A . - ♦!• A> <A .•^ - - - "l* A> 
 
 
 
 O'^ c''J.**.'**o 
 
 
 <^ 
 
 
 o t» • ■ 
 
 '^^ .^^' 
 
 (^A ^ 
 
 '•••* A<^ ... <>^ "•** .. 
 
 
 
 Cl<^^ 
 
 
 ^^^'"o- 
 
 
 ^ -^^ 
 
 
 m^' ^y 
 
 
 
 
 I %.^^ 
 
 -•? 
 
 
 • t*5v^ 
 
 
 
 0^ o'^'.^'^O 
 
 
 > • 
 
 o 
 
 
 ^-. 
 
 • 
 
 ''b 
 
 V 
 
 -^ « 
 
 
 "^^ 
 
 ,^^'^•V 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
" >' ' ■ ' I 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 M. P. GENTRY, OF TKNNLSSEE, 
 
 VINDICATING HIS COURSE IN THE LATE PRESIDENTIAL 
 
 ELECTION. 
 
 NOVEMBER 20, 1853- 
 
SPEECH 
 
 M.' P. GENTRY, OF TENNESSEE, 
 
 VINDICATING HIS COURSE IN THE LATE PRESIDENTIAL 
 
 ELECTION. 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 TO HIS CONSTITUENTS AT FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE, 
 
 l" 
 
 NOVEMBER 20, 1852. 
 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRI\TED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 
 
 1853. 
 
 4 IX 
 

VINDICATION. 
 
 P^LLOW-CiTiZENs: I thank you for your pres- 
 ence here to-day. I have requested you to honor 
 me with this audience, that [ might have an op- 
 portunity to vindicate the course which I have 
 deemed it my duty to pursue in the late presiden- 
 tial canvass, both before and after the nomination 
 of Greneral Wsnfield Scott, as the Whig candi- 
 date for the Presidency. I opposed his nomina- 
 tion, and, withheld from him my support after he 
 was nominated. In a speech which 1 made two 
 days before the Whig National Convention assem- 
 bled. 1 announced, that *' if General Scott should 
 ' be the Whig nominee^ I would stand aloof and 
 ' take no active part in the presidential contest; 
 ' and I further declared, that if 1 thought one man's 
 ' vote, or one man's influence, was necessary to 
 ' cast the vote of Tennessee for Pierce and King, 
 ' my voice and my vote should be given to them 
 ' unhesitatingly." I did not, at that time, nor at 
 any subsequent stage of the canvass, believe that 
 the State of Tennessee would vote for General 
 Scott; and consequently, I adhered to my purpose 
 as declared before the nomination, and remained 
 passive and inactive; absteaning from speaking in 
 the canvass, and from voting in the election. The 
 Whig press of Tennessee, and numerous eloquent 
 Whig orators, have labored assiduously for nearly 
 six months to convince my constituents, and the 
 people of Tennessee generally, that the reasons 
 assigned by me for my conduct in the speech to 
 which I have referred, were founded in error; and 
 quite a number of less conspicuous politicians have 
 been industriously and unscrupulously engaged 
 in efforts to infuse into the public mind the belief 
 that I have been governed by petty, narrow, per- 
 sonal motives, rather than by conscientious con- 
 victions of public duty. During all this time I 
 have been silent, relying confidently upon the in- 
 telligence and justice of my countrymen. But I 
 find that these one-sided arguments — these false 
 and unjust imputations, urged perseveringly, with- 
 out ceasing, for so long a time, have been, to a 
 very great extent, successful. Many of those 
 who nearly twenty years ago, when I first became 
 a candidate to represent this county in the State 
 Legislature, met me with a confiding and generous \ 
 friendship; and who have, since that time, steadily ! 
 
 'I supported, shielded, and upheld me — meeting me 
 always with gratulating hands, and countenances 
 beaming with friendship and confidence, now greet 
 
 ' me coldly, or turn away from me altogether. Un- 
 
 [ der such circumstances, fellow-citizens, you will 
 believe me sincere when I repeat to you my thanks 
 
 ' for honoring me with your presence here to-day, 
 
 , and giving me such an opportunity of speaking in 
 my own defense. 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, I hope you will pardon me 
 for saying, that conscious of having been faithful 
 to the yirinciples which I have professed and pro- 
 claimed, and which you approved, or seemed to 
 approve, I feel in finding myself under the neces- 
 sity of thus appearing before you to plead in my 
 own defense, like a soldier may be supposed to 
 t'eel, who, at the close of a bloody day, having 
 stood bravely to his colors, comes all covered with 
 the smoke and dust of battle, wounded, bleeding, 
 
 I faint, and weary, into the presence of his com- 
 mander, expecting those words of approval, so 
 dear to the heart of a true soldier, but instead of 
 such words, receives a notification that he is cash- 
 iered for cowardice, and that other soldiers, who 
 without firing a gun, ingloriously surrendered the 
 citadel which they had been posted to guard and 
 defend, are approved, applauded, and promoted. 
 The charges upon which I am condemned are 
 so multifarious, that I scarcely know how to pro- 
 ceed in my defense. That one, however, which 
 seems to have exercised the greatest influence in 
 bringing the public mind to erroneous and injurious 
 conclusions, is, " that by my extreme opposition 
 to General Scott's nomination before the Whig 
 Convention assembled at Baltimore, and by my 
 refusal to support him after he became the nomi- 
 nee of that convention, I have given whatever in- 
 fluence I could, in favor of the Democratic, and 
 against the Whig candidate for the Presidency," 
 and, " that 1 was incited thus to act, not by high 
 and patriotic motives of public duty, but by feel- 
 ings of personal malevolence, or political envy and 
 jealousy, entertained by me in relation to a citi- 
 zen of this State, somewhat prominent in the 
 politics of the day; I mean ex-Governor Jamas 
 C. Jones, now one of the Senators of Tennessee, 
 
 in; he Congress of the United States. I admit 
 
the truth of the first part of thia charge and deny 
 
 the second; niul if you will favor me with your 
 jiatience, 1 will proceeil to justify the one, and 
 demonstrate the utter falseness and absurdity of 
 the other. 1 admit that I desired the defeat of 
 General Scott, and spoke and acted before the 
 Baltimore Convention usseml)led,with the purpose 
 to aid in producing that result, in the event of hi.s 
 nomination; and I do not throw myself upon 
 your mercy for pardon, but appeal to your good 
 sense and patriotism for juslincation. 1 solemnly 
 believe that the highest interests of liie country 
 required that General Scott should have been de- 
 feated in the late election, and that the principles 
 to which the Whigs of Tennessee, myself among 
 the number, had pledged ourselves, in every form 
 that could bind the consciences of men, required 
 us to withhold from him our support. My ob- 
 iect to-day is to convince those of my constitu- 
 ents who are here assembled, that this is a truth, 
 and it is my intention to publish and circulate 
 among my constituents what I say, that all of 
 them may judge for themselves. If I can succeed 
 in establishing the truth of the belief I have ex- 
 pressed, my vindication will be complete; for I 
 suppose none have gone so far in party madness 
 as to believe tliat party can, by its decrees, impose 
 obligations which can absolve us from those of a 
 higher and more sacred character that we owe to 
 O'lr country. As preliminary to the task which I 
 propose to myself, let me inquire what Whig 
 principles, what Whigmeasures, wereinvolved in 
 the late presidential election, in such a way as to 
 be saved or lost by the success or defeat of Gen- 
 eral Scott ? 
 
 I am amazed that men of talents and respecta- 
 bility should so far prostitute their talents and 
 imperil their respectability, as to try to make the 
 people believe that those principle.s and measures 
 v/hich have constituted the suLijects of difference 
 between the two great political parlies of this 
 country for years past, were practically involved 
 in the late presidential election. Currency, em- 
 bracing the question, what is the best mode of 
 keeping and disljursing the public revenue? — and 
 revenue, embracing the questions, what amount 
 ought to be collected by the Federal Governiiipnt, 
 and by what means? — and if by duties upon for- 
 eign imports, whether in laying such dutie.s Con- 
 press ought to discriminate in regard to the amount 
 of duty imposed upon ditVerent articles, with a 
 view to the jirotection and encouragement of 
 American manutaciures, and to what extent such 
 discrimination ought to be carried r — and the public 
 domain, embracing the question of the policy or 
 impolicy of distributing the proceeds of the sales 
 of the public lands among the Slates. These are 
 the Buojects with respect to which the two great 
 political parties have differed for many years past.* 
 Now, every man who is informed in regard to the 
 stale of parties in the American Congress, knows 
 that there is a majority in the Senateof the United 
 States entertaining views adverse to those enler- 
 
 • Nutlnni; Ih xaiil ii|»<iii lln; «iilpj<fl nf ;i|i|iro|>riaii()ii». liy 
 iJonKruMH (iir piirii'iHirs i>( iiiK-rnnI iiii[>riivciiiciii.-<, hi'i-aii'.i" 
 on that Hiitijix't i>iil)i |i;irtii'.i nfrm Id linvi* iiioditii'd their 
 viewn, nnd a nu'ilimn poliry. lictirr iirrlmps ilinii lli<; ftiriiicr 
 pttrimie vii'WH cii fillii-r pnrly, m imw Huiiporltul iiroiiiiHcii- 
 DUitly by WhiKH ■■iiid l)i-iiic)cr;iln, and Krciii.H likely to coiii- 
 nianUlaiee iH.ijoriiicH fur many ycjar^ Id «.(jiuf. I have nil 
 ••jpcctnlicin that GimhtbI I'ierci' will try lo orrc't it, (irtliat 
 (ieneral ticott could have ainplitU-<l it. 
 
 tained by the Whig party upon these questions, 
 ' which by no possibility can be overcome within 
 the next four years; and, therefore, those who 
 have labored to make the impression on the popu- 
 lar mind that these old questions were practically 
 involved, were either grossly ignorant, or they 
 knowingly sought to delude and mislead the people 
 upon public questions of the highest importance. 
 These measures were not involved in the late [)re8- 
 idential election; but principles and measures infi- 
 nitely greater were involved. What principles.' 
 What measures.' A proper answer to these ques- 
 tions, and a truthful exhibition of my course in 
 relation to them, will constitute my best vindica- 
 tion. 
 
 You have not forgotten the stale of public affairs 
 at the time when that series of measures, generally 
 called the compromise measures, were enacted by 
 Congress. A sectional controversy upon the sub- 
 ject of slavery, which had its origin anterior lo 
 the enactment of those laws, had been, l)y the 
 acquisition of large territories from Mexico, pre- 
 cipitated into a virulence which menaced the do- 
 mestic peace of the United States, and their union 
 as a confederated Republic. The object aimed at 
 by the enactment of those laws, was to ward oflf 
 civil war, and a dissolution of the Union, which 
 seemed lo be imminently impending. In this re- 
 publican Government lawsunsupporied by pul)lic 
 opinion are nullities; and the late presidential 
 election gave to the people of the United Stales, 
 the first opportunity to imparl by their approval 
 of the laws to which I have referred, vitality and 
 finality, or to nullify them by their disapproval: 
 and therefore these measures were practically in- 
 volved in that election. How shall I describe the 
 principles involved ? Every interest of humanity 
 which depends upon the success of the great ex- 
 periment which we are making, and which was 
 iiegun by our fathers, constituted the principles. 
 From the time that those measures were passed 
 up lo the late presidential election, their mainte- 
 nance or nullification, by popular approval or dis- 
 approval, has been the p;ifat question in .American 
 politics. The jireservation of tlie Union, with 
 liberty, peace, [Prosperity, anil ]iower, on the one 
 hand, and its dissolution, with the indescribable 
 and inappreciable evils that would flow from that 
 event, on the other hand, were the mighty issues 
 to be decided by public o]iinion, from whose de- 
 crees, under this Government, there is no appeal. 
 
 I intend this day to put to shame my traducers, 
 by exhibiting a record covering years, which will 
 prove conclusively that in regard to these high 
 issues, 1 have acted with patriotic consistency; 
 and that there is no foundation for those imputa- 
 tions of narrow motives generally made against 
 me. Every honorable man who has been induced 
 by an honest misunderstanding of the facts, or 
 by misrepresentation, to express condemnatory 
 Ojiinions of me, will, when he reads the record, 
 be compelled lo retract; and none will persevere in 
 denouncing me, except those who are willfully 
 unjust or meanly malicious. 
 
 Kellow-citi/.ens, 1 make no whining appeals to 
 you. lie wlio feels that he has done wrong, is 
 bound to apologize; but he who knows that he has 
 performed his whole duty conscientiously, to the 
 best of iiis ability, cannot ajiologize. I stand be- 
 fore my constituents to-day, proudly conscious of 
 having been actuated by patriotic motives. I ex- 
 
5 
 
 liibit the record of my acts, and claim justification 
 at their hands. 
 
 When the session of Congress assembled imme- 
 diately succeeding that which passed the compro- 
 mise measures, it was soon obvious to every 
 discerning man, that pubUc men holding most in- 
 duential positions, dead to patriotic motives, were 
 willing, in order to accomplish the objects of their 
 mean ambition, to r-enew the sectional strife which 
 those measures wc/e intended to close, and to re- 
 plunge this Republic upon that sea of dangers 
 from which those measures saved it. Myself and 
 six other gentlemen, two of whom were distin- 
 guished Democrats, assembled in a room of the 
 Capitol to consult on the state of public affairs. 
 The result of that consultation was the following 
 address, to which the other signatures were after- 
 wards obtained , viz: 
 
 The un<lersigned, members ot llie Thirty-first Congress 
 of the United States, believing that a renewal of sectional 
 controversy upon the subject of slavery would be both dan- 
 gerous to the Union and destructive of its objects, and see- 
 ing no mode by which such controversy can be avoided, 
 except by an adiierence to tiie settlement thereof, etTected 
 by the cnrapromise acts passed atthe last session of Congress, 
 do hereby declare their intention to maintain the said settle- 
 ment inviolate, and to resist all attempts to repeal or alter 
 the acts aforesaid, unless by the general consent of the 
 friends of the measures, and to remedy such evils, if any, 
 as time and experience may dev(;loj); and, for the purpose 
 of making this resolution eft'ective, they further declare that 
 they will not support for the office of President or of Vice 
 Presidt ni, or of a Senator, or of a Representative in Con- 
 gress, or as member of a Slate Legislature, any man, of 
 whatever party, who is not known to be opposed to the dis- 
 turbance of the settjenient aforesaid, and to the renewal, in 
 any form, of agitation upon the subject of slavery. 
 
 Henry Clay, 
 
 C. S. Mort hea<i, 
 Robert L. Kose, 
 \V. C. Dawson, 
 Thomas J. Rusk, 
 Jeremiah Clemens, 
 James Cooper, 
 Thomas G. Pratt, 
 William M. Gwin, 
 Samuel A. Eliott, 
 David Outlaw, 
 C.H. Williams, 
 
 J. Philhfis Phanix, 
 A. M. Scliermerliorn, 
 John K. Thurman, 
 
 D. A. Bokee, 
 G. R. Andrews, 
 W. P. iVlaimuui, 
 Jeremiah .Moiton, 
 R. I. Bowie, 
 
 E. C. Cabell, 
 Alexander EvaKS, 
 
 Howell Cobb, 
 H. S. Foote, 
 William Duer, 
 James Brooks, 
 Alexander H. Stephens, 
 Robert Toombs, 
 M. P. Gentry, 
 Henry W. Hilliard, 
 F. E. McLean, 
 A. G. Watkins, 
 H. A. Bullard, 
 'I'. S. Hajmond, 
 A. H. Shepard, 
 Daniel Breck, 
 James L. Johnston, 
 J. H. Tliompson, 
 J. M. Anderson, 
 John B. Kerr, 
 J. P. Caldwell, 
 Edmund Deherty, 
 Humphrey Marshall, 
 Allen F. Owen. 
 
 When I returned to Tennessee from the session 
 of Congress to which I am referring, I accepted 
 an invitation to address a Whig convention which 
 had assembled in Nashville to nominate a candi- 
 date for Governor. Froin the speech delivered by 
 me on that occasion, I beg leave to read the follow- 
 ing extract; 
 
 '■ !5ut, gentletiU'ti, there is yet a greater question than any 
 which I have yet stated, that will he decided by ihe next 
 election. That question is. Shall Tennessee approve or 
 condemn the conduct of President Fillmore in his admiiiis- 
 tralion of the Executive power of the Government.' As ihe 
 voLt (A the State in August next shall be for or against his [ 
 
 friends and supporters, so will it be construed ae approving 
 
 oreonileinninghis Administration. This is an issue whicn 
 is all-eiiibraeing in its character. Its deeisimi by the people 
 involves a judgment upon the coikIuci of the Whigs, In le- 
 lation to those measures which all candid men will now 
 admit have involved the Republic in its present perilous dif- 
 ficulties; and also, a judgment upon their position, in rela- 
 tion to the remedies proposed, to extricate it from danger. 
 It connects itself in its conse(|ncHCcs with the past, the 
 present, and the future. Should the decision he again.st us, 
 I repeat that it will be construed as a condemnation of our 
 past action— it will consign the okmi of the Whig parly Of 
 Tennessee to political non-existence; and it will, for rea- 
 sons heretotore stated, determine the political position of 
 tlie State, for ten years at least, advdsely to our principles 
 and v.ews. Never, in my opinion, have the people of Ten- 
 nessee been called upon to express their opinion at the 
 ballot-box, when questions of »uch high and enduring im- 
 portance to them were ti be determined by their voice. 
 President Fillmore acceded to his high station at a period 
 of extraordinary dilhculty. Congress had been in session 
 for an extraordinary period of time— engaged in abortive 
 efforts to adjust the sectional questions which had been 
 precipitated upon the country, by the acquisition of exten- 
 sive territories from Mexico. The extreme opinions and 
 prejudices of the North and South seemed to be in irrecon- 
 cilable conflict; and loud above the roar and din of mad- 
 dened factionists, the ihund»rs of disunion broke in terrible 
 and siartling peals upon the ear of the nation. The most 
 sanguine patiiots were almost ready to despair, and the 
 most resolute trembled lor the fate of the Union. The pub- 
 lic anxiety, especially in the southern States, was intense 
 beyond description. The impression had been industriously 
 propagated during the preceding contest for the Presidency, 
 that Mr. Fillmore was himself an Abolitionist. The national 
 heart throbbed high with anxiety. All eyes were fixed upon 
 the Capitol with intense solicitude. Had the President list- 
 ened to the suggestions of a mean and selfish ambition, or 
 heedi-d thecounselsof a cowardly timidity, God only knows 
 what would have been the result. But he did not hesitate 
 a moment. With that promptitude which characterizes 
 great men in great emergencies, he chose his line of con- 
 duct. With a courage and patriotism unsurpassed in his- 
 tory, he determined to throw himself into the breach and 
 save his country, reckless of consequences to himself. De- 
 fying the ravings of northern Abolitionists and southern 
 Disunionisis, he openly and fearles:-ly directed all the intiu- 
 ences which legitimately attach to his high posiiion, in 
 support of those bills, then pending in Congress, generally 
 known as the compromise m asures, and under his aus- 
 pi es they became laws, and the dangerous crisis which 
 menaced the safely of the Republic was safely passed, for a 
 time, at lea-t. Good men of all parties ceased their bicker, 
 iiigs, and united in congratulating one another upon the 
 safety of the Republic, and in pronouncing plaudits upon the 
 President, who had so nobly performed his duty. But curses 
 loud and deep came up from Disiniionists and .Abolitionists, 
 and concentrated upon him. Northern abnliiion and south- 
 ern disunion have not been quieted. Forcible opposition 
 to the execution of the fugitive slave law is threatened in 
 the North, and S nith Carolina proclaim-! it to be her pur- 
 pose to secede from the Union. A'iilalors and extremists, 
 Nullifiers, Secessionists, and Disunionisis are united in 
 furious and malignant opposition to the President, and by 
 every means in their power are seeking to break down his 
 Administration, and destroy its capacity to serve and save 
 the country. Ca m amidst the raging storm, he firmly per- 
 
ft 
 
 forms bis duty to the whole country, and rerusea to be the 
 
 (apple jnsiriiinpnt of any faction. With a moral courage 
 winch hj;h pfitriotisni ami cinisciotH rfciilndi' cnulil iiinni' 
 in<piri',lic has sirclclicil Ibrlli one arm to ilie Norlli, anil 
 the other to ih<> Soulli, ami lliroitlcd the nioiisiurs, abi>lilion 
 and disunion, and he oills upon Ihe lovers of the Union — 
 0()on all good men of every party, to come lo the rescue, 
 and aid him in strannliiii; Ihem to death. Will Tennessee 
 ^0 lo the rescue, and aid him in hi^ great effort.' Will she 
 invigorate his arm with a ch'-cring voice of approval, or 
 will she mrike it nerveleiis by a sentence of condemnation .' 
 Thc.<p riiiestions will be answered on the first Thursday in 
 Aususi. 
 
 " I think I may safely gay ihal, but for the party divisions 
 among us and the liahitofanta£;onism which those divisions 
 have created, the people of Tennessee would, as with one 
 anited voice, approve the conduct of the President in rela- 
 tion to the quesiions to which I have been referring; and 
 they would, with equal unanimity, sustain and support his 
 administration. In mi/o;<iiiio7i, Ai'/icon-siJcni/ions of policy 
 connected u-ith our sectional interests, rfcmanrf tliat we should 
 Ihusapj/rove atid sustain him. I trust that I am justified in 
 entertaining the hope that there are many of our political 
 adversaries, less maddened by party passions anri prejudices, 
 who, seeing the hiijh policy of such a course, will unite 
 with us in giving to the voice of the State a loud tone of 
 approval on the first Tiiur.-?day of August ne.xt. What mo- \ 
 live can we present to any future northern President to 
 imperil himself by opposing the mad schemes of fanaticism, 
 if, under eiiitin^ circumstances, we fail to apvrove, sustain, ' 
 and support Mr. Fillmore 1" 
 
 " But I hear the remark almost every day, ' There is loo 
 much anarchy and conl'usion in both parties— Whigs and 
 Democrats are acting so badly, neither party governed by 
 patriotic motives or statesmanlike purposes, that it seems to 
 me to be a matter of little con«e(iuencc to the country, 
 whether the one or the olliei party prevails, and therefore, 
 I lake no interest in the election.' Sentiments and opin- 
 ions like these are getLin:; to be common amon^' the people, 
 and I am not surprised at the fact. They are loo true as ap- 
 plied to the two great political paities, in a national (mint of 
 view. The Whig and Democratic parties, as at present 
 formed and organized, taking them in the whole e.xtcnt ot 
 the Union, are malform:ilions — unnatural monsters, liolli 
 parties embrace sound and unsound elements. Tlie disrup- 
 tion of both is inevitable at no very remote day. I'resent 
 organizations mny pos^iUy continue until the next presiden- 
 tial election — tliey certainly will not long survive that 
 event." 
 
