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THE STATE O F " T H E COUNTEY. 
 
 SPEECH OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 
 
 In the United States Senate, February 29, 1860. 
 
 lr. President, the admission of Kansas into 
 the Union, without further delay, seems to me 
 equally necessary, just, and wise. In recorded 
 ates, I have already anticipated the argu- 
 its for this conclusion, 
 in coming forward among the political astrol- 
 rs, it shall he an error of judgment, and not 
 lisposition, if my interpretation of the fever- 
 dreams which are disturbing the country 
 • 11 tend to foment, rather than to allay, the 
 ioual excitement. I shall say nothing unne- 
 sarily of persons, because, in our system, the 
 lie welfare and happiness depend chiefly on 
 itutions, asd very little on men. I shall 
 allude but briefly to incidental topics, because 
 are ephemeral, and because, even in the 
 St of appeals to passion and prejudice, it is 
 ays sate to submit solid truth to the delib- 
 e consideration of an honest and enlightened 
 
 I 'P' e - 
 
 '" il be an overflowing source of shame, as 
 ' sorrow, if we, thirty millions — Euro- 
 peans . extraction, Americans by birth or dis- 
 nd Christians in faith, and meaning to 
 be ei i practice — cannot so combine prudence 
 
 lanity, in our conduct concerning the 
 ti rbing subject of slavery, as not only to ' 
 jur unequalled institutions of freedom, 
 o enjoy their benefits with contentment 
 ony. 
 
 er a guiltless slave exists, be he Cau- 
 tuerican, Malay, or African, he is the 
 two distinct and opposite ideas — one 
 wrongly, the other that he is rightly, 
 The balance of numbers on either side, 
 great, never completely extinguishes 
 ence of opinion, for there are always 
 nders of slavery outside, even if there 
 ■ nside, of a free State, while also there 
 s outside, if there are not inside, of 
 e State, many who assert, with Milton, 
 nan who knows aught can be so stu- 
 f ny that all men naturally were born 
 
 ; the image and resemblance of God 
 bimseii. and were by privilege above all the 
 " born to command, and not to obey." \ 
 
 jerhaps generally, happens, however, 
 isidering the subject of slavery, society 
 seems to overlook the natural right or personal 
 interest of the slave himself, and to act exclu- 
 sively for the welfare of the citizen. But this ; 
 fact does not materially afftct ultimate results, 
 for the elementary question of the rightfulness 
 or wrongfulness of slavery inheres in every form 
 that discussion concerning it assumes. What is 
 just to one class of me» can never be injurious 
 to any other; and what is unjust to any condi- ; 
 tion of persons in a State, is necessarily injuri- 
 ous, in some degree, to the whole community. 
 An economical question early arises out of the 
 subject of slavery — labor, either of freemen or of 
 slaves, is the cardinal necessity of society. Some ; 
 States choose the one kind, some the other. 
 Hence two municipal systems, widely different, 
 arise. The slave State strikes down and affects , 
 
 to extinguish the personality of the laborer, not 
 only as a member of the political body, but also 
 as a parent, husband, child, neighbor, or friend. 
 He thus becomes, in a political view, merely 
 property, without moral capacity, and without 
 domestic, moral, and social relations, duties, 
 rights, and remedies — a chattel, an object of 
 bargain, sale, gift, inheritance, or theft. His 
 earnings are compensated and his wrongs 
 atoned, not to himself, but to his owner. The 
 State protects not the slave as a man, but the 
 capital of another man, which he represents. 
 On the other hand, the State which rejects sla- 
 very encourages and animates and invigorates 
 the laborer by maintaining and developing his 
 natural personality in all the rights and facul- 
 ties of manhood, and generally with the privi- 
 leges of citizenship. In the one case, capital 
 invested in slaves becomes a great political 
 force ; while in the other, labor, thus elevated 
 and enfranchised, becomes the dominating polit- 
 ical power. It thus happens that we may, for 
 convenience sake, and not inaccurately, call 
 slave States capital States, and free States labor 
 States. 
 
 So soon as a State feels the impulses of com- 
 merce, or enterprise, or ambition, its citizens 
 begin to study the effects of these systems of 
 capital and labor respectively on its intelligence, 
 its virtue, its tranquillity, its integrity or unity, 
 its defence, its prosperity, its liberty, its happi- 
 ness, its aggrandizement, and its fame. In other 
 words, the great question arises, whether slavery 
 is a moral, social, and political good, or a moral, 
 social, and political evil. This is the slavery 
 question at home. But there is a mutual bond 
 of amity and brotherhood between man and man 
 throughout the world. Nations examine freely 
 the political systems of eai-h other, and of all 
 preceding times, and accordingly as they ap- 
 prove or disapprove of the two systems of capi- 
 tal and labor respectively, they sanction and 
 prosecute, or condemn and prohibit, commerce 
 in men. Thus, in one way or in another, the 
 slavery question, which so many among us, who 
 are more willing to rule than patient in study- 
 ing the conditions of society, think is a merely 
 accidental or unnecessary question, that might 
 and ought to be settled and dismissed at once, 
 is, on the contrary, a world-wide and enduring 
 subject of political consideration and civil ad- 
 ministration. Men, states, and nations, enter- 
 tain it, not voluntarily, but because the progress 
 of society continually brings it into their way. 
 They divide upon it, not perversely, but because, 
 owing to differences of constitution, condition, 
 or circumstances, they cannot agree. 
 
 The fathers of the Republic encountered it. 
 They even adjusted it so that it might have 
 given us much less than our present disquie r , 
 had not circumstances afterwards occurre 1 
 which they, wise as they were, had not clearly 
 foreseen. Although they had inherited, yet they 
 generally condemned, the practice of slavery, and 
 hoped for it3 discontinuance. They expressed 
 
 tf 
 

 this when they asserted in the Declaration of l 
 Independence, as a fundamental principle of I 
 American society, that all men are created equal, 
 and have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness. Each State, however, 
 reserved to itself exclusive political power over 
 the subject of slavery within its own borders. 
 1 Nevertheless, it unavoidably presented itself in 
 their consultations on a bond of Federal Union. 
 The new Government was to be a representative j 
 one. Slaves were capital in some States, in > 
 others capital had no investments in labor. I 
 Should those slaves be represented as capital or ; 
 as persons, taxed as capital or as persons, ! 
 Or should they not be represented or taxed 
 at all ? The fathers disagreed, debated long, 
 and compromised at last. Each State, they 
 determined, shall have two Senators in Con- 
 gress. Three-fifths of the slaves shall be else- 
 where represented and be taxed as persons. ) 
 What should be done if the slave should escape I 
 into a labor State ? Should that State confess i 
 him to be a chattel, and restore him as such, or 
 might it regard him as a persou, and harbor and 
 protect him as a man ? They compromised ! 
 again, and decided that no person held to labor 
 or service in one State by the laws thereof, 
 escaping into another, shall, by any law or regu- j 
 lation of that State, be discharged from such j 
 labor or service, but shall be delivered up on claim j 
 to the person to whom such labor or service j 
 shall be due. 
 
