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 A 
 
 PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 ADDRESSED TO ALL 
 
 HONEST DEMOCRATS. 
 
 BY ONE OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT & COI^IPANY. 
 
 CLEVELAND, OHIO: JEWETT, PROCTOR & WORTHINGTON. 
 
 NEW YORK : SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO. 
 
 185 6. 
 
\ . V»\ \ V 
 
■ivsffi^ * 
 
 PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 ADDRESSED TO ALL 
 
 HONEST DEMOCKATS. 
 
 '^' Tp^ BY ONE OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT & CO]\IPANY. 
 
 CLEVELAND, OHIO : JEWETT, PROCTOR & WORTHINGTON. 
 NEW YORK : SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO. 
 185 6. 
 
E435 
 
 \ 
 
 .?4« 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 
 
 JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 LITHOTYPED BY THE AMERICAN STEREOTYPE COMPANY, 
 28 Phcenix Building, Boston. 
 
 PRINTED BY D. S. FORD AND CO. 
 
A PLAIN STATEMENT. 
 
 You are a Democrat, and all your political sympa- 
 thies are wdth the Democratic party. You not only 
 love the idea, but the very name, of Democracy : and 
 you do well; for, when rightly understood, both are 
 lovely and of good report. 
 
 The founders, and for many years the leaders, of the 
 Democratic party in this countiy were honest men, 
 who sincerely and earnestly labored for the welfare of 
 the people. 
 
 Something of the character of the Democracy which 
 they taught, may be learned from the following defini- 
 tion, taken from Kendall's Expositor : 
 
 " The Democracy we advocate is justice between man and man ; 
 between state and state ; between nation and nation. It is morality. 
 It is ghing every man his due. It is doing unto others as we would 
 have them do unto us. It advocates the banishment of falsehood, 
 fraud, and violence, from the affairs of men. It is the moral code of 
 Him 'who spake as never man spake.' It is the perfection of reason 
 and the law of God." 
 
 And still further from the following resolutions, 
 adopted at a Democratic State Convention at Worces- 
 ter, Sept. 22, 1847: 
 
 "Hesolved, That the Democratic party and creed are the party and 
 creed of truth and freedom, whose fundamental tenets are the inborn, 
 
 (3) 
 
4 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 heaven-granted freedom and equality of all men (to deny which is to 
 destroy republicanism), the Hmited powers of all govemment, and 
 their derivation from the people as the fountain of poHtical authority. 
 " Resolved, That the corner-stone of all repubhcan institutions is the 
 inaHenable freedom and equaHty of all men ; that the American Rev- 
 olution, and all the political blessings thereby secm*ed to our comitry, 
 were the legitimate results of the adoption of that great principle by 
 our fathers ; and that we ought never to forget or fail to declare our 
 undjing attachment to tliis cliief tenet m the creed of Democracy." 
 
 For the prosperity and success of such Democracy, 
 every man should be willing to labor and sacrifice. It 
 is in harmony with the Declaration of Independence, 
 ■\\Titten by Thomas Jefferson, and adopted by our Revo- 
 lutionary fathers — which holds as " self-evident truths, 
 that all men are created equal, and endowed with in- 
 alienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness;" and "to secure these rights, governments are 
 instituted among men, deriving their just powers from 
 the consent of the governed;" and " that, whenever any 
 government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the 
 right of the people to alter or abolish it." 
 
 This is Jeffersonian and Revolutionary Democracy. 
 It is on just such Democracy as this that the govern- 
 ment of these States was founded : viz., a recognition 
 of the right of the people to " abolish " the government, 
 whenever it becomes destructive of the ends for which 
 it was established. 
 
 It is not affirmed here that the exigency for such a 
 step has yet arisen. It is only asserted that the De- 
 mocracy which our fathers inaugurated leaves the 
 decision of such exigencies wholly to the people, and 
 has confidence in their ability to decide righteously. 
 Our fathers not only held to the right of revolution, 
 
TO HONEST DEMO CE ATS. O 
 
 but exercised it; and they transmitted both the right 
 and the right of its exercise to their children. And 
 they form an inestimable part of our inheritance to-day. 
 Our fathers were jealous of poiver, and carefully 
 guarded themselves against its encroachments. They 
 knew how insidious were its workings, its hostility 
 to freedom and the rights of man. They looked abroad 
 over the world, and saw that everywhere the iron rule 
 of despotism crushed down the masses of the people. 
 They saw that nowhere on the face of the earth, except 
 in secluded Switzerland, had republican Freedom found 
 a i-esting-place for the sole of her foot. So they built 
 the temple of liberty here, on this Western Continent ; 
 and established what they intended should be an asy- 
 lum for the oppressed of all nations, through all com- 
 ing time. It is true that slavery was here, right in their 
 midst, and many of them were supporters of the sys- 
 tem ; but they were comparative strangers to its deep 
 and damning depravity. But many of them, among 
 whom were Franklin,* Jefferson,! Patrick Henry, $ and 
 others, labored earnestly for its entire abolition. But in 
 sustaining the toils, perils, and sacrifices of the Revolu- 
 
 ^ See Eranklin's petition " to the Senate and House of Representatives 
 of tlie United States," on behalf of tlie Pennsylvania Abolition Society, 
 Februarys, 1790. 
 
 t Inline (sentiments on the subject of the slavery of negroes) have long 
 since been in possession of the public, and time has only served, to give 
 them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country plead 
 equally the cause of these people ; it is a moral reproach to us that they 
 should have pleaded it so long in yain. — Jefferson's letter to Edward Cole, 
 Esq., August 25, 1814. 
 
 tl believe -a time will come, when an opportunity will be offered to 
 abohsh this lamentable evil. If not, let us transmit to our descendants, 
 together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and our abhorrence 
 of slavery.— Ze«er of Patrick Henry to R. Pleasants, January 18, 1773. 
 1* 
 
6 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 tion, and securing its glorions results, the fathers had 
 done their work; and in the abolition of slavery, and 
 the completion of the work which they so nobly com- 
 menced, they trusted that their children would accom- 
 pKsh theirs.* 
 
 Such was the Democracy of the fathers — jealous 
 and w^atchful for liberty ; a foe to tyrants, but true to 
 God and humanity. " But the spirit of liberty which 
 animated their bosoms departed with them, and its 
 place is occupied in the bosoms of their sons by the 
 spirit of trade. So that what the fathers regarded, 
 according to the laws of God, as a crime to be repented 
 of and forsaken, is regarded by their sons, according to 
 the laws of trade, as only a fit subject for their ledger s.^^ 
 And it may now be asked, with great pertinency, is 
 the Democracy of the fathers one and the same with 
 that which now reigns supreme in the national councils» 
 and which asks you to assist in maintaining its su- 
 premacy ? 
 