 " It the soiiinl elements of eacli should unite, that union 
 must be upon the pl.nlcii 111 on which the Whigs of Tennes- 
 aee,and uouiliern Wliigs gunerally, have slond l|i)m the be- 
 ginning. We have never committed ourselves to e.ftreme 
 and dangerous theories of any sort, either with respect to 
 ■laveryor any other Mulgei.t relating to the proper adminis- 
 tration of the (J ivernment, or the powers that belong to it. 
 Wu are for the Constiiiition in iu amplitudes and reslric- 
 tionii— denying the existence of no power which itccMifirs, 
 but insHtin;,' lliit in the .idiiiini^tration of Its powers, a wise 
 duci.'lion and piu lent inodiir.itioii shall be regarded. Firmly 
 revolved lo maiiiiain, under nil eireiiin.iljinces, all our rights, 
 we have neveriheleis refu'^ed to e(,„j,erate in any measures 
 Uiul U;nded to plunge the Ilepublic into civil w.ir, und dis- 
 Milve Ihe I'lilon. We are for upholding the Uon.stitntion, 
 aad tbe (ioveruiuunt it cHlabliitheH, in lull cliicieucy, and fur 
 
 preserving the Union unimpaired, as the only reliable mode 
 of maintaining our rights, and preserving public liberty,. 
 P' ace, and happiness. Iflhe public ti.inijuillity is disturbed 
 by civil commotion, and by the appnliension of griai im- 
 pi'nding dangers, wc are not respmisiUle for this state ol 
 things." 
 
 • **•*** 
 
 " But, gpnllemen, the patiiotism, wisdom, prudence, and 
 firmness of fillmore, aided by the combined eloquence of 
 Clay and Webster, and by the exertions of Cass, r>icl<iiison, 
 Douglas, flouston. and many other patriotic statesmen of 
 both parlies, have not yet annihilited Alrolitionists and Dis- 
 unionisls, nor crushed ag tators. 1 wish Icould close these 
 desultory remarks by confidently assuringr you tha' all dan- 
 gers are past, and that the Ilepublic is safe. But I cannot. 
 ' Gentlemen cry Peace, peace, but there is no peace.' To 
 delude ourselves with unfijunded hopes would be weakness 
 — to shrink from realizing tlie truth, would be moral cow- 
 ardice. What is the present as|x?ct of public affairs? In most 
 of the northern Slates, we see unmistakable evidences of 
 sentiments of strong and deep opposition to the 'compro- 
 mise measures' of the last Clongress, especially the fnaitive 
 slave law. Its execution is resisted — its repeal demanded, 
 and ambitious men are seeking to subserve theirselfish pur- 
 poses by nursing into stronger intensity this spirit of opposi- 
 tion to the law. In some localities there have been such de- 
 velopments of a purpose forcibly to lesist its execution, that 
 the President has deemed it his duty to issue an official 
 pr>iclamation, announcing his determination to employ all 
 the power confeircd upon him by the Constif.ition and laws 
 to suppress by force, any ortranized opposition to its execu- 
 tion that may be made, in 9i>fne of the southern States., 
 the signs of dissatislaction with these laws are equally un- 
 mistakable, and if I mistake not in my n»emory, three 
 southern States, Oeoriiia, South Cainlina, and Missi>sippi, 
 have, by formal legislative enactments, iirovided for holdini; 
 State conventions, to deciile ttfwin ' the mode and measure 
 of redress' demanded by llie ooeiision. A dissolution of 
 the Union, and the formation of a Confederacy consistin;r 
 exclusively of the slaveholding Stales, seems to be t e rem 
 
 edy in contemplation." 
 
 * • * * J * * * 
 
 The speech from wliich I have made ilie.'je ex- 
 tracts was receivetl with marked approval by the 
 convention to wliich it was addressed, was pub- 
 lished in the principal Wliiu: newspapers in Ten- 
 nessee, and liecame liie imsis of the canvass tliat 
 followed, and which resulted in the election of a 
 Whig Governor, and a iiiajiirit y of Whi^meinbers 
 in botli branches of the Le^i.slalnre. You liave 
 not forgotten, fellow-citizens, that durina: that can- 
 vass it was almost an every-day occurrence for 
 Democratic candidates to (piestion, in public dis- 
 cussion. Whig inlegritv of jiurpose, by charging' 
 that their /.ea! fur iMr. I'lllniore, and their devotion 
 to the compromise measures, were mere aflecta- 
 tions — a political trick intended for no other pur- 
 pose than to win a party victory in Tennessee. 
 They contended that General Scott would most 
 certainly be nominated by the anti-slavery Whigs 
 of the iVorlh, who, as they said, coi>siitiited n 
 majority of the Whig parly of the nation; and 
 they charged that the Whigs of Tennessee, nol- 
 withsuinding iheir professed devotion lo Fillmore 
 und the compromise, would ipiietly fall into his 
 Hujjport. You rememlier, fellow-citizens, how 
 Whig candidates everywhere met these charges. 
 They indignaiuly reiielled iheiauscaiuiauious im- 
 
putations, and, in doing so, frequently declared jj 
 ihey would support for the Presidency General ''■ 
 Cass or Governor Dickinson, or any other respect- 
 able Democrat, avowing opinions and purposes in 
 relation to the compromise measures, such as those 
 gentlemen were known to entertain, rather than 
 any Whig who refused openly and unequivocally to 
 throw the weight of his influence in favor of maintain- j 
 ing those measures; and these declarations were ap- 
 proved and applauded by Whigs everywhere. 
 Upon this ground the Whig party of Tennessee 
 stood at the close of that canvass. I stand there . 
 to-day. 
 
 When the period fixed by the Constitution for 
 Congress to convene arrived, and the members of 
 the present Congress assembled at the Capitol, it 
 soon became obvious that the danger which was 
 apprehended a year previous, and which some of 
 us had endeavored to ward off by the Congres- 
 sional pledge to which 1 have already invited your 
 attention, was upon the country in full force. It 
 required but a few days of intercourse with the 
 members of Congress to enable every man pos- ' 
 sessing the smallest degree of sagacity to see that 
 the anti-compromise Whigs, the Free-Soil Whigs, 
 the Abolition and higher-law Whigs, were in solid 
 array to prevent the adoption of any declaration 
 of a purpose by the Whig party, in National 
 Convention or otherwise, to maintain the series of 
 measures known as the compromise measures 
 " as a final settlement of the dangerous questions 
 they embraced," and to make General Scott the 
 candidate of the Whig party, uncommitted, pub- 
 licly, as to those measures. Those who insisted 
 upon this line of policy believed that the Demo- 
 cratic party would nominate some man for the 
 Presidency of whom it could be said, as the New 
 York Tribune said of General Pierce when he 
 was nominated, " The Union does not contain a 
 bitterer or a more proscriptive pro-slavery Hunker 
 than Franklin Pierce;" and that against such a 
 candidate. General Scott as his competitor, un- 
 committed to the compromise measures, would com- 
 mand the entire Whig vote of the northern States, 
 detach from the Democratic party and draw to his 
 support a large Free-Soil vote, and obtain the en- 
 tire vote of the Abolitionists, whose strongest 
 wish, it was supposed, under such circumstances, 
 would be to defeat such a pro-slavery candidate as 
 the Democrats would present; and that, with these 
 united factions concentrated upon him. General 
 Scott would be elected. But to give absolute and 
 entire certainty to this scheme, it was necessary 
 that the southern Whigs should acquiesce in it, 
 and rely upon the fact that General Scott was born 
 in Virginia, and upon his displays of generalship 
 and patriotism in the military service of the country, 
 as an offset to the objections that would probably 
 be raised in the southern States. All this looked 
 plausible, and if the scheme had succeeded, I am 
 not certain but that the result aimed at would have 
 been realized. It was most captivating to all those 
 who struggle for party victories from selfish or 
 interested motives, heedless of the great public 
 interests involved. Every southern man whose 
 cxincurrence in this scheme was deemed important 
 to its success, and who hesitated to give that con- 
 currence, was importuned with unwearied assi- 
 duity, and assailed with every argument and sug- 
 gestion calculated to awaken his avarice or his 
 ambition, as the one or the other passion was 
 
 supposed to predominate in his nature. What 
 would have been the condition of things in this 
 Republic if this scheme had been permitted to 
 succeed, and General Scott had been elected in the 
 manner desired ? What pros[)ects would have 
 now been before the country ? Those gentlemen 
 who hold that there is a higher law than the Con- 
 stitution that absolves them from the obligations 
 which it imposes — AI)olitionism and Free-Soilism 
 — would have been triumphant, and the friends of 
 the compromiserepudiated, crushed, and destroyed 
 by the verdict of the nation. And I repeat the 
 question, what would have been the prospect he- 
 fore us.' Instead of those feelings of security 
 which the verdict of the nation, pronounced on 
 the first Tuesday of November, has imparted, 
 the prospect before us would have been a confi- 
 dent and rampant demand for the rejieal of the 
 fugitive slave law, a persevering and formidable 
 agitation upon the subject of slavery, with the 
 avowed object to exterminate it; discord instead of 
 tranquillity; civil war and bloodshed instead of 
 I peace, and a probable dissolution of the Union, 
 with the utter ruin of the glorious institutions in- 
 herited from our fathers. With this understand- 
 ing of the subject, I would have been recreant to 
 every duty, false to every obligation that rested 
 upon me as your Representative, as a man, and a 
 patriot, if I had failed to place myself in inflexi- 
 ble opposition to the whole scheme. To have 
 acted otherwise would have made me a conspirator 
 against the welfare of my country, the peace and 
 happiness of my constituents, and the security of 
 their homes and firesides. Will a sane man whet 
 the knife of an assassin when he knows that 
 assassin intends to cut his throat.' Will he light 
 a torch for the incendiary who proclaims the pur- 
 pose to burn his house? 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, I rely for my vindication 
 upon a plain narrative, rather than upon argument 
 or declamation. It was when the state of things 
 which I have attempted to describe became pal- 
 pable to every man who had eyes to see or ears to 
 i hear, that my friend and colleague, Christopher 
 H. Williams, so long and so favorably known 
 in the Whig annals of Tennessee, arose in his 
 place in the House of Representatives, on the 
 I 31st day of March, 1852, and, as ever, true to the 
 I sentiments and principles of his constituents— 
 i true to the obligation.^ of patriotism and duty-- 
 : made a speech, sternly protesting, in tones of 
 fervid and earnest eloquence, against the " deep 
 damnation" of this most iniquitous scheme. And 
 ' as my present object is to show, that up to the 
 I time of General Scott's nomination, there was a 
 ' perfect harmony of sentiment and opinion between 
 i myself and those actingwith me, on the one hand, 
 ! and the Whigs of Tennessee, on the other, I beg 
 ; leave to introduce, from the speech delivered by 
 
 I him on that occasion, the following extract: 
 
 li "I returned to my liome, and upon every stump, in as 
 !' graphic and glowing colota as 1 could, I described to my 
 I eonstiluf-nts the extraordinary and dangerous excitement 
 ji that pervaded ihis Hall, and the universal burst of joy which 
 
 II pervaded the whole lountry when the comprrtuiise nieas- 
 i ures passed. I then said to them that I was determined 
 
 to maintain those measures, and, if need be, to throw off 
 i; my party allegiance in doing so. I told them, that upon a 
 j (juesiinn like this I would rise superior to party feelings, 
 \\ and, trampling party shackles in the dust, I would vote foe 
 
d 
 
 no presidtntial candidaH' of any party wlio did not commit | 
 himself in favor of the adjustment niea-ur. s, in on uniiii!-- 
 lakable manner, as a final settlenieni of the excltinsqiics- 
 lion» which ihty I'nil.raoed. 1 ucnt lurilMT, and said, that 
 if GtiUTuI Wnititid ScotI, who had won fur himself and his 
 country a world-widt lainc, sli.mid not choose to |ilac»; 
 himself in this position, and the Democratic party should 
 nominate a man who was unniis^takalily identified with 
 thos« HK^asures, hefore high Heaven and my country I would 
 support him. I intend most laithlully and honorahly to re- 
 deem that pledge ; and I now say, if, when I look over 
 the presidential field, I shall discover a little hlack sectional 
 rag held up hy one of the standard-bearers, and a national 
 flag unfurled hy another standard bearer, I will take posi- 
 tion under the national standard. 1 will not slop to inquire i 
 whether he is a Whig or a Demneiat. I can never become 
 a Democrat. I dilTer with them about the disposition of 
 the public lands, laritf, and nearly all questions of cvpedi- 
 ency. I further believe that the party with which I have 
 been ever actiii5, understands belter the wants and interest.', 
 the character and genius, of the American people, than the 
 opposition party. If they were continued in j)ower, they 
 would develop more rapidly the vast and mij^hly resources 
 of Uiis coantry. IJiit I never will stop to inquire about the 
 expediency of this or that policy, when a (luestion like this, 
 which has well nigh destroyed tlii.s Government, is involved. 
 We are told, and it is publi^hed by an anonymous letter- , 
 writer, that General .Scott, in his private conversation, has 
 emphatically indorsed the compromise measures," and ex- ; 
 presses surprise that any human being should doubt him 
 upon this subject. He further declares, that it is su.'ceptible 
 of the best proof, that but for his efforts these compromise 
 measures would not have passed. Is it true.' If it i.s, I ap- 
 peal to all men at the North, who stand forth as the friends 
 of General Scon— if, indeed, they believe these statements 
 —why it is that they are unwilling for General Scott to 
 make a formal publication, over his own signature, of his 
 opinioixi .' 
 
 " .My northern friends say to me. We can elect General 
 Scott if he makes no publication, although we know him to 
 have been in favor of the compromise measures. If they 
 can vote for him, and, as tkey say, elect him, knowing him 
 to be in favor of those measures, how is it that a publication 
 of his approval of those measures, over his own signature, 
 will blight and ruin his prospects.'' Is theie acheatin con- 
 lemplalion .-' Do you intend a fraud .' 
 
 '• Mr. Chairman, I speak only for myself. I do not as- 
 sume to speak for the people of Tennessee, nor for my con- 
 nituents, as to what course they will feel it to be their duly 
 to piirHiie, if General Scott is nominated under the circiim- 
 ••tances to which 1 have referred. 1 may venture, however, 
 to »ay that, in my opinion, if General Scott shall be nom- 
 inat<>d, surrounded .n he is by Uk- faits and circumslance.5 
 to which I have alluded, it Is my lioiie...i and sincere beliet 
 that there cannot be found Whigs enough of t.ilent and 
 charai ter, in the i^tate of Tennessee, who will consent to 
 form an etl'eclive clertonl lii:ket. [I<augliler]. I know 
 thKt there are gentlemen who dtlfer will) me. Some say 
 thai he can carry Maryland. Sniue lay that he can carry 
 Ninth (^irolina; and some nay that he can carry Kentucky 
 and TeniHHHec. I have only to Kay that I differ very much 
 with thoHe ueiiili'meii, and, in rnv hiirnble opirijon, they are 
 the word I'ldges of public opiiiioii lli;it I evir knew. [.\ 
 laugh.] Mr. (.'hairman, is it wise lor this great Whig pirty 
 to link It* nationalily in HecliimaliMii .' Mr. Chairiiian, Gen- 
 eral Hcolt is eillicr fur or againHt Uie cuinpiuinisc. Mow 
 
 isiti' Who can answer .' Some gentlemen say he is for it. 
 and others that he is against it. If he is for the compro- 
 mise, thai is all I want to know. Let him d.-clare it. Ii 
 it is intended to fix a movable platform, to suita northern 
 latitude and a southern one, it ought to be known. I am 
 not controverting the fact that General Scotl, in jirivate con- 
 versalioti, vehcjiiattly declares himself for the compromise. 
 Hut tlieie must be some mystery, if he is not willing to pul 
 in writing what he will stale in conversation. Mr. Chair- 
 man, let us put ourselves right before the country with re- 
 gard to the great question of the day and of the age. Let 
 both of the great poliiieal parlies pursue the course which 1 
 have pointed out, and nominate two sound men unequivo- 
 cally pledged to the maintenance of the compromise meas- 
 ures, and I lepeat, the Abolitionists will either be driven 
 into a separate and distinct organization, or compelled \<i 
 renounce their heresies, and merge themselves in the Wlii^' 
 and Democratic parties. 
 
 '• I do not know that it is necessary for me to pursue 
 the thread of my discourse any further. In endeavorini; 
 to condense, I have run so rapidly through the points I 
 intended to make, that 1 have but little more to .say. I wi.-ti 
 to declare to this committee that I have made this speech 
 without consultation with any human being. It was the 
 working and prompting of my own mind. I leave my re- 
 marks made to-day as a legacy to my parly; and I hope 
 that, whatever may happen hereafter, it will be lemembered 
 that I made an honest, fair, candid, and manly elVort lo 
 preserve the nationality of the Whig parly." 
 
 The speech from which the above is an extract 
 was printed in the Whig newspapers of Tennes- 
 see, and in pamphlet form, and extensively circu- 
 lated. 1 franked quite a number of them myself; 
 and 1 declare lo you that for some titne afterwards 
 it was a rare thins; for me to receive a letter, wheth- 
 er in the way of friendly correspondence, or upon 
 business relating to a post office or postmaster, a 
 pension or a land warrant, that did not contain an 
 emphatic and enthusiastic approval of the senti- 
 ments of that speech. Being upon very friendly 
 and intimate terms with my colleague, I was fre- 
 quently in his room, and was surprised at the 
 number of approbatory letters tlml poured in upon 
 him, not only from his own constituents, but from 
 every part of the State. I never saw him more 
 happy. He seemed to feel that he had performed 
 his duty, and he was in the full fruition of that 
 reward so dear to an honest man engaged in the 
 public service: " Well done, tliou gi-od and faith- 
 ful servant." I have said nothing sti-onger ihan 
 what he said. Why i.s it that 1 am contleniiied r 
 What has brought this " change o'er the spirit of 
 your dreams?" But let me proceed with my nar- 
 rative. Seven days after the sjieech from which 1 
 have made an extract was delivered, the following 
 notice was published in the news[iapers of W^ash- 
 ingloii city, by direction of the lion. Willie P. 
 Mangum, of North Carolina: 
 
 "The Whig inembers of I'ongress are re(|ue.stfd to mi'et 
 at the Senate (Jhaiiiber on Friday evining next, the '.Mb in 
 slant, at 7 o'clock, to consider of matters of importance in 
 the Whig parly. 
 
 " Wkdnksuay, .tpril', IRVi." 
 
 At the time wiien this notice appeared in the 
 newspaper.s of the capiinl, so comjiletely had Mr. 
 Seward and that wing of :he Whig party in which 
 he exercised a potential influence made the im- 
 
9 
 
 pression that General Scott would be nominated j 
 in the way which tliey desired, and if so nomin- ' 
 ated, elected, that but little more than a corporal's 
 guard could be mustered to counsel to2;ether in 
 regard to the best mode of bringing the Whig na- 
 tional orga)iization up to the point of approving 
 the compromise measures, and of nominating Mr. 
 Fillmore as the Whig candidate for the Presi- 
 dency upon the ground that under the circum- 
 stances, and in view of his official acts, he was the 
 most suitaijle representative of the principles in- 
 volved in those measures. On the part of those 
 who, from the known sentiments of their con- 
 stituents, had been supposed to be in favor of these 
 objects, some had gone over to the adverse party, 
 and others seemed to give up the battle as already 
 lost. A few, however, determined to make an 
 effort. A small room was rented, and for several 
 nights previous to that fixed for the Congressional 
 caucus, the friends of the compromise measures, 
 who favored the nomination of Mr. Fillmore, as- 
 sembled in it for consultation. 1 do not think that 
 there were present at any one of these meetings 
 as many as twenty members of Congress, includ- 
 ing Mr. Fillmore's northern friends. The result 
 of our consultations was a determination to intro- 
 duce into the Whig caucus a resolution pledging 
 the Whig members of Congress to tiie mainte- 
 nance of the compromise measures, and " im- 
 ' pliedly relieving them from a committal to sus- 
 ' tain the nominee of a convention which might 
 'fail to require the same condition of its candi- 
 ' date." 
 
 On the appointed evening some sixty-eight Sen- 
 ators and Representatives assembled in the Senate 
 Chamber of the Capitol. So much has been said 
 and written about the proceedings of that meeting, 
 and a subsequent one, held for the same purpose, 
 that I deem it wholly unnecessary to detail them. 
 Let it suffice for me to say, that a resolution of the 
 character indicated was submitted by Mr. Mar- 
 shall, of Kentucky, which was decided by the 
 chairman to be out of order. An appeal was 
 taken, and the decision of the Chair was sustained 
 by a large majority of the meeting. I offered an- 
 other resolution of similar import, but framed with 
 a view to obviate the objections of the Chair. It 
 met with the same fate; whereupon eleven mem- 
 bers of Congress, Senatons and Representatives, 
 withdrew from the meeting, and published an ad- 
 dress to the Whigs of the United States, from 
 which I make the following extract: 
 
 " ' To agrr-e to disagree' on questions connected with 
 the institution of slavery, as it is recognized by the Consti- 
 tution, on the fugitive slave law and the finahty of the 
 compromise — is to open wihingly the sources of the most 
 noxious agitation, and to reveal the means of assailing anew 
 the harmony, and, mayhap, the existence of the Union. 
 Have the dissensions of the past inculcated no moral.' Shall 
 the progress and peace of the future be marred by the re- 
 newed cflorts of a fanaticism which halts at no harrier erect- 
 ed by mortal power, and exultirigly proclaims its obedience 
 only to a power higher than human law.' Shall the ties that 
 link the various parts of a noble country together yield to 
 the force of a demagogism which wears the mask of lib- 
 erty only to perpetrate crime : or that it may, with compar- 
 ative impunity, excite passion to reward ultimately a desire 
 of self-aggrandizement.' Will the Whis yiatiy, under exht- 
 ing circamstaitces, shroud honest convictions of public duty 
 iu silence, that our candidate for the proudest honor of earth 
 
 may have hU opinions interpreted variously to suit the 
 
 changing prejudices or prepossessions of particular latiludex .■' 
 Fellow- Whigs ! such a policy will not— should n<it, succeed. 
 It is unworthy'of a great party whose senli nts are con- 
 servative, and whose aim is the prosperity atid happiness ol 
 the people. Its tendency is to reduce the Whig party to a 
 mere heterogeneous compound of discordant sectional fac- 
 ions ; the ballot-box to a receptacle for voles obtained by 
 fraud upon one or other of the sections of the United Slates ; 
 and tlie piesidential election to a trial of chicanery and dis- 
 simulation among political mountebanks. We do not seek 
 to make any injurious ascription of motive toany man oras- 
 sociation of men ; but we repudiate and refuse, forour part, 
 now and hereafter, to lend our support to any candidate 
 whose principles are not plainly defined, or to join in iiny 
 crusade against popular rights, the honesty of politics, or the 
 palpable interest of the country, for the purpose of ac hie vine 
 a temporary political triumiih." 
 
 " The original compacts of the Constitution established 
 the terms of this Confederary, and constitute the organic law 
 of government. After a series of years sectional disputes 
 arose, and the Missouri compromise was made to quiet con- 
 troversy relating to certain governmental powers and con- 
 stitutional questions. 
 