 Fr<re laborers would immigrate, and slaves 
 might be imported into the States. The fathers 
 agreed that Congress may establish uniform laws j 
 Ol naturalization, and it might prohibit the im- I 
 portation of persons after 1808. Communities j 
 in the Southwest, detached from the Southern ; 
 States, were growing up in the practice of 
 slavery, to be capital States. New States would 
 soon grow up in the Northwest, while as yet 
 capital stood aloof, and labor had not lifted the 
 axe to begin there its endless but beneficent task. 
 The fathers authorized Congress to make all 
 needful rules and regulations concerning the 
 management and disposition of the public lands, 
 and to admit new States. So the Constitution, 
 while it does not disturb or affect the system of 
 capital in slaves, existing in any State under its 
 own laws, does, at the same time, recognise 
 every human being, when within any exclusive 
 sphere of Federal jurisdiction, not as capital, but 
 as a person. 
 
 What was the action of the fathers in Con- 
 gress ? They admitted the new States of the 
 Southwest as capital States, because it was prac- 
 tically impossible to do otherwise, and by the 
 ordinance of ITS'?, confirmed in 1789, they pro- j 
 vided for the organization and admission of only 
 labor States in the Northwest. They directed 
 fugitives from service to be restored, not as chat- 
 tels, but as persons. They awarded naturaliza- 
 tion to immigrant free laborers, and they prohib- 
 ited the tradtt in African labor. This disposition 
 of the whole subject was in harmony with the 
 condition of society, and in the main with the 
 spirit of the age. The seven Northern States 
 contentedly became labor States by their own 
 acts. The six Southern States, with equal tran- 
 quillity and by their own determination, remain- 
 ed capital States. 
 
 The circumstances which the fathers did not 
 clearly foresee were two, namely : the reinvigora- 
 
 tion of slavery consequent on the increased con- 
 sumption of cotton, and the extension of the 
 national domain across the Mississippi, and these 
 occurred before 1820. The State of Louisiana 
 formed on a slaveholding French settlement, 
 within the newly-acquired Louisianian Territory, 
 had then already been admitted into the Union. 
 There yet remained, however, a vast region which 
 included Arkansas and Missouri, together with 
 the then unoccupied and even unnamed Kansas 
 and Nebraska. Arkansas, a slaveholding com- 
 munity, was nearly ready to apply, and Missouri, 
 another such Territory, was actually applying 
 for admission into the Federal Union. The ex- 
 isting capital States seconded these applications, 
 and claimed that the whole Louisianian Terri- 
 tory was rightfully open to slavery, and to the 
 organization of future slave States. The labor 
 States maintained that Congress had supreme 
 legislative power within the domain, and could 
 and ought to exclude slavery there. The ques- 
 tion thus opened was one which related not at all 
 to slavery in the existing capital States. It was 
 purely and simply a national question, whether 
 the common interest of the whole Republic re- 
 quired that Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Ne- 
 braska, should become capital States, with all the 
 evils and dangers of slavery, or be labor States, 
 with all the security, benefits, aud blessiags, of 
 freedom. On the decision was suspended the 
 question, as was thought, whether ultimately the 
 interior of this new continent should be an asy- 
 lum for the oppressed and the exile, coming year 
 afteryearand ageafterage,voluntarilyfrom every 
 other civilized land, as well as for the children of 
 misfortune in our own, or whether, through the 
 renewal of the Atrican slave trade, those magnifi- 
 cent and luxuriant regions should be surrendered 
 to the control of capital, wringing out the fruits of 
 the earth through the impoverishing toil of n°gro 
 slaves. That question of 1820 was identically the 
 question of 18G0, s© far as principle, and even the 
 field of its application, was concerned. Every ele- 
 ment of the controversy cow present entered i 
 then ; the rightfulness or the wrongfulness of sla- 
 very; its effects, present and future*: the constitu- 
 tional authority of Congress; the claims of the 
 States, and of their citizens ; the nature of the 
 Federal Union, whether it is a compact between 
 the States, or an independent Government; the 
 springs of its powers, and the ligatures upon their 
 exercise. All these were discussed with zeal and 
 ability which have never been surpassed. His- 
 tory tells us, I know not how truly, that the Union 
 reeled under the vehemence of that great debate. 
 Patriotism took counsel from prudence, and en- 
 forced a settlement which has proved to be not a 
 final one ; and which, as is now seen, practically 
 left open all the great political issues which were 
 involved. Missouri aud Arkansas were admitted 
 OS capital States, while labor obtained, as a res- 
 ervation, the abridged but yet comprehensive 
 field of Kausas and Nebraska. 
 
 Now, when the present conditions of the vari- 
 ous parts of the Louisianian Territory are ob- 
 served, and we see that capital retains undisputed 
 possession of what it then obtained, while labor 
 is convulsing the country with so hard and so 
 prolonged a struggle to regain the lost equiva- 
 lent which was then guarantied to it under cir- 
 cumstances of so great solemnity, we may well 
 desire not to be undeceived if the Missouri com- 
 promise was indeed unnecessarily accepted by 
 
the free States, influenced by exaggerations of I 
 tbe dangers of disunion. The Missouri debate dis- 
 closed truths of great moment for ulterior use: 
 
 First. That it is easy to combine the capital 
 States in defence of even external interests, while j 
 it is hard to unite the labor States in a common i 
 policy. 
 
 Second. That the labor States have a natural 
 loyalty to the Union, while the capital States ! 
 have a natural facility for alarming that loyalty 
 by threatening disunion. 
 
 Third. That the capital States do not practi- 
 cally distinguish between legitimate and consti- 
 tutional resistance to the extension of slavery in 
 the common Territories of the Union, and uncon- 
 stitutional aggression against slavery established 
 by local laws in the capital States. 
 
 The early political parties were organized 
 without reference to slavery. But since 1820, 
 European questions have left us practically un- 
 concerned. There has been a great increase of 
 invention, mining, manufacture, and cultivation. 
 Steam on land and on water has quickened com- 
 merce. The pres3 and the telegraph have at- 
 tained prodigious activity, and the social inter- 
 course between the States and their citizens has 
 been immeasurably increased ; and consequently, 
 their mutual relations affecting slavery have 
 been, for many years, sul jects of earnest and of- 
 ten excited discussion. It is in my way only to 
 show how such disputes have operated on the 
 course of political events — not to reopen them 
 for argument here. There was a slave insur- 
 rection in Virginia. Virginia and Kentucky de- 
 bated, and to the great sorrow of the free States, 
 rejected the system of voluntary labor. The 
 Colonization Society was established with much 
 favor in the capital States. Emancipation soci- 
 3ties arose in the free States. South Carolina 
 jistituted proceedings to nullify obnoxious Fed- 
 eral revenue laws. The capital States complain- 
 ed of courts and Legislatures in the labor States 
 'or interpreting the constitutional provision for 
 ;he surrender of fugitives from service so as to 
 ;reat them as persons, and not property, and 
 ;hey discriminated against colored persons of 
 the labor States, when they came to the capital 
 State?. They denied, in Congress, the right of 
 petition, and embarrassed or denied freedom of 
 iebate on the subject of slavery. Presses, which 
 undertook the defence of the labor system in the 
 capital State3,were suppressed by violence; and 
 even in the labor States, public assemblies, con- 
 vened to consider slavery questions, were dis- 
 persed by mobs sympathizing with the capital 
 States. 
 