 In all ages of the world, and throughout all periods of 
 human history, the representatives of Absolute power 
 have seized upon those names and ideas dearest to the 
 people, as the readiest and safest means of leading 
 them bhndfold to their ruin. They know that " a lie 
 shall keep its throne a whole age longer if it skuUc 
 behind the shelter of some fair-seeming name." And 
 accordingly, the bloodiest crimes on record have been 
 committed in the sacred name oi religion ; and now, and 
 
 * I hope it will not be conceived, from these observations, that it is my 
 wish to hold the unhappy people, who are the subject of this letter, in 
 slavery. I can only say tliat there is not a man living, who -wishes more 
 sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for tlic abolition of it. . . . And 
 this, so far as my suttVage will go, shall not be wanting. — Letter of Geo. 
 Washington to Robert Morris. 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCEATS. 7 
 
 here in our own beloved country, tyrants and oppressors 
 are perpetrating crimes at which humanity shudders, in 
 the almost equally sacred name of Democracy. 
 
 There is a terrible POWER in this country ; subtle, 
 despotic, and tyrannical in its very nature and essence ; 
 the » SLAVE POWER" — for slavery and despotism 
 are one in spirit the world over — which insidiously, by 
 secret bribe and open threat, has gradually won over the 
 entne Democratic party of the Union to its side, and has 
 so allied itself to, and obtained such a complete 
 influence over, that party, as to dictate and govern its 
 entire policy, and through it the policy of the govern- 
 ment itself. 
 
 The spirit of slavery in our country is the same in 
 essence with that despotic spirit which crushed the 
 liberties of Greece, trampled out the lifeblood of 
 Poland, overwhelmed freedom in Hungary, Italy, and 
 France, and which, by means of hired butchers and 
 assassins of liberty, now holds the people of the old 
 world in the grip of absolutism. 
 
 It is proposed to show the truth of this statement ; 
 and, as the highest testimony is that which a criminal 
 volunteers against himself, the principal witnesses in 
 the case will be slaveholders themselves, and their testi- 
 mony is voluntary, neither bribes nor threats having 
 drawn it forth. Moreover, many of the witnesses ar " 
 well known, and their evidence is unimpeachable. 
 
 The first point to be established is, that 
 
 SLAVEHOLDERS look with sovereign CON- 
 TEMPT upon all LABORING MEN; and, so far as 
 tliey can safely, treat them as slaves ; and are aiming at 
 the subjugation of the entire working classes. North 
 as well as South, to a condition of Absolute Bondage. 
 
 The first witness is 
 
A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 B. WATKIXS LEIGH, VA. 
 
 " In every ci^ilized coimtry under the sim, some there must be 
 who labor for their daily bread, — men who tend the herds, and dig 
 the soil, — who have no real nor personal capital of their own, and 
 who earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow. I have as sin- 
 cere feehngs of regard for that people as any man who lives among 
 them. But I ask gentlemen to say, Avhether they beheve that those 
 who depend on their daily labor for their daily subsistence, can, or do, 
 ever enter into political aifairs ? They never do, never mil, never 
 can." — Speech in Virginia Convention, 1829. 
 
 F. W. PICKENS, s. c. 
 
 " All society settles down into a classification of capitaKsts and 
 laborers. The former -will omi the latter, either collectively through 
 the government, or individually in a state of domestic servitude, as ex- 
 ists in the Southern States of this confederacy. If laborers ever obtain 
 the political jjoioer of a country, it is in fact in a state of revolu- 
 tion." — Speech in Congress, January 21, 1837. 
 
 CHANCELLOR HARPER, S. C. 
 
 " "Would you do a benefit to the horse, or the ox, by giving liim a 
 cultivated miderstanding, a fine feeHng ? So far as the mere laborer 
 has the pride, the knowledge, or the aspiration of a freeman, he is 
 mifitted for his situation. If there are sordid, servile, laborious 
 offices to be performed, is it not better that there should be sordid, 
 servile, laborious beings to perform them ? Odium has been cast 
 upon our legislation on account of its forbidding the elements of edu- 
 cation being communicated to slaves. But, in truth, what injury is done 
 them by tliis ? He who works during the day with his hands does not 
 read in the intervals of leisure, for his amusement, or the improve- 
 ment of his mind ; or the exception is so very rare as scarcely to need 
 the being provided for." — Soidhern Literary Messenger. 
 
 GEORGE M'DLTFIE. 
 
 " If we look into the elements of which all political communities 
 are composed, it will be found that servitude in some form is one of 
 the essential constituents. ... In the very nature of tilings, there must 
 be classes of persons to discharge all the different offices of society, 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 9 
 
 from the highest to the lowest . . . Where these offices are performed 
 hy members of the political community, a dangerous element is oh' 
 viously introduced by the body politic. . . . I)o7nestic slavery, there- 
 fore, instead of being an evil, is the corner-stone of our repub- 
 lican edifice." — Message to S. G. Legislature, 1835. 
 
 ROBERT WICKLIFFE, KT. 
 
 " Gentlemen wanted to drive out the black population, that they 
 may obtain white negroes in their places. White negroes have this 
 advantage over black negroes, they can be converted into voters ; 
 and the men who Hve upon the sweat of their brow, and pay them 
 but a dependent and scanty subsistence, can, if able to keep ten thou- 
 sand of them in employment, come up to the polls, and change the 
 destiny of the coimtry." 
 
 " How improved will be our condition when we have such white 
 negroes as perform the servile labors of Europe, of old England, 
 and he would add now, of New England ,- when our body servants, 
 and our cart drivers, and our street sweepers, are white negroes 
 instead of black ? Where will be the independence, the proud sjiirit, 
 and the cliivalry of the Kentuckians then ? " — Speech in Kentucky. 
 
 This " chivalrous " Kentuckian seems to have no 
 higher estimate of the intelligence of the great body 
 of working men — or what he calls " white negroes " — 
 than to suppose that they must " go it blind," and vote 
 just as their "employers" tell them to. But then, as 
 they might not always fully understand their em- 
 ployers' wishes, and sometimes vote wrongs to avoid 
 all risks, it is thought best, by him and his compatriots, 
 that both black and white negroes should not vote at 
 aU. 
 
 But little comment is needed upon the atrocious 
 doctrines of these slaveholding gentry, which they have 
 so openly stated and boldly avowed. For these senti- 
 ments were not whispered in secret, but " proclaimed 
 from the house-tops." It will be noticed that not one 
 
10 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 of these witnesses makes any allusion whatever to 
 color or race^ except the last. But slaves and laborers 
 are spoken of in the same connection, and as belonging 
 to the same class. Both are denied the right of voting, 
 or of taking any part whatever in political affairs. 
 