 " It was faithfully executed by the United States, and sub- 
 mitted to by the people of the slaveholding States. After 
 another series of years new acquisitions of territory were 
 made ; new disputes arose touching the same powers and 
 the same questions. A new compromise was made, where- 
 by the balance of power was yielded by the slaveholding 
 States, and tlie reins of empire were delivered up to the free 
 States by the admission of California into the Union. The 
 slave trade was suppressed in the District of Columbia, ter- 
 ritorial governments were created over the whole public do- 
 main, and an act was passed to enfore the delivery of fugi- 
 tives from labor. This setilement being made, has the South 
 murmured at the law suppressing the slave trade in this 
 District.' Look upon the opposite picture. Reply to your 
 own hearts, how has the law for the delivery of fugitive 
 slaves been executed .' We ask merely that the Whig party 
 shall uoi go behind this last settlement ; that it ^.hall nation- 
 alize itself by taking a lirm and true position upon the linality 
 of this settlement, and shall hold its members bound, with- 
 out regard to former opinions, to maintain and enlbrce this 
 settlement in good faith, and honestly. To this end we did 
 desi e the declaration to this efi'ect to come from the distin- 
 guished gentlemen who assembled in Uie (\ipitol, under the 
 hope that the country would enthusiastically respond to it. 
 We have been disappointed in this realization of our wi-h, 
 and, because of the eftort, we have been arraigned by auony- 
 I mous employees of the press, and our motives impugned 
 by political leaders athwart whose policy lies our own 
 course, and, as we solemnly believe, the true direction fot 
 I the public good. What would be the etTect of a refusal to 
 j indorse the position we have assumed.' What will be the 
 ! result of a failure to respond to the principle we have assert- 
 1 ed .' Neither more nor less than the inglorious and deserved 
 i defeat of the Whig candidate for the Presidency, because 
 the platform of the party will he too n.irrow for the patriot- 
 ism of the people. They will demand one as broad as the 
 interests of the whole Union. 
 
 "Should both of the great political parties fail to .shape 
 fmiire party organization upon the enlarged and fair princi- 
 ple to which we invited the Whig meeting at the Capitol on 
 the OOtli instant, theie remains but one other resort. The 
 people will demand such an organization, at the expense of 
 
10 
 
 eiifUng (larties, and il will uiuinpli over both ; or, misled 
 by polit'cal Iraders, wliosi- personal ainl>iIioii rises above their 
 love of coutury, llie pfiipk' will become involved in a can- 
 vass eoiiducli-J by o.iiidiilalei wli'ise parasites will pander! 
 to aecUonul prejudices, and will seek political prefernieiil by j 
 arousin;; seclional pi<sioMS. The next Congres-i, in that i| 
 case, will be composed of men of all parlies pledged to re- ^j 
 new tliHiu;iiaiioii «r qu«siions which the Thirty-first Con- ^ 
 eresi closed with sx miieli cliiliciiliy. 'J'h<; result of such a ' 
 struggle human luresight cannot compass. We have be- ' 
 lieVL-d that inlelliseiit slati'sm:insliip, by timely action and ^ 
 patriotic i-l)'otl, could avoid the trial and the catastrophe. 
 We made an honest elFort to point the way. We have now | 
 explained our motive ami our conduct, and we coiilidenlly • 
 bubmit them for your judgment. 
 
 "'I he events of the Congressional meeting of 20th April \ 
 areof significant import. It does not become the under- |j 
 signed to suggest your course in view of tht m. Our ohjocl j 
 is accomplished by invitina to lliem ymir immediate con- 1 1 
 sideraiiori, satistied, as we are, thai they will awaken your | 
 s.2tious reflection, and guide you to such action as may be 
 demanded by the duties to the present and the hopes of the 
 future." ' 
 
 This appeal tn the Whi^s of the United States 
 was respotided to in several southern States, which 
 previously had determitied to send no deles^ateslo I 
 the Whi^ National Convention, by the immediate ; 
 appointment of delegates instructed to vote for 
 Mr. Fillmore, or Mr. Webster, and to demand 
 the adoption, l)V the Convention, of a resolution 
 pledg;ing the Whig party to the maintenance of ^ 
 the compromise measures; and in the event of a 
 refusal to pass such a resolution, tlteij were instruct- 
 ed to icillidraw from that body. And I think I only 
 assert what every man who was in a favorable 1 
 position to understand the causes of the events to ^ 
 which I am referring knows to be true, wlien I 
 say, that if there is any value in the platform 
 adopted by the Whig Convention at Baltimore, 
 those who retired with me from the Congressional [ 
 caucus, are entitled to credit for it; and as that [ 
 platform constitutes the only seinblance of an f.r- 
 cuse for those southern politicians who, at an ear- \ 
 lier or later stage of the canvass, espoused the 
 cause of General Scott, I think that, instead of 
 their denunciations, inyself and my associates on 
 that occasion, are entitled to their s^ratitude. But 
 tliis is a digression — I liave not yet i;ompleted liie 
 exhibition of iny record. A short time after the 
 address, from which 1 have made an extract, was 
 publisheil, I was invited to visit the city of New 
 York, and address a large meeting of the friends 
 of Mr. Fillmore. [ accepted the invitiUion; and 
 in support of the position which I am eiuleavnring 
 to establish, I Uike from the sketch of my remarks , 
 on that occasion, as published in the newspapers 
 of the (lay, the following extract: j 
 
 '• I um xeeking to prrsuade you not to be offended when 
 I ^peak Ki you frankly and candidly upon ihoHe ilelieate sec- | 
 liondl (|U>-Mtinnji wlin-h have created great diliieullieK in the 
 politiCK of our couniry fr>r some years pa-t, and which now ; 
 tlireati-n tin; disruption of t'le two gieat political parties 
 which ti ivi- -II lung ^trll:;gll■d for aM-endeiiey. Why is it 
 that Millaril F'lllinore ought to be iKiiiiinaled as a candidate 
 for the I'li'-idrncy, anil elecli-d to that high ollice? Iinli!- 
 (tendenl of itie iinsnlhi.d and unlmpeaihible purity of his 
 pemonal I'll iracler ; iiidipendent of the admitted fact that 
 tie ba« %bly and raiihfully dhcliurgi.d Uie duties uf uvi ry 
 
 office which has ever been conferred upon him ; independ- 
 ent of the general merits of his administration in the high 
 ollice which he now fills ; by Ins conduct in relation to the 
 great political crisis which menaced the existence of the 
 tiovernment, when, by the death of President Taylor, he 
 acceded to the Presidency, he has, in my opinion, estab- 
 lished a just claim to a nomination and election. 1 will not 
 recapitulate the dilticulties he had to encounter. We know 
 howheooni|uered his own antecedents, his own prejudices, 
 and how firmly lie met tlie requisitions of duty, and dis- 
 charged them with a prudence that has never been exceeded. 
 I will Hot dwell on the danger this Union was in ; but full well 
 do you know that if Mr. Tillmore had not at that time used 
 his iiilluence and power for its sa'ety, it would have been 
 convulsed to the center, if not broken up. All men know 
 this; even they who, for their own purposes, now pursue 
 him with the malignity of fiiMids. It is because he did not 
 and will not become a sectional politician that we of the 
 South will support him. [Here a feeble juvenile clieer on 
 the outskirts of Uie croxvd, ' Hurrah for Scott!' at which 
 some laughter.] Did he then act otherwise than in the path 
 of duty .'' And is it true that the North will desert hin>.' Is 
 not his character pure and unimpeachable } Who dare as- 
 sail it.' Has he not, in all his administration, consulted the 
 safety of the Union and the Republic .' 
 
 ^^ Jind shall he he sacrificed to appease the vengeance of 
 those who sought and yet seek to plunge the Rcpuhlic into 
 irremediable difficulties ? Neither justice, nor cnlightejicd 
 policy, nor patriotism can sanction such a result. There is, 
 then, I c)ntend,a high principle incilved in his rcnomina- 
 tion and reelection. We trust that this Government is to 
 live for ages yet to come ; and we know that il may meet 
 with many dangers that may test its stability ; and we look 
 xiponit as a principle of high policy that we should mark 
 with our approval the course of him who, in the moment he 
 was called on to stand for the Union — loyal to the duties of 
 his station — gave security to that Union, endangered as it 
 was by the perils that impended over it. 
 
 '' fl-'e are called upon by a high political duty to give such 
 
 assurance to all future Presidents who may, in the progress 
 
 of the country, be required to encounter great public dangers, 
 
 as will make them courageously perform their duty to the 
 
 country, though the fires of fanaticism and party vengeance 
 
 [ may he kindled for their destruction. tVe must teach them 
 
 by our conduct now, that a firm and patriotic performance 
 
 of their duly will al'cays be approved and suita'ned by the 
 
 people. Jind is it, can it be true that the North will not 
 
 hear its part in rendering such a tribute to Millard Fill- 
 
 ; more!" 
 
 [ «•*•*** 
 
 " Fellow-eiti/.ens, a presidential election, under ourCon- 
 
 stitnliiii, is at all times an im;)ortaiit event, Involving much 
 
 more than the iii'tre uneslion whether this or that ili-tin- 
 
 gnislied citizen siiiill be chosen Chief Magi^^trale, or whether 
 
 I this or that political piny shill achieve a p^rty triumph. 
 
 I For years past a presidential election has been cimstrned to 
 involve a decision by the people upon all pendi:ig pi)litical 
 
 I i|iieslions, whether relating to the domestic or foreign affairs 
 of the country ; and hence every thoughtful statesman looks 
 to each recurring canvass for the Presidency wiili a pro- 
 
 I louiid solicitude, ri-iing far above mere personal preferences 
 
 ■ or pirtisan piirtiuliiif^— a solieilnde inspired by the convic- 
 tion th.il each recurring canvass for the Presidency, by its 
 eir.'cu upon public sentiment and the political morals of tliu 
 people, stamps its consequences permanently upon the fii- 
 fiie polii;y and deitlny of thi< great llepuhlie. New causes 
 
 , have cumu into existence, which will impart augmented 
 
11 
 
 importance to the next and all future presidential elections. 
 Events of great magnitude have occurred within the last few 
 years of our liislory. The vast boundaries of the Uepulilic 
 have been so extended as to embrace ac(iui;ilions greater in 
 territoiial extent than the most renowned nations of ttie 
 earth. The outstretched win^s of our liird of liberty, our 
 glorious American Eagle, now extend from the Atlantic to 
 the far distant shores of the Pacific, sheltering and protect- 
 ing twenty -five millions of people, who, under a Constilution 
 wiiieh secures to all political equality, and the right to wor- 
 ship God according to the diclatesof their own consciences, 
 are happy, prosperous, and free. [Applause.] Commen- 
 surate with the territorial expansion of our country, has 
 been its progress in other respects, in population, in agricul- 
 ture, and manufactures; in commerce and navigation; in 
 education and internal improvements ; in power and patron- 
 age ; in its revenues and Its expenditures. Into every one 
 of the thirty-one Stales which constitute this confederated 
 L'tiion the Federal Government extends its Briarean arm, 
 with patronage to dispense, anii honors and emoluments to 
 bestow. 
 
 "The Republic, and the States that compose it, have 
 reached a position of power and grandeur which make the 
 offices and honors of the Federal and State Governments 
 more attraciive objects of ambition than heretofore; and as, \ 
 under our republican system of Government, all have an 
 etjual right to aspire to these honors, thousands ofamhitious 
 men are crowding upon the theater of politics, eager to win 
 honor and fame in the public service ; and organized into 
 political parties, they press forward to their objects with a 
 reckless eagerness which forgets to remember that the in- 
 terests of the Republic ought to be held paramount to all 
 other interests ; and hence they urge party contests to dan 
 gerousi-xtremes. These are some of the causes that will- 
 impart to our political system at the nfxtand all future pres- j 
 jdential elections an intensity of action calculated to make 
 tiioughlful patriots look to those quadrennial struggles with 
 ' fear and trembling '—with fear and trembling, but not 
 without hope, for ' it is treason to despair of the Republic.' 
 " Ft'Mow-cltizens, these remarks, though somewhat gen- 
 eral in their character, have seemed to me to be not an in- 
 appropriate introduction to a discussion of the question 
 whii'h has brought together thi-; large assemblage of the cit- 
 izens of New York. That question is, who ought the Whig 
 party to nominate as their candidate for President at the 
 next election?" * * * » * " But let me return 
 from this digression, and repeat my conviction that it is a 
 principle of high importance to the future welfare of the 
 country, which ought to be established now, that the pa- 
 triotism of the people will sustain a President who, in a 
 great emergency, shall act as Millard Fillmore has acted. 
 But it may, perhaps, be said, 'All this is true, abstractly 
 speaking; it sounds well in a declamatory speech, but we 
 are practical in our views. We want a candidate who can 
 he elected ; Fillmore has not the merit of availability. He 
 cannot obtain the votes in Convention necessary to a nom- 
 ination ; and, even if he should getthe nomination, he could 
 not he elected. We want an available candidate ; there- 
 fore, wo go for General Scott.' Let us examine this ques- 
 tion of availabiliiy, first with respect to the nomination, and 
 second as to the election. And the speaker adverted to a 
 memorandum which he held in his hand, and showed that 
 one hundred and forty-eighl votes in the Convention would 
 nominate a candidate, and that the same number would 
 elect a President. 
 
 "The southern States, exclusive of Delaware, were en- 
 titled to one hundred and sixteen votes, wanting only thirty- 
 
 two votes of the number necessary to nomlnnte a candidate, 
 or elect a Pre."idenl ; and he said, C(uifidcnlly, that if the 
 northern Slates would exhibit Ihiriy-two voles for Ihe nom- 
 ination of Mr. Fillmore, he believed the t^ouib would cast 
 for him, at the Baltimore (■onvention, one bunchi d and six- 
 teen, and thus the nomination would be secnri (1. I, it New 
 York cast for him thirty-five voles, to which she was entitled 
 and he would be willing to vouch for his certain nomination. 
 Ami, secondly, as to the election, he firmly believed that if 
 there was a Whic in the United States who could be elected 
 President, Millard Fillmore was the man. Of all who have 
 been mentioned, he was the most available man. [Great 
 cheering.] Why is he not.' You may hear, any day, Dem- 
 ocrats from Mississippi, Alabama, and even from Virginia, 
 say that if a certain specified Dtinooralic candidate be nom- 
 inated at Baltimore, those States will go for Fillmore, If he 
 be a candidate. And so in such a contingency he believed 
 they would. And thus it would seem to be a contingency 
 not beyond the range of possibility, that every southern 
 State might cast its votes for him ; and, in that event, only 
 thirty-two votes would be needed from the North to elect 
 him. But it is urged that General Scott can obtain the votes 
 of several States that Mr. Fillmore cannot obtain. Why 
 should he.' What reason exists why any inn; Whig should 
 not vote for Mr. Fillmore.' Has he abandoned Whig prin- 
 ciples? Wherein has he failed to do his whole duty ? But 
 it is insisted that General Scutl can get voles which Mr. 
 Fillmore cannot get. [A voice: 'Yes, yes; he will get the 
 votes of the Abolitionists.'] He would not say a woril in dis- 
 paragement of that hero. He was sure General Scott did not 
 intend any evil to the Republic. But he declared it to be 
 preposterous to expect him to get one electoral vote south 
 of Mason and Dixon's line in his present position under the 
 circumstances which surrounded him. The same causes 
 which are supposed to make him more available at the North 
 than Mr. Fillmore, make it utterly impossible for any south- 
 ern State to support him. This he asserted, whoever might 
 assert to the contrary, and results would vindicate the cor- 
 rectness of his opinion. Supersede such men as Fillmore 
 anil Webster, and nominate a candidate, who, like General 
 Scott, declines to commit himself publicly In favor of main- 
 taining tlie compromise measures as a final settlement, and 
 he believed such a candidate would not only fail to receive 
 the votes of any southern State, but he thought it would be 
 found that there was a sufiicient number of loyal Hnion 
 Whigs at the North— Whigs who were resolved to maintain 
 the compromise measures in good faith, as the means of 
 preserving the Union, and the fraternal feelings which ought 
 to prevail in all parts of the Union— to make it impossible 
 for such a candidate to receive the votes of more than one 
 or two northern States. Because, said he, in six weeks 
 after such a nomination shall be made, every observing man 
 in the Union will see that no southern Slate will vole for 
 the nominee; and when this fact becomes obvious, he is a 
 bad judge of the moiives and causes that control and operate 
 in presidential elections, who fails to see that it will be al- 
 most Impossible to cast the votes of any nortliern State for 
 such a candidate. Are there not Union Whigs in the North ? 
 Are there not compromise Whi;s in the North ? Are there 
 not patriots in the North, who appreciate the danger to the 
 union of these States, and public liberty, which are likely 
 to result from the formation of sectional geographical parlies 
 in this Republic ? Will they not speak, write, and vote for 
 th' ir country? Will they fail to remember and heed the 
 warnings of Washingtim? Will they be recrennt to the 
 duties which patriotism enjoins? Will they, in their devo- 
 tion to party, in their desire for party victory, disregaid tliose 
 
12 
 
 liipher oblipationi which ihey owe to their country.' He 
 
 predicted llial »uoh uii exrx'rinieiii, if it should be made, 
 wtmlil r>->iilt in llir mot-i disastrous bieakdnwn, the most 
 (tpleiidilli rniis (if I may iiiakr n word for llie occMsjuii) fiiil- 
 nre that has vvrr been witnessed in this country. 'J'o en- 
 tertain a dirterentdplnion would be to ifouhl the intelligence 
 Mild patriotism of the people. He hoped the Whi;; parly 
 would mal<e no such mistake — perpetrate no such injustice. 
 He hoped lliat party would sl)ow its devotion to principle, 
 and nationalize- itself eoniplecely and uniiiistakahly, by iioni- 
 inatin;: Filliii"re or Welister. [Apfilanse] He said there 
 was iiiuc-li cinliision and dilhrully wilti liotli the VVIii<; and 
 Democratic parlies, on the suliject of a'^reeiiic; upon a polit- 
 ical platform, at Baltimore. Nominate either Fillmore or 
 Webster ; put the name of either of these slalesmeii on the 
 VVhi* banner, and we would advance that banner into the 
 presidential conflict, representinc hi<;h statesmanship — a 
 broad, national patriotism. It would be a banner lliat would 
 address itself to the sympathies of patriotic men of all par- 
 ties, and evin defeat, under such a banm r, would be better 
 for the country, than victory under a banner representing 
 opposite principles; for let it not be forgoltin, that the cirect 
 to be produced upon the public opinion ami political morals 
 of the country, is a question far more important than the 
 success or defeat of any man. 
 
 " \ominate Fillmore or IVe'ister, and every parlUan or- 
 ator who speakx, erery political editor who writes in support 
 of your candidate, will he compelled by an inexoraUc polit- 
 ical necessity to defend and maintain that glorious national 
 constitutional platform, formed and erected hy their official 
 acts, and thetc ijiftuences would tend powerfully to eradicate 
 from the hearts and tnirids of the people erery feeling and 
 coniiction unfavorahle to the Union, engendered by the un- 
 fortunate serlional controversies which have disturbed the 
 harmony of our country for some years past. If, oit the 
 other hand, the presidential canvass shall he shajied on the 
 adverse line of jmlicy, your partisan orators and editors tvill 
 indulge freely in appeals to sectional prejudices, geograph- 
 ical parties will he formed, the North demanding the repeal 
 or modification of the fugitive slave law, the South insisting 
 upon a faithful observance of the compromise and the Con- 
 stitution, and God alone knows what dangers, what woes, 
 what ruin may be brought ujion the country. 
 
 " Healthful waters cannot flow from poiioned fountains ; 
 and if we permit the next presidential canvass to be shaped 
 as the opponents of Millard Fillmore desire, public opinion, 
 tlu fountain from which flow the acts of this Government, 
 wUlbe completely denationalized, and a flood of iiolitical evils 
 teiii overflo w the land. 
 
 " I am for Fillmore or Webster. TIioueIi aKsi-mbled here 
 lo express your preference for iMillard Fillmore, you will, I 
 am Hure, disdain to be influenced by any narrow feeling of 
 jealousy, or rivalry, iha! would prompt you to willihold jus- 
 tice from D.inii I Wi^bsii-r. who has In en so glorloii-ly nsso- 
 ciBted will) Mr. Fillmore ibioiish all the IryincscitK s of his 
 Admlnii-lration ; and I trust you will not be dispb .ivcil wilh 
 me when I declare thai, bin lor Ihe fact that .Mr. Fillmore 
 wajj in the highest oilicnil position, and therefore hi;;liesi in 
 rc»(Kin»ibility ; but lor Ihe fact that I can give no sullicient 
 reason for panning by .Mr. Fillmore, niy voice would be given 
 mom earneelly and Hinceri:ly lor Ihe nominnlioii and eleclioii 
 of Web-lir as Ibi- neil Pr.>ideiil of ihi. niiil.d .-<laH!S. [Ap- 
 plaiine.j Itiil liiiili and honocihli' as i> ilic olliee of Presi- 
 dent, II may bi; a i|iH>iion win Ih.r Ibal hicli honor coiinl 
 raise hithi-r the pyramid of Websier's lame, unless, pi r- 
 cbaiice, during bin Adminislralioii, the Kepublic should be 
 
 brought into such difficulties ae to make another opportunity 
 for him to defend the Conslitulion, and save the Union. 
 His glory is not dependent upon the coiiiingenpy of reaching 
 or not reacliing llie presidential otiice. [Applause.] He 
 has made lii;;h materials for history, and history will conse- 
 crate him 10 immortality. He has incorporated his genius 
 and eloquence and stalcsmanship into the literature and 
 language of his country, and so long as that literature lives, 
 so hmg as that langu.ige shall be spoken, Ihe American 
 youth, through all coming generations, will look to his pub- 
 lic lil'e, his spcf'clies, and writings, as the true standards oi 
 slalesmansbip, eloquence, and wisdom, and wilh united 
 acclaim hail him as the griat iiitellecl, statesman, and orator 
 of his age. [Enthusiastic applause.] As every rivulet ilial 
 empties into the Mississippi, in its course to the oce n, 
 deepens, and widens, and ijives additional strength to that 
 mighty river, so all the coming ages of lime will brighten 
 arid make more glorious the fame of Webster, until the 
 stream of time shall he lost in the ocean of eternity. [.'Vp- 
 plaiise.] 
 
 " Fellow-citizens, we have duties and obligations to fulfill, 
 requiring us to come up to the exigencies of Ihe time we 
 live in with all our powers and abilities." 
 
 The destiny of our country, its constant and rapid in- 
 crease, and the evils that would befall us, if the demagogues, 
 who would divide its din'erent sections and array thiin 
 against each oilier, should have sway, were then most for- 
 cibly dvvelton by the eloquent speaker who made an earnest 
 appeal to lliose who heard him, to come forward and save 
 their country from Ibis danger, and lo feel that they are 
 called 10 a high destiny, and to discharge their duty in ef- 
 fecting it. 
 