 The Whig party, being generally an opposition 
 party, practiced some forbearance toward the 
 interest of labor. The Democratic party, not 
 without demonstrations of dissent, was generally 
 found sustaining the policy of capital. A dispo- 
 sition towards the removal of slavery from the 
 presence of the national Capitol appeared in the 
 District of Columbia. Mr. Van Buren, a Demo- 
 cratic President, launched a prospective veto 
 against the anticipated measure. A Democratic 
 Congress brought Texas into the Union, stipula- 
 ting practically for its future reorganization in 
 four slave States. Mexico was incensed. War 
 ensued. The labor States asked that the Mexi- 
 can law of liberty, which covered the Territories 
 lu ought in by the treaty of peace, might remain 
 and be confirmed. The Democratic party re- 
 
 fused. The Missouri debate of 1820 recurred 
 now, under circumstances of heat and excite- 
 ment, in relation to these conquests. The de- 
 fenders of labor took alarm lest the number of 
 new capital States might become so great as to 
 enable that class of States to dictate the wholo 
 policy of the Government; and in case of con- 
 stitutional resistance, then to form a new slave- 
 holding confederacy around the Gulf of Mexico. 
 By this time the capital States seemed to have 
 become fixed in a determination that the Federal 
 Government, and even the labor States, should 
 recognise their slaves, though outside of the 
 slave States and within the Territories of the 
 United States, as property of which the master 
 could not be in any way or by any authority 
 divested; and the labor States, having become 
 now n-:ore essentially Democratic than ever be- 
 fore, by reason of the great development of free 
 labor, more firmly than ever insisted on the con- 
 stitutional doctrine that slaves voluntarily car- 
 ried by their masters into the common Territo- 
 ries, or into labor States, are persons, men. 
 
 Under the auspicious influences of a Whig 
 success, California and New Mexico appeared 
 before Congress as labor States. The capital 
 States refused to consent to their admission into 
 the Union ; and again threats of disunion car- 
 ried terror and consternation throughout the 
 land. Another compromise was made. Specific 
 enactments admitted California as a labor State, 
 and remanded New Mexico and Utah to remain 
 Territories, with the right to choose freedom or 
 slavery when ripened into States, while they 
 gave new remedies for the recaption of fugitives 
 from service, and abolished the open slave mar- 
 ket in the District of Columbia. These new en- 
 actments, collated with the existing statutes, 
 namely, the ordinance of 1787, the Missouri pro- 
 hibitory law of 1820, and the articles of Texas 
 annexation, disposed by law of the subject of 
 slavery in all the Territories of the United States. 
 And so the compromise of 1S50 was pronounced 
 a full, final, absolute, and comprehensive settle- 
 ment of all existing and all possible disputes 
 concerning slavery under the Federal authority. 
 The two great parties, fearful for the Union, 
 struck hands in making and in presenting this 
 as an adjustment, never afterwards to be open- 
 ed, disturbed, or even questioned, and the people 
 accepted it by majorities unknown before. The 
 new President, chosen over an illustrious rival, 
 unequivocally on the ground of greater ability, 
 even if not more reliable purpose, to maintain 
 the new treaty inviolate, made haste to justify this 
 expectation when Congress assembled. He said: 
 
 '• When the grave shall bavo closed over all who are now 
 endeavoring to meet the obligations of duty, the year 1S50 
 will be recurred to as a period filled with anxiety and ap- 
 prehension. A successful war has just terminated; peace 
 brought with it a great augmentation of territory. Disturb* 
 ing questions arose, bearing upon the domestic institutions 
 of" a portion of the Confederacy, and involving the COI 
 tionai rights of the Suites. Cut, notwithstanding differences 
 of opinion and sentiment, in relation to details and spentio 
 provisions, the acquiescence of distinguished citizens, whoso 
 devotion t» the Union can never bo doubted, has given re- 
 newed vigor to our institutions, and restored a sense of so- 
 curity and repose to the public mind throughout the Confed- 
 eracy. That this repose is to suffer no shock during my 
 otticia! term, if I have the power to uvert it, those who 
 placed mo here may be assured." 
 
 Hardly, however, had these inspiring sounds 
 died away, throughout a reassured and delight- 
 ed land, before the national rf pose was shocked 
 again ; shocked, indeed, as it had never before 
 ; been, and smitten this time by a blow from the 
 
very hand that had just released the chords of 
 tlie national harp from their utterance of that ' 
 exalted symphony of peace. 
 
 Kansas and Nebraska, the long-devoted reser- 
 vation of labor and freedom, saved in the agony 
 of national fear in 1820, and saved again in the 
 panic of 1850, were now to be opened by Con- 
 gress, that the never-ending course of seed-time 
 and harvest might begin. The slave capitalists 
 of Missouri, from their own well-assured homes 
 on the eastern banks of their noble river, looked 
 down upon and coveted the fertile prairies of 
 Kansas; while a sudden terror ran through all 
 the capital States, when they saw a seeming 
 certainty that at last a new labor State would 
 be built on their western border, inevitably 
 fraught, as they said, with a near or remote ab- 
 olition of slavery. What could be dsne? Con- 
 gress could hardly be expected to intervene di- 
 rectly for their safety so soon after the compro- 
 mise of 1850. The labor hive of the free States 
 Was distant, the way new, unknown, and not 
 without perils. Missouri was near and watchful, 
 and held the key3 of the gates of Kansas. She 
 might seize the new and smiling Territory by 
 surprise, if only Congress would remove the bar- 
 rier established in 1820. The conjuncture was 
 favorable. Clay and Webster, the distinguished 
 citizens whose unquestionable devotion to the 
 Union was manifested by their acquiescence in 
 the compromise of 1850, had gone down already 
 into their honored graves. The labor States had 
 dismissed many of their representatives here for 
 too great fidelity to freedom, and too great dis- 
 trust of the efficacy of that new bond of peace, 
 and had replaced them with partisans who were 
 only timid, but not unwilling. The Democratic 
 President and Congress hesitated, but not long. 
 They revised the last great compromise, and 
 found, with delighted surprise, that it was so far 
 from confirming the law of freedom of 1820, that, 
 On the other hand, it exactly provided for the 
 abrogation of that venerated statute; nay, that 
 the compromise itself actually killed the spirit of 
 the Missouri law, and devolved on Congress the 
 duty of removing the lifeless letter from the na- 
 tional code. The deed wa3 done. The new 
 enactment not only repealed the Missouri pro- 
 hibition of slavery, but it pronounced the people 
 of Kansas and Nebraska perfectly free to estab- 
 lish freedom or slavery, and pledged Congress to 
 admit them in due time as States, either of cap- 
 ital or of labor, into the Union. The Whig rep- 
 resentatives of the capital States, in an hour of 
 Btrange bewilderment, concurred ; and the Whig 
 party instantlv went down, never to rise again. 
 Democrats seceded, and stood aloof ; the country 
 was confounded; and, amid the perplexities of 
 the hour, a Republican party was seen gathering 
 itself together with much earnestness, but with 
 little show of organization, to rescue, if it were 
 not now too late, the cause of freedom and labor, 
 bo unexpectedly and grievously imperilled in the 
 Territories of the United States. 
 