 Those innocent Northerners, who have supposed that 
 none but " black negroes " ever were, or are ever to be, 
 subjected to the lash of slavery, will find themselves 
 most egregiously mistaken. IVlr. Leigh tells us that 
 those who depend on their daily labor for their subsist- 
 ence " never do, never will, never can " " enter into 
 political affairs." And Mr. Pickens adds that, if " labor- , 
 ers ever do obtain political power, the country is in a 
 state of revolution." And Mr. McDuffie declares that, 
 where those who " discharge all the different offices of 
 society, from the highest to the loivest,''^ are allowed to 
 vote, " a dangerous element is introduced by the body 
 politic.^^ And Mr. Pickens further says, in the same 
 speech : 
 
 " Hence it is, that they must have a strong federal government to 
 control the labor of the nation. But it is precisely the reverse with 
 us. We have already not only a right to the 2)roceeds of our labor- 
 ers, but we own a class of laborers themselves. But, let me 
 say to gentlemen who represent the great class of capitalists at the 
 North, beware how you drive us into a separate system, for, if you do, 
 as certain as the decrees of Heaven, you will be compelled to appeal 
 to the sword to maintain yom-selves at home. It may not come in 
 your day ; but your children's children will be covered loith the blood 
 of domestic factions, and a plu>^derl\G mob contending for poioer 
 and conquest" 
 
 The plain English of which is, that if " laborers " — 
 in other words, those who create and diffuse aU the 
 wealth of society — are allowed to vote and exercise 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 11 
 
 political power, they will so direct the affairs of gov- 
 ernment, as to secure a just share in the products of 
 their own toil ; and the only way in which " capitalists " 
 can prevent this, and safely plunder the laborer, so as 
 to get the " lion's share," is to rob him of both his vote 
 and himself together : in other words, make a slave of 
 him. And " capitalists at the North " are warned that 
 they can never enjoy anything like repose until they 
 not onJy " have a right to the proceeds of the laborers," 
 but "oz^Tz" the laborers themselves. 
 
 It was doubtless this view of the case, which drew 
 out that remarkable declaration from 
 
 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 " We regard slavery as the most safe and stable basis for free 
 institutions in the world. It is impossible with us that the conflict 
 should take place between labor and capital. Every plantation is a 
 Httle community, with the master at its head, who concentrates in 
 himself the united interests of capital and labor, of which he is the 
 common representative." 
 
 A mighty convenience, truly. No wonder John 
 Mitchel sighed for " a plantation of fat negroes," 
 whom he could occasionally " larrup," in the overflow- 
 ing exuberance of his " patriotism." 
 
 That such sentiments are not confined to the South, 
 and the class technically called " slaveholders," will be 
 shown by the following brief extract from the 
 
 NEW YORK DAY BOOK, 
 
 a journal which aspires to the leadership of the Demo- 
 cratic forces of the entire country. In its issue of June 
 21, 1856, in an article on " Sewardism," occurs the fol- 
 lowing, among other passages of a similar import : 
 
12 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 " JSfegro ' slavery ^ is tJie basis ofAinerican DEMOCHACY; or 
 the subordination of an inferior race has secured, and always ■will 
 secure, the equahty of the superior race." 
 
 In its campaign prospectus, of the same date, occurs 
 the following portentous announcement : 
 
 ■ " We have enlisted for the war against aljolitionism and its inii^os- 
 tures, and we do not intend to stop until we ' subdue ' them." 
 
 The " abolitionism" which the Day Book is going to 
 " subdue " is no other than the " Democracy" of Jeffer- 
 son and the " fathers." It is justice between man and 
 man, between state and state, between nation and 
 nation. It is giving to every man his due. It is doing 
 unto others as we would have them do to us. It advo- 
 cates the banishment of falsehoood, fraud, and violence, 
 from the affairs of men. It is the moral code of Him 
 " who spake as never man spake." It is the perfection 
 of reason and the law of God. With what success 
 the Day Book meets, in its attempts to subdue it, we 
 shall learn in due time ; let us be patient. 
 
 The following article, in relation to the late murder at 
 
 Willarcfs Hotels Washmgton city, bears upon the point 
 
 just stated, that slavery knows nothing of race or color ; 
 
 that condition is the only ground on which it bases all 
 
 its arrogant assumptions of superiority. It is from the 
 
 CHAHLESTON (S. C.) STANDARD. 
 
 " Herbert and Keating. — Any provocation that may have been 
 given for the assault upon him by the body of waiters, was at the most 
 a provocation of words, and such a provocation as a servant should 
 not have a right to resent; and, if wliilc men accept the offices of 
 menials, it should be expected that they will do so with an apprehen- 
 sion of their relation to society, and the disposition quietly to encoun- 
 ter botli the responsibilities and the HabiHties which the relation 
 imposes." 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 13 
 
 IVIr. J. C. Underwood, who was recently prohibited 
 from returning to Virginia, in consequence of a speech 
 which he made at the Philadelphia Convention, ad- 
 dressed a Fremont meeting in New York on Thursday 
 evening, July 17. Referring to the domestic slave trade, 
 which has been created as a result of the law of 1808 
 declaring the foreign slave trade piracy, Mr. Underwood 
 said that the number of slaves now annually sold in 
 Virginia was between 20,000 and 25,000, and the price 
 they brought was from $20,000,000 to $25,000,000. 
 The traffic is attended, too, by horrors as great as any 
 that marked the African slave trade. Of the condition 
 of the white laborers of Virginia, Mr. Underwood drew 
 the following sad picture : 
 
 '" He would ask, what were the influences of slavery upon the white 
 man ? and upon this subject he could not heli3 feeling more for his ovm. 
 countrpnen than for the poor children of Africa. He had white labor- 
 ers aromid him in Virginia — the famihes of eight poor white men - - 
 sober and industrious tenants. He had employed them because he 
 preferred them to slaves. He could have inherited slaves if he had 
 but said the word ; but upon his first reflections he had resolved that 
 the sweat of no slave should moisten liis fields. (Great applause.) 
 
 " What did they think were the wages of laboring men in Virginia ? 
 They only received fi'om eight to ten dollars a month, mth the excep- 
 tion of a Httle time in harvest — some fifty cents a day; and the fare 
 allotted to them was far inferior in every respect to that fiurnished by 
 the farmers of the North to their laboring men. The white laborers 
 in Virgmia were not invited to the great house to take their meals, but 
 they must take them under the shade of a tree, sometimes in the same 
 group with the slaves, and sometimes in a Httle group by themselves. 
 The white laborer at the South did not get from his employer tea, 
 coffee, sugar, butter, wheat bread, or anything of the kind, for liis sup- 
 port. He would tell them some of the other disadvantages under 
 wliich the white laborers of Virginia were placed. They were not 
 permitted to enjoy the advantages of district schools. It was true, 
 there was a small fund for common-school education, but, before any 
 2 
 
14 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 man could be allowed to have a participation in it for the benefit of his 
 cliildren, he must be willing to acknowledge himself a pauper, and ask 
 for his share of the fund upon the ground of liis poverty. They all 
 had heard the maxim that pride and pauperism walked together, and 
 the poor white men of Virginia were too proud to accept of the fund 
 upon such terms, and the result was that there were seventj'-five 
 thousand men and wom.en in Virginia unable to read and write. These 
 were some of the consequences resulting to the white laborers at the 
 South from the influences of slavery ; and the question for Northern 
 laborins: men to decide was, whether such influences should be extended 
 over the territories of the great West — whether the white men who 
 ffo there shall fare like the slave laborers of the South, or whether, 
 hke the wliite laborers of New York, they shall be permitted to enjoy 
 the rights of freemen, the right of education for their children, and a 
 reasonable compensation for their labor." 
 
 The next point to be established is, that slaveholders 
 hahitually exercise a haughty^ overhearing demeanor 
 toivard those ivho are in every respect their equals. 
 
