E X SPEECH OF HON. SAMUEL S. MARSHALL, OF ILLINOIS, ON THE INSANITY or THE TIMES, AND THE PRESENT CONDITION OF POLITICAL PARTIES. DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 6. 185G. WASHINGTON; miI>ftED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 1856. CONDITION OF POLITICAL PARTIES. The House b(ung in the Committee of the Whole on Uie Slate of the Union — Mr. MARSHALL, of Illinois, said: Mr. Chairman: It is with much reluctance that 1 engage in discussions here not pertaining to the business immediately before the House. With- out that position or reputation which would com- mand the ear of the House or the country, I shrink with natural timidity from- a comparison with the older and abler champions of popular rights on this floor. As a mere individual, I should feel it my duty to remain silent; but rep- resenting, as I do, a people, every pulsation of whose hearts beats with love and veneration for this Union, and for the Constitution of our coun- try, I feel that, in this momc ous crisis, they have a right to be heard througi. Jieir Represent- ative. Speaking, then, as I do, not for myself, but for more than one hundred thousand free citizens of this great Republic, I shall, with some confidence, claim the indulgence of the House for a very short time. Mr. Chairman, a strange and unaccountable madness has seized upon the public mind. To say that our country is no^' in imminent peril is only to give utterance to the painful feeling which pervades every heart. Misrule has grafted her empire in our very midst, and anarchy is inhaling the vital elements of her existence. We have, indeed, fallen upon strange times. The scenes daily transpiring — everything around us, portend that we are in the midst of dangers — that we are madly drifting towards the abyss of anarchy, disunion, and civil war, with all their dreadful evils. It is surely time for us to awaken to the dangers that surround us. It is time for every citizen who has a spark of patriotism left to pause in this mad struggle for parly, and sacri- ficii^g all his prejudices on the altar of his coun- try, take his stand by, and boldly make battle for, the Constitution and the Union. I am no alarmist; but it is not the part of wis- dom to trust too blindly in the strength of the bond. that binds us together. It has been hawked at and trifled with long enough. . When we remember that Greece, with all her power, her glory, and her learning — her proud monuments and free institutions, now lives only in the page of history; and that Rome's proud eagles have long since been humbled in the dust, we should not trust with too much confidence in the strength and perpetuity of our own matchless Republic. I am one of those, sir, who believe that there is a superintending Providence that guides and directs the destinies of nations. No one who has read the history of our revolutionary struggle can doubt that the Alniiighty raised uji the great men of that day for the special purpose of giving inde- pendence and freedom to this great continent. We have, indeed, been the peculiar favorites of Heaven; and have had, day by day, unnumbered blessings showered upon us. It is equally cer- tain, that there are times in the history of the world when the Ruler of the Universe becomes weary of man 's constant proclivity to wickedness and folly; and withdrawing his protecting care, leaves us to that inevitable destruction which must follow the dictates of our own passions, and the proinptings of our own unguided reason. The history of God's own chosen people, who, ungrateful, stubborn, and rebellious, were finally abandoned to the desolation and destruction re- sulting froiri their own madness and folly; — the wild fanaticism of the crusades, in the prosecu- tion of which death and desolation, in all their horrid forms, swept over the world, and the plains of Europe and Asia were whitened with the bones of millions of human beings;— the hor- rors of the French revolution, when infidelity took possession of the pulpit; irrcligion enthroned itself on the domestic altar; all that was vener- able and sacred in the past was uprooted and destroyed; and by an awful farce, the Bible it- self was publicly condemned and burnt, God dethroned, and the goddess of reason substituted as an object of their devotion; until at last the demons of the infernal regions seemed to be turned loose; misery and wretchedness spread their dark wings throughout the land; murder, unrebuked, shook his gory locks through all the 'face of Heaven. The sacred institution of mar- streets and iiighways, and human butchery be- riage, without which home would be deprived of all came the daily occupation of the rulers and the 'its endearments, and society return to barbarism, pastime of the people; — all these are familiar, but [is boldly and publicly denounced, and "free-love" not singular, illustrations of the truth' that man, I reformers have become the allies and fit compan- cut loose from the guidance of Providence, and the venerable and sacred teachings of the past, and relying \ipon his own unaided reason, ever rushes with fearful precipitation to madness and ruin. These reflections, Mr. Chairman, should by ions of Abolition societies and spirit-rapping con- venticles. In this once free and happy countr)', before the last lingering spirit of '76 is gathered to the home of his fathers, and almost before the warn- ing voice of Washington has died upon our no means be considered inapposite. Look at the ears, the fundamental principles of our Constitu- condition of our country and the presen; state of tion — the very principles which have heretofore the public mind. In the whole history of the 1 been our proudest boast — the right of self-govern- human race no parallel can be found to the pres- [ ment — the right of every man to worship God ent material prosperity of the American people; 'according to the dictates of his own conscience, and yet, as if intoxicated with our own abund- ' without molestation or hindrance from his fellow ance, we are almost on the eve of putting the ; man — and the solemn declaration of our Consli- knife to each other's thrnats. We claim to be I tution, that "no religious test shall ever be re- the freest people on earth, and yet we are sicken- j quired as a qualification to any office or public ing the hearts of the friends of freedom through- ;! trust under the United States' — our boast, that •Hit the world by our unnatural and suicidal ' ours is the home of the exile, and the asylum of quarrels. We believe ourselves to be the most J the oppressed — all these have been denounced intelligent and enlightened people that the sun 'land repudiated, and we have been threatened with shines on, and yet within the past few years j a return to the bigotry, the selfishness, the mad- there is no folly so great, no theory in religion, ; ness and folly of the darkest page of the history morals, or politics, so wild and visionary, that it ' of the world. Here, where every man has the will not find numerous and zealous advocates right, and it ought to be his pride, to walk forth among our people. in the light of day, and boldly speak his senti- Look around you, sir, and see the new and ex- 1! ments as a freeman, hundreds of thousands of traordinary folliis that are now rife in the land. | our people, of all professions and occupations, Pulpits once devoted to the salvation of immortal have, in the darkness and secrecy of night, as if souls, and to preaching "peace on earth and good 11 moved by some common insane impulse, gone will to men," have become arsenals for the col- j down into cellars, and caverns, and darkened lection of the bloody in.struments of death, and j| rooms, shut out from the light of heaven and the forums from which, by incendiary harangues, j observation of men, and after participating in ex- trcason and rebellicm are urged as a sacred duty |j traordinary and unpatriotic orgies and ceremo- unon excited and niissuided citizens. Professed |: nics, have emerged forth to the lia:ht of davwith '. . - . ^ . .- TT I 1 ll.l ■ 1 /•.. -J .1..- _1 l._"ll 1 I I ministers from Uie court of Heaven have, by thousands, abancloned the duties of their sacred calling, and are bringing sad disgrace upon the church,'by drnirgling tlu-ir robes in the dirty pool of political strife; and now, with a kind of solemn mockery, are, by scores, with their black coats and white cravats, filling seats once occupied by ]iatriots and statesmen. In a country where it was fondly hoped that their souls fettered, their cheeks blanched, and their eyes averted from their friends to conceal the unpatriotic secret that was already struggling for utterance; and falsehood and deceit, to the slmiTie of our country, thus became the funda- mental principles of a political orgaiiization. A large portion of the Protestant Church, aban- doning the principles by which it has thus far triumphed, and bywhich it can alone triumph. the adulterou.s connection of Church and State, i has joined in an intolerant cry against freedom with its dread train of evils, had been severed !' of conscience; her ministers and laymen, dragged forever, an arrogant and bloated priesthood has I, down into these secrtU caverns, have formed an boldly attempted to usurp the reins of govern-! unholy connection with the vicious and corrupt ment, and assuming to speak by authority from who have been sloughed oflf from old party or- Heaven, " and in "the name of Almighty God,"rganizations. The Ciiurch has thus been degraded to dictate the action of an American Congress, hand demoralized by her professed friends; Chris- Thousands who are living in the daily enjoyment |l tianity