 I will not linger over the sequel. The popular 
 Sovereignty of Kansas proved to be the State 
 Sovereignty of Missouri, not only in the persons 
 of the rulers, but even in the letter of an arbi- 
 trary and cruel code. The perfect freedom 
 proved to be a hateful and intolerable bondage. 
 From 1855 to I860, Kansas, sustained and en- 
 couraged only by the Republican party, has been 
 engaged in successive and ever-varying strug- 
 
 gles, which have taxed all her virtue, wisdom, 
 moderation, energies, and resources, and often 
 even her physical strength and martial courage, 
 to save herself from being betrayed into the 
 Union as a slave State. Nebraska, though 
 choosing freedom, is, through the direct exercise 
 of the Executive power, overriding her own will, 
 held as a slave Territory ; and New Mexico has 
 relapsed voluntarily into the practice of slavery, 
 from which she had redeemed herself while she 
 yet remained a part of the Mexican Republic. 
 Meantime, the Democratic party, advancing from 
 the ground of popular sovereignty as far as that 
 ground is from the ordinance of 1787, now 
 stands on the position that both Territorial 
 Governments and Congress are incompetent to 
 legislate against slavery in the Territories, while 
 they are not only competent, but are obliged, 
 when it is necessury, to legislate for its protec- 
 tion there. 
 
 In this new and extreme position the Demo- 
 cratic party now masks itself behind the battery 
 of the Supreme Court, as if it were possibly a 
 true construction of the Constitution, that the 
 power of deciding practically forever between 
 freedom and slavery in a portion of the continent 
 far exceeding all that is yet organized, should be 
 renounced by Congress, which alone possesses 
 any legislative authority, and should be assumed 
 and exercised by a court which can only take 
 cognizance of the great question collaterally, in 
 a private action between individuals, and which 
 action the Constitution will not suffer the court 
 to entertain, if it involves twenty dollars of 
 money, without the overruling intervention of a 
 jury of twelve good and lawful men of the 
 neighborhood where the litigation arises. The 
 independent, ever-renewed, and ever-recurring 
 representative Parliament, Diet, Congress, or 
 Legislature, is the one chief, paramount, essen- 
 tial, indispensable institution in a Republic. 
 Even liberty, »-uarantied by organic law, yet if 
 it be held by other tenure than the guardian 
 care of such a representative popular assembly, 
 is but precariously maintained, while slavery, 
 enforced by an irresponsible judicial tribunal, is 
 the completest possible development of despotism. 
 Mr. President, did ever the annals of any Gov- 
 ernment show a more rapid or more complete 
 departure from the wisdom and virtue of its 
 founders ? Did ever the Government of a great 
 empire, founded on the rights of human labor, 
 slide away so fast and so far, and moor itself so 
 tenaciously on the basis of capital, and that 
 capital invested in laboring men ? Did ever a 
 free representative Legislature, invested with 
 powers so great, and with the guardianship of 
 rights so important, of trusts so sacred, of in- 
 terests so precious, and of hopes at once so no- 
 ble and so comprehensive, surrender and re- 
 nounce them all so unnecessarily, so unwisely, 
 so fatally, and so ingloriously? If it be true, as 
 every instinct of our nature and every precept of 
 political experience teaches us, that 
 " 111 teres iho liiud. tn hastening ills a pny, 
 Where wealth accumulates, aud men decay," 
 
 then where — in Ireland, in Italy, in Poland, or 
 in Hungary — has any ruler prepared for a gener- 
 ous and confiding people disappointments, disas- 
 ters, and calamities, equal to those which the 
 Government of the United States holds now sus- 
 pended over so large a portion of the continent 
 of North America? 
 
Citizens of the United States, in the spirit of 
 this policy, subverted the free Republic of Nic- 
 aragua, and opened it t« slavery and the African 
 slave trade, and held it in that condition, waiting 
 annexation to the United States, until its sover- 
 eignty was restored by a combination of sister 
 Republics exposed to the same danger, and appre- 
 hensive of similar subversion. Other citizens re- 
 Opened the foreign slave trade in violation of our 
 laws and treaties ; and, after a suspension of that 
 shameful traffic for fifty years, savage Africans 
 have been once more landed on our shores and 
 distributed, unreclaimed and with impunity, 
 among our plantations. 
 
 For tli is policy, so far as the Government has j 
 sanctioned it, the Democratic party avows itself, 
 responsible. Everywhere complaint against it is 
 denounced, and its opponents proscribed. When 
 Kansas was writhing under the wounds of incip- 
 ient, servile war, because of her resistance, the 
 Democratic press deridingly said, " let her bleed." 
 Official integrity has been cause for rebuke and 
 punishment, when it resisted frauds designed to 
 promote the extension of slavery. Throughout 
 the whols Republic, there is not one known dis- 
 senter from that policy remaining in place, if ' 
 within reach of the Executive arm. Nor over 
 the face of the whole world is there to be found 
 one representative of our country who is not an 
 apologist of the extension of slavery. 
 
 It is in America that these things have hap- 
 pened. In the nineteenth century, the era of the 
 world's greatest progress, and while sll nations 
 but ourselves have been either abridging or al- 
 together suppressing commerce in men ; at the 
 very moment when the Russian serf is emanci- I 
 pated, end the Georgian captive, the Nubian 
 prisoner, and the Abyssinian savage, are lifted 
 up to freedom by the successor of Mohammed. 
 The world, prepossessed in our behalf by our 
 
 even necessarily examined. I know of only one 
 policy which it has adopted or avowed, namely: 
 The saving of the Territories of the United States, 
 if possible, by constitutional and lawful means, 
 from being homes for slavery and polygamy. 
 Who, that considers where this nation exists, of 
 wli.it races it is composed, in what age of the 
 world it acts its part on the public stage, and 
 what are its predominant institution-, easterns, 
 habits, and sentiments, doubt3 that the Republic 
 can party can and will, if unwaveringly faithful 
 to that policy, and just and loyal in all beside, 
 carry it into triumphal success? To doubt is 
 to be uncertain whether civilization can improve 
 or Christianity save mankind. 
 
 I may perhaps infer, from the necessity of the 
 case, that it will, in all courts and places, stand 
 by the freedom of speech and of the press, and 
 the constitutional rights of freemen everywhere; 
 that it will favor the speedy improvement of the 
 public domain by homestead laws, and will en- 
 courage mining, manufacture, and internal com- 
 merce, with needful connections between the 
 Atlantic and Pacific States — for all these are im- 
 portant interests of freedom. For all the rest, 
 the national emergencies, not individual influ- 
 ences, must determine, a3 society goes on, the 
 policy and character of the Republican party. 
 Already bearing its part in legislation and in 
 treaties, it feels the necessity of being practical 
 in its care of the national health and life, while 
 it leaves metaphysical speculation to those whose 
 duty it is to cultivate the ennobling science of 
 political philosophy. 
 
 But in the midst of these subjects, or, rather, 
 before fully reaching them, the Republican party 
 encounters, unexpectedly, a new and potential 
 issue — one prior and therefore paramount to all 
 others, one of national life and death. Just as 
 if so much had not been already conceded ; nay, 
 
 early devotion to the rights of human nature, a3 just as if nothing at all had ever been conceded, 
 
 to the interest of capital invested in men, we 
 hear menaces of disunion, louder, rao-e distinct, 
 more emphatic than ever, with the condition an- 
 nexed, that they shall be executed the moment 
 thvt a Republican Administration, though consti- 
 tutionally elected, shall assume the Government. 
 I do not certainly know that the people are 
 prepared to call such an Administration to power. 
 I know only, that through a succession of flood3 
 which never greatly excite, and ebbs which never 
 entirely discourage me, the volume of Republic- 
 anism rises continually higher and higher. They 
 are probably wise, whose apprehensions ndmonish 
 them that it is already strong enough for effect. 
 