 "Fellow-cilizens, (said he, drawing his remarks to a 
 close,) a liltle more than a year ago, there died, at the seat of 
 Government, a distinguished South Carolina statesman, a 
 man of lofty intellect, and devoted lo llie Soiilli,and her inter- 
 ests especially. All the latteryears of his life were devoted 
 to the formation of a soulherii party lo delend our peculiar 
 inslilulion, not deeiuiiig it safe for us to trust for its protec- 
 tion lo our noithern brethren. No man, possibly, in his 
 personal character ami qualities, was more pure and upright 
 than John C. Calhoun ; none stood higher in the estimalion 
 of the soulhern people, and yet the South repudiated his 
 counsel, and rejected his lead, because Ihey ihouglit its ten- 
 dency was to disunion. Northern patriotism, my friends, 
 ought to do likewise. [Cheers.] If there is any northern 
 man who wishes, liy fomenting sectional prejudices ami 
 divisions, to use (icneral Scott as a means ol attaining tlir 
 I'residency for himself four years hence, the people of the 
 North should imilale the example of the South, in theii re- 
 pudiation of a course that would le.id lo an overthrow of the 
 Union. [Cheers, andcriesof 'They will!' 'They will !•) 
 Tennessee, I can assure yim, my friends, feels a deep inleresi 
 in the North, and its prosperity. If a hostile lieei was in 
 your harbor; if a foreign army beleaguered your cily, Ihe 
 people of Tenni-ssei- would come to \oui r<s<'ue nsrajiidly as 
 steamboats and railroails could bring tliem, and they would 
 lii-ht as v.iliaiitly, and die as freely for jour delVnse and pro- 
 lection, R.S they did on the plains nl New t)i leans, or in the 
 Bireets of Monterey. Will you iilienalc Iheiii.' [Cries of 
 'No!'] They ask nothing ol you bHt thai the Coiislilu- 
 tion, which is our common bulwark, shall be preserved in 
 its inlegrlly; and ihey will be loiitent, permit me lo say, 
 Willi nothing less. [Voice: < They shall have it !'] If Ihe 
 lieu hiiiaiioiis of unprincipled aspiraiils shall prove success- 
 ful, the dangers w.irded otf by Ihe e< inpromisi's will reliiiii 
 upon us III all their weight. These measures, whatever 
 
13 
 
 may be said upon the subject for factious purposes, are final- 
 ities, unless the fugitive slave law shall be made an excep- 
 tion. The act for the reclamation of fU2[itive slaves was but 
 the reenactment of a constitutional provision, without which 
 the Constitution could never have been adopted ; and it it be 
 not observed, the Union cannot be sustained." 
 
 The speaker then renewed his appeal for the nomina- 
 tion of the man known to be in favor of tliese measures, 
 instead of one not committed thereto, and thus the argu- 
 ments and the stru;^gles he once more reopened. 
 
 The period fixed for the Whig National Conven- 
 tion to assemble drew near, and four days before 
 the time for that event — when the Cajiitol was 
 crowded with themetnbers of the convention, most 
 of whom, those of the southern State.s especially, 
 stopped a day or two in Washington on their way 
 to Baltimore, Mr. Stanly, of North Carolina, rose 
 ill his place, in the House of Representatives, and 
 made what was evidently a studied speech, argu- 
 ing with ail the power lie could, against the adop- 
 tion of resolutions by the Whig Convention declara- 
 tory of the principles of the Whig party, and against 
 the propriety of any public declaration by General 
 Scott, upon the subject of the compromise measures. 
 His speech was delivered on Saturday, the I2th 
 of June. I obtained the floor when he concluded, 
 and the House adjourned until Monday. On that 
 day 1 delivered the speech in reply to Mr. Stanly, 
 which has been the theme of so much animadver- 
 sion during the late canvass; and although it has 
 been generally circulated, and most of you have 
 perhaps read it, yet to exhibit strikingly the sin- 
 gleness of my purpose — the uniformity of my 
 views as presented in all the speeches made by 
 me, from the time that the compromise measures 
 were enacted, I beg leave to make from that speech 
 the following extracts: 
 
 " If I undei stood the honorable member from North Car- 
 olina — and I may have misunderstood him, for I was in a 
 position where t could not hear him very distinctly— he ex- 
 pressed himself decidedly oppostd to the introduction into, 
 or the adoption by, that convention of any resolutions which 
 should recognize the series of measures passed by the la-t 
 Congress to adjust the sectional controversies between the 
 northern and southern States of the American Union, as a 
 lompromise.^' 
 
 " ( differ witli the gentleman. I deem it to be a matter of 
 higli national importance, tising infinitely above all mere 
 paltry, temporary party intf rests, that both of the great po- 
 litical organizations uf the country should avail themselves 
 of the opportunity which this hour, and this occasion fur- 
 nishes, to nationalize themselves, and so to shape their 
 presidential organizations as to bring all the influences 
 which those two great political organizations can wield, to 
 hear upon the American heart and mind, with a view to 
 harmonize, to conciliate the North and the South, and to 
 (Sive tranquillity to the country, and bring each section of 
 ttie Union — every part and parcel of our Union — to recog- 
 nize all of the obligations which the Constitution imposes; 
 — and to bring the public men in each section to a resolute 
 enunciation of purpose to maintain the obligations of the 
 Constitution everywhere; and to throw the whole weight 
 and influence of both of these two great party organizations 
 in favor of teaching the people the truth, and their duties 
 under the Constitution, North and South. 
 
 " I believe, if the two great political organizations of the 
 country act upon this principle, that great good to the Re- 
 
 public now, and for long years hereanpr, will result. I be- 
 lieve that the bitter feeling, the unlraK rnal passions, which 
 these sectional questions to which I have re(V-rr«rt. have 
 engendered, will be ohiiierated and expunged ; that the peo- 
 ple of the whole American Union will again fraternize as 
 brothers — harmonize, and together uphold the insljintions 
 which they have inherited from their fathers; and that our 
 Republic, restored to tran(|uilliiy and harmony, shielding, 
 protecting, and making happy all of its children, will go for- 
 ward in its career of prosperity, greatness, and glory, and 
 be as a sun in the heavens to all the nations of the earth, 
 lighting up their pathway to freedom and ha|)piness like that 
 which we enjoy. And if these two great parties do not thus 
 act, I have serious and painful fears that, the fountain of 
 bitter waters, which, as we hoped, had been sealed forever 
 by the exertions of those brave and noble patriots who coop- 
 erated together in passing the compromise measures, will be 
 reopened, and that sectional strife, sectional antagonism, 
 denunciations of the North by the South, and the South by 
 the North, will again be the order ofthe day ; and that pres- 
 ently, instead of argument, reason, and the Imlloi-hox, to 
 adjust questions relating to the interests of this great Repub 
 lie, we shall be thrown upon that last resort — the cartridge- 
 box, bayonets, and the sword. That is. what I fear. Talk 
 not to me about party victory or defeat, when such interests 
 as these are involved ! Better— infinitely better— to be de- 
 feated by doing your duty to tlie country, than to win a mean 
 and ruinous party triumph by bringing upon it evils such as 
 those I have suggested 1 
 
 " I will not look to the question of victory or defeat. I 
 see plainly, and every man must see, what is the path of 
 duty, if we are trying to take care of the public interest, and 
 make safe the Republic. Let us, then, trample under foot 
 every mean and paltry consideiation of party, and do our 
 duly to our country. That is what I think we ought to do. 
 And as a Whig, a soutlierH Whig, a national Whig, i hat has 
 believed the maintenance of that party and its ascendency 
 was valuable, was important to the interest of the Union, I 
 have to say now, that I would infinitely prefer to be defeated, 
 [ would rather make the presidential fight, if we must make 
 a presidential fight, without receiving the vote of a solitary 
 State in the Union, upon such principles as are national in 
 their character, and tend to produce the results I have indi- 
 cated, than to carry every Slate in the Union, and be borne 
 to spoils and plunder by the sacrifice of the permanent in- 
 terests of the country. And he who cannot work himself 
 up to this sentiment, and to this principle, has not, in my 
 opinion, studied and comprehended the duties of a patriot. 
 I say, I deem it a matter of high national importance, reach- 
 ing far beyond the present, reaching deep into the future, 
 affecting vitally, and perhaps forever, the fate and fortunes 
 of this Republic, that these two great political organizations 
 shall nationalize themselves in the approaching presidential 
 contest. If they fail to do so, sectional strife— the end of 
 which no man can foresee— and all the evils which we had 
 hoped were overcome by the enactment of the compromise 
 measures, will come back upon us with increased force. 
 That is my belief. Sincerely entertaining this opinion, it is 
 quite in vain for any man to raise the cry of parly ! party ! 
 PARTY! to me, to seduce me from the performance of a 
 duty which connectsitself with the accomplishment of these 
 great objects, addressing themselves to the welfare of my 
 country. 
 
 " But the honorable member from North Carolina thinks 
 there ought not to be any platform adopted by the Whig Na- 
 tional Convention. He is disgusted with platforms." 
 
14 
 
 "The hour for 8e(t)ementlia« arrived. Youinustdoynur 
 duty, nr (tie a^i a puliijoal parly orcnniKulinn, cxieriding 
 Uirou^li llie whole exU'nt ol" llie country, North and South. 
 You shall niitionahd' or (lie ; iinil if yoii refuse to do your 
 duty, yuu ouzht to die. U|iun this condition nlnne you are 
 fit to exist. Kxce|ii u|ion this condition, yon are viilueless 
 10 Uie country. Vou will iicvt r nnder il any .service. Have 
 you no iKilrioiisiii .^ Can't you work yourselves up to ihir; 
 plain and practical point of duty, about which no inun in his 
 seniie!^ can have a doubt.' All little pretexu* and excuses 
 are utterly cuiiteinptible. Talk about tiial by jury, and all 
 that! It means noiliiii<; except to conciliate that elenient in 
 llie North, which denies that the Conslitutioii of the United 
 States can give to a southern ni.m a rijjht of properly in his 
 slave. It means iiothiiii; more tlian that. It is a cowardly 
 pandering (o fanaticism, which, if not met, arapiiled willi, 
 and put down, will destroy this nntion, and involve the 
 
 S^tates of this Union in fraternal war." i 
 
 ***** fr * 
 
 " The idea of his (General Scott's) availahilily will turn 
 out to be the greatest possilile mistake. Should he be nom- 
 itiated, he uiU prove to be the weakest man ever run for the 
 Presideticy. He will be more overwhelmingly defeated, in 
 my opinion, than any man trho has ever been placedin that 
 position by any considerable political organization. Why is , 
 it that the Whig party cannot nationalize itself by ruiiniiii; ' 
 him for the Presidency.' Because of the auspices under 
 which he has been made a candidate, and the cour.ie he lias 
 thought proper to pursue, in withholding from the public an 
 expression of his approval of the compromise measures. 
 
 '•Those auspices and influences are such as have infused 
 into the minds of the soulliern people distrust and apprehen- 
 sion which cannot now be overcome; and when it is seen ' 
 that he can !.'et no southern State, no northern supporter of ; 
 his will have the slightest confidence in his success; and I 
 he is indeed a lyio in politics, who does not uiider.-<iund that [ 
 such a belief as that would deprive his supporters of that 
 teal and energy which is necessary to success, even in 
 those States at the North where, under a different state of 
 thins;s, he inlglit reasonably hope lor tiuccess. Sir, I do not 
 claim to be a prophet, but I predict with entire confidence, \ 
 that as soon as his northern supporters .-eeihat lie can carry 
 no southern Slate, and they cannot hope for cooperation in 
 that pan of ihe Union, they will appeal to the anti-slavery ij 
 sentiinent common to the people of ihe North, and i;ive a il 
 Bectioiial sbapi! to the presidential canvass. They will ij 
 throw hiin into such a canvass as that, and the cry will be a | 
 repeal of the fui'iliveslave law, and the support of General I 
 Bcott as the representative of that idea. Whatever may be 
 hlB individual sentiments and purposes, that will be the di- 
 rection of the canvass." ' 
 
 " He will be nominated, if nominated al all, by a sec- 
 tional vote, i(, indeed, all the repre^enlatives i!f the South \ 
 chall be true to the trust confided to them. And he who ! 
 failH to represent Boutliern sentiment and southern feeliiiiB 
 in that (Jiuivention up<iii those high issues, let him look to 
 It— lei him look to it! If he lias position, hopes, or pros- 
 p<!Cljj Ml home— if hiH hopes are notdireelcd elsewhere llinn 
 at home, let him look well to it. He who belr.iys the trust 
 conllded to him by any portion of the southern people, in 
 liiai Convention, and under iM.ilingcirriiinsiunces— aciiui- 
 ence* in, or gives his coimeiit lo, the iiomiiiatioii of (;eiieral 
 Scott— if I om not very much mi-taken, will be branded 
 Willi a brand of inlainy that will dishonor hiin through his 
 life, and be a reproach lo hiri children when he is in his i 
 grave. j 
 
 " If I am right In Uiese conclusions, the noniinntion of 
 
 General Scott as the Whig candidate for the Presidency, 
 will not only result in a most disastrous party defeat, but 
 it will also tend (Kiwerfully to sectionalize and iiboliiionizc 
 the Whig party. It will place a distinguished Senator from 
 New York, [W. II. Seward.] in Ihe same relation to the 
 Whig party ol ihc Union, thai he now occupies in reference 
 to the Whig party of New York and the gre.it Slates ad- 
 joining thereto, and, indeed, to the whole Whig party oflhe 
 North — a most iiiMuentlal and eonirolling position. Many 
 men, I know, are noting under his indueiiee, and L'uided by 
 tlie engines which he controls, who do not know from 
 whence comes the power that moves Iheiii. He has reached 
 a pi.silioii of power and iiiduence al the North that gives 
 him an almost absolute control over the northern Whig oi- 
 gaiiizalion. He is the locus al which coneeiilrate all Ihe 
 hopes of that class of mercenary polilieians who acliii poli- 
 tics only with a view to personal and |)Ocuiiiary advantages. 
 He has for years controlled Ihe patronage ol the great Em- 
 pire Slate of New York— vast in amount — and has occu 
 pied a posiii<m that enabled him, to a very great extent, lo 
 control the patroiiRge of the Federal Governmeiil here in 
 r. ference to citizens of Ni;w York. He is looked to as n 
 probable President ol ihe United Stales at some fuiiiie day 
 by his partisans, and that fact gives him all the power in- 
 cident to such a position. He can coiiceiiirale, wield, and 
 command a giealer number of eneigetic men, toaecomplisli 
 any object which lie desires, tlian the I'resident of Ihe Uni- 
 ted States, with all the patronage which he disposes. That 
 is his position. Sucli is his power and influence. 
 
 " He has directed and controlled all the operations which 
 now give (ieiieral Scott a Ibrinidalilt; prospect lor the nom- 
 ination. 
 
 "Should (Jenrral Scott receive the nomination, simul- 
 taneously with that event, Mr. Seward will practically be 
 inaugurated into the position of ruler and controller of l!ic 
 Whig party of the Uiiiled States, [f 111-; is to be ou,- 
 leader, it is iinportanl lo in(]uire whither we are to be led, 
 what battles we are to fight, and what are the objects of 
 the campaign in whicli we are to be enlisted." 
 
 "If the Whig party is actuated by principle, there can he 
 no doubt as to what ought to be done at Baltimore. That 
 Convention oui^ht to pass a resolution, Hnani)nously, recog- 
 nizing the co)nprontise measures as a final settlement — a 
 settlement in principle and <iubstance, of the dangerous ques- 
 tions they embraced — and nominate cither Mr. Fillmore or 
 Mr. Webster as the Whig candidate for Ihe Presidency. 
 
 " But General Sc itt is said to be really in favor «f tlie«e 
 measures. .All the worse for him if that be true. When Web- 
 ster's voice was hi;ard ri-verberaling through the land in tones 
 such us no man ever before uileied, imploriiii!, and urging, 
 and eimviiicing the people that there Were obhgatiiMis im- 
 posed upon theiii by llie Consliluliun, which re(|uired ihein 
 to stand by these coiiipromise measures, and to execute llic 
 fugitive slave law ; and when Fillmore, with all his in- 
 fluence as President of the United States, was endeavoring 
 to persuade the people of Ihe North lo settle these i|ue8- 
 
 lions upon some great nali il lia>is, where was General 
 
 Scoil.' He periimied Mr. Heward lo seize him, and wield 
 him, a-s a warrior wields his battle axe, lo cleave down into 
 the dust Fillmore and Webster, and all the noble patriots of 
 the North who sustained tlK'iii. He permitted his lameand 
 his iiilluence to be used by Mr. .'seward to arrest and neu- 
 tralize their tH'orls to bring northern sentiment and opinion 
 up to a national standard. Leading men of the South— 
 the press of the South, were calling upon him to speak, but 
 he was silent. 
 
15 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, I have read in some old books which 
 describe the usages ami customs in the barbarous and dark 
 ages of the world, that when some urifortutiaie subject in- 
 curred the displeasure of his king, the order was promptly 
 given to behead him, and to stick his head upon apike-staft", 
 and carry it through the streets. On such occasions, all 
 loyal subjects were required to fall into the train, and to 
 testify by shouts and huzzas to the justice and power of 
 their sovereign, who had exterminated his enemy. Now, 
 if General Scott is nominated at Baltimore, what a triumph 
 ("or Seward ! What a shout of exultation will burst from 
 his lips, and from the lips of all his faithful and hopeful fol- 
 lowers! Some willing mercenaries will be ready, figura- 
 tively speaking, to raise aloft upon their pike-statls the 
 head-j of Webster and Fillmore, and all northern Union- 
 loving Whigs, who have stood by them, and bear them in 
 triumph through the streets, amid the shouts and huzzas of 
 their victorious enemies, and we shall have a grand jubi- 
 lant, exulting glorification, to celebrate the occasion. As a 
 loyal Whig who has never proved unfaithful to party — my- 
 self, and my southern Whig friends will be required to fall 
 amiably and submissively into line, and constitute the rear 
 guard of Mr. Seward's column, and give him our voices to 
 swell the jubilant exultation. Well, perhaps I may try. 
 [Laughter.] But my opinion is, that my utmost effort to 
 shout will resolve itself into a groan of despair. I cannot 
 doit. I will not. Put that down in your note-book. ' Well, 
 what Willi do." 'Join the Democratic party i" [Laughter.] 
 £ do not think 1 shall. I do not know what I shall do. But 
 I know I will do what 1 believe to be my duty. My present 
 impression is, that J shall deem it more consistent with my 
 pride of character, to stand aloof from the contest." 
 
 Fellow-citizens, these extracts, somewhat tedi- 
 ous to you, I fear, exhibit and prove more conclu- 
 sively than anything I could now say, the motives 
 which have controlled my conduct as a citizen and 
 a public servant, from the enactment of the com- 
 promise measures up to the time when General 
 Scott was nominated at Baltimore as the Whig 
 candidate for the Presidency, and I may add, up 
 to the present time. If you are not so maddened 
 by the passions and prejudices which a party pres- 
 idential contest tends to excite, as to have lost the 
 capacity to examine a question calmly, and judge 
 it fairly, you will see and admit that I have been 
 governed by one idea, and that I have aimed' at 
 one object throughout. I believe that the com- 
 promise measures ought to be accepted by the 
 American people as " a settlement — a final settle- 
 ment in principle and substance, of the dangerous 
 questions they embraced," and this idea controlled 
 me. To impart practical effect to it, I believed it 
 to be essential for that political organization of 
 which I am a member, the Whig party, to discard 
 sectionalism and abolitionism, and nationalize itself 
 by declaring the purpose to maintain, with what- 
 ever influence and power it could wield, that set- 
 tlement inviolate; and as a surety of its integrity 
 of purpose in this regard, to nominate and sup- 
 port for the Presidency, Mr. Fillmore, who had 
 patriotically identified himself with those meas- 
 ures, or that more illustrious statesman who had 
 given to the support of those measures a genius, 
 an intellect, and eloquence, unparalleled in Amer- 
 ican history — I need not say that I mean Daniel 
 Webster. By this idea have I been controlled; 
 to this aim have I dedicated all my exertions. My 
 opinions and aims were identical with those of the 
 Whigs of Tennessee up to the time that General 
 
 Scott was nominated at Baltimore as the Whi^ 
 candidate for the Presidency. Simultaneously 
 with the news of his nomination, the telegraph 
 brought intelligence to you that the Wiiig'Con- 
 vention had adopted a series of resolutions declar- 
 atory of Whig principles, one of which pledged 
 the Whig party to the maintenance of the com- 
 promise measures, and that General Scott had ac- 
 cepted the nomination " with the rksolution!* 
 ANNEXED," and you came to the conclusion that 
 the conditions which you had demanded had 
 been satisfactorily complied with, and you deter- 
 mitied to support him. I believed that the nomi- 
 nation of General Scott, under the circwmt(tncrs 
 which I knew exiited, nullified the compromise part 
 of the platform, and made it of less value than 
 the paper upon which it was written, and 1 deter- 
 mined to withhold from him my support. At this 
 point, it was my bad or good fortune to separate 
 from my Whig constituents. I deemed it to be 
 my duty to withhold my support from General 
 Scott, as a candidate for the Presidency — they 
 deemed it to be their duty to support him; and as 
 the opinions which I had expressed previous to 
 the nomination were very inconvenient in the elec- 
 tion, it became necessary to break and destroy 
 their force; and hence the illiiieral and unjust 
 ascription of motives which has been made to me. 
 It is not my object to-day in trying to vindicate 
 myself, to criminate you. Looking at this ques- 
 tion as you did — far away as it was, it is not sur- 
 prising to me that you concluded as you did con- 
 clude. But if you had possessed the same oppor- 
 tunities which 1 possessed of seeing it as it really 
 existed, it is my belief that you would have 
 thought with me, that the nomination of Genera! 
 Scott nullified that portion of the Whig platform 
 relating to the compromise measures; and you 
 would have concurred with me in standing aloof 
 from the late presidential contest. It is impossi- 
 ble for me — propriety forbids that I should pre- 
 sent to you the reasons for my belief in this re- 
 spect, founded upon facts ascertained in private 
 intercourse with those most active and influential 
 in procuring the nomination of General Scott. 
 The facts, however, before the public, though less 
 conclusive, are suflicient, it seems to me, to sub- 
 stantiate my conclusion. What are those facts.' 
 1 will not attempt to describe the state of things 
 which existed in this country when the compro- 
 mise measures were passed; but I beg you to let 
 your memories carry you back to that period, and 
 I ask you to realize now, as vividly as you can, 
 the great public danger which then menaced the 
 public peace and the Union of these Staie.s — a 
 danger which filled the heart of every patriot in 
 the land with painful anxiety for the welfare and 
 fate of the Republic. You will remember that 
 California was admitted into the Union with a 
 constitution prohibiting slavery, and that tempo- 
 rary governments were established for New Mex- 
 ico and Utah, with provisions which made it al- 
 most a certainty that those Territories would 
 presently come into the Union as free States, and 
 thus a numerical preponderance was secured in 
 both Houses of Congress to the non-slaveholding 
 States for all time to come, and that the chief 
 equivalent for these concessions on the part of the 
 southern States was a law called the fugitive slave 
 law, making more efficient provisions for carry- 
 ing into effect that provision of the Constitution 
 
16 
 
 T»f the United States which is in the following I 
 words, viz: 
 
 " Xo person hold lo service or labar in one Smte. under 
 the laws thereof, escapiiie Iiiln another, Hhall, in cnnse- 
 i|uence of any law or rejiilalioii therein, hif dischargPil I'roin 
 such service or labor, but shall l>e delivore<l up on claim of 
 the [larty to whom such service or labor may be diie." 
 
