highly civilized nations where such in- stitutions as ours do not exist." I have thus proved to you fellow-citizens, from South- ern testimony, first, that Slavery demoralizes every- thing with which it comes in contact ; and secondly, that placed along side of Slave labor, the labor of the free white man necessarily sinks at once to its level, and being unprotecteJ by capital and combination, gradually sinks far below the level of negro labor, with the loss of social position and the gradual but inevitable loss of the means of independence. De- 16 prived of education and all moral power, the loss of political power necessarily follows ; and ultimately, the natural and only remedy is, to make slaves of the free white man, whose numbers make tbem dangerous to the safety of the aristocratic community in which they exist. This is not the work of a single generation ; but you have only to read the publica- tions of the day, to become satisfied, that this is pre- cisely the present position of the Slave States; and that their only remedy for the consequences of Slavery upon white labor, is ultimately, to make slaves of those who are thus unfilled for any other position. And with these facts 'lefore you — with the clearest and most irrefragable evidei.ce in your possetsion, that the presence of Slavery in the free Territories of the West, must inevitably reduce the future white labor- ers of that region to the abject and degrading condi- tion of the five millions of whites at the South — fit only to be enslaved, — I submit to you the question, whether you will by your votes, or by tamely suffering Kansas to become a Slave State, bring this great curse upon your descendants — upon our descend- ants ? Yes fellow-citizens, our descendants ? For with however much of prosperity you or I may now be blest, we should be faithless to bur- selves and unworthy the education which we have enjoyed, if we could not judge of the future by the past, and plainly perceive, that our descendants of the second, third, and fourth generations, and their descendants forever, must, with few exceptions, find their homes in this same great western region of our continent, and earn their subsistence by the sweat of the brow. We are in fact, but trustees tor them ; and the question is now distinctly presented to us, whether we will faithfully execute our trust and preserve for free labor and for our descendarfts forever, free, and happy, and respectable homes in this great region — homes such as you now pos-V sess, surrounded by the blessings of Civil and Religious Liberty, under institutions of which you constitute the basis and which are moulded at your pleasure — or whether you will admit the blighting curse of Slavery there, and make it and its fearful consequences, the inherit- ance of your children ? Dare you do this ? Is there a man among you, who recognizing his obligations as a Christian, and his duty to those who won for us our liberties, and gave us freedom and a free and generous soil to till in all the majesty of freemen standing erect before their God — is there one of you, I ask, who, in remembrance of what he has inher- ited, and his duty to transmit that inheritance unim- paired to his posterity — is there a solitary voter in this vast assemblage, who is capable of reflecting upon the past and the future, and yet in repudiation oC_all his obligations both io God and man, will dare to go to the polls on the 4th of November and cast his ballot for the ticket of the African Democracy and the extension of African Slavery into Territory now free ? I leave this question to be answered by your con- sciences now, and by your votes on the day of elec- tion. I have said that we are joint trustees of this great inheritance ; but there is this marked diffe- rence between you of the West nnd we of the East. You are the acting parties in ihe trust. Our duty is the same ; but you are here on the spot, to enforce the provisions of the great trust confided to us; and we who are cis'nnt from the scenn. are only called upon to lend our aid when you shall find it necessa- ry for your success. On you, therefore, more especi- ally, has devolved the great task of now and forever excluding Slavery from this great region so solemnly devoted to freedom in 1820; and .if you fail in your duty, or if we fail in backing you in the fearle.^s discharge of it, God preserve us from the execration of Freemen throughout the world and from the curses of the unborn millions of our own loins, whom we shall thus have doomed to a slavery, which in its tendencies, destroys alike the soul and the body of its victims. Already the Slaveocracy see at hand the hour of their triumph and of our degradation ; and in the exultation of anticipated victory, one of their leading organs impudently exclaims : " Free Society ! We sicken of the name. What is it hut a conglomeration of greasy mechanics, fil'.hy operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moonstruck theorists ? All the northern, and especially the New England States, are devoid of society fitted for a well-bred gentleman. The prevailing class one meets with, is that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and small farmers who do their own drudgery ; and yet who are hwdly fit for association with a South- ern gentleman's body servant. This )