 Hitherto the Republican party has been con- 
 tent with one self-interrogatory — how many 
 
 no nation ever before engaged its respect and 
 sympathies, asks, in wonder and amazement, 
 what all this demoralization means? It has an 
 excuse better than the world can imagine, better 
 than we are generally conscious of ourselves, a 
 virtuous excuse. We have loved not freedom so 
 much less, but the Union of our country so much 
 more. We have been made to believe, from time 
 to time, that, in a crisis, both of these precious 
 institutions could not be saved together, and 
 therefore we have, from time to time, surrender- 
 ed safeguards cf freedom to propitiate the loyalty 
 of capital, and stay it3 hands from doing violence 
 to the Union. The true state of the case, however, 
 ought not to be a mystery to ourselves. Prescience, 
 indeed, is not given to statesmen ; but we are with- 
 
 out excuse when we fail to apprehend the logic of votes can it cast? These threats enforce an 
 
 current event3. Let parties, or the Government, 
 choose or do what they may, the people of the Uni- 
 ted S;ates do not prefer the wealth of the few to the 
 liberty of the many, capital to labor, African slaves 
 to white freemen, in the national Territories and 
 in future States. That question has never been 
 distinctly recognised or acted on by them. The 
 
 other — has it determination enough to cast them? 
 This latter question touches its spirit and pride. 
 I am quite sure, however, that as it has hitherto 
 practiced self-denial in so many other forms, it 
 will in this emergency lay aside all impatience 
 of temper, together with all ambition, and will 
 consider these extraordinary declamations seri- 
 
 Republican party embodies the popular protest 1 ously and with a just moderation. It would be 
 
 and reaction against a policy which has been 
 fastened upon the nation by surprise, and which 
 its reason and conscience, concurring with the 
 reason and conscience of mankind, condemn. 
 
 The choice of th-> nation is now between the 
 Democratic party and the Republican party. Its 
 
 a waste of words to demonstrate that they are 
 unconstitutional, and equally idle to show" that 
 the responsibility for disunion, att< mpted or ef- 
 fected, must rest not with those who in the ex- 
 ercise of constitutional authority maintain the 
 Government, but with those who unconstitution- 
 
 principles and policy are, therefore, justly and j ally engage in the mad work of subverting it. 
 
6 
 
 What are the excuses for these menaces? 
 They resolve the ins elves into this, that the Re- 
 publican party in the North is hostile to the 
 South. But it already is proved to be a ninjor- 
 iiy in the North ; it is therefore practically the 
 people of the .North. Will it not still be the same 
 North that has forborne with you so long, and 
 conceded to you so much? Can you justly as- 
 sume that affection, which has been so comply- 
 ing, can all at once change to hatred, intense 
 and inexorable ? 
 
 You say, that the Republican party is a sec- 
 tional one. Is the Democratic party less sec- 
 tional? Is it easier for us to bear your sectional 
 sway than for you to bear ours ? Is it unreason- 
 able that for once we should alternate? But is the 
 Republican party sectional? Not unless the Dem- 
 ocratic party is. The Republican party prevails 
 in the House of Representatives sometimes, the 
 Democratic party in the Senate always. Which 
 of the two is the most proscriptive? Come, come, 
 come, if you will, into the free States, into the 
 State of New York, anywhere from Lake Erie to 
 Sag Harbor, among my neighbors in the Owasco 
 valley, hold your conventions, nominate your 
 candidates, address the people, yubmit to them, 
 fully, earnestly, eloquently, all your complaints 
 and grievances of Northern disloyalty, oppres- 
 sion, perfidy ; keep nothing back, speak just as 
 freely and as loudly there as you do heie; you 
 will have hospitable welcomes and appreciating 
 audiences, with ballot-boxes open for all the votes 
 you can win. Are you less sectional than this ? 
 Extend to us the same privileges, and I will engage 
 that you will very soon have in the South as 
 many Republicans as we have Democrats in the 
 North. [Applause,] There is, however, a better 
 test of nationality than the accidental location 
 of parties. Our policy of labor in the Territories 
 was not sectional in the first forty years of the 
 Republic. Its nature inheres. It will be national 
 again, during the third forty years, and forever 
 afterwards. It is not wise and beneficent for us 
 alone, or injurious to you alone. Its effects are 
 equal, and the same for us all. 
 
 You accuse the Republican party of ulterior 
 and secret designs. How can a party that 
 counts its votes in this land of free speech and 
 free press by the hundreds of thousands, have 
 any secret designs? Who is the conjurer, and 
 where are the hidden springs by which he can 
 control its uncongregated and widely-dispersed 
 masses, and direct them to objects unseen and 
 purposes unavowed ? But what are these hidden 
 purposes? You name only one. That one is 
 to introduce negro equality among you. Sup- 
 pose we had the power to change your social 
 system: what warrant have you for supposing 
 that we should carry negro equality among you ? 
 We know, and we will show you, if you will 
 only give heed, that what our system of labor 
 works out, wherever it works out anything, is 
 the equality of white men. The laborer in the 
 free States, no matter how humble his occupa- 
 tion, is a white man, and he is politically the 
 equal of his employer. Eighteen of our thirty- 
 three States are free-labor States. There they 
 are : Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
 Vermont, Rbode Island, Connecticut, New York, 
 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illi- 
 nois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Cali- 
 fornia, and Oregon. I do not array them in 
 contrast with the capital States. I am no as- 
 
 sailant of States. All of the States are parcels 
 of my own country — the best of them not so wise 
 and great as 1 am sure it will hereafter be; the 
 State least developed and perfected among them 
 all is wiser and better than any foreign State I 
 know. Is it, then, in any, and in which, of the 
 1 States I have named that negro equality offends 
 i the white man's pride? Throughout the wide 
 j world, where is the Stats where class and caste 
 I are so utterly extinguished as they are in each 
 i and every one of them? Let the European im- 
 migrant, who avoids the African as if his skin 
 exhaled contagion, answer. You find him al- 
 ways in the State where labor is ever free. Dili 
 | Washington, Jefferson, and Henry, when they 
 implored you to relinquish your system, and ac- 
 j cept the one we have adopted, propose to sink 
 you down to the level of the African, or was it 
 i their desire to exalt all white men to a common 
 i political elevation? 
 
 But we do not seek to force, or even to intrude, 
 I our system on you. We are excluded justly, 
 i wisely, and contentedly, from all political power 
 ! and responsibility in your capital States? You 
 ! are sovereign on the subject of slavery within 
 your own borders, as we are on the same subject 
 within our borders. It is well and wisely so ar- 
 i ranged. Use your authority to maintain what 
 system you please. We are not distrustful of 
 | the result. We have wisely, as we think, exer- 
 1 cised ours to protect and perfect the manhood of 
 | the members of the State. The whole sover- 
 eignty upon domestic concerns within the Union 
 is divided between us by unmistakable bounda- 
 | ries. You have your fifteen distinct parts ; we 
 ' eighteen parts, equally distinct. Each must be 
 : maintained in order that the whole may be pre- 
 i served. If ours shall be assailed, within or 
 . without, by any enemy, or for any cause, and 
 [ we shall have need, we shall expect you to de- 
 j fend it. If yours shall be so assailed, in the 
 ! emergency, no matter what the cause or the 
 | pretext, or who the foe, we shall defend your 
 ! sovereignty as the equivalent of our own. We 
 i cannot, indeed, accept your system of capital or 
 ! its ethics. That would be to surrender and 
 | subvert our own, which we esteem to be better. 
 Besides, if we could, what need for any divisiou 
 | into States at all? You are equally at liberty 
 i to reject our system and its ethics, and to main- 
 \ tain the superiority of your own by all the forces 
 ! of persuasion and argument. We must, indeed, 
 mutually discuss both systems. All the world 
 discusses all systems. Especially must we dis- 
 cuss them, since we have to decide as a nation 
 which of the two we ought to engraft on the 
 new and future States growing up in the great 
 public domain. Discussion, then, being una- 
 voidable, what could be more wise than to con- 
 duct it with mutual toleration and in a fraternal 
 spirit? 
 