 It is a grave and serious fact whicli, in this con- 
 nection, uuicht to 1)6 remembered, lliat not one 
 single noriliern Whig Senator, and Ijut three north- 
 ern Whig Representatives voted for this law! If 
 1 remember correctly, it was voted for by every 
 Whig from the southern States. Upon the enact- 
 ment of those measures a question arose in Amer- 
 ican politics, fraught with the present welfare and 
 future destiny of this Republic. That question 
 was, Wlieiher or not the compromise measures 
 should be a permanent settlement of the sectional 
 controversies which had arisen between the slave- 
 holding and non-slaveholding States of this Union ? 
 As I have before said, if determined affirmatively, 
 domestic peace, prosperity, national progress, 
 power, grandeur, and glory was the prospect be- ) 
 fore us on the one hand; if determined negatively, j 
 discord, dissension, civil war, and a dissolution of 
 the Union, with all the evils that would follow in 
 the train of that event, was the prospect on the 
 other hand. When this high debate was piogress- 
 iiiff before the tribunal of public opinion, Webster 
 traversed the northern States, and made speeches 
 wherever he went, in which, with an eloquence 
 and patriotism that will carry his name in glory to 
 the remotest posterity, he invoked the norlliern 
 people to conquer their prejudices, and be true to 
 the Constitution of their country and the Union 
 which it established. Such was the intensity of 
 fanaticism that he was denied the privilege of 
 speaking in Faneuil Hall, which had so often re- 
 sounded to his patriotic eloquence, and its doors 
 were closed agamst him; and when armed mobs 
 of Abolitionists had invaded the courts of justice, 
 and forcibly rescued a fugitive. President Fillmore 
 issued an official proclamation, placing the mili- 
 tary and naval forces of the Government at the 
 .:ommand of its civil officers to enforce the law. 
 Where was General Scott during this great strug- 
 gle? How was he engaged.' Into which end of 
 the scale did he throw the weight of that name 
 made glorious by gallant deeds in the military 
 nervice of the country r Did he advance t<i the 
 rescue of his country, now more in peril than 
 upon any baille-field upon which he, in its service, 
 had won glory.' Did he aid Webster and Fill- 
 more in iheir noble and patriotic elToris.' No. 
 What did he do? When the compromise meas- 
 ures passed, William H. Seward, c)f New York, 
 who, in power and inlluence, stood preeminent 
 amon'^ the rest, cdused the name of General Scott 
 to be put forth by the newspapers in hi.s interest, 
 in competitioti wiili those of Webster and Fill- 
 more, B.s the Whig candirlate for the Presidency. 
 What did the nortliern Wliig organi/.ation (lo.= If 
 I remember correctly, the lust political convention 
 ilinl aM.seinbled after the enactment of ihecompro- 
 iniKC mea.Hures was the Whig Stale Convention 
 which assembled at Syracuse, in the Stale of New 
 ^ ork. That convention passed a resolution de- 
 claring it lo lie the solemn duly of Con;';ress '' to 
 » extend the Wilruol jjroviso over Utah and New 
 ' Mexico on the first indication that slavery was 
 
 • likely to be introduced into those Territories;" 
 and another resolution tendering its warmest 
 thanks lo William H. Seward for the manner in 
 wliich he had discharged his duly, as a Senator 
 of the Slate of New York in the Congress of the 
 United Slates; but it did not jxiss any resolution up- 
 probatnnj of the conduct of Jlillard Fillnwre for ap- 
 irroving or executini^the cumpromise laws. The next 
 political convention which assembled was in the 
 State of Pennsylvania. That convention nomi- 
 nated William F.Johnston as the Whig candidate for 
 Governor, who had, as Governor of Pennsylvania, 
 withheld his official sanction from a bill pa.ssed by 
 both Houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature re- 
 pealing the law of that State which prohibited the 
 use of its jails to the officers of the United States 
 in executing the laws intended to give eftecl to 
 that article of the Constitution of the United States 
 relating to fugitives from service or labor which I 
 have already (juoted; and the same convention, if I 
 remember aright, made the first foiinal nomination 
 of General Scott as a Ifhig candidate for the Presi- 
 dency. In this convention the following resolution 
 was submitted, viz : 
 
 "Resolved, That the provisions of the Constitution in 
 reference to the rendition of fugitives held to service or 
 labor, demand, and shall receive from our party, a faithful, 
 manly, and unequivocal support." 
 
 This resolution' ivas promptly voted down*. 
 Not far distant from the dale of the Pennsylvania 
 convention a Whig State convention asseinl)led in 
 Ohio. That convention nominated, as the Whig 
 candidate for Governor, Samuel F. Vinton, who 
 had voted against the fugitive slave law and passed 
 resolutions repudiatitig the compromise as JVhig 
 measures; and nominating General Scott as the 
 Whig candidate ior the Presidency. It is 
 needless to go beyond these three great States to 
 make you understand the airasand purposesof the 
 northern Wliis; organization. Whilst these events 
 were transpiring in the Stales to which I have 
 alluded, a canvas.s was also progressing in Tennes- 
 see. Surely you have not forgotten what my noble 
 and gallant friend, W. 15. Campbell, said to you 
 in that canvass; what other candidates said, and 
 what I said; and how you approved what we all 
 said. Have I not adhered to the principles which 
 1 then avowed, and the sentiments which 1 then 
 expressed? No man can truthfully say that I 
 have not. Why, then, do you condemn me? 
 Where was General Scott during this trying pe- 
 riod? The following letter will answer this ques- 
 tion: 
 
 Washinoton, March 26, 1851. 
 
 Sir: I have received your letter, (marked " contiden- 
 tial,'") in which, after ruminittinf! the error of supposing 
 nie to be •• fully before the country as the Whij; candidate 
 for the rresidi;ncy,'' yon proceed to interrogate mc on many 
 points of jjrave public interest. 
 
 Permit me to say, that considering we shall probably only 
 have a Whig candidate for the Presidency through a N'alion- 
 al f;finvcn!ion,and that I cannot be its nominee except by 
 the force of the unsolicited parlially of large masses of my 
 countrymen ; — 
 
 ('onsidcTing, also, that if my character or principles be 
 
 not already known, il would now be idle to attempt to 
 
 supply the dclicienl information by men; paper professions 
 
 (d" wisdom and virtue made fur the occasion ;— 
 
 , And, considering, that if 1 answer i/our yucriei, I must 
 
17 
 
 go on and answer others already before me, as well as the 
 long series that would inevitably follow, to the disgust of 
 Uie public ; — 
 
 I will beg iieriiiission to close this acknowledgnieiit of 
 vour letter by subscribing myself, 
 
 With great respect, your obedient servant. 
 
 VVINFIELD SCOTT. 
 
 '■ , Esq., Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 
 
 General Scott lent himself to W. H. Seward 
 and the anti-compromise Whigs of the North, and 
 was " wielded by them as a warrior wields his 
 battle-axe to cleave down into the dust Webster 
 and Fillmore," and every other northern patriot 
 who sought to persuade the northern mind to ac- 
 cept the compromise measures " as a final settle- 
 ment of the sectional controversies which they 
 embraced." He gave his name, and all the influ- 
 ence which attached to it, to those who labored to 
 reopen the fountain of bitter waters which the 
 compromise measures were intended to close. Inor- 
 dinately anxious to be the President of the United 
 States, he gave up the fame and glory which justly 
 attached to him as a general, to be used by un- 
 principled politicians for the vile.st purposes of fac- 
 tion. Doubtless he intended, when President, to 
 save the country from their machinations, but his 
 power in this respect would not have kept pace 
 with his good intentions. The press of the south- 
 ern States, the public men of the southern States, 
 called upon him to speak, but he would not speak. 
 Seward and his party bade him be silent, and he 
 was silent. That silence was the sword that cut 
 down and destroyed Webster and Fillmore, and 
 all those northern men who had sustained the 
 compromise measures. That silence sent to the 
 Baltimore Whig Convention (with the exception 
 of a small number) the whole North united in 
 favor of the nomination of General Scott as the 
 Whig candidate for the Presidency. 
 
 Will any man in his senses fail to see that the ; 
 motive of this obstinate silence was to accomplish \ 
 the objects which it did accomplish .' Let not the 
 public intelligence be insulted by the declaration | 
 that General Scott was restrained from responding 
 to the loud demands made upon him, by consid- 
 ei'ations of dignity or propriety. His name on 
 two former occasions had been before the Anieri- ' 
 can people for the presidential candidacy. Was 
 he then silenced by spasms of dignity or propriety? 
 No. On the contrary he seemed to be afflicted 
 with an epistolary pruriency, which could find its 
 gratification only in a multitude of letters expres- 
 sive of his views on public questions. But now, 
 when a word or a line from him icould have silenced 
 the clamorous demands of fifteen States, and the com- 
 promise Whigs in all the States — when a word or 
 a line from him loould have enabled Webster or Filt- 
 more to strike down Seivard and his coadjutors, and 
 bring the northern Whig party into harmonious co- 
 operation vnth the southern TJliigs upon the basis of 
 the compromise measures, he withheld that loord or line 
 from Webster or Fillmore arid gave his silence to 
 Seward, and tlnis enabled him to conquer and tri- 
 umph. These are the stubborn truth.s that stand 
 nut in bold relief upon the political records of the 
 time. Were they expunged or annihilated by the 
 proceedings of the Whig Convention which as- 
 sembled at Baltimore, on the 16th day of June, 
 1852, and by General Scott's letter accepting the 
 nomination of that convention as the Whig candi- 
 
 I date for the Presidency .' No. What were the 
 
 |j flicts and circumstances under which that conven- 
 tion assembled.' As I have already said. General 
 i Scott by giving to Mr. Seward the advantage of 
 ; his silence on the compromise measures, had en- 
 ! abled that mi.schievous political leader to defeat Mr. 
 Fillmore and Mr. Webster in most of the north- 
 ern States, and bring together at Baltimore a dele- 
 gation from nearly all those States in favor of 
 nominating General Scott as the Whig candidate 
 for the Presidency. But the withdrawal of a por- 
 I tion of the Whig members of Congre.ss from the 
 I Whig Congressional caucus, and their address to 
 [ the Whigs of the United State-s, had roused and 
 excited the compromise Whigs of the South; and 
 a number of the delegates from the southern States 
 came to the Baltimore Convention, instructed not 
 only to vote for Fillmore or Webster, but also to 
 demand the adoption of a resolution pledging the 
 ! Whig national organization to maintain the com- 
 I promise measures; and in the event of a refusal by 
 i the convention to pass such a resolution, to retire 
 ■from it, and break it up. The friends of General 
 Scott in the convention, seeing that if they refused 
 to accede to this demand, tiie southern members 
 of the convention would withdraw, and thus de- 
 stroy every prospect of success in electing him, 
 made a virtue of necessity, and acquiesced nominally 
 : in the platform, being satisfactorily assured 
 
 THAT BY DOING SO THEY WOULD CERTAINLY SECURE 
 THE NOMINATION OF GENERAL ScOTT. I will nOt 
 
 \ ask you to rely alone upon my statement on thi.? 
 subject. Mr. Raymond, a member of the con- 
 vention from the city of New York, editor of a 
 paper called the New York Times, ex -member of 
 I the New York Legislature, the friend of Mr. 
 Seward, and of General Scott, thus wrote in ex- 
 1 planation of the causes that led to the adoption of 
 j the platform by the Whig Convention. "To-mor- 
 ' row, it is believed, that Kentucky, Tennessee, Vir- 
 ' glnia, and one or tico other Slates, icillgive Scott tlu 
 ' nomination on the third or fourth ballot. The north- 
 , ' ERN Whigs gave way on the platform, with 
 I ' this understanding." Shortly after the nom- 
 i ination was made, a very estimable gentleman from 
 i a northern State ap^iroached my friend and col- 
 ,' league, C. H. Williams, and addressed him thus: 
 "Williams, I hear that you refiLse to support 
 ' Scott! It was my understanding that if we of 
 ' the North would yield on the question of a plat- 
 ' form, you of the South would accept General Scott 
 ' as the Whig candidate, and support him cor- 
 ' dially." "That may have been your understand- 
 ' ing, "replied my colleague, " but those who made 
 ' that bargain were not authorized to bargain for 
 ' me. I will not support General Scott. " See how 
 the platform was received by the northern Whig 
 organization. The New York Tribune, a paper 
 devoted to the political fortunes of W. H. Seward, 
 aud havins: a larger circulation perhaps than any 
 other paper in America, remarked upon the prin- 
 ciples set forth in the platform, as follows; 
 
 " They were never intended to be a slatement of tlie 
 grounds whereon the Whig party is united and the ends 
 which it unanimously meditates. On the contrary, they 
 u-cre forced upon a portion of the delegates in full view of 
 the fact that they did not express their convicliojis — were 
 driven through by the argument of menace and terror — 
 were rammed down by the potent iiuiuialion, ' Swallow 
 in silence, or we bolt I' Yet in the face of every entreaty 
 
18 
 
 and threat, »uety-rtr of the delegates, {seventy ha we count,) || 
 voted ' No' wlien the yeas and nays were called on their pas- i 
 gage. Ilt-re was one fourth ol" the Convenlion whom not 
 eventhe imperilinz of the nomination of their heloved can- 
 didale, ain\ the |)r.>s(Rtt of broakinc up the party, could 
 deter from pmlCf^ling against the gross wrong." [1 
 
 Yes, fellow-citizens, " one fourth of the Con- [ 
 ' veniion, whom not even the imperiling of the 
 ' nomination of their beloved cariditlate, and the 
 * prosi)tct of breaking up the party, could tieter from 
 •proiesiingaKain.st the gross wrong, "voieJay;ainst 
 the platform, and many more acquiesced in it, \yith 
 a mental reservation, determined to disregard it — 
 to spurn it; and, in thelangUMge of the same jour- 
 nal, to "spit upon it." Where are the Whig 
 statesmen of the North, who have placed them- 
 selves upon that platform, and assumed the re- 
 sponsibility of maintaining and defending it? 
 Who are they? They cannot be natned — they 
 cannot be designated. Except the few friends of 
 Mr. Webster and Mr. Fillmore, who adhered to 
 them in their fidelity to the Constitution and its , 
 oblisations, such characters do not exist. 
 
 The conclusion, therefore, follows, that the plat- ' 
 form was adopted only for the purpose of securing 
 the nomination of General Scoit, and in my opin- 
 ion, his antecedent position was such as to make 
 his nomination a complete nullification of the com- 1 
 promise part of the platform which the Conven- 1, 
 tion adopted. Sincerely entertaining this belief, ' 
 I resarded the adoption of the platform, with the ' 
 nomination of General Scott, as a fraud, a cheat, 
 a political trick, and consequently I did not sup- 
 port the candidate thus placed before the American 
 people, but stood aloof, withholding from him my ! 
 support. From the time that the comproinise 
 measures were passed, up to the period of time to \ 
 which I have been referrmg, the great question in I 
 the Whig party had been whether that party 
 should be nationalized or abolitionized ? 1 be- , 
 lieved that great good or evil would inure to the 
 country, as the one or the other result should ob- 
 tain. 1 had struggled to nationalize it. 1 could 
 not see that I would forward that object by sup- 
 portingGeneralScottforthePresidency,and there- 
 fore 1 did not support him. Am I mistaken in 
 supposing that I havea right to pursue the dictates 
 of my own judgment and conscience on such a 
 question ? To whom am I responsible? My right 
 to vote at the ballot-box, or not vote — and to vote 
 for whomsoever I may choose, is not derivable 
 from my office as your Representative in the Con- 
 gress of the United States. It is a right belong- 
 ing to me as a citizen, and is guarantied to me by 
 the Constitution of my country. Why am I cen- 
 sured and traduced for declining to vote? I am 
 responsiljle to my constituents for the votes I may 
 give as their llfpresentative in Congress, but for 
 the manner in which I may choose to exercise the 
 franchises of a citizen, I am answerable only to 
 my God, my conscience, and my country. 
 
 I have Hup|>oRed that these truths were so uni- 
 Tersally recf)gnized by the i>eople of Tennessee, 
 that I would be permitted to [lursiie the sugges- 
 tions of my own judgment, without being sub- 
 jected to harsh and illiberal criticism. Fully com- 
 prehending the power of those mf)tives which 
 would operate to induce the Whigs of Tennessee 
 to endeavor to maintain their local party ascend- 
 ency, by supporting the candidate nominated by 
 
 the Whig Convention at Baltimore, and foreseeing 
 that I could not conscientiously cooperate with 
 them in that respect, 1 paid to their feelings and 
 opinions, the homage of my respect, by announ- 
 cing, in advance, that 1 would be passive and inac- 
 tive in that contest. What more could be required 
 of an honest man, entertaining the opinions which 
 I entertained ? It is known to many of you that I 
 have been for some time past making expensive 
 improvements upon a plantation which I own, in 
 a county not embraced in the Congressional district 
 which 1 now represent, and that I have intended, 
 after the close of my present term in Congress, to 
 make that my home. In executing this design, I 
 intended to carry into effect a purpose long enter- 
 tained by me, of retiring forever from public em- 
 ]iloymeni. In thus proposing to return to those 
 agricultural pursuits in which I had been reared, 
 it was a source of happiness to me to remember 
 the unvarying steadiness of your friendship and 
 confidence, which, greeting me when a youth, 
 had l)een constantly accorded to me through a 
 period now wanting but little of twenty years. 
 Always elected by large majorities, and on the two 
 last occasions, when a candidate, elected without 
 opposition, I llattered myself with the hope of car- 
 rying with me into my retirement grateful assur- 
 ances of the undiminished friendship and confi- 
 dence which my constituents had extended to me 
 with a constancy unusual in public life; and of 
 finding in this fact a perpetual source of happi- 
 ness. This hope, it seems, cannot be realized, 
 but there remains to me a higher, and more valued 
 source of hap{)iness, the proud consciousness of 
 having been actuated by patriotic motives, and of 
 having faithfully adhered to duty, even at the peril 
 ' of forfeiting your approval. This gives me more 
 ' happiness than your applause could impart, asso- 
 ciated with the conviction that by betraying or 
 I abandoning your interests, I deserved your scorn 
 and contempt. What is a public man w(uth, who. 
 when great occasions arise, involving the perma- 
 nent interests of his country, has not the firmness 
 and moralcourageto pursue, with unfalteringsteps, 
 the path of duty, though hisses and scoffs and 
 denunciations may salute him at every step? He 
 is worth nothing, if he cannot thus pursue the path 
 of duty, amidsta storm of popular odium, and rely 
 upon time, reflection, public intelligence, and pub- 
 lic justice, to vindicate the purity of his motives, 
 and the wisdom and patriotism of his acts. Con- 
 scious of my own rectitude, I submit to your con- 
 sideration the reasons which have controlled me, 
 and nsking for them a candid examination, I am 
 cheered, under your present displeasure, by an un- 
 ' doubting confidence, that when the jiassions and 
 
 I prejudii-es of the hour shall have sunk to rest, your 
 reason and justice will restore me to that place in 
 
 ; your feelings and esteem which I have heretofore 
 j been proud to know I occupied. 
 ] Fellow-citizens, perhaps I might safely rely 
 
 II upon this review of my conduct, and this statement 
 of the reasons which have controlled it, to vindi- 
 
 '' cate me against all the paltry and contemptible 
 
 , motives wliicli, in the course of the late presiden- 
 
 I tinl canvass, have been ascribed to me. I'utasthis 
 
 is probably the last occasion upon which I will 
 
 ever address you, I deem it due to my.self, though 
 
 ' I approach the task with a loathing and disgust 
 
 which I cannot express, to notice and repel some 
 
 i of those which have had the most general circula- 
 
19 
 
 lion, and which have contributed most to the form- 
 ation of an erroneous public opinion in relation 
 to myself. And here I take occasion to remark, 
 that with a few exceptions, too insignificant to 
 claim any notice whatever from me, the Whig: 
 press of Tennessee and of the whole country, and 
 the distinguished Whig orators selected by the 
 Whig party of Tennessee to plead the cause of 
 General Scott in the late canvass, have had so 
 much respect for that right to independence of 
 thought and action which I have claimed and ex- 
 ercised, and supposed to belong to every American 
 freemen, as to abstain from assailing me; and I 
 desire it to be understood, that, exercising that 
 right myself, I do not intend, by anything said on 
 this occasion, to impeach the integrity or patriot- 
 ism of their motives. If my information is correct, 
 they have generally spoken of me in terms more 
 complimentary than I deserve, of my talents, my 
 eloquence, my patriotism, and my consistent de- 
 votion to Whig principles. But they have labored 
 much to make the people believe that I have formed 
 erroneous opinions in regard to public questions 
 of high importance. Returning to them all the 
 compliments which they have paid me, it is, never- 
 theless, my aim, to-day, to show that they have 
 permitted considerations of party necessity to be- 
 cloud their judgment, and bring them to conclu- 
 sions adverse to the welfare of the nation. It is 
 my aim, withoutimpeaching theirmotives,to show 
 that I am right and that they are wrong. Whilst 
 the Whig press and distinguished Whig orators 
 have been liberal and just in the manner which I 
 have described, a class of politicians, always proud 
 to perform the lowest and meanest drudgery of 
 party, have been busy in disparaging me; and at 
 the corners of the streets, at bar-rooms, in taverns, 
 and at cross-roads, judging me by a standard of 
 meanness which they carry in their own bosoms, 
 have attributed to me narrow and mean mo- 
 tives of action. They seem to have been more 
 anxious to hurry me to political perdition upon an 
 underground railroad, than to elect General Scott. 
 To accomplish this favorite object, they have at- 
 tributed to me quite a variety of motives for my 
 conduct in the late presidential canvass. Some 
 say, that being about to remove into a Congres- 
 sional district in which there is a large Democratic 
 majority, I have aimed to identify myself with 
 that party, in order to be elected to Congress by 
 that Congressional district. Now, it is a sufficient 
 answer to this charge to say, that in view of the 
 facts known to you, which have occurred in this 
 district whenever I have been a candidate, it 
 would seem to have been easier and more conve- 
 nient, if I had been thus anxious to be elected 
 again a member of Congress, for me to have re- 
 mained in this Congressional district, as by such 
 a course, if I had conformed to party requisitions, 
 I perhaps might have accomplished a reelection. 
 Some say, as I am informed, that I am seeking to 
 be appointed to some valuable office by Mr. 
 Pierce. 
 
 Now, fellow-citizens, I do not wish to say any- 
 thing that can have the aspect of egotism or vain- 
 glory; but as it is necessary for me to repel these 
 discreditable charges, I hope you will pardon me 
 for saying that it is known in the political circles 
 of Washington, that high places of honor have, 
 without solicitation on my part, been repeatedly 
 offered to me, for which many men spend their I 
 
 he 
 
 whole lives in vain aspirations, and that I have 
 declined to accept them. 
 