put to the l)lush; irreligion sown broad- of the blessings of our matchless Government, be- 1' cast throughout the land, and the seeds of infi- i-.ause it gives no sanction to tin ir wild aiul crazy ' delity scattered, from which we will be reaping theories, now madly curse the Constitution and . the crop for generations to come. The right of the Union as "a covenant with death and an li sulfrnge, once deemed sacred, has been ruthlessly agreement with hell," and swear that they will |j invaded, and Ainerican citizens have been driven no longer consent to " a Union with slavehold- ij through our streets like beasts, and cruelly mur- ers." With a malignity that can n'c<;iv(' its in- : dered for attempting to exercise a rieht guaran- spiration only fromthe father of evil, they tra- itied by the highest sanctions of the Constitution, duce the patriots of the Revolution, and with their i| Mobs have been systematically organized, with traitorous feet rudely trample on the graves of ; signs, grips, and passwords, and brcomc favored Washington and his compatriots. Anil because i| adjuncts of a political party; and men, women, the Bil>le neither denounci'S nor "ignores" the!: and children have been cruelly murdered for no in.stitutions of fifteen States of this Union, these ■ other off.nse than having been born on the banks modiTn Solomons have discovered a hi^'lu'r law ' of the Rhine or the Shannon, instead of the Hud- thnn the Constitution or the word of God, and j son or Mississippi, and for coming from the same madly hurl their horrible anathemas in the very || lands our forefathers came from, and with pre- cisely the same purpose — of finding free and happy homes in this. The ballot-box, once the sacred instrument through which a freeman in peace and safety made known his will, has been invaded, trampled upon, and broken to nieces, and its contents scat- tered to the four wnids of heaven, and the will of the majority superseded by mob violence and usurpation. Mr. Chairman, this is no exaggerated picture. It falls far short of the reality. Would to God that 1 possessed the painter's skill to present at one view this wild fanaticism, this dreadful de- moralization of the public mind, that has been sweeping over the country for the last few years ! The world would stand aghast at the horrid pic- ture ! Your mind, Mr. Chairman, may not heretofore have been called to the fact, but the truth of what I shall now utter can be denied by no one, and the fact itself ought to give food for solemn thought to every lover of his country. Look around over this broad land, from the Saint Lawrence to the Rio Grande, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and you will find, without exception, that all these isms, these devotees of the most transparent fol- lies, and most wicked practices — the worshipers: of Sam, and the worshipers of Sambo; the dis- union Abolitionists and the oath-bound Catholic- haters; the men who curse the Constitution of their country, and the men who curse the Bible of the living God ; the parsons who have degraded their Jioly calling, and the mobocratic demol- ishers of ballot-boxes; the conductors of under- ground railroads, and the murderers of natural- ized citizens; the spirit-rapping devotee, and the religious maniac in his ascension robes; free-love societies. Abolition societies, and woman's rights conventions; slungshot bullies, Sharpe's rifle theologians, and the common defamers of the revolutionary history of sovereign States — all, without exception, join in one wild howl against the great Democratic party of the country. This strange compound of madness, fanaticism, and folly, without any common political sentiment, disagreeing among themselves upon every prin- ciple of government, religion, and morals, have yet one common bond of union that binds them together like hooks of steel, and that is opposi- tion, hatred — irreconcilable, undying hatred — to that great party which was founded by Jefferson, illustrated by Madison, Jackson, and Polk, and which is now the only party that stands by the Union, and by the Constitution of our country, ' as our fathers made it. ; Prominent in this strange medley of united fanaticisms and inconsistencies (and embracing the greater part of them) stands the great Black Republican party of the North, whose members here and throughout the country have scrupled at no falsehood, and paused at no crime, that might help to inflame and excite the public mind already driven to the very verge of madness. Their cries of " plighted faith," " sacred com-! pact," " slave aggression," "free Kansas," and { the like, are but instruments for carrying out the \ plans of tlieir great leader, laid down ei^ht years j ago, and before the organization of Kansas was thought of, when, in his speech at Cleveland, he j marked out the plan by