 You complain that Republicans discourse too 
 boldly and directly, when they express with con- 
 fidence their belief that the system of labor will, 
 in the end, be universally accepted by the capital 
 States, acting for themselves, and in conformity 
 with their own Constitutions, while they sanc- 
 tion too unreservedly books desigued to advo- 
 cate emancipation. But surely you can hardly 
 expect the Federal Government or the political 
 parties of the nation to maintain a censorship of 
 the press or of debate. The theory of our sys- 
 tem is, that error of opinion may in all cases 
 
safely be tolerated where reason u left free to 
 combat it. Will it be claimed that more of mod- 
 eration and tenderness in debate are exhibited 
 on your eide of the great argument than on our 
 own? We all learned our polemics, as well as 
 our principles, from a common master. We are 
 sure that we do not, on our side, exceed his les- 
 sons and example. Thomas Jefferson addressed 
 Dr. PrL'e, an Englishman, concerning his treatise 
 on emancipation in America, in this fashion : 
 
 li Southward of tho Chesapeake, your book will find but 
 Ow readers concurring with it in sentiment on the subject 
 Oi' slavery. From the mouth to the head of the Chesapeake, 
 tho bulk ofthe people will approve it in theory, and it will 
 find a respectable minority ready to adopt it in practice ; a 
 minority winch, tor weight and worth of character, pre- 
 ponderates against the greater number who have not the 
 courage to divest their families of a property which, how- 
 ever, keeps their consciences unquiet. Northward of the 
 Chesapeake, you may find here and there an opponent to 
 your doctrine, as you may find hero and there a robber or a 
 murderer ; tea in no greater number. * * * This (Vir- 
 ginia) is the next btato to which wo may turn our eyes for 
 the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice 
 and oppression— a conflict where tho sacrod sido is gaining 
 daily new recruits from tho influx into office of young men, 
 grown and growing up. * * * Be not,, then, discouraged. 
 "What you htivo written will do a great deal of good ; and 
 could you stLl trouble yourself about our welfare, no man is 
 more able to help tho laboring sido." 
 
 You see, sir, that whether we go for or Against 
 slavery anywhere, we must follow Southern 
 guides. You may change your pilot3 with the 
 winds or the currents ; hut we, whose nativity, 
 reckoned under the North Star, has rendered us 
 somewhat superstitious, must be excused for constancy in 
 foL'owing the guidance of thoso who framed the national ship, 
 and gave us tho chart for its noble voyage. 
 
 A profound respect and friendly regard for tho Vice Presi- 
 dent of the United States has induced me to weigh carofuily 
 fao testimony be has given on the subject of tho hostility 
 against the Boutii imputed to tho Republican party, as de- 
 rived from the relations of tho representatives of tho two 
 parties at tics capital, lie says that ho has seen here, in the 
 representatives of the lower Southern .States, a most resoluto 
 and earnest spirit of resistance to the- Repub.ican party; that 
 he perceives a sensible losaof that spirit of brotherhoud and 
 that, feeling of loyally, together with that love for a common 
 country, which are at last tho surest cement of the Union ; 
 So that, in tli'-- present unhappy condition of affairs, ho is al- 
 most tempted to exclaim, that wo aro dissolving week by 
 week, i.n 1 month by month ; that the threads arc gradually 
 fretting theme jives asunder ; and a stranger might suppose 
 that the Executive of the United States was the President of 
 two hostile Republics. It is not for mo to raise a doubt upon 
 tho correctness of this dark picture, so far as the Southern 
 groups upon the canvas aro concerned, but i must bo in- 
 dulged in the opinion that I can pronounce as accurately con- 
 cerning tho Northern or Republican representatives hero as 
 any one. I know their public hauntsund their private ways. 
 Wo are not a hostile Republic, or representatives of one. We 
 Confer together, but ouly as the organs of every parly do, 
 and must do, in a political system which obliges 119 to act 
 somct.mes as partisAis, whilo it rcquiresus always to be pa- 
 triots and statesmen. Differences of opinion, even on the 
 subject of slavery, with us aro political, not social or per- 
 sonal differences. Thcro is not one disuuionist or disloyalist 
 among us all. Wo aro altogether unconscious of any pro- 
 cess of dissolution going onamong usror around us. Wo have 
 never been more patient, and never loved the representa- 
 tives of other soctious rnoro, than now. We be-ar the same 
 testimony for the people around us here, who, though iu the 
 very centre, wiv.e. the boltof disunion must fall ttrst, and 
 be mo.--! fcai ful in its effects, seem never loss disturbed than 
 now. We bear the same testimony for all tho districts and 
 Mates we represent. The people of tho North are not ene- 
 mies, but friends nudbrcthren of the South, faithful and true 
 as in tho days when Death has dealt his arrows promiscu- 
 ously among them on common battle-fields of freedom. 
 
 Wo w.ll not suffer ourselves hero to dwell on any evi- 
 dences of a different temper iu tho South ; but wo shall be 
 content with expressing our belief that hostility that is not 
 designedly provoked, and that cannot provoke retaliation, 
 is an anomaly that must bo traced to casual excitements, 
 which cannot perpctuato alienation. 
 
 A canvass for a Presidential election, in some respects 
 more important, perhaps, than any since 1S00, has recently 
 begun. The House of Representatives was to be organized 
 by a majority, while no party could cast rnoro than a plu- 
 rality of votes. Tho gloom of tho lato tragedy in Virginia 
 rested on tho Capitol from the day when Congress assem- 
 bled. While the two great political parties were peacefully, 
 
 lawfully, and constitutionally, thongh zealously, conducting 
 tho great national issue between free labor and capital labor 
 for tho Territories to its proper solution, through tho IriuLa 
 Of the ballot, operating diroctly or indirectly on the various! 
 departments of the Government, a band of except ii oal men, 
 contemptuous equally of that great question and of the par- 
 ties to tho controversy, and impatient of the constitutional 
 system which confines the citizens of every State to pohtlca] 
 action by suffrage in organized parties within their own bor- 
 ders, inspired by an enthusiasm peculiar to themselves, ami 
 exasperated by grievances and wrongs that some of them 
 had suffered by inroads of armed pn of slavery 
 
