Lll TlBR/UlY OF CONGRESS 00013621550 ^ ^y E 420 .L71 ^^''^ ' ICHUSETTS LIBERTY COM AND SPEECH OP HON. JOHN P. TOGETHER WITH HIS Letter AcceptiRg Ms Nomination for the Our State Gonventioii. This important anniversary ha? come and gone. And we do but echo the thoughts of every fnend who attended, in saying that it wa. by far the most animating and hopeful rneetin- of the kind that the Liberty party has ever heM m Massachusetts. The number in attendance was unusually large, filling the Tremont Temple as full as an ordinary congregation all day And of these, very many were new faces now lor the first time met to co-operate politically ^v^th the friends of emancipation. Ail parts of the State were more fully represented than usual. Ihe complete harmony of feelings and views was highly gratifying. The whole multitude were of one heart and of one mind. All seemed to leel sure that the Liberty party is in the ri-^ht track, and that we have nothing to do but to°go ahead. All the details of business were done up With ease and promptness. A new and lar one hundred of our staunchcst mm ;,. .11 ,,.,», ""^1 charity in all other iio,nt« nf ^.•ffi,,^!: I ' , -".L-i aiding ,»00U one hundred of our staunchcst men, in all part, of the Commonwealth, who will be likely to give the campaign an effective impulse this year The Convention met in the Tremont Temple and was called to order at 10 o'clock on Welow Citizens, Lahiep AND Gentlemen : — Thanking you for the cordial and enthusiastic greeting with which you have received me, though I have not the vanity to at- tribute it to any thing personal to myself, but rather to the cause with which my humble name has been somewhat identified, I proceed this evening in obedience to your request, to ofl'er you some suggestions with reference to a sub- ject which should be of engrossing and thrilling interest to every citizen of the Commonwealth , and I shall commence without apology and with- out preface. It has always struck my mind that when a physical and moral evil is to be encountered, our first inquiry should be into the character and cause of the evil. Go into any of the streets, and lanes, and by- places of this metropolis, or of any of the large cities and towns of this country, and you will find in all those places the miserable victims of intemperance. Physical, mental, and moral de- cay are in full operation upon them ; disease in every form to which the human' constitution is subject, has seized upon them ; and they are walking about, a living death ; but they do not know what is the matter with them. They con- tinue daily to pour down drafts of liquid fire, re- ducing their minds to idiocy and their bodies to putrefaction, and still they are inquiring, what is the matter? They have coughs and cold.s, fevers and agues, but they are most sadly at a loss to know the cause of it. It has struck me that the situation of the Uni- ted States at the present moment is not entirely unlike that condition. Our resources and our . credit are being exhausted, our fair fame withered, our hopes blasted, and the keenest vi- sion cannot discern in the distant future the day star of hope, and yet our wisest statesmen are looking hither and thither to know what is the cause of it. We are engaged in a war, a war that brands the nation as savage, and the age as barbarou.«, and we don't know how we got there. We don't kno;v who is responsible for it. Says one, O, yes, I know, it was the march of Gen. Taylor from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande. That'a the cause of it. Another says, No, it was the Mexican debts. O no, says a third, it was because the Administration wanted to sup- plant one General in Mexico, and put in anoth- er. And so they go through the whole round of secondary causes, but doa'l know what aila us. There is not a child of ordinary understand- ing that does not know the cause. You cannot go into a cliurch and hear a sermon without hearing it. You cannot look your neighbor in the face, — you cannot look to the right or the left but what you see it stamped in horrid linea- ments. — Every body knows it, but nobody dares to say so. Now, my friends, I propose this evening to treat this subject. I propose to suggest to you my own opinions upon this subject, and to do it plainly. And when 1 say that, you will not ac- cuse me of any design to flatter you. I know nothing flattering to say to you upon this bub- ject. I do not come here this evening with any- thing new. I have addressed a great many pub- lic assemblies in this State and in many other States, and it would be strange if there was any- thing new for me to say. The condition of the country is just the same. There is the same great disturbing element, the same great causes in operation, and the same effects developed ; and how can any one speaking truthfully, say anything new upon the subject. No, my friends, the subjects are old and familiar, though not so old as they will be, nor so familiar as I wish they were. Let me, in the first place, say a word or two on some of the difficulties which lie in the way of a right discernment of the subject ; and one difficulty seems to me to lie here. We are un- willing to look at the question as individuals. We are unwilling to see and acknowledge, that to every individual there is an individual respon- sibility, but we are endeavoring to throw oiftlie responsibility upon somebody else. We are looking at the subject in every