 The following extract from a letter of Thomas Jef- 
 FERSon to M. Warville, Paris, Feb., 1788, will enable us 
 to understand the origin of this peculiarity. In speak- 
 ing of the intercourse between master and slave, he 
 says: 
 
 " The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the hneaments of 
 wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, GI\"ES 
 LOOSE TO HIS WORST PASSIONS ; and, thus iiursed, educatedy 
 and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it witli 
 odious peculiarities." 
 
 Hon. Lewis Summers, Judge of the General Court 
 of Virginia, and a slaveholder, said, in a speech before 
 the Virginia Legislature, in 1832 (see Richmond Whig, 
 Jan. 26, 1832) : 
 
 " A slave population exercises the most pernicious injliience upon 
 the manners, habits, and character of those among whom it exists. 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 15 
 
 Lisping infancy learns the vocabulary of abusive epithets, and struts, 
 the embryo tyrant of its little domain. The consciousness of superior 
 destiny takes jDOSsession of liis mind at its earhest dawning, and love 
 of poioer and ride ' grows with his growth and strengthens with his 
 strength.' Unless enabled to rise above the operation of those power- 
 ful causes, lie enters tJie world with miserable notions of self-impor- 
 tance, and under the government of an UNBRIDLED TEMPER." 
 
 These " odious peculiarities " become quite promi- 
 nent on too many occasions. Those who are at 
 all acquainted with the comparative merits of the 
 '' North and the South," in regard to the industrial en- 
 terprises, the diffusion of knowledge and general intel- 
 ligence, the piety, morality, and general prosperity 
 of the two sections, will be able to appreciate the 
 spirit of the following article from the 
 
 RICHMOND ENQUIREE. 
 
 "|The relations between the North and South are very analogous to 
 those which subsisted between Greece and the Roman Empire after the 
 subjugation of Achaia by the consul Mummius. The dignity and en- 
 ergy of the Roman character, conspicuous in war and in politics, were 
 not easily tamed and adjusted to the arts of industry and Hterature. 
 The degenerate and pliant Greeks, on the contrary, excelled in the 
 handicraft and poKte professions. We learn, from the vigorous invec- 
 tive of Juvenal, that they were the most useful and capable of servants, 
 whether as pimps or j)rofessors of rhetoric. Obsequious, dexterous, 
 and ready, the versatile Greeks monopolized the business of teaching, 
 publishing, and manufacturing, in the Roman Empire — allowing their 
 masters ample leisure for the ser\dce of the State, in the senate or in 
 the field. The people of the Northern States of this confederacy ex- 
 hibit the same aptitude for the arts of industry. They excel as clerks, 
 mechanics, and tradesmen, and they have monopoHzed the business of 
 teaching, publishing, and peddling." 
 
 The chief point in the " analogy " here drawn seems 
 to be, that, while we of the North are good mechanics, 
 
16 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 manufacturers, ^^ pimps, ''^ (?) and peddlers, and so create 
 and diffuse nearly all the wealth of the nation, our 
 " dignified " Southern masters are thereby " allowed 
 ample leisure for the service of the State in the senate 
 or in the field." The amount and kind of service they 
 have rendered the " State, " in either department, but 
 especially in the " field, " may be learned by consulting 
 the records of history. 
 
 The same paper, in its issue of June 2, 1856, holds 
 the following language, in reference to the murderous 
 assault of Preston S. Brooks upon the Hon. Charles 
 Sumner : 
 
 " In the main, the press of the South applaud the conduct of Mr. 
 Brooks, without condition or limitation. Our approbation at least is 
 entire and unreserved. We consider the act good in concej^tion, better 
 in execution, and best of all in consequences. These vulgar abohtion- 
 ists in the Senate are getting above themselves. They have been 
 humored mitil they forget their position. They have grown saucy, and 
 dare to be impudent to gentlemen. Now they are a low, mean, scurvy 
 set, -with some Httle book learning, but as utterly devoid of spirit and 
 honor as a pack of curs. Intrenched behind * privilege,' they fancy 
 they can slander the South and its representatives mXh impmiity." 
 
 " The truth is, they have been suffered to run too long -uithout collars. 
 They must be lashed into submission. Sumner, in particidar, ought to 
 have nine-and-thirty early every morning. He is a great strapping 
 fellow, and could stand the coivhide beautifully. Brooks frightened 
 him, and, at the first blow of the cane, he bellowed like a bull-calf. 
 
 "There is the blackguard Wilson, an ignorant Natick cobbler, 
 swaggering in excess of muscle, and, absolutely djing for a beating. 
 Will not somebody take him in hand ? Hale is another huge, red- 
 faced, sweating scoundrel, whom some gentleman should kick and cuff 
 until he abates something of his impudent talk. 
 
 " We trust other gentlemen will follow the example of Mr. Brooks, 
 that so a curb may be imposed upon the truculence and audacity of 
 abolition S2)eakers. If need be, let us have a caning or cowhiding 
 every day. K the worst come to the worst, so much the sooner, so 
 much the better." 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. X7 
 
 During the debates on the repeal of the " Missouri 
 Compromise," in the U. S. House of Representatives, 
 the following language was addressed to the opponents 
 of that measure by 
 
 ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, OF GA. 
 
 " "Well, gentlemen, you make a good deal of clamor on the Nebraska 
 . measure, but it don't alarm us at all. We have got used to that kind 
 of talk. You have threatened before, but never performed. You 
 have always caved in, and you will again. You are a mouthing, wJiite- 
 livered set. Of course you will oppose : we expect that ; but we don't 
 care for your opposition. You will rail ; but we don't care for your 
 railing. You wdll hiss ; but so do adders. We expect it of adders, 
 and we expect it of you. You are like the devils that were pitched 
 over the battlements of heaven into hell. They set up a howl of dis- 
 comfiture ; and so will you. But their fate was sealed, and so is 
 yours. You mast SUBMIT TO THE YOKE. But don't chafe. 
 Gentlemen, ive have got you in our power. Yo\x tried to drive us to 
 the wall in 1850 ; but times are changed. You we7it a wooling and 
 CA]ME HOME FLEECED. DonH he so IMPUDENT as to COM- 
 PLAIN. Tou will only be SLAPPED IN THE FACE. Don't 
 RESIST; you will only be LASHED INTO OBEDIENCE." 
 
 The frequent allusions, in these " elegant extracts," 
 to the modes and instruments employed by their au- 
 thors to coerce submission from their slaves, — by " beat- 
 ing,^^ " kicking,''^ " cuffing;^^ the " yoke,^^ the " lashj^ the 
 " cane,^^ the " collar,^^ and the " cowhide,^^ — prove that 
 they have been apt learners in the school described by 
 Mr. Jefferson.* And yet, in all this, the people of the 
 North are only " eating the fruit 6i then* own doings ; " 
 they have " sown the wind and are reaping the whirl- 
 wind." The race of Doughfaces has become so nu- 
 merous, and has so long flattered, caressed, and quietly 
 submitted to all the whims, caprices, insults, and out- 
 
 * Letter to Warville. 
 2» 
 
18 . A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 rages of the slaveholders, that they have come to regard 
 a continuance of these favors as among their rights ; 
 and, like spoiled children, they storm and threaten 
 whenever they are liable to be crossed in any of their 
 darling schemes. 
 