which he could " sooji brUig the parties of the country into an effective ,| aggression upon slavery." Agitation is the very life-blood of this party, without which they know they could have no existence; and in trying to keep up a bountiful supply of this their natural aliment, they have shown an utter disregard of the peace and prosperity of the country, and even of the existence of the Union itself. These agitators have been true to no theory, and consistent in nothing which they have as- serted or advocated. Aff'ecting regret at the un- fortunate diflieulties in Kansas, which have been caused by their own officious "and illegal inter- meddling, they have nevertheless opposed and defeated every measure intended or calculated to give peace and quiet to that Territory. Profess- ing a holy horror of some obnoxious and uncon- stitutional enactments of the Territorial Legisla- ture, the)^ have voted down an act proposing their repeal. Having petitioned the President to send the army to Kansas, they now denounce him for complying with their demands. Affecting great distrust of the President, they have passed through the House a measure proposing to give him un- constitutional and even despotic powers. Their own committee, chosen by themselves, and sent to Kansas to make capital for the approaching elections, returns, and reports, " that in the present condition of the Territory a fair election cannot be held nnthout a new census, a stringent and well reg- \dated election law, the selection of impartial judges, and the preKence of United States troops at everyplace of election." Almost immediately upon the pub- lication of this report, a bill is passed through the Senate, proposing to carry out, in every particu- lar, these suggestions; and yet these men, to the surprise of all candid and patriotic citizens, im- mediately denounce this bill as a measure of the " slave power," and an attempt to make Kansas a slave State. Mr. Chairman, the conviction is forced upon my mind that this party is determined,. at all hazards, to prevent a settlement of these unfortu- nate difficulties; and nothing seems to afford them so much pleasure as new reports, whether true or false, of additional murders, outrages, and vio- lence. Gentlemen of this unholy, this treason- able organization, I say to you now, that, smile as you may in your fancied security — wrapped in your cloak of privilege, and sustained as you may be by an excited and misguided constituency, you will yet be called to a fearful account for your conduct in this crisis of our country's destiny. You are the real instigators of all this violence and crime. Upon your heads will finally rest the guilt and the infamy. By your course you have precipitated these fearful evils u]ion the country. When this day of insanity and madness shall have passed away; when the sober reason of the people shall have returned; when truth, now ob- scured by brazen and unblushing falsehood, shall shine forth in her true colors; when the motives of the actors in this sad drama shall be fully known and appreciated, and uncloaked hypocrites shall stand exposed, naked, and trembling in their unmasked deformity, many, who are now exult- ing in their fancied success, will call fori'ocks and mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the indignation of an abused and outraged public. One alleged excuse for this Abolition crusade is, that the Legislature of^ansas was a usurpation, and its acts void. That may be so, or it may 6 not. This is a question w)iich the courts, and the courts alone, can properly try and determine. I shall not, here or elsewhere, become an apolo- gist for the violators of law in Kansas. Those who have attem|)ted to control her destiny by iileg:al voting, or by violence, whether they come from Massachusetts or Missouri, from Illinois or South Carolina, deserve to be visited with the heaviest penalties of the law. To me it makes no difference from whence they come. They liavc been ^"'''7 of enormities that ou»lU not to go unpunished. They have defaced the image of God, and been guilty of treason against Heaven, against free government, and the rights of man. But the only code of laws in existence by which theycan be punislied.is this much-abused Kansas code. That there was wrong and fraud in the election of many of the mehibers of this Kansas Legislature, I think is very probable. I regret that such was the case. As a lawyer, I do not think tliat such would be the result, but it is even possible that the courts would hold that these acts are void. The consequences of such a decision would be dreadful to society; and yet that is what these "Repul'licans" have proposed to do by direct legislation. I have examined these Kansas laws with some care, and I assert iiere, without the fear of contradiction, tliat as a code, with some few