light except that of individual duty. One of the most palpable and obvious ways in which this is done, is to throw it upon the Gov- ernment ; and that seems to be all-sufficient. AVhen a man has said that he has found the cause, that the Government have done so and so, be thinks no doubt that he has conve3'ed an idea by the words he has uttered. Let me ask such a man if he ever saw that Government .' Do you know where the government lives ? Oh yes, nays one, it is at Washington. No, my friends, I have been to Washington, and you might search there for the government with as little r!r«ct as Diogenes searched with a candle at noonday for an honest man. The government is not there. You will meet some gentlemen there who will tell you they are far from being the government. They are only the humble servants of the people, and would be shocked with the idea of being the government. And they are right — they are not the government. Where is it then ? Why, my friends, it is here. It is in the faces of the intelligent community before me, and around me, aod I have never seen, nor do I expect to see, a more living em- bodiment of the government of the United States, than I now see before me. W^hen you want to look at the responsible authors of the calami- ties of the United States, they are here. The government of every country is exactly what the popular sentiment makes it ; it is just exact- ly as good as the people, and no better ; just ex- actly as bad, and no worse ; it is the consent, the will, the purpose of the people that giv« force, vitality and energy to the action of the government ; and the idea that under a popular and elective system of government there are re- sponsibilities pertaining to the government sepa- rate from those pertaining to the people, is, to say the very least of it, ridiculous and absurd. The responsibility lies with the people, and the Government do just exactly what the peo- ple want them to do. Have they sent their ar- mies to Mexico? Have they bombarded her cities, and when the defenceless women and children, despairing of help from any earthly arm, thronged the temples of the Most High, have they sent their Christian bomb shells into those temples, painting their walls with the blood and brains of women and children ? Who has done it ? — Why, my friends, you have done it, your agents have done it, and they have done it because the popular taste would not be satis- fied with any thing short of a picture with such living colors. When the time comes when the popular sentiment shall be so renovated that your taste will not sustain this, then, and not till then, will these public exhibitions cease. I think I heard a solitary voice say that this responsibility belonged to Mr. Polk. Well, I have heard it said elsewhere. I have heard within the last two months from my seat in Congress, great and venerable statesmen in the American Senate say it, and attempt so to vote as to throw the responsibility upon the President. Why, my friends, it is utterly impossible. There is a degree of responsibility which belongs to every man ; for the right discharge of his dutic's he is accountable, and it is idle to attempt to throw it anywhere else. One of the great difficulties lying in the way is that we merge the responsibility belonging to the individual into the irresponsibility of party majorities. We remember that we are Whigs or Democrats, but forget that we are something higher, holier, than Whigs or Democrats, that we are immortal beings with responsibilities pertaining to us, individually, which we cannot put off. We forget that we are the common children of one Almighty Parent who makes men and women, but does not m.ake Whigs and De- mocrats. If, then, the responsibility belongs to "' pie, the people have a duty to perform, til we come up to the perception of th it is idle to talk ; because right action gin whore tlie rc-sponsibiiity rests, and the gov- ernment will be nothing more nor less than the popular will and sentin)ent. It is perfectly idle for us to quarrel with the index which we have ourselves put up. The remedy, then, is with the people. So it must begin, and so it will end, becanse when the people are right, the gov- ernment is right as a matter of course : and it seems to me that these are propositions too palpable to need further elucidation. Then, my friends, what have we got to do ? To inculcate right opinions, and right action will flow out of it. Allow me to say one word upon a most la- mentable error. We fancy that there is some- thing very potent in getting together, particular- ly in large numbers, and passing stringent reso- lutions. The most gratifying fact in the history of resolutions which I have seen has been this ; that when the State of New Hampshire in 1816, passed some pretty stringent Anti-slavery Reso- lutions, the Governors of South Carolina and Virginia sent them back to us. They don't send back Massachusetts Resolutions ; and why ? Because, it is perfectly understood when you pass them that they mean nothing. You passed resolutions against the Annexation of Texas, "Whig and Democrat, unanimously, in the strong- est terms in which language could shape them, and you sent them to AVashington. What effect did they have ? Just as much as if you had sent them last year's Almanac, and no more. Texas was annexed ; War with Mexico followed, and they sent for a Massachusetts Regiment to go and fight the War of Slavery. And they ^vent — and if they send for another, they will go, ac- companied with a resolution perhaps. But why did they send back the New Hamp- shire resolutions ? It was something new and strange, coming from New Hampshire ; they feared we were getting refractory, and wanted to apply the rod in season. And I hope they v/ill continue to send them back until we learn to throw a little more resolution into our resolu- tions. When we do that, they won't comeback. The resolutions passed in 1775, and sent across the waters to Great Britain, didn't come back. _ There was meaning in them, and they knew that the resolutions of to-day would be followed by the action of to-morrow. Allow me now to take up the question which I proposed to treat upon, — What produced this War? The answer must be anticipated by every body. It was slavery. " Another aboli- tion lecture," says some one. Perhaps so, but when we learn that slavery ut the present mo- ment is taxing the people beyond all former pre- cedent, when we know that we are spending this year nearly three times as much as was spent in the last war to maintain freedom upon the seas, in another war to maintain slavery upon the land, is it not time to speak out ? I know that there have been prophets upon the mountains that have foreseen the dark cloud and have sounded the alarm, but the people said, Not yet. The cloud has extended in dimen- sions, and settled in thick night upon us, and the i^Iarm has been again sounded, but the dull sleepers say, Not yet. And now the whole liorizon is overcast, and the tempest is about us ; the moral indignation of earth and^ the judg- ments of God come in thick succession upon us, but yet it is not time j " Not yet," they say. When will it be time ? Where is the moral guage to measure the length, breadth and depth of our degradation before it will be time for us to wake up ? I would like for these men to de- scend to the bottomless pit, and see if they can find any gauge to measure that depth to which we must sink before it will be time to wake up and arouse. You hear a great deal said at the North about dough-faced Representatives. You have got them, true enough, but what is the reason of it > It is because they have got a more dough-faced constituency at home. When the people are right upon this subject — when reformation begins in the right place, then, my friends, you will have a right spirit in the Representatives you send. Let me ask you, has there ever been a time in the history of New England, when a Representative could have gone and stood up faithfully, declared the truth upon this subject, and been sustained by his constituency ? Has there been a time when the church itself would have sustained such a man ? Then, in heaven's name, don't complain of your Representatives ; it is because the representative is the representative of the people, and is not the representative of something better than the people, that fault is Ibund with him. I come then to the elucidation of this ques- tion. And when I say that the present war in which we are engaged arises out of the express and avowed determination of the American Government to make the extension and per- petuation of Slavery one of the leading motives of action, I believe I say what is familiar to any one conversant with public affiiirs. It is a truth so palpable that I don't know but I owe you an apology for making an attempt to establish it here to-night. It is a truth which cannot be winked out of sight, written upon our official history, which will there remain in glaring characters as long as the archives of the Ameri- can Government stand among the records of time. I ascribe its origin to the Annexation of Texas ; we ought not to content ourselves with any secondary inquiries, and we cannot find its origin short of that. We may have different opinions upon the subject. Some may think that if matters had been managed with pru- dence, we might have avoided the war ; that Mexico was so weak and distracted that we might have presumed upon our power, and Mexico would have submitted while we acted the robber's part. But when we go back to the prime cause, there can be no mistake as to the character of the conquest in which we are en- gaged, and for the purposes for which it is car- ried on. I do not intend to weary you with reading, but the correspondence of our Govern- ment is written all over with it. Were a stran- ger to be obliged to take the correspondence of 1843 and 1844, and to form an opinion of the United States Government and Constitution i'rom it, he could come to no other conclusion but that slavebreeding and slaveholding were the only interests worthy of the fostering care of the National Government. The Secretary of State, writing to Mr. Mur- phy, our Charge in Texas, on Jan. 16, 1844, says, speaking of slavery : " I will only add, that if Texas should not be attached to the United States, she cannot main- tain that institution ten years, and probably not half that time." There was the proposition. If we only let Texas alone ;' if we attend to our own business, slavery would die out, and liberty would suc- ceed in live years. That was the attitude in which we were placed. There was the Ameri- can nation, a republic, springing into existence with the glorious announcement that " All men are born equal," not content with the an- nouncement of it, but appealing to the God of Heaven to attest the fidelity with which they made it, and the