 Slavery^ being a despotism^ must resort to the means 
 of self-defence employed by other despotisms. Hence a 
 terrible '•'•public opiniony^ and in many instances barbar- 
 ous statutes, make it a penal offence to " print, publish, 
 or utter " the sentiments or doctrines of freedom ; so 
 that free speech is crushed and the press muzzled 
 throughout the South. There are many persons in 
 the South who feel cursed by the existence of slavery, 
 and would gladly do something for its overthrow ; but 
 a fearful " reign of terror " keeps them quiet. 
 
 The following extract from a letter recently published 
 in the Chicago Tribune will throw some light on this 
 point ; 
 
 "Pensacola, Leake Co., Miss., July 2, 1856. 
 "Editors Chicago Tribune: 
 
 " * * * I, in common yai\\ many Southern men, feel a deep interest 
 in your success in the Kansas struggle, as well as in the ensuing Presi- 
 dential election ; but we dare do nothing, as we should thereby ex- 
 patriate ourselves or suffer intolerable persecution from the slaveholders 
 and those imder their influence. I long, however, to mount the stump 
 and tell my Northern friends what many Southern men reall}' do 
 think of public aftaii's in the present crisis. But we are tongue-tied, — 
 speechless, — and dare not open our mouths m defence of equal rights 
 and free labor, without falHng under the merciless displeasure of the 
 ' Ohgarchy,' as you Northerners correctly call them. Yet many of us 
 would brave their anger and malevolence, but for our families and re- 
 lations that would sufler on our accomit the ruthless vengeance of the 
 public oppressors of our fair land. 
 
 " Many a silent hwl earnest prayer will be uttered for your com])lete 
 success in November, by true-hearted patriots south of Mason and 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCEATS. 19 
 
 Dixon's line, who will work and vote for Fillmore as the least of two 
 evils, trusting that their thraldom may be overthrown by the success 
 of Fremont. He is om- hope and morning star. K he sets in dark- 
 ness our last hope expires, and leaves us in gloom. May God in his 
 mercy avert such a calamity from our land. His success will revive 
 the smouldering fires of freedom in the breasts of tens of thousands 
 of non-slaveholders by compulsion. Before his four years end, there 
 will be a powerful, gradual emancipation party organized in all the 
 Northern slave States on Clay's j)lan ; while we, further South, in the 
 cotton and sugar region, will enjoy the right of Free Speech, and of 
 subscribing to and recei\dng such newspapers as we please. "Work 
 and pray for Fremont ; but be sure and work, whether you pray or not. 
 
 " Yours truly, * *." 
 
 The name of the writer is withheld for reasons which 
 appear in the extract. 
 
 The following paragraph appears in the 
 
 MOBILE ADVERTISER. 
 
 " There are men here in Alabama, and in this county , loho are 7iot 
 ashamed to own a preference/or Fremont, or any other aboKtionist, to 
 Buchanan. How can the South ever expect to maintain her self- 
 respect, or obtain her just rights, if she even endures such persons on 
 her soil, much less permits them to occupy injluential positio7is within 
 her borders'^" 
 
 That slavery will not " endufre such persons " on her 
 soil is a well known fact. Mr. J. C. Underwood, of 
 Virginia, whose recent speech in New York has just 
 been quoted, attended the late Republican Convention 
 at Philadelphia ; and, for thus exercising a freeman's 
 right to his political preference, was threatened with 
 the most terrible vengeance if he returned, and he is 
 now an exile on account of his opinions. 
 
 The following statement of facts, from the Boston 
 Chronicle^ not only shows that the cause of freedom 
 has many zealous, active, and determined friends in 
 
20 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 the slaveholding States, but indicates the means some- 
 times resorted to by the despots to crush them out : 
 
 " Some seven years ago William S. Bailey, a hard-working, inge- 
 nious mechanic of Newport, Ky., a machinist by trade, with a large 
 family, and a hatred of slavery such as only an experience of its un- 
 speakable oppressions on the white mechanic, as weU as the negro, can 
 engender, resolved to speak out, with such education as he has been 
 able to pick up, through types of his own. In a slave State, where 
 such men as Birney and Cassius M. Clay had been frustrated m their 
 efforts to establish an anti-slavery press, the attempt of a mere me- 
 chanic was looked upon as hopeless. But he procured press and 
 types, taught his own family to jDrint, and went ahead. His paper met 
 T\ith favor among men of his own class. The slaveholders set on 
 ruffians to mob him, but T\ith his own workmen and friends he de- 
 fended his printing apparatus successfully. They got up opposition 
 jDapers and lost their money. Bailey, ha-sdng a machine-shop with a 
 good many hands m liis employ, j^ut his press and types in the upper 
 story, and, when the ruffians came to attack liis paper, the stm'dy work- 
 ers in the metals were ready to pitch into them. Finding no other 
 way to subdue him, about fom* years ago they set fire to his shop and 
 bm-nt down the whole. There was no insm^ance, and his loss, about 
 $G000, made him a poor man. 
 
 " By straining every nerve, and stretching his 'credit, he procured 
 printing materials and revived his paper. It is now printed weekly 
 and daily — bears the flag of Fremont and Dajton — havmg all its 
 types set by Xheprojprietor's own family of ten children — and is the 
 only daily paper in Kentucky out of Louis\-ille. It is a fixed H\'ing 
 fact. It has a constituency. It is a poHtical power in Kentucky. 
 It has oi)ened the eyes of tens of thousands — they are poor whites, 
 to be sure, but many of them will vote the Freedom ticket at the risk 
 of becoming poorer. ^Nlr. Bailey is now in this city ; and assures us 
 that he verily beheves, if Kentucky could be stumped for Freedom, 
 and the mode of voting was such that the non-slaveholders could vote 
 their true toishcs wit! tout jeopardizing their livelihood, the State would 
 give a decided majority for Fremont and Daj-ton." 
 
 As " knowledge is power " to its possessor, one of the 
 strongest defences of tyranny is, to surround its victimo 
 with a cloud of ignorance. Hence, — 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 21 
 
 The SLAVE POWER not only ''forbids the ele- 
 ments of education being communicated to slaves," but 
 arrays itself in deadly hostility to the cause of education 
 among the people generally. 
 
 It utters its maledictions against the New England 
 common-school system, after this sort, through one of 
 its organs, the Richmond Examiner^ Dec. 28, 1855 : 
 
 "We have got to hating everjdhing -with the prefix /ree — from 
 free negroes cIotvti and ujd, through the whole catalogue of abom- 
 inations, demagogueries, lusts, philosophies, fanaticism, and folHes, free 
 farms, free labor, free niggers, free society, free will, free thinking, free 
 love, free wives, free children, and free schools, all belonging to the same 
 brood of damnable isms whose mother is Sin and whose daddy is the 
 Devil — are all the progeny of that prolific monster which greeted 
 Satan on his arrival at the gates of hell, which, 
 
 " ' Seemed woman to the waist, and fair. 
 