exceptions, they are worthy of all com- mendation. They provide a remedy for almost every wrong, and a penalty for every possible crime; and in a volume of five or six hundred pages, there are but some half a dozen cTiactments that any man can with good reason object to. These we have proposed to repeal, or dech\re void, because they were in violation of funda- mental principles of the Constitution, and the organic act of the Territory — but these model "Republicans" have pri\Tnted us from doing so. Nothing will satisfy them but a repeal of the whole code in a liody. Their papers are filled, day by day, witli accounts of the perpetration of the most enormous crimes in Kansas bj' the "border ruffians," and yet they would blot out of existence the only code of laws under wliich these men can be brought to trial and punish- ment. If the Missourians have violated the elec- tion laws, illegally taken possession of the polls, or destroyed the ballot-boxes, I want to see them, every man of them, brought to trial and punish- ment. If Mississippians have gone to thatTcrri-' tory and conmiitted robberies, arsons, and bur- glaries, I want to see the severest penalties of the law visited upon them. If Carolinians haveindeid gone there and brutally nuirdered our "free-State" men, I want to see them hung so high that they may prove a warning to all evil-disposed persons in the future. Hut this will not satisfy these vir- tuous Republicans. They must repeal these laws, and thereby legalize treason, murder, anarchy, and violence. Repeal these laws, and the traitor and the niurderer is placed upon a iierfect equal- ity with the virtuous and U|)right citizen. Repeal these laws, and the man whose soul is blackened with every crime, and whose skirls may be drip- ping with the bldod of nuirdered freemen, will walk forth free and unfettered as the winds of heaven. Such an enormous proposition was never heard of before since the world began; and yet this is just what is pi#posud by lliese model Republicans. Admit that there are obnoxious enactments in this code: it does not follow that that gives us the right to deprive the people of Kansas of their most sacred heritage — the right of self-govern- ment. Is theirs the only Legislature that has passed foolish or obnoxious laws? Why, sir, there is not a Sate in the Union that has not done the same thing. But the people affected thereby always discover the evil, and provide a remedy in due time, and that without any officious inter- meddling from without. Have those Representatives of that honored old Commonwealth, who are now so much troubled about this Kansas code, and so much in love with the negro race, forgotten that at one time, in Mas- sachusetts, there were statutes providing for ban- ishing Baptists from the Colony, and forbidding any one to speak against infant baptism? — deny- ing the son of the Emerald Isle the right to set his foot upon her soil? — punishing with death all persons (even the untutored Indians) who should speak against the established religion as " a po- litic device to keep ignorant men in awe ?" — pun- ishing with banishment and death persons pro- fessing the Roman Catholic religion ? — punishing with imprisonment inoffensive Quakers, and cutting off their cars, and boring their tongues with a red-hot iron, for no crime except tliat of being true to their own faith ? — and banishing citizens for even speaking against these laws? ?Iave they forgotten the infamy of the " Hiss I Legislature, " or the passage of the famous " per- sonal liberty bill?" The $:ood people of Massa- chusetts have corrected most of these evils of [ legislation; but they never would have permitted any other people to have dictated to them the , lime or mode of repealing these laws. If there ! are other evils that need correcting, they are com- I petenl to find the remedy, without any orHcious ; intermeddling of others. And this is ;>!! that is asked for the people of Kansas — that th-y may i be left free to frame their own laws, and to correct I their own evils of legislation. I In this allusion to the early history of Massa- chusetts legislation, I am not willing that my motives shall be inisunderstood. If I had the ; power, I could not be induced to dim the lustre j of her glorious history. I have no sym[)athy I with gentlemen who may attempt to detract from the fair fame of any portion of our common coun- try; nor can they in this way all'ord me any pleasure, command my gratitude, or secure my respect. The noljle deeds of Massachusi tts con- stitute a part of tlie common herit;ige in which I j claim a part. Her soil is a cherished portion of I this great country; and her Lexington, and Con- ! cord, and Bunker Hill, are holy places, ehirished . ! in the hearts of all true Americans. Evt ry State, ' every nook and corner, of thi.s broad land, I j feel to