integrity with which they would sustain it ; and ere that generation had entirely passed from the stage, we find it carry- ing on a crusade in foreign lands, and stretching out robber hands to take home the provinces of a sister republic, lest the boon of freedom should be enjoyed by their bondmen, and the wither- ing curse of slavery should die out of their midst. That is the position in which our gov- ernment placed us, and they have said this, in no equivocal terms, over and over again. The Secretary of State also declared that the establishment of a Government prohibiting the existence of slavery there, wonld be one of the greatest calamities which could befall the coun- try. Some of you may say that this does not belong to Massachusetts. '" It may be very good talk for your New Hampshire Locofocos, but you don't come it here." But the Govern- ment of the United States and the Executive have declared that that was the policy they fol- lowed ; that was the reason they laid down as influencing their conduct. And the whole coun- try followed, the whole resources of the coun- try have been pledged ; the arms, the men, the forces of the nation are being employed to-day to carry out these very principles and meas- ures. Your Massachusetts regiment has gone there to carry out these doctrines and to pre- vent the calamity of a free nation. Our Govern- ment pledged themselves that they would not allow it to succeed without the most strenuous efforts to prevent it ; and what efforts more stren- uous than sending men to fight the battles of slavery and paying their expenses ? My friends, it is a national policy ; and the whole nation are responsible for it. We are like passengers embarked aboard one common ship. If the voyage is prosperous, if the gales of heaven blow propitiously upon us, we all share in the prosperity and in the happi- ness. But if, on the other hand, storms and dis- asters overtake us, one ruin will involve us all together, and we cannot separate our lot, one from another. One welfare or one ruin is our lot ; and a common destiny is our inheritance. That these transactions might not be wanting in atrocity, all was done in the name of free- dom.— It was to extend the area of freedom, to extend our free institutions ; because we were a free and Christian people. Ay, and we are sending our missionaries abroad, and I suppose < you have in this city societies which ask that you will give of your abundance or your penury to send the gospel off to heathen lands— that have not got any free institutions. I would ask where they propose to send the missionaries? What place so lost and reprobate as to require such a gospel as ours ?— Have they found an is- land in the solitudes of the ocean, a mountain in the bosom of Asia, or a rock in the desert of Africa, inhabited by a nation or tribe so forget- ful of God, so lost to every high, and generous and honorable impulse of humanity, that they are stretching out their hands to extend the em- pire of chains and slavery ? If they have got such a place as that, give them something ; but see to it that you do not give them more than half of what you can spare. Take the rest, and send a home missionary to the seat of your na- tional government, to proclaim in the ears of your national rulers the first principles of that religion which is to send "deliverance to the cap- tive, and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound." 1 wonder how it would have sounded if the Governor of your Commonwealth, in his annual Thanksgiving proclamation, had called upon the good people of the State to come together, and when thanking God for the ingatherings of the harvest, to thank Him also that he had been pleased in His infinite mercy to make us, the people of Massachusetts, the humble instruments of His power in extending the benign influences of slavery over another nation. And yet, if the Administration is right, and if through our means the clanking chain of the slave, and the wail- ing of the bondsman are heard there, why shoi we not thank Heaven ? Why, my friends suggestion is almost too impious for though yet it is carrying oat the avowed policy of oar Government. Here, then, is the position in which we are placed. Here is a war confessedly prosecuted and carried on for this purpose. Look to the developments of the last few days. See the letter published by the Chairman of the Com- mittee on Military Affairs in the Senate, in which the Wilmot Proviso is opposed, because it will cause supplies for the prosecution of the war to be v/ithheld. What is it but saying that the moment the people of the United States are deter- mined that no more slave territory shall be an- nexed to the United States, you will hear no more call for supplies of men and money, that moment you have peace. Have the people of the free States no interest in this matter ? Do the citizens of Massachu- those that stood by his side, be held in es- teem. I am at a loss to know how a different rule has ever been established. If an administration has been guilty of minor flagrancy, and would wash themselves clean of the pollution, they have only to baptize the land in blood and they are clean. It seems to me that the condemnation of such u scale of morals cannot be too loud or too se- vere. It seem.s to me that the present is the time for it, and that Massachusetts is emphati- cally the place. Why. I wonder that Bunker Hill Monument, with all its ponderous