 iu Kansas, unlawful as their own I is, attempted 
 
 to subvert slavery in Virginia by conspiracy, ambush, inva- 
 sion, and force. Tho method we havo adopted, of appealing 
 to tho reason and judgment of tho people, to be pronounced 
 by suffrage, 's lbs only one by which free Government* can 
 be maintained anywhoro, and tho only one as yetdev 1 
 which is iii harmony with the spirit of tho Christian religion. 
 While generous and charitable natures will probably coucedo 
 that John Brown and his associates acted on earnest though 
 fatally erroneous convictions, yet all good citizens v. 'ill never- 
 theless agree, that this attempt to execute an unlawful pur- 
 pose in Virginia by invasion, involving servile war, was aq 
 act of sedition and treason, and criminal in just the extent 
 that it affected the public peace and was destructive of hu- 
 man happiness and human life. It is a painful reflection 
 that, after so long an oxperience-of tho beneflcentworkh 
 our system as wo havo enjoyed, wo havo had these new 
 illustrations in Kansas and Virginia of the extol mce among 
 us of a class of men so misguidedand so desperate as to seok 
 to enforce their peculiar principles by the s word, drawing 
 after it a need for tho further illustration by their punishment 
 of tliat great moral truth, especially applicable in a Republic, 
 that thev who tako up the sword as a weapon of cout rovers/ 
 shall perish by the sword. In the latter case, the. lamented. 
 deaths oi so many citizens, slain from an ambush and by 
 surprise — all the rnoro lamentable becanso they were inno- 
 cent victims era frenzy kindled without their agency, in tar 
 distant (ires — the deaths even of tho offenders themselves, 
 pitiable, although necessary and just, because they acted 
 under delirium, which blinded their judgments to the real 
 nature of their criminal enterprise ; tho alarm and conster- 
 nation naturally awakened throughout tho country, exciting 
 lor the moment tho fear that our whoio system, with ad in 
 securities for life and liberty, was coming to an. cud — a lean 
 nono the mere endurable because continually aggravated by 
 now chimeras towhich the great leading event lent an air of 
 probability ; surely all these constituted a sain of public 
 misery which ought to havo satisfied tlio most morbid appe- 
 tite for social horrors. Cut, as in the case of the gunpowder 
 plot, and the Salem witchcraft, and tho New York colonial 
 negro plrt, eo now ; theoriginal actors wero swiftly followed 
 by another and kindred class, who sought to prolong and 
 wi leu tho public distress by attempting to direct the tndig- 
 nation which it had excited against )>arlios guiltless equally 
 of complicity and of sympathy with tho offenders. 
 
 Posterity will decide iu all tho recent cases where political 
 responsibility for public disasters must fall ; and posterity 
 will give little heed to our interested inatrnctions. It was not 
 Until the gloomy reign of Domitian had ended , and liberty and 
 virtue had found assured refuge under tho sway of the milder 
 Nerva, that tho historian aroso whoso narrative of that period 
 of tyranny and terror has been accepted by mankind. 
 
 The Republican party being thus vindicated against tho 
 charge oi" hostility to tho South, which has been offered in 
 excuse for the menaces of unconstitutional resistance iu tho 
 event of its success, I feel well assurod that it will sustain 
 mo in meeting them in the spirit of thj defender of tho Eng- 
 lish Commonwealth. 
 
 " Surely, they that shall boast as wo do to be a froo 11a- 
 ' tion, and having tho power, shall not also ha vothe courage, 
 ' to remove, constitutionally, every Governor, whether he 
 ' bs tho supreme or subordinate, may please their fancy with 
 ' a ridiculous and painted freedom, lit to cozen babies, but 
 < aro, indeed, under tyranny and servitude, as wanting that 
 ' power, which is tho root and source ofall liberty , tod 
 1 of and economize in tho land which Cod hath given thorn, 
 ' as members of family iu their own homo and free inhcrit- 
 ' ance. Without which natural and essential power of a froo 
 ' nation, though bearing high their heads, they can, in dim 
 ' esteem, bo thought no better than slaves and vassals born 
 ' in the tenure and occupation of another inheriting lord, 
 ' whose government, though not illegal or intolerable, hangs 
 ' on them as a lordly scourge, not as a free government ." 
 
 Tho Republican parly knows, as tho whole country will 
 ultimately come to understand, that tho noblest objects of 
 national life must perish, if that life itself shall be lost, anil 
 therefore it will accept tho issuo tendered. It will tako up 
 tho word Union, which others aro bo willing to renounce, 
 and, combining it with that other glorious thought, Liberty, 
 which has been its inspiration so long, it will move firmly 
 onward, with tho motto inscribed on its banner, " PsKKf 
 and Liberty, come what may. in victory as in defeat, in. 
 powor as out of power, now and forever." 
 
 If the Republican party maintain the Union, who and what 
 party is to assail it? Only the Democratic party, lor thero 
 
8 
 
 is no other. Will the Democratic party take up the n.=- 
 
 ugh not in its 
 half. It must avow or disavow them, 
 ' ius far, is pot i is not alarrijing. The 
 
 ation, if sue 
 e of the Democratic party, though n m ... 
 ror. It certainly ought to need no more than this to secure 
 the success of the Republican party. If, indeed, the time 
 h.i.< coin when the Democratic party must rule by terror, 
 instead of ruling through conceded public confidence, then it 
 fe quite certain thai t cannot bo dismissed from power too 
 ig en that oh" : could not long save 
 
 : ' tion or public liberty. But I shall not be- 
 
 lieve the Democratic part; will consent to stand in this posi 
 ■en, though it does, through the action of its representatives. 
 
 hose who thrt tten disunion, i 
 
 fcnow the Democracy of the North.. I know them now in 
 Una- Waniug strength. I do not know a possible disunionist 
 tin m l. 1 bolievethoy will beas ho Union 
 
 now as they were in Eho bygone days when their ranks wore 
 full, an. I their challenge to the combat was always the war- 
 cry of victory. But, if it shall prove otherwise, then the 
 
 « i all the sooner know thai every party in thi 
 try must sum.! on Unien ground ; thai the Am » ican | iplo 
 tj that is not capable of making a 
 i n the altar of the counti y ; that, although 
 a party may have never so much i in Inevcrsuch 
 
 onal merit, yet, if it be lacking in the one vh 
 loyalty to the Union, all its advantages will be una,. 
 len, obnoxious as, through lo«g-cherlshed and ■ 
 '■ ; ' ' prejudii tyisib the capital States, 
 
 en there it will advn i army with bahacrs, 
 
 winning the favor ol die whole people, and' it will be armed 
 with the national confidence and support, when it shall be 
 the only party that defends and maintains the integrity 
 of the i- 
 
 Those who seek to awaken the terrors of disunion seem to 
 metohavel ■ d the conditions under which 
 
 they are to make their attempt. Who believes that a Repub- 
 lican Administration and Congress could practice l< 
 under a Constitution which interposes so many checks as 
 ours? Yet that tyranny must not only be practiced, Bui 
 must be intolerable, and there must be" no remaining hope 
 for constitutional relief, before forcible resistance can find 
 gro ind to stand on anywhere. 
 
 rh ■ people of the United States, acting in conformity with 
 I te titution, are the supreme tribunal to try and deter- 
 in ae all political issnes. They are as competent to decide the 
 ol to-day as they have been heretofore to decide th ■ 
 issues ol other days. They can reconsider hereafter and re- 
 a need b s, the judgment theyshall pronounce to-day, 
 as they have more than once reconsidered and reversed 
 their judgments in former timi s. It needs no revolution to 
 correct any error, or prevent any danger, under any cir- 
 mce& 
 Nor i.« any new or special cause for revolution likely to 
 occur under a Republican Administration. We arc engaged 
 iu no new transaction, not even in a new dispute. Our 
 fathers undertook a great work for themselves, lor us, and 
 for our successors— to erect a free and Federal empire, 
 whose arches shall span the North American continent, and 
 reflect the rays of the sun throughout his whole passage from 
 the one i" the oth t of the great oceans. They creeled thir- 
 its .'i, mums all at once. Those arc standing now, the 
 admiration of mankind. Their successors added twenty 
 more ; even we who are here have shaped and elevated 
 ■i that twenty, and all these are as firm and Steadfast 
 as the first thirteen ; and more will yet he necessary when 
 xl from our labors. Some among us pre- 
 fer for these columns a composite material ; others, the pure 
 white marble. Our fathers and our predecessors differed in 
 the same way, and on the same point. What execrations 
 should we not all unite in pronouncing on any statesman 
 who heretofore, from more disappointment and disgust at 
 overruled in his choice of materials for anynewcbl- 
 nmu then to be quarried, should have laid violent' hands on 
 the imperfect structure, and brought it down to tho earth, 
 there to remain a wreck, instead of a citadel of a world's 
 best li. 
 