 Whenever any of those in whose service my 
 traducers are engaged shall exhibit a similar unsel- 
 fish disintf restedne.ss, I will speak to you furth 
 hi defending myself against litis charge. But tl.. 
 imputation which has had most influence in brin'^- 
 ing the public mind to incorrect conclusions in re- 
 lation to the course which I deemed it my duty to 
 pursue, in the late presidential election, is, that 
 my refusal to support General Scott had its motive 
 and cause in personal malevolence and political 
 rivalry and jealousy cherished by me towards 
 Governor Jones. Such has been the industrious 
 perseverance with which this charge has been cir- 
 culated, that, from what I learn, 1" suppose there 
 are but few voters in the State who have not heard 
 it; and strange to say, though in the highest degree 
 silly and absurd, popular credulity has accepted it 
 as true. Those who have made this charge have 
 accomplished the object at which they aimed, for 
 who will heed, or to any extent regard, the opin- 
 ions of a public man, who, in relation to questions 
 of great public importance, such as are always 
 involved in a presidential election, is believed to 
 be controlled by such motives ! I regard this im- 
 putation as very disparaging to me, and 1 repel it 
 as false and calumnious. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I deem it a public evil of great 
 magnitude that so many public men in our coun- 
 try are aspiring to the office of President of the 
 United States. I think that if those who are so 
 far honored with the public confidence as to be 
 elected members of either House of Congress 
 would limit their ambition to such honor as would 
 result from a faithful and patriotic devotion to the 
 public interests, as members of Congress, this 
 Republic would be better taken care of than now, 
 when so many of them are aspiring to the Chief 
 Magistracy. In a public experience now cover- 
 ing a number of years, I have noticed such aspir- 
 ants thoughtfully; and I have seen but few in- 
 stances where a man becomes keenly ambitious 
 to reach the presidential office, that it did not seem 
 to me that his usefulness as a member of Con- 
 gress was greatly diminished ; because, if he is not 
 a man of very high qualities, his ambition swerves 
 him from a rigid adherence to duty and princi- 
 ple, and plunges him into selfish and unpatriotic 
 compliances to advance himself to the Presidency. 
 You who have not mingled in political circles so 
 much as myself, could hardly be made to believe 
 what a number of presidential aspirants swarm in 
 the political atmosphere of our country. Their 
 name is legion. Rooks, buzzards, carrion crows, 
 and obscene birds of every feather, are pluming 
 their dirty wings for the high places to which 
 eagles only were wont to soar; and every man sent 
 by the people to represent them in Congress, in 
 whatever State his constituency may be, when he 
 returns to render an account of his stewardship, 
 is very likely to find himself judged, and approved 
 or condemned; not so much upon his faithfulness 
 or unfaithfulness in representing his constituents, 
 and upholding the interests of his country, as upon 
 the relation in which he may be supposed to 
 stand to some presidential aspirant, and the effect 
 his public course may be supposed to have upon 
 that aspirant's prospects for the Presidency. It 
 seems to me that almost every shallow demagogue 
 who succeeds in getting up a few hurrahs at a 
 
20 
 
 cross-road or elsewhere, in an exciting canvass, 
 immediately begins to dream of presidential hon- 
 ors, and soon deems liimself called by "manifest 
 destiny," to preside over this great Government. 
 Another great public evil to which, in this con- 
 nection, I desire to ctill your attention, is the vast 
 number of our people who are eagerly anxious 
 to obtain official appomtments under the Federal 
 Government. They are so numerous as to con- 
 stitute a mighty element in the politics of our 
 country; tliey wield immense influence in all 
 party conflicts and struggles. Whenever a presi- 
 dential aspirant can succeed to any considerable 
 extent in producing the belief that he stands a 
 chance at some time or other to be elected to the 
 Presidency, a corps of place-hunters gather around 
 him, and seek by the exhibition of a superser- 
 vicable zeal to put him under inexorable obhga- 
 tions that will compel him, should fortune ever 
 crown his aspirations with success, to reward their 
 zealous friendship, extended to him in the infancy 
 of his prospect.s, with substantial manifestations 
 of gratitude. I have not known any such aspir- 
 ant who failed thus to surround himself with 
 mercenary place-hunters, ready at all times to 
 pounce upon whomsoever might be supposed to 
 stand as an obstacle to the political success of their 
 favorite presidential aspirant, with a ferocity 
 ■which preys upon character as hungry tigers 
 prey upon a carcase. It is convenient to such 
 aspirants to have Representatives in Congress, es- 
 pecially from their own State, subservient to their 
 views, and willing to be wielded hither or thither, 
 and voted, and used, in settling up their political 
 accounts, as you are in the habit of using pocket 
 change in settling the small business transactions 
 of life. A member of Congress who forms his 
 own opinions upon public questions, and acta in- 
 dependently upon the convictions of his own mind 
 and conscience, is very inconvenient to such char- 
 acters, and seldom fails to subject himself to the 
 most merciless assaults of their trained bands. 
 You, doubtless, remember to have seen when you 
 were boys, with much admiration, raree-shows, ' 
 where the showman, standing behind the show- 
 box, would, unseen by you, touch a s])ring, or 
 pull a wire, and make miniature men aiul women, 
 or rather the counterfeit resemblances of men and 
 women, come forth, and with life-like grace and 
 activity, dance through all the mazes of reels and , 
 cotillons. In like manner, a ])residential aspirant 
 who can inspire office-seekers with confidence in 
 his political fortunes, can with a line, a hint, a 
 telegraphic dispatch, even at the di.stance of a : 
 thousand miles, make them perform whatever 
 jiulilical caner.s he may deem necessary to advance : 
 nis political fortune.^. Therefore, when the peo- ! 
 pie find their Representatives fiercely assailed \ 
 about anything relating to a presidential canvass, I 
 think it would not be unwise for them to inquire t 
 who touches the spiing- — who pulls the wire? 
 
 Fellow-<;itizens, Tennessee is not less prolific 
 than iier sister States in spawning presidential as- 
 pirants upon the cuniitry. One, at least, of her 
 i;iii/.ens, perhans more, now aspires to the Presi- 
 dency. I neeu scarcely suy that I mean ex-Gov- 
 ernor James C. Jones. I feel well assured that in 
 regard to lum I am not mist^iken. //e undoubtedly , 
 aspires to the Pre.sideiicy. He has many friends 
 who regard him a« the embodiment of truth, honor, 
 eloquence, and stateumanship. I differ with them . 
 
 [j in all these particulars, and that fact being known, 
 it is correctly believed that I will forever refuse to 
 cooperate in conferring upon him the Presidency, 
 or any other office; and I suppose the imputation 
 which 1 am seeking to repel, had its origin in this 
 well-known fact. I do not know, and conse- 
 quently do not charge, that it emanates from Gov- 
 ernor Jones. I found it, however, permeating the 
 political circles of Washington city shortly after 
 the Congressional caucus to which I have referred; 
 and not long thereafter, 1 read it in a letter pub- 
 lished in a northern newspaper, written by a man 
 known to be in habits of intimate association with 
 Governor Jones; and I therefore suppose that he 
 may possibly believe what has been charged in 
 this respect. I am unwilling even for him to en- 
 tertain such a belief; and although it is generally a 
 difficult task to prove a negative where the affirm- 
 ative relates only to motives, I will undertake to 
 show that this imputation is false, with whomso- 
 ever it may have originated. 1 cannot discharge 
 this duty to myself otherwise than by stating 
 truly my relations to the gentleman referred to — 
 my opinions of his true position in the late presi- 
 dential canvass preceding the nomination, and the 
 objects aimed at by him in that canvass. In dis- 
 claiming, as I do,thenarrow motives falsely attrib- 
 uted to me, I disdain to disavow or conceal what 
 is true. Under almost any other state of circum- 
 stances than those which now surround me, pro- 
 priety and good taste would forbid that 1 should 
 introduce this subject in public discussion, on such 
 an occasion; but as the friends of Governor Jones 
 have thought proiier, for many months past, in 
 every locality in Tennessee, to disparage me as a 
 public man, by ascribing my conduct on great 
 jiublic questions to the personal and political rela- 
 tions supposed to exist between that gentleman 
 and myself, 1 yield to a stale of facts and cir- 
 cumstances which constitute a coercive power, 
 leaving me no choice. Governor Jones has re- 
 sided the greater period of his life, since he has ar- 
 rived at the age of manhood, in the Congressional 
 district which I now have the honor to represent, 
 and many of those who have, by their votes, con- 
 tributed to confer honors upon me, are his devoted 
 friends and admirers. Respect for their feelings, 
 to say nothing of other considerations, would in- 
 duce me, if free from the coercion to which I have 
 referred, to abstain from allusions to him on this 
 occasion; but, as I have already said, I cannot 
 otherwise vindicate myself than by mailing a can- 
 did, truthful, and full statement. What is the 
 logic, what the reasoning, upon which this im- 
 putation id made? Fellow-citizens, I ask you to 
 do me the justice of looking sensibly at this ques- 
 tion. If you will do so, you will see that it is 
 as foolish as it is false. Why is it supposed that I 
 refused to support the candidate nominated by the 
 political party with whivh I have been so long 
 identified, because I am not personally or politi- 
 ailly friendly to Governor Jones ? I beg you to 
 recur to the past, and rememl)er that when I spoke 
 to the Whig Convention at Nashville, which nom- 
 inated my friend, William 11. Campbell, as the 
 Whig candidate for Governor, and wlien 1 spoke 
 so often to the people of Tennessee in the subse- 
 quent canvass. Governor Jones was not in politi- 
 cal life, but was engaged, as he had been for years 
 previous, in pursuing his private interests. There- 
 fore it is unreasonable, it is absurd , to charge or 
 
21 
 
 believe, that tlie opinions expressed, and the prin- 
 ciples set forth, on that occasion, and in the nu- 
 merous speeches made by me in the subsequent 
 canvass, could have been produced by personal 
 hostility or political opposition to Governor Jones. 
 I expressed on those occasions the deliberate con- 
 victions of my mind as to the ]irinciples which I 
 thought ought to govern the American people in 
 the presidential election then in prospect; and upon 
 my honor, I affirm to you, that I believe I have 
 acted in strict conformity with the principles and 
 opinions then avowed. If you will believe this 
 truth, of course the charge which I am repelling 
 falls to the ground. Can a sensitile reason be 
 given for the belief that, because I am not friendly 
 to Governor Jones, I refused to support the Whig 
 nominee for the Presidency? Is it because there 
 were indications that perhaps Governor Jones 
 might be nominated for the Vice Presidency with 
 General Scott? If so, I answer by declaring that 
 I never, for one moment, believed that he could 
 obtain that nomination, or that such nominations, 
 if made, could be successful. But Govenor Jones 
 was not nominated for the Vice Presidency, and 
 therefore this reason does not apply to the case. 
 Is it because I am supposed to have believed that 
 General Scott's election to the Presidency might 
 probably elevate Governor Jones to some position 
 of honor and power? I answer this argument 
 with the fact that I publicly, on various occa- 
 sions, predicted that if General Scott should be 
 nominated, he would l)e more overwhelmingly de- 
 feated than any candidate ever put forth by either 
 of the political parties of the country. I was can- 
 did and truthful in the expression of that opinion, 
 and entertaining this belief, you must see that the 
 motive referred to could not. have operated upon 
 me. 
 
 But there is another fact to which, in this con- 
 nection, I desire to call your attention. Up to the 
 time that General Scott was nominated as the 
 Whig candidate for the Presidency, Governor 
 Jones professed to be in favor of the nomination 
 of Mr. Fillmore. I announced in a speech made 
 two days before the Convention assembled, that I 
 would not support General Scott. Now, in view 
 of these facts, it seems to me, that when the friends 
 of Governor Jones ascribe my conduct in this re- 
 gard to my unfriendliness to him, they by impli- 
 cation charge him with perfidious insincerity, in 
 professing to favor the nomination of Mr. Fillmore. 
 Candor, however, rei-juires me to say, that having 
 exerted myself to the full extent of my power to 
 induce the Whigs of Tennessee to assume the high 
 and patriotic position which I understood them to 
 occupy in relation to tiie compromise measures, and 
 President Fillmore, who had so patriotically per- 
 formed his duty in procuring the enactment of 
 those laws and in enforcing their execution, I did 
 not see without concern, a system of operations 
 and influences brought to bear by Governor Jones, 
 calculated and intended, as I believed, to bring 
 down this glorious State from the high position of 
 principle and duty which it occupied, and lead it 
 forth into a political speculation, founded upon the 
 sacrifice of great public principles, and having for 
 its ultimate object the promotion of that gentleman 
 to the Presidency of the United States. And it 
 may be true that the development of these pur- 
 poses excited and stimulated my zeal, to try to 
 defe8.t what I believed to be alike incompatible with 
 
 the principles cherished by the Whig.s of Tennes- 
 see, and the interests of my country. And yet it 
 is not true that my opposition to General Scott 
 before he was nominated, or my refusal to support 
 him after he was nominated, orii^inated in my per- 
 sonal or political relations to Governor Jones. I 
 desire in repelling this disreputaiile imputation to 
 be careful not to deny anything which is true; and 
 to guard against any such conclusion, I niustslate 
 candidly my opinion of the purposes and objects 
 of Governor Jones in the late presidential canvass. 
 I do not believe that he wasan aspirant for the nom- 
 ination as the Whig candidate for the Vice Presi- 
 dency. I believe he was candid and truthful when 
 he disclaimed that aspiration . I do not believe that 
 he, at any stage of the presidential canvass, pre- 
 ceding the Baltimore Whig Convention, desired the 
 nomination of Mr. Fillmore, or that he exerted him- 
 self to secure that ohject. I believe it was his hope, 
 and perhaps his belief, that a state of things would 
 arise in the Whig National Convention, such as oc- 
 curred in the Democratic Conventions of 1844 and 
 1852; and that by reason of theconflictins; prefer- 
 ences in the Whig party between Mr. Fillmore, 
 General Scott, and Mr. Webster, some man not 
 ostensibly in the canvass, under the necessitt of 
 THE CASE, might be nominated; and that he [Gov- 
 ernor Jones] probably might be that lucky man. 
 And, I believe further, that his hopes and exer- 
 tions were directed to the accomplishment of this 
 object. In my opinion, this was his first and fa- 
 vorite hope; but I think it was his aim, if this hope 
 failed, and this object could not be effected, so to 
 act in that canvass as to conciliate the friendship, 
 and secure the support, four years hence, of that 
 northern Whig organization which was support- 
 ing General Scott with so much zeal, and which 
 had overthrown Fillmore and Webster in nearly 
 all the northern States, because they favored and sup- 
 ported the compromise measures. His aspirations to 
 the Presidency would naturally suggest this course, 
 because neither Mr. Fillmore nor Mr. Webster 
 commanded the support of any considerable or- 
 ganization in the northern States; and therefore 
 to support either of them could not bring to Gov- 
 ernor Jones in return, compensating political in - 
 fluences so valuable as those hoped for, by pursu- 
 ing the course I have indicated. I have seen no 
 published declaration from Governor Jones that 
 he ever desired the nomination of Mr. Fillmore, 
 or sought to accomplish it beyond what he felt 
 bound to do, in deference to the known opinions 
 of the people of Tennessee. I suppose he would 
 not now say that he personally desired that re- 
 sult, and in good faith exerted himself to accom- 
 plish it. Such a declaration would, I am sure, 
 excite in the political circles of the Capitol where 
 Governor Jones's exertions were seen and felt in 
 a different direction, nothing but lauschs of incredu- 
 lity. If I remember aright, he said in his speech 
 at Memphis, that if it were true that he was enti- 
 tled to the honor of nominating General Scott, he 
 would glory in the fact; but he disclaimed the dis- 
 tinction. I think he was over-modest on that oc- 
 casion. In my opinion he, more than any other 
 man, is entitled to whatever glory ought to attach 
 to that achievement. The cordial and earnest and 
 unyielding support of the southern Whigs could 
 have nominated either Mr. Fillmore or Mr. Web- 
 ster. But when it became manifest that southern 
 Whigs, so influential as Governor Jones, were ex- 
 
22 
 
 erting iheniselves really against the nomination of 
 cither of those gentlemen, and in favorof the nom- 
 ination of General Scott, it required Ijut little 
 knowledge of the elements existin-,' in the Whig 
 
 tituty to see that such southern defection would 
 )e fatal both to Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Webster. 
 
 1 do not deem it essential, on this occasion, to 
 adduce many facts to prove the correctness of the 
 opinions I have expressed relative to the aims of 
 Governor Jones, in the late canvass, for a Wlii^ 
 presidential nomination, but I will state a few, 
 that he — if he should ever do me the honor to read 
 what 1 am now saying — may be satisfied that I 
 have sufficient authority for my opinions. If fur- 
 ther debate on tliis subject shall hereafter become 
 necessary, I can multiply them indefinitely. If 
 my information is correct, Governor .Tones, when 
 he received information that a majority of Whigs 
 had been elected to the Tennessee Legislature in 
 the canvass of 1851, was at New York, on his 
 way to Europe, to purchase iron for a railroad 
 company, of which he was the president; and he 
 immediately determined to appoint an agent to go 
 to Europe, and return him.^elf to Tennessee, for 
 the purpose of being elected to the Senate of the 
 United States. But before he left the city of New ' 
 York, he made a speech to a select company of 
 politicians, which, as I have reason to know, made 
 the impression on his auditors that, whilst he had 
 preferred Mr. Fillmore as the Whi^ candidate for 
 the Presidency, his intercourse with the Whig 
 politicians of the North had satisfied him that Mr. 
 Fillmore did not possess the merit of availability, 
 and that therefore he was willing to support Gen- 
 eral Scott, in whose arai/«fti/i/i/ there was unbound- 
 ed confidence in that particular atmosphere. Con- 
 sequently, his name was promptly and prominently 
 put forward as a suitable person to be nominated 
 for the Vice Presidency, on General Scott's ticket. 
 Having succeeded in his views to this extent, he 
 hastened back to Tennessee, and became u candi- 
 date for United States Senator. About this time 
 I happened to stop a day or two in the capital of 
 our State, and wan surprised to find confidential 
 friends of Governor Jones, who, in the previous 
 canvass, agreed with me in regard to the compro- 
 mise measures, and the propriety of sustaining 
 Webster and Fillmrire, and of nominating one or 
 the other of them as the WJiig candidate for the 
 Presidency, then arguing that neither of those gentle- 
 men could be tlicled, if nominated; and that General 
 Scott u-as sound on the c<iin])rmnise measttres, and 
 possessed the merit of availtdiility in a very high de- 
 gree. This fact awakened in me the apprehension 
 that Governor Jcmes was likely to exert his large 
 influence in this State to place it in a position with 
 respect to presidential candidates, and the princi- 
 ples which ruled in the preceding State canvass 
 very different from that which I undi-rsinod it to 
 have a«sumed, and adverse to what I believed to 
 be demanded by the iiiieresls of the country. 
 
 Governor Jones was elected Senator by the Le- 
 gislature, and proce(ded to Washington, and en- 
 tered upon llie duties of that office. He soon 
 visited the city of New ^'ork, and repeated his 
 visits to th it city often; and on every such occa- 
 sion, if I remember ariirht, availer] liimself of some 
 opportunity which offered, to make a speech to 
 the people. These speeches were generally re- 
 ported in the city pajiers. I decline to expre.ssany 
 opinion of their aim and tendency, but I will state 
 
 a fact with regard to their effect: Shortly after 
 they were made, I was called upon by letters from 
 leading friends of Mr. F^illmore, and in somecases 
 was called upon in person by them, and urged to 
 visit the city of New York, to addressa laige meet- 
 ing of the friends of Mr. Fillmore in that city, and 
 endeavor to overcome the influence adverse to him, 
 produced by Governor Jones's speeches. / loas 
 assured that suchspeeches, coming from a southern man 
 in his position, u-ould have a fatal injiue nee against 
 J\Ir. Fillmore in the struggle then progressing for the 
 election of delegates to the Baltimore iVhig Convention. 
 I accepted the invitation, and have called your at- 
 tention to an extract from the speech made by me 
 on that occasion. I think nobody who heard me, 
 doubted my aims and purposes, in connection with 
 the presidential canvass then pending. Governor 
 Jones has had much practice in making popular 
 speeches, and he has established quite a reputation 
 for skill and powerin that kind of intellectual effort. 
 Is it not strange that one so practiced and skillful 
 — if he was seeking to advance Mr. Fillmore's 
 nomination to the Presidency, should so far fail in 
 his object as to be misunderstood in the manner I 
 have indicated? When exciting political ques- 
 tions are at issue in the political circles of Wash- 
 ingtcn, it often happens that at those places, and 
 on those occasions, where men are casually brought 
 together, animated argument and debate arise. 
 Sometimes on such occasions, when I would be 
 urging the opinion that the whole South would go 
 to Baltimore, united in the support of Mr. Fill- 
 more or Mr. Webster, / was tauntingly and irith 
 an air of triumph told by northern supporters of Gen- 
 eral Scott, that I was laboring mider a delusion, and 
 that Tennessee would aid in nominating Gcnei-al 
 Scott. By-and-by I saw the same statement in 
 the newspapers of the North; and accordin^rly the 
 result at Baltimore corresponded with the predic- 
 tions. When such casual debates were occurring 
 in Washington, and when Mr. Fillmore's friends 
 and Mr. Webster's were relying mainly upon the 
 merits of those gentlemen, as displayed by their 
 conduct in relation to the compromise measures, 
 to advance their interests in the matter of obtain- 
 ing the Whig: nomination for thePresidency, men 
 of undoubted truth and honor informed me, that 
 Governor Jones in such circles hal)itually contend- 
 ed, that he could prove General Scott to be a better 
 compromise man than J\!r. nilmore. Facts such 
 as these, which might be indefinitely multiplied, 
 brought my mind to the conclusion which 1 have 
 expressed, that Governor Jones throughout this 
 ■ whole question, next to hi.s own nomination, pre- 
 i ferred the nomination of General Scott; and that 
 his influence was exerted accordingly. P.ut it was 
 scarcely necessary for me to dwell upon this sub- 
 ject .so Ions, for I feel well assured that his confi- 
 dential friends in this State will, at a glance, recog- 
 I nise the correctness of my opinions on this subject. 
 ' They will remember the anxiety which they ex- 
 hibited when the Whig State Convention assembled 
 at Nashville, to select delegates to represent the 
 , Whig parly of Tennessee in the Baltimore Con- 
 vention, to prevent any expre.ssion of preference 
 by Tennessee for Mr. Fillmore, and to pledije the 
 VVliig |)arty of the State, in general terms, to sup- 
 port the nominee of the Convention: and they know 
 tiiat their motive was to hold the State in such a 
 ;, condition, us to enable Governor Jones to seixe 
 I uiid appropriate to his benefit that chapter of acci- 
 
23 
 
 dents in the history of presidential nominations 
 which it was hoped would be opened at Baltimore. 
 I make these remarks to show that the opinions 
 I have expressed rest upon facts that cannot be 
 overthrown. 
 
 In regard to theopinion thatGovernor Jones was 
 intriguing to be nominated for tlie Presidency him- 
 self, 1 need only to remind him of the meeting at 
 Delmonico's, in the city of New York, and of liis 
 declarations on that occasion, to convince him 
 tliat my opinions rest upon a sufficient and inde- ; 
 structible foundation. 1 will probably surprise 
 him when I tell him, what I suppose he has never j 
 ascertained, that some shrewd Scott men were | 
 watching him that night; and when they saw, or 
 thought they saw, that he was seeking the Pres- '. 
 idency himself, instead of being in good faith for 
 the nomination of General Scott, as they had pre- 
 viously believed, they instantly issued orders, by 
 telegraphic dispatches, which in substance amounted 
 to this: " Stop that Jones vice presidential ball, 
 which we told you to put in motion shortly after 
 Governor Jones visited this city, some six or eight 
 months ago;" and the mandate was executed with 
 a promptness which, if anything done by human 
 beings may with propriety be compared to the acts 
 of Omnipotence, resembled the occasion when God 
 said, "Let there be light, and there was light." 
 They said in substance, in this case, " Let that vice 
 presidential light be extinguished, and it was ex- 
 tinguished." 
 
 Shortly after Governor Jones visited New York, 
 in the autumn of 1851, the northern Whig organ- 
 ization, which was opposing Mr. Fillmore and 
 Mr. Webster and supporting General Scott, being 
 satisfied that Governor Jones was ready to come 
 into the support of General Scott, caused his name 
 to be extensively put forth as a suitable one to be 
 nominated for the Vice Presidency in association 
 with General Scott for the Presidency. And ac- 
 cordingly a State convention in Maine nomina- 
 ted General Scott for the Presidency and Governor 
 Jones for the Vice Presidency — and the Scott news- 
 papers in the North generally seemed to favor the 
 idea. Several conventions that were to assemble 
 in northern Slates, shortly after the meeting at 
 Delmonico's, would in all probability have follow- 
 ed the lead of the State of Maine; but those tele- 
 graphic dispatches, which the revelations at Del- 
 monico's caused to be sent forth in every direction, 
 " stopped that ball;" and from that time forth the 
 Scott newspapers were silent upon the subject of 
 Governor Jones's remarkable fitness for the Vice 
 Presidency, and no other State convention nomi- 
 nated him. 
 