weight, can keep the bones of our Revolutionary fathers quiet in their resting places while such senti- ments are uttered. This is still going on. More men and more money is the cry. I have been amused at see- setts owe nothing to themselves, to the fame of ing the attempts to throw the responsibility from better days, to the memory of your fathers, nor to the plighted faith you have written in your Constitution ? If they can see their national character prostrated, the national energies, wealth, and resources all pledged to such a pur- pose as this, and do not wake up, let me ask you what will do it ? What new purposes must thej' disclose to wake the dormant patriotism and sleeping energies of those who believe it is not quite time to arouse ? I confess that I do not know; I cannot see anything in the future darker than in the present which now envelopes us ; and if the measures now publicly avowed be not enough to rouse the people of the free States to a sense of their danger and degradation, I con- fess that I have not optics which will see deep enough into the pit of infamy to reach the point where they will wake up. I know that the doctrine prevails extensively that sets it down as treason to make inquiry be- cause we are engaged in a war. It is admitted, that in time of peace you may scrutinize with the greatest severity, and there is no fault to be found, but it is maintained that in time of war, a different rule of morals prevails. Then the voice of opposition should be })aralyzed, then there should be no voices but pa?ans of praise, no notes but shouts of hosannas. I do not so un- derstand our duty. I have not so read history : because I read that in the days when the coun- try from which our ancestors emanated, waged a war upon our fathers, the brightest and purest one party to the other. I have heard it serious- ly .stated, that if the Congress of the United States had only promptly voted all the volunteers who were wanted, we should have had peace in six weeks. And I could not help admiring the answer, — " Sir, have we not voted every man and every dollar that the President wanted ?"' And it turned out to be true that he had got every thing he had asked, and has been at work two years to •' conquer a peace," and has not conquered it yet, and now he calls for more men. — Were it not too serious for a joke, I m.ight illustrate it by an incident. I knew a fond father and a foolish son whom the father trusted with money and it ruined him. When the father was bewailing the result, the son said, "Sir, the only fault was that you didn't give me money enough. I had enough just to ruin me ; a little more would have made a gentleman of me." It is not necessary for me to state my policy, for I have stated it again and again. I believe the war to be wrong, totally wrong, wrong in its inception, wrong in its purpose, wrong in its object, wrong in its aim, all wrong, every- thing wrong. I am at a loss to conceive how patriotism or duty requires any man who be- lieves this war to be wrong in all its phases, to vote money to carry it on ; I am still more at a loss to know how any man can vote to furnish the means to the administration, and avoid the responsibility of carrying on a wrong and un- patriots of English history found the path of du- just war. To my mind it is as palpable as if I ty leading them to the denunciation of a war hostile to liberty, and those names will live, sa- cred and dear in the memory and hearts of pa- triots, as long as the love of liberty finds a rest- ing place in the human bosom. The names of those distinguished men who plead the cause of freedom and of justice, against the hand of pow- saw an assassin and should' give him a dagger, and should say, Mind, I throw the responsibility upon you. It is a principle of law, and good sense too, that in murder there are no accessa- ries before the fact. They are all principals, those that strike the blow, those that aid and abet, and those that furnish the meaiis ; before T in the British Parliamer;t, have not yet been the deed, all are principals, the yp as traitors to their country, or enemies I am aware that I shall be accused of fanati- upon 'y . j^nj £0 Jong as civil liberty shall cism. I know that it is said to be absurd to dvocate, so long shall Chatham, and attempt to apply Christian morals to national politics. I know it is said that when the Most High promulgated His command, "Thou shalt do no murder," Ha meant that you should not kill one man, but might kill a thousand ; that when he said. "Thou shalt not steal," He meant that you should not pick one man's pocket, but the command does not apply to robbing nations of their territory, or men of their manhood! Oh, no, this is a fanaticism of the worst kind. It is absurd and ridiculous, a narrow and con- tracted view of things, to undertake to meas- ure objects of national concern by such narrow and fanatical ideas as these ! I am willing to ho a fanatic upon this subject. I believe, my friends, that while the God of Justice sits on the throne of Eternity, it is no more safe for nations than for individuals to violate this law. I am willing to go further than this. I am willing to subject myself to all the odi- um and opprobrium of avowing before the American people, that I had rather take my lot with the French Atheists, and deny the ex- istence of a God and a hereafter, than to believe that there is a God that will permit our nation to pursue its