 I remain now in the opinion I have uniformly expressed 
 
 here and elsewhere, that these hasty threats of disunion are 
 
 natural that they will find no' hand to execute them. 
 
 W< are of one race, language, liberty, and faith; engaged, 
 
 d, in varied industry, but even that industry, so uiver- 
 brmgB us into more intimate relations "with each 
 other than a ople, howovcr homogeneous, and 
 
 i ii\ Ing under a consolidated Government, ever main- 
 tained. We languish throughout, if 000 joint Of our Federal 
 frame is smitten ; while it is certain that a part disset Bred 
 must perish. Yon may refine as you please about the 
 Structure of the Government, and say that it is a compact, 
 and that a breach, by one of the states or by Congress, of 
 any one article, absolves all the members from allegiance, 
 ami that the states may separate when they have, or fancy 
 they have, cause for war. But once try to subvert It, and 
 you will find that it is a Government of "the whole people — 
 us individuals, OS well as a compact of States ; that every 
 Individual member of the body politic is conscious of his in- 
 
 terest and power in it, and knows that he will be helpless, 
 powerle . when it shall have gone down. .Man- 
 
 kind have a natural right, a natural instinct, and a natural 
 y for self-government : and when, as hue. they aro 
 i utly ripened by culture, they will and musi 
 
 irument, and no other. The trainers of ourCbusti- 
 W th a wisdom that surpassed all previous unde.r- 
 I standing among men, adapted it to these mho.,.,, elements 
 ' of human nature, lie strangely, blindly misunderstands 
 tho anatomy of the | re I . n,whothinl that its only 
 bonds, or even it« s t m uts, aie tho written 
 
 pact or even tie- piultiplied and thoroughly i. 
 and thoroughfares of trade, commerce, inter- 
 
 course: Thus.- arc strong indeed, but its chiofcst instrn- 
 mei.isof cohesion — those which render il insopanab 
 indivisible — .are the millions of fibres of millions of con* 
 ■ ' is, tun nng by th «r nflfei lions, 
 their ambitious, and their best hopes, equally the high and 
 the low, the rich and toe poor, the wise and tho onwiso, 
 
 the learned and the unti.lored, even the good and the bad, 
 
 to a Government, the first, the last, and the onlj such one 
 that has ever existed, which tales equal hoed alw ij 
 their wants, their wishes, and then- opinions ; and appeals 
 i ail, individually, once in a year, or in two years, or 
 ; in tour years, for thohr expressed consent and re- 
 newal J without win.il it must cease. No ; go where yob 
 will, and to what class you may, with eemmissions for 
 your fatal service in one hand, and your bom:. . 
 tho hundred or the. thousand pieces of silver in the other, t 
 thousand resistors will rise ap for every recruit you can en- 
 gage. On the banks equally of the St. Iawrence and of tho 
 Rio Grande, on the Atlantic and tho Pacific coasts, i 
 shores of the Gulf of Mexico and in the dells of tho Bocky 
 Mountains, among t!io fishermen on the banks of New- 
 foundland, the wcav sis and spinners ol Massachusetts, th - 
 stevedores of New Ye, k.the miners of Pennsylvania, 1'ike's 
 Peak, and California, the wheat-growers ol Indiana, the cot- 
 ton and the sugar planters on the Mis ing the 
 voluntary citizens from every other land not less than Oio 
 native bom, the Christian and Uie Jew, among th ! Indians 
 on the prairies, the contumacious. Morm as in ] 
 Africans free, the Africans in bondage, thi 
 pitals and almshouses, and even tt 
 
 tentiaries, rehearse the story or your wrongs and thoir .-.•. a 
 never so eloquently and never so mournfully, and appeal 
 to them to rise. They will ask you, " Is this all? " " Are 
 you more just than Washington, wiser than Hamilton, 
 humane than Jefferson? " " What new form of government 
 or of union have you the power to establish, or oven the 
 canning to devise, that will be more just, mo a afe, more 
 free, more gentle, mire beneficent, or more glorious than 
 thisv" And by these simple interrogatories yon will ho 
 silenced and confounded. 
 
 Mr. President, we are perpetually forgetting this subtle 
 and complex, yet obvious and natural, mechanism of our 
 Constitution; and because we do forget it, we are contin- 
 ually wondering how it is that a Confederacy i r thirtj and 
 more States, covering regions so vast, an 1 regulating inter- 
 ests 30 various of so many millions Of men, constituted and 
 conditioned so diversely, works right on. We are contin- 
 ually looking to see it stop, and stand still, or fall suddenly 
 into pieces. But, in truth, it wilt not stop ; it cannot stop; 
 it was made not to stop, but to keep in motion — in net >n 
 always, and without force. For my own part, as this won- 
 derful machine, when it had newly come from too hands of 
 its almost divine inventors, was the admiral' >.i oj 1 ny earlier 
 years, although it was then but imperfectly known ah 
 so now, when it forms the central figure in tho economy or 
 the world's civilization, and tho best sympathies >■ '■ mankind 
 favor its continuance, I expect that it will stand and work 
 right on until men shall fear its failure no m r i than WO now 
 apprehend that the sun will cease to hold his eternal place 
 m the hcavei s. 
 
 Nevertheless. I do not expect to see this purely popular, 
 though majestic, system always working on unattended by 
 the presence and exhibition of human temper und human 
 passions. Tliat would be to expect to enjoy rewards, bene- 
 fits, and blessings, without labor, care, and watChfklUlC S— 
 an expectation contrary to Divine appointment. These arc 
 the discipline of tho American citizen, and he must inure 
 himself to it. When, as now. a great policy, fastom • upon 
 the country through its doubts and fears, confirmed by its 
 habits, and strengthened by personal interests and ambi- 
 tions, is to be relaxed and changed., in order that the n tiOS 
 may have its .just and natural and free developments, then, 
 indeed, all the winds of controversy 1 are let loose upon us 
 from all points of the political compass — we see objects and 
 men only through hazes, mists, and doubtful and lurid 
 lights, the earth seems to be heaving undor our feet, and 
 the pillars of the noble fabric that protects US to be trem- 
 bling before our eyes. Bui the appointed end Of all this agi- 
 tation comes at last, and always seasonably ; the tumults Of. 
 the people subside ; the country becomes calm oi.ee more ; 
 
 and then we find that only our Senses have be u dil t'irocd, 
 and that they have betrayed us. The earth is firm as always 
 before, and the wonderful structure, for whose safety wo 
 havo fears I bo anxiously, now more firmly fixed than over, 
 still stands unmoved, enduring, and immovable 
 
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