 Now, fellow-citizens, I beg you to remember 
 that my present object is of a twofold character: 
 
 First, to repel and refute the imputation that my 
 conduct on a great public question had its origin 
 not in motives connected with the interest of my 
 country, but in personal hostility and political 
 jealousy, or rivalry, to an individual. 
 
 Secondly, in denying all that is false in this re- 
 gard, to admit all that is true. 
 
 Although I have made it a general rule in my 
 private conversation, and in my correspondence 
 with friends, to abstain from alluding to many 
 matters discussed on this occasion, yet some of 
 my most intimate and confidential friends have 
 been advised of my opinions, and your manly in- 
 
 stincts will make you feel, that in denying and 
 
 repelling what is false, I am, as a true man, bound 
 on this occasion to declare also wliat is true. It 
 only remains for me to make a few additional 
 statements on this unideasant theme, and disniisa 
 it, as I hope, forever. I declare to you, upon my 
 honor, that except for the space of a few days, 
 many years ago, when Governor Jones and my- 
 self were opposing candidates to represent this 
 district in Congress — he having invited me to be- 
 come a candidate, and 1 accepting, and he before 
 he received my reply through the mail having 
 declared himself a candidate, and made several 
 speeches soliciting the votes of the people — 1 have 
 I never considered myself his rival for any public 
 honor. On the occasion to which I refer, when 
 he saw conclusively that I would not so far dis- 
 honor his invitation as to decline, he declined him- 
 [ self; and although he, as I thought, then organ- 
 I ized and encouraged a most unjust and illiberal 
 j war against me, the result of thai canvass, even in 
 j his own town, and county, and neighborhood, 
 was so triumphantly satisfactory to me, that I do 
 not cherish feelings, in consequence of my brief 
 1 collision with him, so vengeful as to make me re- 
 1 fuse to support a presidential candidate merely 
 because he was supported by Governor Jones, or 
 1 presumed to be friendly to him. Shortly after the 
 I transient collision to which I have referred took 
 I place. Governor Jones removed from this Con- 
 gressional district and became a citizen of one of 
 the most extreme western counties of the State; 
 j and though it is true that his conduct upon the 
 occasion to which I refer, and other occasions in 
 ; which I was not personally involved, has fixed 
 i my opinions unchangeably against him, yet I 
 affirm to you most truly that 1 have never been 
 his rival since the period mentioned for any public 
 honor; nor have I expected to become his rival. 
 And I must be permitted to add, that according to 
 my estimate of his past career and present posi- 
 tion, there is nothing in either to excite my envy; 
 and so far as his political future is involved, 1 
 think it need not excite the envy of any man; be- 
 cause it is my opinion that when he shall have 
 exhibited his meager talents and vaultins ambition 
 upon the theater of national politics, during the 
 remainder of his senatorial term, under the scru- 
 tiny of the great men of the nation, it will become 
 a national jest that such a man was ever consid- 
 ered or thought of for the Presidency. When that 
 period arrives, I think he may fitly exclaim, in the 
 language of Cardinal Wolsey: 
 " I have. toucliM the liighest point of all my greatness: 
 And, from that full meridian of my glory, 
 I haste now to my setting. I sliall fall 
 Like a bright exhalation in the evening, 
 And no man see me more." 
 
 It is my opinion that, in the last presidential 
 canvass he played his hand, and lost irretrievably 
 his presidential stake; and as I think I may re- 
 move the motive which prompts his partisans to 
 wage a constant war of persecution against me, 
 by convincing them of the correctness of this 
 opinion, I will give some of the reasons upon 
 v/hich it is founded. Whether he has effected 
 his object by securing the favor of the Seward 
 faction or not, is imiiiatermi to my conclusion, 
 because I think it quite obvious that the embrace 
 of that faction will hereafter be fatal to whatever 
 
34 
 
 oresidential aspirant it may be given, especially if 
 fie be the citizen of a southern Stnte. Mr. Fill- 
 more's northern friends, and Mr. Webster's nortii- 
 ern friends, understand the position occupied i)y 
 Governor Jones in the late presidential canvass; 
 and my word tor it, they will never give him their 
 support for the Presidency; find as to the impres- 
 sion he produced upon the Whiijdeleg'ates from the 
 South, I can best inform j'ou on liiat subject, by 
 telling; a liitle anecdote related to me by a member 
 of the Baltimore Whig Convention. Whilst the 
 Convention was in session, after a fatiguing day, 
 during which many ballotings had been unsuccess- 
 fitlly made, at night quite a number of southern 
 delegates assembled in a room, to consult about 
 the best mode of proceeding next day to secure 
 the nomination of Mr. F'illmore. Whilst they 
 were in consultation, a member remarked that he 
 had heard it suggested, as perhaps the only mode 
 of effecting the object for which the Convention 
 had assembled, to put some other man, not thereto- 
 fore before the Convention, in nomination. " Who 
 ishe.- Whoishe? Name him — name him I" were 
 the cries that passed around the room. The gen- 
 tleman responded by saying that he had heard the 
 name of Governor Jones mentioned. Another 
 member arose, and said with some excitement, 
 that he had thought W. H. Seward was llie last 
 man in America that he could be induced to sup- 
 port for the Presidency, but that he believed he 
 would support ercji Seicard, rather than Jones — 
 and this declaration was received irith applause all 
 around the room. Such facts as these lead me to 
 believe that the great argument of availability is 
 forever lost to Governor Jones, and in the absence 
 of that argument, his presidential prospects vanish 
 into thin air; and hence I hope that I will no longer 
 be persecuted, because I am unwilling to cooperate 
 with those who have fancied that he perhaps might 
 sometime or other, be elected to that high station. 
 It is but an idle dream. 
 
 Now, I fear that some of you may question the 
 propriety of the remarks in which I have been in- 
 dulijing; but I beg you to bethink yourselves how 
 otherwise than by the exhibition of facts, and by 
 these candid declarations of my opinions and sen- 
 timents, could 1 repulse that storm of defamation 
 which, for six months past, has been mercilessly 
 discharged upon me? It was with feelings of in- 
 expressible loathing that I, impelled by an impera- 
 tive necessity, approached the discussion of this ' 
 theme. I now dismiss it with like emotions, as I I 
 ho[pe forever, claiming', however, that the facts and 
 arguments which I iiave submitted must extort a ! 
 vindication for me, from your ijood sense and just- ;| 
 tice; for, I rejieat, the charge is not only silly and 
 absurd, but it is also false. I think 1 may also I 
 claim that a c^-itidid consideration of my whole j 
 course, as exhil)iied in the extracts from former : 
 Bpeeches, and the general exposition ikiw made, || 
 must exonerate me in thecsiimation of all just and 1 
 honoraljle men, from every imputation less credit- 
 able, than that I have miiiered consistently to the 
 principles bo often proclninifd by me in your pres- 
 eni-e, and sought to ai-''"iii|ilish objects which 1 
 believed to be demanded by the interests of my i 
 country, and that I believed great evils would re- jj 
 Bult from the su<'cfHS of the schemes and purposes ]' 
 whi'-h I linve endeavored to dffi-iit. Kvery candid >[ 
 man will see, that about the time of the enactment ! 
 of the compromise measures, my attention was li 
 
 awakened to a vigorous and wide-spread orsaniza- 
 tion, led and controlled chiefly by William H. 
 Seward, to denationalize the Whig party; and 
 make perpetual sectional agitation on the subject 
 I of slavery, with a view to its uliimate extermina- 
 ■ tion, one of the principles of the Wki<; party, and as 
 such, to be proclaimed anil acted upon by the 
 1 Whigs of the non-slaveholding States; and toler- 
 j ated and acquiesced in by southern IVhigs. Thus 
 viewing the subject, I would have felt that I was 
 I making myself guilty of a great crime to give my 
 j consent to such plans. I would have felt that I 
 I was inviting ruin upon my own household, and 
 devastation upon that section of the Union which 
 j had the highest and strongest claim upon me. The 
 first step in the execution of this scheme was, to 
 I break down and destroy Air. Fillmore and Mr. 
 j Webster, because of their support of those measures. 
 To give effect to the fierce war of defamation and 
 denunciation which was opened upon them, Gen- 
 I eral Scott was brought forward for nomination as 
 ! the Whig candidate for the Presidency — silent in 
 [ relation to the compromise . That silence was ob- 
 stinately maintained until he received the nnminatioii, 
 and was even then but faintly and doui^tfully 
 broken. By this course, whatever may have been 
 his private opinions, I think he practically and in- 
 extricably identified himself with those whose 
 avowed purpose was a perpetual agitation, to over- 
 turn the adjustment effected by the compromise. 
 In this nomination the opponents of the compro- 
 mise measures triumphed, and his election would 
 only have been a full and complete consummation 
 of that trium|ih. it would have been regarded 
 as the nation's approval of the schemes of that 
 mighty interest of the North, under whose auspi- 
 ces he was first brought forward, and by whose 
 persevering support his nomination was finally 
 forced, after a struggle lasting nearly a week, when 
 on the fifty-first or fifty-second ballot he was nom- 
 inated. But mark, fellow-citizens — mark this sig- 
 nificant fact. During all those ballotings, General 
 Scott received not one vote from any southern 
 State, until on the fifty-first or fifty-second ballot, 
 when a few delegates from Tennessee, Kentucky, 
 and Virginia, went over and nominated him. The 
 struggle was purely sectional — a thing unprece- 
 dented in the former history of parties; an<l of most 
 dangerous import. Mark the further tact, that he 
 was pressed by his friends as a candidate at Har- 
 risburg, in 1H4(); and again at Philadelphia in 1848; 
 and that his supporters in both of those conven- 
 tions were exclusively from the North. Can I be 
 mistaken in the opinion that his nomination was 
 a sectiimal triumph, and that his election would 
 have tended to give a dangerous power and inllu- 
 ence to Mr. Seward and his party? But I think, 
 if I rememlier aright. Governor Jones, in his 
 speech at Memjihis, sjioke of Governor Seward, 
 as the " best abused man in America;" and I have 
 heard that, during the late canvass in this Slate, it 
 was quite commcm with Whig orators to speak of 
 him as " a fancied monster," used only tofriirhten 
 the brare JThigs of Tennessee from supporting the 
 Ifliig candidate. Let me present to you an extract 
 from a sjieech delivered by him at Cleveland, in 
 the presiilential canvass of 1848, and you shall 
 see whether he is a real political monster, or a 
 fancied character. You shall see to what object 
 he would dedicate the Whig party of this Repub- 
 lic: 
 
25 
 
 Extract from Mr. Seward's Speech at Cleveland. 
 
 •' There are two antagonistical elements of society in 
 America — freedom and slavery. Freedom is in liarmony 
 with our system of Government, and with the spirit of tlie 
 age, and is, therefore, passive and Quiescent. Slavery is in 
 conflict with that system, with justice, and with humanity, 
 and is, therefore, organized, defensive, active, and perpetu- 
 ally aggressive." 
 
 ** **** ** ** 
 
 "These elements divide and classify the American peo- 
 ple into two classes — the party of Freedom, and the party 
 of Slavery. Each of these parties has its court and its 
 scepter." 
 
 " The party of FreediMn seeks complete and universal 
 emancipation. You, Whigs of the Reserve, and you espe- 
 cially, seceding Whigs, none know so well as you that 
 these two elements exist and are developed in the two great 
 national parties of the land, as I have described them. 
 That existence and development constitute the only reason 
 you can assign for having been enrolled in the Whig party, 
 and mustered under its banner, so zealously and so long* 
 And now I am not to contend that the evil spirit I described 
 bas possessed the one party without mitigation or excep- 
 tion, and fully directed the actions of the other ; but I ap- 
 peal to you, to your candor and justice, if the beneficent 
 spirit has not worked chiefly in the IFhig party, and its an- 
 tagonist in the adverse party ?" j 
 
 " Slavery is the sin of not some of the States only, but 
 of them all — of not our nation only, but of all nations. It | 
 perverted and corrupted the moral sense of mankind, deeply, ; 
 universal ; and this corruption became a universal habit. 
 Habits of thought became fixed principles. No American 
 State has yet delivered itself entirely from these habits. 
 We in New York are guilty of slavery still by withholding 
 the right of suffrage from the race we have emancipated. 
 You, in Ohio, are guilty in the same way, by a system of 
 black laws, still more aristocratic and odious. It is written 
 in the Constitution of the United Slates, that five slaves ^ 
 shall count equal to three free men, as a basis of represent- | 
 ation ; and it is written, also, in violation to Divine law, 
 that we shall surrender \k\e fugitive slave who takes a refuge 
 at our fireside from his relentless pursuer. You blush not 
 at these things, because they have become as familiar as 
 household words; and your pretended Free-Soil allies claim 
 peculiar merit for maintaining these iniscallcd guarantees 
 of slavery which they find in the national compact. Does 1 
 not all this prove that the Whig parly have kept up with ; 
 the spirit of the age ? Tliat it is as true and faithful to hu- 
 man freedom as the inert conscience of the American peo- 
 ple will permit it to be.' What, then, you say, can nothing 
 be done for freedom because the public conscience is inert? 
 Yes, mueh can be done; everything can be done. Slavery 
 can be limited to its present bounds ; it can be ameliorated. 
 It can be, and it must be, abolished, and you and I can ' 
 and must do it. The task is as simple and easy as its con- ] 
 summation will be beneficent, and its rewards glorious. It | 
 requires only to follow this simple rule of action : To do 
 everywhere, and on every occasion what we can, and not 
 to neglect or refuse to do what we can at any time because 
 at that precise time and on that particular occasion we can- 
 not do more. Circumstances determine possibilities. When 
 we have done our best to shape them and make them pro- 
 pitious, we may test satisfied that superior wisdom bas de- 
 termined their form as they exist, and will be satisfied with 
 us if we do all the good that circumstances leave in our 
 power. But we must begin deeper and lower than the com- 
 
 position and combination of factions or parties wherein the 
 strength and security of slavery lie. You answer that il 
 lies in the Constitution of the United Stales, and the consti- 
 tutions and laws of slaveliolding Slates. Nut at all. Il iH 
 in the erroneous sentiment of the Amciican people. C'o»- 
 stitutions and laws can no more rise above the virtue nl 
 the people than the limpid stream can climb above ils na- 
 tive spring. Inculcate the love of freedom and the equal 
 rights of man under the paternal roof; see to it thai llii-y 
 are taught in the schools and in the churches ; reform your 
 own code ; extend a. cordial welcome to tue fijoitivk 
 who lays his weary limhs at your door, and defend iii.m as 
 you would your paternal gods; correct your own er- 
 ror, that slavery has any constitutional guarantee which 
 may not be released, and ought not to be relinquished ; say 
 to slavery, when it shows its bond and demands iu pound 
 of flesh, that if it draws one drop of blood its life shall pay 
 the forfeit; inculcate that the free Slates can maintain the 
 rights of hospitality and humanity— that Executive autlior- 
 ity can forbear to favor slavery — that Congress can debate — 
 that Congress, at least, can mediate with the slavcholdiin; 
 States — that, at le.ist, future generations might be bought 
 and given up to freedom, and that the treasures wasted in 
 the war with Mexico would have been sufficient to havf 
 redeemed millions unborn from bondage. Do all this, and 
 inculcate all this, in the spirit of moderation and benevo- 
 lence, and not of retaliation and fanaticism, and you will 
 soon bring the parties of the country into an effective ag- 
 gression upon slavery. Whenever the public mind shall 
 will the abolition of slavery, the way will open for it. 
 
 " I know that you will tell me this is all too slow. Well, 
 then, go faster if you can, and I will go with you ; but re- 
 member the instructive lesson that was taught in the words, 
 ' these things ought ye to have done, and not to have left the 
 others undone.' " 
 
 How do you like it .' Will you permit such 
 
 : sentiments as these to obtain ascendency in the 
 
 I Whig party? Acquiesce in them and tamely go 
 
 ' along to win a party victory barren of good, and 
 
 I fruitful only of evil to the country, that office 
 
 hunters may riot in the spoils .' Will you permit 
 
 I party allegiance to carry you so far, as to make 
 
 I you forget that the public good is the only legiti- 
 
 [ mate object of party association ? and that the 
 
 j public safety demands of the people to rebel 
 
 I against political leaders when they seek thus to 
 
 pervert and prostitute party? I know the answer 
 
 to all this has been " there are Barnburners and 
 
 Free-soilers in the Democratic party, who support 
 
 General Pierce; and therefore the fact that Mr. 
 
 Seward and his higher-law followers stand in 
 
 the relation they do to General Scott, constitutes 
 
 no sufficient reason for withholding support from 
 
 him. He is not more objectionable than General 
 
 Pierce; one or the other of them must be elected, 
 
 therefore stick to your party flag." 
 
 Though this, at a slight glance, looks plausible, 
 yet it is but a specious argument. It has, however, 
 brought many a doubting Thomas into the sup- 
 port of General Scott, in the late canvass. It is 
 not a full and fair statement of the case, but i.<! 
 such a statement as was well calculated to deceive 
 and mislead, and it has deceived and misled thou- 
 sands. Now mark how a plain tale shall show its 
 fallacy. I have already descrilied to you the aus- 
 pices under which General Scott was first broiight 
 forward as a candidate for the presidential nomina- 
 tion, and I have detailed to you the circumstances 
 
26 
 
 under which his nomination was finally effected. 
 Remember those farts, and look for a moment at 
 tliesirikiiitct'oiitrasiexliiliited in liie circumstances 
 under which General Pierce was nominated. 
 Before the Democratic Convention assembled, 
 nearly all, if not every man whose name was pre- 
 sented to the consideration of that convention in 
 the first instance, had not only publicly pledged 
 liimselfto maintain the compromise measures by 
 all the ordinary induences which a President may 
 wield, but they went further, and pledged them- 
 selves to veto any bill that might pass Congress 
 repealing the fugitive slave law. Every Demo- 
 crat, therefore, who went into that Convention, 
 where no candidate except such as I liave de- 
 scribed, was presented to its consideration, tacitly 
 consented to surrender whatever of political het- 
 erodoxy had previously attached to him, and 
 came back into the Democratic church ple(li,'ed 
 thenceforth to be a national Democrat. There 
 was a prolonged struggle in the Democratic Con 
 vention, but, unlike the Whig Convention, it was 
 not a struggle between the North and the South, 
 or between compromise Democrats, and anti-com- 
 promise Democrats, but merely a struggle between 
 tiie friends of distinguished men, all of whom had 
 repudiated and spurned abolitionism and section- 
 alism, in the strongest terms. I cannot con- 
 ceive of a stronger contrast than is exhibited by 
 the proceedings of the two conventions, and the 
 circumstances which marked and signalized the 
 nominations which they made. The one was 
 sectional in a high degree, and tainted deeply with 
 Abolition; the other was eminently national. But 
 the convention was so divided between the distin- 
 guished candidates presented in the first instance, 
 that no one of them could unite a majority of 
 two //licJ.s of all the votes, and it became necessary 
 to settle the struggle by looking out for some other 
 candidate. Who was selected, and whence came 
 the movement which selected him ? General 
 Pierce was selected, and was first voted for by the 
 delegation from Virginia, receiving scattering votes 
 from some other Slates, South and North, and he 
 was finally noniituited, unanimously. " Abio 
 look xipon this picture and upon that," and say if 
 there is not a striking contrast. I 
 
 And who is Franklin Pierce, and what his his- j 
 tory in relation to the sectional questions which 
 have 80 lonir disturbed the fpiiet, and llireatened 
 the peace of the country ? What his views on the 
 subject of the compromise measures.' You have 1 
 been made to believe that he was deeply tinctured I 
 with free-soil and witli anti-slavery principles, and 
 that he falls but little short of being an Abolition- 
 ist; and if you had not been made to believe these 
 things, many of you who supported his competitor, 
 would have refused to do so. Justice, truth, and 
 fairness, and every hij^h attribute which the south- 
 ern people claim, has been violated in making you 
 thus believe. I, as a southern man, feel called 
 upon so far as may be in my power, to repair the 
 wrong wliich has been done in this respei-t, by 
 telling you what I know t<j i>e true, that there is 
 not one prominent statesman north of iMastm and 
 Dixon's line, who has longer, or with a braver 
 liatriotism, exerted his influence against the mad 
 fanaticism of the North, than Franklin Pierce. 
 To his immortal honor be it H[)rikpn, by his speech- 
 es in Congress, ami with his great popular power 
 at iiome, he has uiiifuriiily thrown the whole weight 
 
 of his character and influence against sectionalism 
 and abolitionism, and in favor of the Union as it 
 i.s, and the rights of all the States under the Union. 
 Now, it seems to me that we are criminally re- 
 gardless of our own interest, when, instead of 
 according honor to such conduct, we slander its 
 author, by making the people believe that lie is 
 little belter than an Abolitionist. If we thus act, 
 what motive can we present to patriotic northern 
 men, to imperil themselves for our safety .' 
 
 Now, you must see, fellow-citizens, that the 
 anti-compromise and anti-slavery element of the 
 Whig parly came to Baltimore, claiming to control 
 the action of that parlVj and requiring compromise 
 Whigs and sf)Uthern Whigs to yield and submit 
 to them. They carried their point; they nomina- 
 ted their candidate; the compromise Whigs and 
 the southern Whigs did yield and submit; thus 
 placing the anti-slavery, abolition element of the 
 Whig party in the ascendency. Whereas, on the 
 other hand, the facts which 1 have presented to 
 you show, that in the Democratic Convention, the 
 anti-compromise and anti-slavery element of that 
 party made no struggle, inasmuch as every can- 
 didate voted for in the first stage of the proceed- 
 ings, as likewise General Pierce, who was finally 
 nominated, were all publicly pledged lo maintain 
 the compromise measures; and, therefore, judging 
 by the proceedings of the convention, the un- 
 sound elements of the Democratic parly renounced 
 all purposes of future agitation, and agreed tacitly 
 to sustain the Democratic organization upon a 
 national basis. These are the facts of the case; 
 and I repeat, it is hard to conceive of a more sig- 
 nificant and striking contrast, than that exhibited 
 by the proceedings of the two conventions. 
 