present career and prosper. Un- less all history is a lie, unless the experience of the past is a delusion, and all prophecy but the insane wanderings of a diseased imagination, the end of our career is neither distant nor doubtful. We must stop ; we must retrace our steps, or else the end that is before us cannot be mistaken. It requires no very vivid imagina- tion to fancy that we can hear the ghosts of de- parted nations all crying out to us from the depths in which they are buried, and telling us to beware that we sail not upon the course where they have found peril and destruction. To carry out the simile, I would call upon you who are quietly sleeping in the hold, to wake from your slumbers, to look out and see, the wreck of governments which have started before us on the tide of time, lying around in warning profusion. And arc we so mad, so stupid, so blind to the past and heedless of the present and the future, as to think we can go on and find safety and peace where all that have gone before us have found peril and destruc- tion? Let me ask you, therefore, to give this mat- ter your personal attention. We are told that " Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Wake up and use this vigilance. Every day is big with events. We are writing our histo- ry. We are impressing with footsteps as indel- ible as any of the imprints of Time that little space that we occupy between the eternities of the past and future. We are working out to- day the great problem whether man is capable oi self-government. We are to solve for our- selves and for those after us the great question whether, on the whole, liberty be desirable, or whether it shall degenerate into licentiousness, and our free institutions shall but jemove those ™, restraints which have checked man frona be- coming the victim of his lower passions. When the pilgrim of future ages and other lands shal visit the places now vocal with our sounds, shall he visit with an interest fresh and lively the perennial springs of Liberty, or shall he only wander by the monuments of a Liberty that is dead, of a patriotism that has departed ? Let me then commend this subject to your earnest and individual attention. I do not speak to parties ; I am done with them ; but I will speak to men and women. Go to your party leaders, and they will give you a different les- son. They will teach you to save the party and let the party save the country. That is it. Par- ty first, and country afterwards. I tell you, friends, let parties take care of themselves ; let the dead past bury the past, but let the living see to it that the inheritance they have received as the price of their fathers' blood be not wrenched from their coward hands. Oh, let Massachusetts be true I Where will she be in the greatest contest that ever States or Nations were invited to ? Will she be where your fathers were in the earlier and better days of your history, in the front ranks, or will she be lagging behind and leave this great contest to other hands ? I hope that the fair fame of the Commonwealth, world-wide as it is, will be safe in the hands of this generation. I trust that the spirit of Faneuil Hall, of Bunker Hill, of Lex- ington, and of Concord,, will be imparted to us, so that he who shall write of the present shall say it was worthy of the past, and a bright fore- taste of a glorious future. I leave the subject with you, my friends. I owe an apology for the incoherent manner in which I have spoken, but I have endeavored, not to make a speech, but to throw out my heart before you. I know I have done it, in a manner unworthy of the subject, but Heave it with you. I ask you, one and all, to take it home and resolve that whatever may betide the country, whether weal or woe be our destiny, so far as you indi vidually are concerned, you will do your du Duty alone is yours ; events are God's, dark stain cannot be wiped out — if th of the plague cannot be stayed — if th the victim must still fill the ears c High, and the Almighty shall at last arouse he surely will, may each anr of you be enabled, in that day retribution, to appeal to your Mak( witness, that you at least never this wrong. After the cheering at the c' Mr. Stanton moved the follow which was adopted with proloi Resolved, That the thanks t presented to Mr. Hale for the — „ — quent exposition which he he lations to slavery, and ihe thereupon. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 8 Nomination lor the Presidency. MR. HALE'S ACCEPTANCE. We give the following interesting correspon- dence from the Cincinnati Herald. Mr. Hale's letter is all that we expected — full, clear and independet.t. With such a representative of our principles, we can labor on with renewed en- ergy. " Cincinnati, Nov. 5, 1S47. " Dear Sir : — In discharge of a duty devolv- ing upon me by a Resolution of the National Liberty Convention, (held at Buffalo, N. Y. on the 20th and 21st of October last,) I have the honor to inform you that you were nominated by that Convention as the candidate of the Lib- erty party for Pre.sident of the United States at the Presidential election to be held in 1848. " With assurance of my personal regard, I remain, very respectfully, yours, Samuel Lewis. " Hon. J. P. Hale:' Washingto.v, Jan. 1, 1S48. v.