be a portion of my country, whose repu- I lation and glory I ciierish, and whose fame I would be the last to deface. I refer to these enactments only to prove that even the most eiiligiited communities will at times I [)ass very foolish and very unjust laws; and tliat the only safe or justifiable rule under our .system is for every people to attend to the correction of their own evils and their own laws, and leave other communities the right and privilege of doing the same thing lor themselves. Unforiunately, I the disposition to intermeddle witli, and try to control, the legislation, and even the religion, of others, with which we can have, rightfully, noth- , ing to do, has spread throughout the land, and : has at length brought us almost to the verge of j disunion and civil war. _ | Another wing of this allied army engaged in i this unholy warfare against the Democratic party, ] is the southern branch, of the Know Nothing party; the northern branch, with very few ex- ceptions, having been swallowed up and com- pletely identified with the Black Republican movement. Of this secret, oath-bound organiza- tion, I shall have very little to say. Its life has been brief but eventful, and even now it is in the very act of giving up the ghost. As improbable as it will appear to future generations who may read the history of these times, there is no doubt that the great mass of the people who have been entrapped within the meshes of this strange or- ganization, entered it with the purest motivesand most patriotic purposes. They have discovered their error, and are now rapidly retracing their steps; and when the frosts of November shall visit us, the immortal "Sam" will have passed away from the earth, and the place that knows him now will know him no more forever. Born of bigotry aiid intolerance, he was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. His strange birth, rapid growth, violent life, and sudden death, will form an interesting study for the future politician and historian. Like Jonah's gourd, he sprung up full grown in a night-time only to ■wither and die before the light of the morning sun. But brief as has been his career, he has left footprints upon our institutions that it will take ages to eradicate. But I will not dwell- on this view of the subject. For the members of that party whom I have met on this floor, (I mean those who have a just claim to nationality in their feelings and senti- ments,) I entertain, personally, the kindest feel- ings. Those with whom I have become more intimate, I hope always to rank among my per- sonal friends. But candor and truth compel me to add that, in my own opinion, when the history of these times is written, the blackest page will be that which records the ingratitude of the south- ern Know Nothings to the Democratic party of the northern States. The great battle which has raged for the last two years throughout the North between Abolition fanaticism on the one side, and the defenders of the Constitution and the constitu- tional rights of the South on the other, has been the fiercest, the most bitter, proscriptive, and relentless, known to the history of our country. The great Abolition sea swelled, and its waters rolled towards the national capital. Its billows dasked against the pillars of the Constitution and threatened to ingulf us all. But wherever the storm raged fierest and the waves rolled highest, the national men of the North were found strug- fling, with almost superhuman efforts, to beat ack this Abolition deluge from the capital. Many of these men were beaten down by the enemy; but the survivors, although they saw their breth- ren falling on the right hand and on the left, still fought on with courage and confidence. And who are these men, who, at the sacrifice of ease and comfort, and in the face of political and social ostracism, thus battled, day after day, for the rights of their distant brethren, and the integrity of the Union ? Among them you will find Cass, and Douglas, and Richardson, and Willard, and Hallet, and indeed, the entire De- mocracy of the whole North; but you may cast your eye over the whole field, from Maine to Cal- ifornia, and you will not find one single member of the Know Nothing party engaged in this con- test on the side of the Constitution. Your Know Nothing Banks, and Wilson, and Burlingatne, and Fuller, and men of like kidney, were in the contest, but their blows were aimed at the De- mocracy, and not at this dangerous Abolition fac- tion. Your national men, if you had them, were lying still while this storm was raging, and struck no blow for the principles of the Constitution. Your Fillmore, at a safe distance from the scene of conflict, was quietly sipping his wine with the Pope of Rome, or basking in the smiles of some crowned head of Euorpe. The position of your Henry M. Fuller, to