 But ended foul in many a scaly fold 
 
 Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed 
 
 With mortal sting : ahout her middle round 
 
 A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing bark'd 
 
 With wide Cerberean mouths full loud and many 
 
 A hideous peal : yet when they list would creep, 
 
 If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb, 
 
 And kennel there ; yet there still barked and howled 
 
 Within unseen.' 
 
 "But the worst of aU these abominations — because, when once 
 installed, it becomes the hotbed propagator of all — is the modern 
 system of free schools. We forget who it is that has charged and 
 proved that the New England system of free schools has been the 
 cause and prolific source of ill the legions of horrible infidelities and 
 treasons that have turned her cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs, and 
 her fair land into the common nesthng-place of howHng bedlamites. 
 We abominate the system because the schools are free, and because 
 they make that which ought to be the reward of toil, and earnest, 
 ardent, and almost superhuman individual efforts, cheap, commonplace, 
 prizeless, and uninviting. As there is no royal road to learning, so 
 there ought to be no mob road to learning. 
 
 " A * little learning is a dangerous thing ' — to the individual, to 
 society, to learning itself, to all conservatism of thought and all stability 
 
22 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 in general affairs. The sole function of the free school is to supply 
 that ' little learning ; ' and thus it is charged to the brim with mcendiar- 
 isms, heresies, and all the explosive elements ■which uproot and rend 
 and desolate society." 
 
 The obvious import of this last paragraph is, that, as 
 " a little learning is a dangerous tiling" (the converse of 
 which is, " much learning hath made thee mad"), and the 
 "fi-ee school" can only furnish a '^ little ;^^ and as the 
 " 7?io&," wliich means the common people, are unable to 
 send their children to college where '^much learning" is 
 to be had, said free school is a nuisance which must be 
 abated ; and said moh and their children shall have no 
 learning at aU. And so, as Hon. Charles Sumner truly 
 said, slavery "imprisons pious matrons for teaching 
 little children to read the word of God." * 
 
 That these infamous doctrines and practices have 
 brought forth their legitimate fruits, is seen in the 
 astounding fact that there are seventy-five thousand free 
 white adult 7nen and luomen in Virginia, unable to read 
 or \\Tite. Nor is this state of things confined to Vir- 
 ginia, as will be shown by the following extract from 
 the Georgia 
 
 FEDERAL UNION. 
 
 "A generous patriotism is startled by the fact as it stood in 1840: 
 upward of 30,000 free white grown-up citizens in Georgia unable to 
 read or write a word of their mother tongue ! This number equals 
 the enthe adult population of the State as it stood seven years after 
 the close of the Revolution. Ten years roll by, 1850 comes, and the 
 number m that short time has swollen to 41,000 ! ]Many have looked 
 with anxiety at these figures (and surely not without the best of rea- 
 
 * Sec Narrative of Margaret Douglas, who, with her daughter, was 
 imprisoned one month in the jail of Norfolk, Va., in 1853, for opening a 
 school in that city for the instruction of free colored children in reading 
 and -vvTiting. 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCEATS. 23 
 
 sons) who have not noticed the most distressing featiu'e of the case. 
 We refer to the rapidity vdth. which the number of entirely micdu- 
 cated freemen in Georgia increases. It increases more rapidly than 
 the entire population does. By reference to the last census, it will 
 be seen that between 1840 and 1850 the rate of increase of the entire 
 white jDopidation was a httle under 28 per cent. Dui'ing the same 
 time the rate of increase of the nimiber of adult citizens in the State 
 unable to read or write was over 34 1-3 per cent. It is only by dis- 
 tinctly observing this rapid increase that we see the facts in their 
 appalhng magnitude. This vast army of forty-one thousand ivill he 
 more than doubled in thirty years ! At the rate of the increase 
 shown by the census, it will have witlihi its ranks, m the year 1900, 
 one hundred and seventy thousand of the citizens of Georgia. This 
 is the rigid result jielded by the figures. The boy of to-day, who 
 may hve to old age, will see the time when this host of darkened, 
 unlettered, uncared-for multitude in om' State "will have grown to over 
 two hundred thousand, unless an entirely new and effective effort be 
 made to drive this sore evil from the land." 
 
 Our fifth proposition is, that SLAVERY is an 
 incubus upon the INDUSTRY o/ the nation; crippling, 
 paralyzing, or destroying the enterprise and prosperity 
 of the people where it exists. 
 
 On this branch of the subject little proof is needed. 
 The facts are so patent to every eye as to need but 
 little elucidation. 
 
 Those who will take the trouble to compare the pres- 
 ent conditions of Kentucky and Ohio, and will at the 
 same time remember that Kentucky is the oldest, and, 
 in mineral and agricultural resources, the richest State, 
 will find sufficient evidence on this point. But then, as 
 confession in open court is better than mere argument, 
 we have here the testimony of a few competent wit- 
 nesses. The Richmo7id Enquirer tells us that — 
 
 " In no State of the confederacy do the facihiies for manufactm'ing 
 operations exist in greater profusion than in Virginia. Every condi- 
 
24 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 tion essential to success in these emplojinents is found here in prodi- 
 gal abundance, and in a peculiarly convenient combination. First, we 
 have a limitless supply of water-power — the cheapest of motors — in 
 localities easy of access. So abmidant is this supply of water-power 
 that no value is attached to it distinct from the adjacent lands, except 
 in the A-icinity of the larger towns. On the Potomac and its tributa- 
 ries ; on the kappahannock ; on the James and its tributaries ; on the 
 Roanoke and its tributaries ; on the Holston, and Kanawha, and other 
 streams, numberless sites may be fomid where the supply of water- 
 power is sufficient for the purposes of a Lawi-ence or a Lowell. Xor 
 is there any want of material for building at these locaHties ; timber 
 and granite are abundant ; and, to complete the circle of advantages, 
 the cHmate is genial and healthful, and the soil emmently productive. 
 * * * Another advantage which Virginia possesses for the manu- 
 facture of cotton is the proximity of its mills to the raw material. At 
 the present prices of the staple, the value of this advantage is esti- 
 mated at 10 per cent. Our railway system, penetrating into every 
 part of the State, will facilitate the transfer of cotton to the most 
 remote locahties." 
 
 It is to be borne in mind that the " railway system," 
 here spoken of, is only completed mfancij, and at every 
 depot of such parts as are completed in fact, guards 
 are stationed, to keep the ''laborers'' from taldng 
 advantage of the " facilities " they offer for making 
 good their escape. 
 
 But, on this same head, hear the 
 
 LYNCHBURG VIRGINIAN. 
 