-SiR ; — Yours, of the first of November, notify- ing me that the Convention holden at Buffalo, on the 20th and 21st of October last, had pre- sented my name to the people of the United States as a candidate for the office of President of the United States, is before me. It is due to candor to say, that while I ap- preciate, in its fullest extent, the favorable esti- mation of myself, by the members of that Con- vention, indicated by the nomination, were I to consult my own wishes, I should peremptorily decline it. Deference, however, to the opin- ion of those friends who have sustained me by their counsel and support, under circum- stances and at times well calculated to test the ardor of their zeal, and sincerity of their profes- sion, has induced a different determination, and I therefore accept the offer, and con.sent that my name may be thus used in connection with that office. In announcing to you, sir, as the official organ of that body, this result to which I have come, allow me to add, that, as that Convention, be- fore its adjournment, made provision lor the as- sembling of another of a similar character should unforeseen contingencies and emergen- cies render such a step proper, nothing would be more grateful to my own leelings than to find the good and true of every party, forgetful of y^Xly differences which have heretofore no "^i^t.^j^^^^^ uniting together in one strenu6us derstand ggtic effort to redeem the Government because iited States from the reproach to which try from \ justly subject, for its support of hu- ry, and the present unjust and aggres- a warupc^ ^^^ ^^ wantonly commenced, and is patriots ol ^jy prosecuting for its extension and ty leading hostile to Yi. ^"<^^ ^ movement shall be made in , , 1 \d earnest purpose, I shall be most credand deai. consent of those friends who have triots, as long ,e before the people, to enrol my- ing place in t'e humblest privates in the hosts those distinguis';'"^'''' «"<=^ ^ b^""^'/ ^ ^"^ "°^ ? ^ .it such a movement may yet be freedom and of j r iif. the Britishes expected of an individual the yp as traito; nomination for an important u^ion ~ ow remote the chances ol his -^^ ' ' give some exposition of the dvocate \ principles he e: lie policy by w 001 382 155 ^ In accordancv- ..mi oum a ou^puseu e-xi>ecir.- tion, 1 will cheerfully say to you, Sir, that I co- incide with the principles of the resolutions adopted by the Convention which made the nomination. It has been suggested to me, and indeed I havr private letters to the same effect, that doubt,- have been expressed to some extent, and pei- haps much more generally entertained than ox- pressed, whether I really and truly am a " Lil- erty party man and belong to the Liberty party.' and that it is expected of me, that in this com- munication I should clear up and solve tho.x; doubts. To do this, it is necessary definitely to under- stand what is meant by the question. If by li. it be intended to ask whether I am ready to co- operate with those who by independent, organ- ized and individual action, are striving to carry out certain principles, such as those embodied in the resolutions of the Buffalo Convention, who desire to withdraw from the institution of slave- ry that support which it unconstitutionally re- ceives from the General Government, and seek its termination by federal action where it exists under federal jurisdiction, and State action, where it exists under State authority, so that oui Declaration of Independence shall be something more than a rhetorical flourish, and the pream- ble of the United States Constitution, which de- clares, among other things, that it was ordained to " secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" no longer be a cruel mockery, then do I belong to such a party. But if it be supposed or intended that there is to be any magical influence in the name of " party," .so that by joining it I thereby subject my pubti'' conduct to the supervision or direction of it- officers or committees, then I say, most emphat- ically. I do not belong to any such party. I have been once Ibrmally and solemnly read out of the Democratic party, who make such high professions of regard for human rights, by a State Convention, in New Hampshire, ami regularly excommunicated for no reason, except a refusal to vote for a measure " calculated and designed" by the open declaration of its friends, " to uphold the interests of Slavery, extend its influence, and secure its permanent ascendancy,"' and I am not anxious to place myself speedily in a situation in reference to any other party, when any of its members may fancy they have the moral right to repeat the experiment upon me, for any cause, real or fancied. . Besides, to my mind the great evil of the pre>- ent day, and of our own country, eminently !.■> this universal disposition to merge the responsi- bilities of individual character in the irresponsi- bility of a party. Were it not for this, we couhl have a permanent and honorable peace with Mexico in less than three months ; but in their blind partizan devotion, men forget that there is a God higher than the party, or a rule of mor- als other than political expediency. It is unnecessary for me farther to enlarge on this subject. This present session of Congress, with the de- velopments which are constantly in progress, will afford abundant opportunity for those who '"eel any interest in the subject, in addition to what I have already spoken and written, to be informed of my sentiments on the great practical questions of the day. With much respect, larn, your friend and fellow citizen, Hon. S. Lewis. John P. Hale