say the best you can of him, was so uncertain, that his Black Republican col- leagues from his own State, voted for him for weeks for Speaker of the present House, under the belief that iie was as good a Free-Soiler as themselves. If he had ever, previous to that time, raised hia hand once, and struck even one blow for the con- stitutional rights of the South, he could not under, any circumstances have received one of these votes. Fuller's record, as he has patched it up here at the instigation of his southern friends, does not better his condition. Take it altogether, as stated by himself on this floor, and it is just this, and you can make nothing else of it: " I do not believe that the Federal Government has any power to legislate on the subject of slavery in the Territories; and as the President and Sen- ate are against us, we cannot now restore the Missouri restriction, and, therefore, I am opposed to agitating the subject. But, if loe had lite Pr«si- dent and the Senate with us, I would vote to restore that restriction, notwithstanding, in my opinion, it would be a violation of the Constitution and an in- vasion of the constitutional rights of the South." ForGiDDiNGs (who believes that we have the con- stitutional power) to vote to prohibit slavery in the Territories there is some excuse; but for Hknry M. Fuller, who believes that such a restriction would be a Federal usurpation, to declare, in the face of this House and the country, that he would vote to place it on the statute-book, is to exhibit a depth of fanaticism, or a cowardice in bending to the force of Abolition sentiment, that ought to damn him forever. And yet, this is the man whom you "South Americans" have tried to bolster up as a national man, and proclaimed as one up6n whom the South could safely rely. It is an easy matter for you Know jSjothings of the South , removed far away from the scenes of the conflict, supported and cheered on by your entire constituency, to denounce this northern fanati- cism; but it is a difterent thing when, by standing by the rights of the South, you subject yourself to political and social ostracism, to the hatred and denunciation of your neighbors, to insult and mob violence; and for southern men to shut their eyes to the truth in regard to this great battle which is still raging throughout the North, and to continue your misrepresentations of those who are battling for your rights, is to be guilty of treason against the rights of your own constituents. And yet my colleague, [Colonel Richardson,] who has epent a whole life time in baitling: against Ab> tionisniand Free-Soilism, in ail its various fori who conducted the fiarty is of no mushroom frowth, and was engendered neither in the hot- ed of faniticism nor of religious bigotry. It was born with the Constitution; and, planting itself by the side of that sacred instrument, it has " grown with its growth and strengiheiied with its strength." It came into power in the infancy of California, and are daily launching their ves- sels on the Pacific's dark blue waves. Under its auspices our flag now whitens every sea, and visits every isle that gems the bosom of the ocean. And this party, purified by the fires of persecution, and invigorated with the best blood of the old Whig party, now occupies a prouder position than in any previous portion of its history. And will you now ask us to abandon this party while it is fighting the great battle of the Consti- tution and the Union? Will you ask us to unite with these new factions born of folly and mad- ness, which have introduced strife, and mobs, and violence, and bigotry, intolerance, and fanat- icism.' — and which have already almost destroyed the* best Government God ever gave to man .' Heaven forbid that we should do so ! No; we will stand by our old party as long as there is one plank of the Constitution left for us to defend. While the cohorts of fanaticism are marshaling under the black banner of treason, and their blows are heard at the outward portals of our temple, we cannot take down our flag without being guilty of treason against Heaven and lib- erty. " Ours is no sapling, cliance-sown by the founiain, Ulonmiug at Beltane, in winter tii lade ; Wlicii the whirlwind lias stripped every leaf from the niounlaiii, The more shall Clan Alpine exult in his shade ; Moored in the rifted rock, Proof to the tempest shock, Firmer he roots him llic ruder it blows." Mr. Chairman, the great battle of the Consti- tution and the Union is now being fought. Those who would strike one blow for the Constitution I made by our fathers must rally under the flag of the Democratic party. There is now no other I hope for the country. If that party is destroyed, I the Constitution and the Union must go down j with it. May Heaven avert this awful calamity ! J librar yoF COAJG ^fss OOl 898 292 7