 " Her coal fields are the most extensive in the world, and her coal 
 of the best and purest quahty. Her iron deposits are altogether 
 inexhaustible, and in many instances so pm-e that it is malleable in its 
 primitive state ; and many of these deposits in the immechate ricin- 
 ity of extensive coal-fields. She has, too, very extensive deposits of 
 copper, lead, and gypsum. Her rivers are numerous and bold, gen- 
 erally with fall enough for extensive water-power. The James Kivcr 
 at llichmond affords a convertible water-power, immensely superior 
 to that of the Merrimac at Lowell, and not inferior to that of the 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 25 
 
 Genesee at Hochester. The James River at her passage through the 
 Bkie Ridge, and the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, both afford great 
 water-power. The Kanawha or New River has an immense fall. 
 There is hardly a section of five miles between the falls of Kanawha 
 and the North Carolina hne, that has not fall enough for w^orking the 
 most extensive machinery. ♦*♦♦♦* 
 
 " A remarkable featm-e in the mining and manufacturing prospects of 
 Virginia is the ease and economy with wliich all her minerals are mined ; 
 instead of being, as in England and elseAvhere, generally imbedded 
 deep within the bowels of the earth, from wliich they can be got only 
 with great labor and at great cost, ours are found everywhere on the 
 liills and slopes, with their ledges dipping in the direction of the plains 
 below. Why then should not Virginia at once employ at least half 
 of her labor and capital in mining and manufacturing ? Richmond 
 could as profitably manufactm*e all cotton and woolen goods as Low- 
 ell, or any other town in New England. Why should not L^-nchburg, 
 with all her promised facility of getting coal and jiig-metal, manufac- 
 ture all articles of iron and steel just as cheaply, and yet as profitably, 
 as any portion of the Northern States ? Why should not every town 
 and \illage on the line of every railroad in the State erect their shops, 
 in which they may manufacture a thousand articles of daily consump- 
 tion, just as good and cheap as they may be made anywhere ? " 
 
 Why not, Mr. Virginian ? For the simple and plain 
 reason that SLAVERY has made yon too proud and 
 too lazy to go to work, like honest men, and develop the 
 rich agricultural, mineral, and manufacturing resources 
 which a kind Providence has bestowed upon you in 
 such " prodigal abmidance." It is slaver?/, with its con- 
 comitants, pride, arrogance, and laziness, which has 
 dilapidated your plantations, converted your fertile 
 plains into " mullen and pine barrens," and sent such 
 "blighting and mildew" throughout your borders that 
 even the bondmen might stand up and laugh in his 
 chains to see how slavery has smitten the land with 
 ughness. 
 
 It is this same slavery, laziness^ and pride, which have 
 
26 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 kept the entire South in the condition which the Vir- 
 ginian so truly describes in the following paragraph : 
 
 " Dependent upon Europe and the North for almost everj- yard of 
 cloth and every coat and boot and hat we wear ; for our axes, sc\-thes, 
 tubs, and buckets — in short, for everything except our bread and 
 meat. It mnst occur to the South that if our relations mth the North 
 should ever be severed — and how soon they may be, none can know, 
 (may God avert it long ! ) — we would, in all the South, not be able to 
 clothe ourselves. We could not fell our forests, plough oiu* fields, nor 
 mow our meadows. In fact, we would be reduced to a state more 
 abject than we are wilHng to look at, even prospectively. And yet, 
 with all these tilings staring us m the face, we shut oiu: eyes, and go on 
 bhndfold." 
 
 We have thus hastily glanced at some of the more 
 prominent traits of the SLAVE POWER, or that 
 form in which the DESPOTIC ELEMENT is de- 
 veloped in this country. It is here seen that the most 
 dangerous foe to our liberties does not reside east of 
 the Atlantic, but is here in our very midst : an all-con- 
 trolling, all-conquering POWER; which crushes labor, 
 and enslaves it to '^ capital ;^^ which insults, broicbeats, 
 bullies, and murderously assaults the Senators and 
 Representatives of the people in the halls of Congress, 
 while engaged in their official duties ; which muzzles 
 the press ; which denies education to the common people ; 
 which cripples and paralyzes the best interests of the 
 country. And this brings us to our sixth and last 
 proposition, which is, that 
 
 The political leaders of the Democratic parly of the 
 nation have allied themselves to the Slave Power ; that 
 they have left the ancient faith of the party, and, 
 trampling- on its former profession — '^hat the corner- 
 stone of all Republican institutions is the UNAIjIEN- 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 27 
 
 ABLE FREEDOM AND EQUALITY OF ALL 
 
 MEN," — they have adopted the monstrous and tyran- 
 nical dogma of McDiiffie, ''that DOMESTIC SLAV- 
 ERY is the corner-stone of our Republican edificeP 
 And that the contracting parties — SLAVERY and 
 the LEADERS of the DEMOCRACY— are now 
 laboring to " subdue" and " crush out" the liberties of 
 the people; and to extend the dominion and increase 
 the power of the former^ so as to give it the control of 
 the government through all coming time. 
 
 The truth of this proposition is so apparent to all 
 observers as scarcely to need any proof. Nevertheless, 
 to avoid the charge of naked assertion, sufficient 
 evidence wiH be adduced to establish the point beyond 
 cavil. 
 
 We have already examined the character of the 
 Democracy of the fathers, and found it true. It gave 
 us the Declaration of Independence, with its noble 
 assertion of human rights. It gave us the Revolution 
 with its glorious results. It was everywhere the foe 
 of tyrants and the friend of man. It abhorred slavery. 
 Its apostles and leaders, as we have shown, were 
 anxious for its extermination. Jefferson denounced it 
 as " a bondage, one hour of which is worse than ages 
 of that which we rose in rebellion to oppose." But 
 the fathers toiled, suffered, and sacrificed, for the bless- 
 ings of liberty, while the sons only inherit them. And, 
 like many other mere inheritors, they have become 
 profligate, and are now questioning the virtue and 
 integrity, at any rate the wisdom, of the fathers, and 
 doubting whether, after all, they were not a little 
 " insane upon the absurd dogma of universal liberty. ^^ 
 
28 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 THE CHARLESTON (S. C.) MERCURY, 
 
 it is well known, is a zealous and prominent supporter 
 
 of both Slavery and Democracy. (" And how can two 
 
 walk together except they are agreed ? ") A waiter in 
 
 that paper, whose articles are indorsed by its editor as 
 
 indicating " a wide study of politics," philosophizes on 
 
 the matter as follows : 
 
 " The revolution of 1776 constituted a great epoch, at wliich the 
 mind of the Caucasian race, among much that was wise and good, 
 began to show si/mjjtoms of insanity upon the absurd dogma of uni- 
 versal liherty. The leaders of the revolution, not content with giv- 
 ing freedom to America, and * scattering torrents of hght,' vainly 
 
 believed that freedom might be given to the world And even 
 
 the slaughter of six millions of the human race upon the soil of 
 Europe failed to dis^ei the sad and fatal delusion." 
 
 By referring to the resolutions adopted by the Dem- 
 ocratic Convention at Worcester, quoted in the early 
 part of this work, it will be seen that the " chief 
 tenets " in the " Democratic creed " are there declared 
 to be, " the inborn, heaven-granted freedom and equal- 
 lity of all men (to deny which is to destroy republi- 
 canism)." Here these "chief tenets" are "denied," 
 and pronounced a " sad and fatal delusion." 
 