 But I suppose I will be accused of deserting my 
 party, because I tell you the truth. If to tell the 
 truth suljjects me to proscription, 1 con.^enl to be 
 proscribed. It is not the first time in my life that 
 I have been denounced for firmly adhering to my 
 convictions. For refusing in the canvass of 1848 
 to declare myself ready and willing to dissolve the 
 Union for hypothetical and conjectural outrag;es, 
 that were predicted as likely to grow out of the 
 anti-slavery excitement which then existed at the 
 North, and which created ultimately the necessity 
 that passed the compromise measures, I was de- 
 nounced for lukewarmness in the cause of southern 
 rights. I contended then, as I do now, that a pub- 
 lic man was out of the line of duly to threaten 
 disunion for evils that might never occur, and that, 
 at least, every peaceful resort under the Constitu- 
 tion ought lo be tried before that extreme remedy 
 was looked to. There are many pe.-u;eful means 
 to which the southern States may resort to protect 
 themselves from the aggressions of fanaticism. A 
 most powerful one would be for the southern 
 Slates — the people of the southern Stales — acting 
 unitedly as a people, to rei'"use at all times to vote 
 for any man for any national honor who had 
 upon the questions touching southern slavery 
 failed to keep himself upon unmistakable national 
 ground, if the southern people would thus act, 
 showing that fifteen Stales would at all times vote 
 in solid column asjainsl any man whose conduct 
 in this regard subjected him to the sli<;hlest suspi- 
 cion, a very powerful motive would lie presented 
 to the numerous aspirants of every party to exert 
 themselves lo keep their party orgaiiizilions on a 
 sound national basis, and untainted with aboli- 
 
27 
 
 tionism. The southern States have thirty Senators 
 in Congress, and these, acting unitedly, can gen- 
 erally defeat any nomination to office made by the 
 President. If they were thus to act, a powerful 
 motive would be presented to that large class of 
 active men who seek appointments to office under 
 the Federal Government to keep down sectional 
 agitation. This last remedy is one to which I 
 would be slow to resort; but a necessity may 
 arise for even this, before our thoughts ought to 
 be turned to a dissolution of the Union. But 
 neither of these remedies can ever be made availa- 
 ble, so long as large numbers of the southern peo- 
 ple can be induced to support a candidate for the 
 Presidency who comes presented to their accept- 
 ance under such circumstances as surrounded 
 General Scott. When these suggestions were 
 made by me in 1848, they were denounced by | 
 many as quite too tame, even as preventive reme- 
 dies. I thought they might well be tried, before 
 public men were called upon to bluster about dis- ■ 
 solving the Union. But, strange to tell, some of 
 those who were loudest in their denunciations of I 
 me for my tameness in supporting southern rights 
 then, are now amongst the most violent and active 
 of those who wage a war of extermination against 
 me because I have thought the time had arrived 
 when we of the South ought to resort to the mild- ; 
 est of those remedies, by refusing to support Gen- 
 eral Scott. 1 
 Fellow-citizens, I believe I have now said enough 
 to present to your view my understanding of the 
 circumstances under which I have acted, and the : 
 views which, in connection with those circum- 
 stances, constitute the grounds of my conviction 
 that the course I have pursued was demanded alike 
 by the duty I owe to you as my constituents, 
 and by the sacred obligations which as a citizen I 
 owed to my country. I submit them to your con- 
 sideration, with the hope and belief, that when 
 you consider them fairly and dispassionately, 
 you will cease to condemn me. That I strongly 
 desire this result I confess; for the recollections of 
 the past make it impossible for me to be indiffer- 
 ent to your good opinion. But if this hope fails, 
 without making any complaint against you, I will 
 try to console myself witli the reflection that my 
 fidelity to you and my country was of a character 
 too inflexible to permit me to win your approval 
 by deserving your condemnation. 
 
 Does it not occur to you, fellow-citizens, that 
 you ought to be a little charitable to me, when you 
 remember that up to the time of the nomination, 
 your feelings, and views, and purposes correspond- 
 ed with my own; and that long after the nomination 
 many of you stood aloof, hesitating and doubting, 
 and that at last, when you did yield to the pressure 
 of party, you did it with qualmish revulsions of 
 conscience, suggesting to your minds the fear that 
 in yielding to the demands of parly you were pos- 
 sibly forgetting the claims of your country ? More 
 than one friend, before the election, said to me, 
 " 1 intend to vote for Scott, but I sincerely hope 
 he may not be elected." More than one friend 
 has told me since the election, "I voted with my 
 party, but am truly glad lie is not elected." How 
 many such are there in the country.' In my opin- 
 ion there are many thousands; and yet, I doubt 
 not, many of these clamor against me, because, 
 possessing a more intimate acquaintance with the 
 whole case, and having a fuller view of it than 
 
 they could possibly have, I firmly adhered to what 
 I believed to be my duty. Facts such as these 
 ought, it seems to me, to awaken in your niinda 
 the inquiry whether it is consistent with your duty 
 as citizens to permit the power of party orj^imiza- 
 tion to carry you beyond the line whicii your patri- 
 otic instincts forbade you to cross. 1 ask you to- 
 day, fellow-citizens, if you do not feel that the 
 country is safer than if the presidential election 
 had resulted otherwise.'' Those men who felt that 
 they had personal interests involved may find it 
 difficult to welcome this belief; but I believe that 
 if the masses of the Whig party — the Whig peo- 
 ple — do not already realize this feeling, when there 
 shall have been time for passions and prejudices 
 to cool down, such will be the judgment of a large 
 majority of them. It seems to me that the over- 
 whelming result ought to make you think. Wliere 
 are the Whig legions that were wont to carry the 
 Whig banner through the storm of |)olitical battle 
 to triumph and victory? With a Whig candidate 
 for the Presidency, whose military achievements 
 exceed in brilliancy those of any other man in 
 our history, they refused to march under his lead, 
 not, as I believe, because his personal charticter 
 was unacceptable to them, nor yet because they 
 distrusted his individual patriotism, but they esti- 
 mated correctly the causes I have assigned to you 
 for my conduct, and in those causes found a sat- 
 isfactory reason for withholding their support from 
 General Scott. Look at the large cities, where 
 commerce creates and accumulates capital, and 
 where its possessors are keenly vigilant in relation 
 to all that tends to affect the mere business inter- 
 ests of the country, and you will see that in all of 
 them there was an immense falling off from former 
 Whig strength. General Scott was chosen for his 
 availability, and is beaten in twenty-seven of the 
 thirty-one States, and the Whig party is over- 
 thrown everywhere, except in Massachusetts and 
 (Vermont, in Temiessee, and Kentucky! I will 
 not remark upon this singular and somewhat lone- 
 some conjunction, further than to say that Ver- 
 j mont has a law upon her statute-book nullifying 
 I the fugitive slave law, and that it was in Massa- 
 chusetts that mobs assembled, and violently in- 
 vaded the courts of justice, rescuing and emanci- 
 I pating fugitive slaves who had been legally ar- 
 rested, to be tried under the fugitive slave law. 
 ; And in regard to the victories in Tennessee and 
 j Kentucky, they will, I apprehend, prove to be 
 ! like Cornwallis's victory over General Greene at 
 ; Guilford Court-House. When Cornwallis was 
 congratulated by one of his officers upon the 
 achfevement of that victory, he replied, " A few 
 more suc/t victories will cost us ^imericn." When 
 1 spoke in the House of Representatives two days 
 before the Whig National Convention assembled 
 at Baltimore, addressing myself to the hypothesis 
 that Mr. Stanly's views might be accepted by the 
 Convention, and that no resolution would be 
 passed pledging the Whig party to the mainte- 
 nance of the compromise measures, and that Gen- 
 eral Scott would adhere to the policy of silence on 
 that question, I predicted that no southern State 
 would support him, and that he would be more 
 overwhelmingly defeated than any candidate ever 
 before nominated by either party. If you will do 
 me the favor to remember some extracts from 
 former speeches to which 1 have called your atten- 
 tion, you will see that 1 comprehended the causes 
 
28 
 
 wliich would produce timt result, with a certainty 
 that justified the confident posiiiveness of nny pre- 
 dictions. Vou rejected my opinions, and gave 
 your confidence to tliose who assured you of a 
 party victory. Althouirh the Convention, con- 
 trary to Mr. Stanly's advice, passed a resolution 
 nominally pledicin^ the Whijr party to the main- 
 tenance of the compromise measures, and although 
 General Scott *• accepted the nominalinn with tlie res- 
 olutions annr red," heho\d the result!! My pre- 
 diction is verified, almost to the letter. Where 
 is the Whig party.' Whose lead has led it to 
 ruin .' 
 
 It was against Seward and his followers, more 
 than against General Scott, that public patriotism 
 flashed forth its consumingfires; it was against him 
 and his cohorts that the American ballot-box rolled 
 forth iis destroying thunder, proclaiming to all 
 presidential aspirants that the American people 
 will elevate no man to the Presidency, who, in 
 order to reach that high station, colludes with fac- 
 tions whose aims and purposes are inimical to 
 the domestic peace of these States, and the stabil- 
 ity of the Union. Be not sad at that event, fel- 
 low-citizens; you ought to rejoice. You have 
 been saved from yourselves. Let the whole coun- 
 try "breathe freer and deeper," for it has been 
 saved from a great danger. Seward and his hosts 
 now lay prostrate and destroyed; sectionalism and 
 abolitionism are rebuked, and nationality stands 
 enthroned in the affections of the American people. 
 There is a magnificent grandeur in this display of 
 patriotism which reminds me of Milton's descrip- 
 tion of the war in Heaven, when angels rebelled 
 against God, and methinks there is a glory and 
 sublimity in the thunder of the American ballot- 
 box which overthrew Seward and his hosts, not 
 unlike that thunder which drove Satan and his 
 associate devils over the battlements of Heaven 
 into the hike that burns with fire and brimstone 
 forever. Yes, fellow-citizens; far from being sad 
 and sorrowful, you ought, in my opinion, to re- 
 joice with exceeding great joy. You might well 
 sing a song of thank.sgiving to American patriot- 
 ism, such as Mo.sesand the children of Israel sang 
 to the Lord fir overthrowing Pharaoh and his 
 hosts when they sang as follows: 
 
 Exodut, Chap. XV., Verse 1. "Then sans Moses and the 
 children of Nnol this sorii; iiiilo the Lord, and spako, say- 
 ing: I will sins; unto the Lord, lor he hath triinnphed jjlo- 
 riously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the " 
 tun. I 
 
 Vertc \. " Pharaoh 'Bcharion and hii host hath he cast • 
 into the sea: his clui»en captains also are drowned in the 
 Red Hca. 
 
 Versed. " The depths have covered them : they sank into 
 tlie bottom as n Rtone. 
 
 Vertel. " .\nd iti llie !<reafness of thine excelleney thou : 
 hajrt ovrrihrowii them that rose np a?ainst thee : thnn scut- l| 
 est forth thy wrath, wlilrh consumed llieni as slulihle. I 
 
 Verif. H. " And with llie hla-t of thy nostril llie waters ]l 
 were gathered together, Ihr l|<io,|s stood npriithtas an heap, 1 
 and the depths wi.-re conijeahid in the heart of the sea. 
 
 r<rrtc9. "The enemy saiil, t will pursue. I will overtake, ' 
 I will divide the spiiil ; my lusi whall lie salislied upon 
 tUcra; I will ilraw my sword, my hand Hlinll disiroy them. 
 
 Ver^e 10. " Thon didst Mow wiili ihy wind, the Hen cov- 
 ered Uieni : Ihey sank as lead in the iiii;;lity wal.-rs." 1 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I know that iinrnedialely after 
 
 a heated presidential election, in which you pur- 
 I sued a course different from that which I am con- 
 '■ tending ought to have been pursued, you will have 
 to make a hard struggle with your jiride of opin- 
 ion to accept as true what I am urging; and 1 am 
 not so ignorant of human nature as not to appre- 
 hend that your first impulse will be one of resent- 
 ment. But I show you the unbounded confidence 
 which I place in the good sense and justice of my 
 countrymen, when I thus frankly utter my opin- 
 I ion. I am a believer in that sentiment so well ex- 
 pressed by the illustrious Clay— " Truth is om- 
 !; nipotent, and public justice certain." 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I fancy that I can see in some 
 of your countenances an expre.ssion which assures 
 me that you are soliloquizing after this fashion: 
 " Has he not always stood forth for Whig meas- 
 ures and principles.' Has he not invoked us for 
 many years to uphold and support them.' And 
 now, he tells us, it is better for the country that 
 the Whig candidate is defeated, and a Democratic 
 President elected. We don't understand all this." 
 Fellow-citizens, it has been the trick of the late 
 pre.sidential canvass to arouse the passions and 
 , prejudices, which were engendered in party strug- 
 gles upon questions and issues now practically ob- 
 solete, and catch your votes, through the agency 
 of those passions and prejudices, artfully diverting 
 your attention, in the mean time, from those far 
 more important, living, vital measures and prin- 
 ciples, really involved in the canvass; and the 
 trick has succeeded. If I have succeeded in making 
 myself understood to-day, you know what I mean 
 when I speak of obsolete questions, and of those 
 living questions which now claim your serious at- 
 tention, and which I think ought to have controlled 
 your action as citizens charged in no small degree 
 with the preservation of the freedom achieved by 
 your ancestors, and, in fact, with the destiny of 
 the Republic foundeil by their valor and wi.fdom. 
 In my opinion, events are near at hand — they are 
 even now present in the politics of our country, 
 which make it the duty of the people to cast aside 
 the prejudices which former party conflicts, in re- 
 gard to questions not now in issue, have engen- 
 dered, and which party leaders artfully use as 
 meshes wherewith to fetter public reason and pa- 
 triotism, and awake to the actual living questions 
 of the time, and act according to their best judg- 
 ment, without the slightest regard to former "party 
 associations. 
 
 i have been a Whig — I am a Whig — a southern 
 Whig — which means a national Whig, in the 
 true and just sense of that term. I believe that 
 the principles declared in the resolutions adopted 
 by the late Whig Convention at Baltimore, are 
 those upon which this Government ought to be 
 administered. I have heretofore, and will hereaf- 
 ter, do all that I may be able to do, to maintain 
 those principles; and when the Whig party will 
 nationalize itself by repudiating the influences 
 which now control its organization, and devote its 
 power and influence to the maintenance of those 
 principles, F will be found an earnest soldier in its. 
 ranks. And yet, fellow-citizens, you must permit 
 me to rejieat, that the defeat tif General Scott, un- 
 der the circumstances, was a great good to the 
 country. WUrthe.r Gvnrritl Pierce's tlertinn is in 
 itself tn jirnre a lilessing to the country, rrmuius to he 
 developed bij the future. 
 
 What good or evil, I beg you to consider, can 
 
29 
 
 General Pierce, as President of the United States, 
 accomplish in regard to the old party questions, 
 comparable to the evils which I have endeavored 
 to show would have resulted from the eleciion of 
 General Scott, and the implied approval by the 
 American people of the aims and objects of that 
 corps of politicians who were most effective in 
 bringing him forward and nominating him for 
 the Presidency? I know that efforts have been 
 made, and perhaps successfully, to frighten you 
 with the apprehension of foreign wars; and I ad- 
 mit that there are public men of position and 
 character in the Democratic party, who utter views 
 in regard to our foreign relations well calculated 
 to excite the solicitude of thoughtful patriots; but 
 I have yet to see that General Pierce participates 
 in their wild and reckless views; and I am yet to 
 learn that these men will control the policy of his 
 Administration. I am, however, scarcely able to 
 conceive of any calamity, of which there is a rea- 
 sonable probability that it may be brought upon 
 the country by his election, equal to those which, 
 in my opinion, would have resulted from the elec- 
 tion of General Scott. Though no man is more 
 devoted to peace than myself, yet I am not sure 
 that a foreign war, lasting for years, and involving 
 the shedding of much blood and the expenditure 
 of millions of treasure, would prove so injurious 
 to the present and future interests of the Republic 
 as such an indorsement of the views and aims of 
 those who nominated General Scott would have 
 proved. Civil war and domestic strife tending to 
 civil war, are more terrible to my contemplation 
 than foreign contests. The heroism of our peo- 
 ple, and the great pecuniary resources of our coun- 
 try, might bring us victorious and safe out of the 
 one; but what could save us from the horrors and 
 evils and ruin of the other? Then, if we have 
 incurred some danger on the one hand, we have 
 avoided a greater one on the other. But I have 
 looked into General Pierce's history, and studied 
 his character with a solicitude, inspired by the 
 fact that by withholding my support from Gen- 
 eral Scott, I made myself in some small degree re- 
 sponsible, so far, at least, as the exhibition of a 
 wish could make me responsible, for General 
 Pierce's election. I think I see in that character 
 and history, much to inspire the hope that he will 
 meet the great difficulties which will confront him, 
 with firmness, patriotism, and wisdom. Should 
 he thus act, he will probably soon be violently 
 opposed by the factions of both of the old parties, 
 whose vengeful opposition to him will be in pre- 
 cise proportion to the fidelity, firmness, and pa- 
 triotism with which he serves his country, and 
 his whole country. But should he plant himself 
 upon national and statesmanlike ground, and cour- 
 iigeously maintain it, he will establish a claim as 
 against such factions, to the sympathy and sup- 
 port of all good men in the country; and under 
 such circumstances 1 promise him mine in ad- 
 vance. I am not certain that by thus acting he 
 will not draw to his support the sound elements 
 of both the old parties, and form and consolidate a 
 party competent to serve and save the country. 
 
 If, on the other hand, he fails to prove himself 
 equal to the trials of his position; if he fails to act 
 as I have suggested, then I think the party which 
 elected him will fall into fragments; and the coun- 
 try will experience that state of chaos in relation 
 to parties to which I referred as a future proba- 
 
 bility, in the extract read to you from a speech 
 made by me at Nashville on the ^iUth of March, 
 1851. in that event, the southern Wiiig organ- 
 ization, which ittfis a party when I made that 
 speech, if it had acted in the late presidential elec- 
 tion upon the views urged by me, would have so 
 commanded the respect and confidence of tlie coun- 
 try as to have become the imcleus around which 
 all the sound elements in American politics would 
 have gathered; and it would have been its glory to 
 achieve the redemption of the country from such 
 a state of things. What it will hereafter accom- 
 plish I will not undertake to predict, but I appre- 
 hend that the probabilities of its future usefulness 
 are very much diminished. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, the Government we have in- 
 herited from our ancestors is based upon the theory 
 that man is capable of self-government; and this 
 theory imphes that the virtue and intelligence of 
 the people will keep constant and vigilant watch 
 over public men and political parties, and sustain 
 and uphold the former when they uprightly perform 
 their duty; and chastise them with pojiular disap- 
 proval when faithless to public interest; and main- 
 tain or put down party organization, as such 
 organizations may, or may not faithfully devote 
 themselves to the good of the Republic. There 
 are indications in the politics of our country, 
 which make me fear that by availing themselves 
 artfully of the passions and prejudices which party 
 conflicts engender, the politicians of the country, 
 the political leaders of the times, have acquired 
 such an ascendency over the people as to make 
 them resign their right to think and act independ- 
 ently, and deem themselves bound, when party 
 issues it mandates, to obey implicitly, without 
 inquiring how the public welfaie is to be effected. 
 And so complete has become the power of these 
 party organizations, that if an individual dares to 
 think and act for himself, in opposition to their 
 decrees, " shoot the deserter," is the word, and 
 at once thousands of soldiers volunteer to execute 
 him. Such is the terror of this party tyranny, 
 that few dare brave its fury; and it seems to me 
 that it is practically subverting the theory of our 
 Government, by destroying that independent, vir- 
 tuous, and intelligent supervision by the people 
 over public men and political parties, which tliat 
 theory requires, as necessary to its successful 
 development and maintenance. It is practically 
 transferring the control of public aflairs from " the 
 many to the few," from the people to the politi- 
 cians, and tliese are pretty much independent of 
 those, so long as they keep within the requirements 
 of party, and are sufficiently servile and obsequi- 
 ous to the greater chieftains of party. 
 
 Can our country go forward, with its institu- 
 tions unimpaired, if the people thus surrender their 
 right to control and govern? I know that their 
 flatterers tell the peojile that the theory of man's 
 capacity for self-government is no longer an ex- 
 periment; and they point in triumph to the growth 
 and development of our country, and the freedom 
 and happiness and prosperity of our people, in 
 proof of this assumption. But would it not be 
 safer and wiser for us to entertain the apprehen- 
 sion that it is possible to make shipwreck of our in- 
 heritance? It would at least tend to inspire us with 
 more vigilance and thoughtfulne.ss in watching 
 over it. Our Government has existed but a brief 
 space of time. There are men now living who 
 
30 
 
 lived when the Constitution was adopted. What 
 is the life of a man, compared with the perpetual 
 duration which we hope for our republican insti- 
 tutions ? 
 
 In the desert wastes of E^ypt there are structures 
 of vast altitude and dimensions, builded with a ma- 
 sonry so perfect that although neither history nor 
 tradition can tell the period of their construction, 
 they yet stand in solitary sublimity, with not a stone 
 displaced bv the hand of time or the storms of ages. 
 On the banks of the Potomac, in the capital of 
 this Re|)ulilic, a monument is now beine: erected, 
 called the " Washington Monument." It has 
 already reached a great height, and is destined to 
 rise yet higher towards heaven. Thousands of 
 citizens have freely iriven, and are yet giving, their 
 means to its completion; and every State of this 
 Union has contributed to its construction a block 
 of marlile; and foreign nations, free and despotic, 
 have claimed the honor of making like contribu- 
 tions, and of uniting with us — not to do honor to 
 Washington — but to hand down to remote future 
 ages a suitable memorial of the estimate placed 
 by the present generation upon the character and 
 services of that illustrious man. When the Poto- 
 mac shall have flowed by the base of that monu- 
 ment for hundreds of ages — when it shall have 
 stood as longas the Egyptian Pyramids, when all 
 of our territories shall be peopled, when every 
 plain and valley between the Atlantic and Pacific 
 shall teem with population, and cities, and vil- 
 
 lages, and churches shall rise up in those vast soli- 
 tudes between the Mississippi and the Pacific, 
 where, now, the voice of civilized man has never 
 been heard; when the population of our country 
 shall be numbered by hundreds of millions, and 
 when its commerce, and revenues, and resources, 
 shall have increased proportionably, placing it in 
 power and grandeur far above and beyond any- 
 thing recorded in history — then, if our republican 
 institutions shall exist unimpaired, securing to the 
 people of that lime liberty and happiness such as we 
 enjoy, the theory of man's capacity for self-gov- 
 ernment will no longer be an experiment, bid an 
 established trxUh. A destiny like this will not be 
 achieved, unless the people shall constantly and 
 practically assert their right to control jiublic af- 
 fairs, by holding jiublic men and political parties 
 in strict subordination to their will, and regarding 
 and treating them only as agents with which 
 THEY THEMSELVES preserve the public liberty, and 
 achieve the public welfare. 
 
 Note. — When this speech was delivered, its 
 author announced that he would write iind publish 
 it so soon as practicable, after his arrival in Wash- 
 ington city; but a severe attack of sickness has 
 delayed its publication longer than was then ex- 
 pected. It may not be amiss to add that quota- 
 tions and extracts briefly made at the time the 
 speech was delivered, are more fully embraced in 
 the printed speech 
 
 W4S ' 
 

 
 • "»'' <^'^ 
 
 '^o, **Tr.'' Ap 
 
 ^ . ' O K • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^,. 
 
 v^^ 
 
 ^'V 
 
 ^-^ c 
 
 * ^P, 
 
 o V 
 
 
 ,/v' "^ 
 
 .A' 
 
 ^■J- ^^ '^yw,' ^' \ --J 
 
 lV^ 
 
 ^^^, '^^^' .0 
 
(>°^ 
 
 0^ »'/„L'* *> 
 
 ^q,/*^'^*\0' ^- '*^^^" -^' 
 
 ^*^°.<. 
 
 
 L". ^^ C'O' ♦^ 
 
 
 ^-^^^' 
 
 bV 
 
 ' * «i' '^ • ^1^3 ♦ AV •5V 'a'\ 
 
 %^o^ 
 
 ^oV" 
 
 
 0" ."'^ 
 
 CL. * 
 
 
 ♦jj;55^vjk'^ v> 
 
 
 ^^ . 
 
 
 
 
 
 o no ^■^ 
 
 
 ^-TTT*' /v