 THE RICHMOND ENQUHIER 
 
 is confessedly the most able and influential journal 
 south of " Mason and Dixon's line ; " it is, also, a pow- 
 erful supporter of both Slavery and Democracy ; and a 
 zealous advocate of the election of Mr. Buchanan to 
 the Presidency. It tallis (of the Kansas question) in 
 this strain : 
 
 " The South once thought its own institutions wrongful and inex- 
 pedient. It thinks so no longer — and will insist that they shall 
 BE PROTECTED and EXTENDED by the arm of the Federal 
 GovTLRNMENT, EQUALLY ^^^'r^ THE destitutions of the North." 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 29 
 
 But it may be urged that this change of sentiment 
 is confined to the South, and is not tolerated by the 
 Democracy of the North. It is to be remembered that 
 there is no longer any such distinction as Northern and 
 Southern Democracy. The party North and South 
 is one. It is united upon one platform, and follows 
 one standard-bearer. The greatest unanimity prevails 
 among its leaders. Indeed, they glory in the fact that 
 they are a " national " and not a " sectional " party. 
 Now, not one Democratic statesman^ orator^ or journal 
 has been known publicly to condemn or reject these senti- 
 ments of their " Southern brethren.^^ So far from it, 
 they both silently assent to and publicly approve them. 
 
 THE NEW YORK DAY BOOK, 
 
 a recognized leader of the party, and a journal of wide 
 circulation and influence, indorses these sentiments 
 after this fashion : 
 
 « The subordination of an INFERIOR race has se- 
 cured, and always will secure, the equality of the SUPE- 
 RIOR race:^ It has been shown that "laborers" are 
 regarded as an " inferior race,^^ and that all those who 
 by hook or by crook can become " capitalists " are re- 
 garded as " the superior race.^^ And the " subordina- 
 tion" of the laborers or working men is now considered, 
 by the political leaders of the Democratic party, as the 
 only means of securing the supremacy and " equality " 
 of " capitalists." We thus find them arraymg them- 
 selves on the side of " capital " against labor, and they 
 are convicted out of their own mouths of plotting with 
 the SLAVE POWER to "destroy republicanism." 
 
 The Hon. Rufus Choate, an " old line" Whig of the 
 " straightest " sect, has just gone over to the camp of 
 8^ 
 
30 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 the leaders of the Democratic party. In order to pre- 
 pare the way for such a step, he wrote them a letter, in 
 which he sneers at " the glorious declaration of our rev- 
 olutionary fathers," as " the glittering and high-sound- 
 ing generalities of natural right which make up the 
 Declaration of Independence." 
 
 The history of the " Kansas struggle " is full of in- 
 struction on this point. Despotism^ under all forms, is 
 always aggressive ; and not the least so is slavehold- 
 ing despotism. It is always anxious and watchful of 
 opportunities to extend its domains and increase its 
 power ; and here, on the virgin soil of Kansas, the t\vo 
 forces met in open conflict. On the one side was 
 Freedom, with her schools, her churches, her presses, 
 her free speech, and free men, with the hum of their 
 busy machinery, and all those industrial pursuits which 
 give prosperity and strength to a nation ; and on the 
 other side stood Slavery, with its chains, and whips, 
 and gags, and thumbscrews, and trained buUdogs, and 
 hunters of men, — with its ignorance, and insolence, 
 and imbruted "labor." Both were there, anxious to 
 possess the country. The latter had already been for- 
 bidden to enter by solemn statute. But the SLAVE 
 POWER demanded a repeal of the restriction, and the 
 demand was complied wdth ; and the territory was 
 " opened up " to the inroads of slavery, by a profes- 
 sedly Democratic Congress, and approved by a profes- 
 sedly Democratic President. And this was done out 
 of a pretended regard to " popular sovereignty" in the 
 territories ; or, in the language of the bill, from a pro- 
 fessed desire "to leave the people thereof perfectli/ free 
 to form and regulate their own domestic institutions 
 in their own way, subject only to the Constitution." 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 31 
 
 Whether they were left "perfectly free," "subject 
 only to the Constitution," is seen from what followed. 
 Having thus proclaimed the right of the people " to 
 form and regulate their own domestic institutions," the 
 act proceeds to rob them of the right to choose. their 
 own Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice, Associate Jus- 
 tices, Attorney, and Marshal, — all of whom were sent 
 from Washington, and all supposed to be in favor of 
 making Kansas a Slave State. As it would appear too 
 barefaced to rob them of the right to choose their own 
 Delegate, and the members of their own Legislature, by 
 special statute, other methods were resorted to, which 
 are described by eye-witnesses, some of whom were 
 participators in the outrages. 
 
 As a prelude to the atrocities which followed, a few 
 days after the passage of the organic act, and as soon 
 as its passage could be known on the border, leading 
 citizens of Missouri crossed into the Territory, held 
 squatter meetings, and then returned to their homes. 
 Among their resolutions are the following : 
 
 " That we mil afford protection to no Abolitionist as a settler of 
 this Territory. 
 
 " That we recognize the institution of slavery as already existing in 
 this Territory, and advise slaveholders to introduce their property as 
 early as possible." 
 
 Similar resolutions were passed in various parts of 
 the Territory, and by meetings in severzd counties of 
 Missouri. 
 
 On the 29th of November, 1854, an election for 
 Delegate to Congress took place, when swarms of the 
 hired minions of slavery, ready to do its bloodiest work, 
 were poured into the Territory from Missouri, who with 
 
32 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 bowie, bullet, and superiority of numbers, elected 
 Whitfield, the candidate of slavery. An eye-witness, 
 General Pomeroy, of superior intelligence and perfect 
 integrity, thus describes this scene : 
 
 "The first ballot-box that was opened upon our "virgin soil was 
 closed to us by overpowering numbers and impending force. So bold 
 and reckless were our invaders, that they cared not to conceal their 
 attack. They came upon us, not in the guise of voters to steal away 
 our franchise, but boldly and openly to snatch it with a strong hand. 
 They came directly from their own homes, and in compact and or- 
 ganized bands, with arms in hand and provisions for the expedition, 
 marched to our polls, and, when their work was done, returned 
 whence they came." 
 
 The same trustworthy eye-witness says, of one 
 locality : 
 
 " Baggage-wagons were there, with arms and ammunition enough 
 for a protracted fight, and among them two brass field-pieces, ready 
 charged. They came with drums beating and flags fljing, and their 
 leaders were of the most prominent and conspicuous men of their 
 State." 
 
 Of another locality, he says : 
 
 " The invaders came together in one armed and organized body, 
 with trains of fifty wagons, besides horsemen, and, the night before 
 election, pitched their camp in the vicinity of the polls ; and, having 
 appointed their ovra judges in place of those who, from intimidation 
 or otherwise, failed to attend, they voted without any proof of resi- 
 dence." 
 
 This testimony is from an anti-slavery witness. We 
 will hear now from some of the other side : 
 
 "On the 30th of March, 1855, the first election was to be held 
 under the organic act for members of the Territorial Legislature, 
 
 when an armed multitude from Missouri entered the Territory 
 
 On they came, as an * army with banners,' organized in companies, 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 33 
 
 with officers, munitions, tents, and provisions, as though marching 
 upon a foreign foe, and breathing loud-mouthed threats that they 
 would carry their purpose, if need be, by the bowie-knife and revolver. 
 Among them, according to his own confession, was David R. Atchison, 
 belted with the vulgar arms of his -vodgar comrades." 
 
 Here is what Stringfellow said before the invasion : 
 
 "/ advise you, one and all, to enter evenj election district in 
 Kansas, in defiance of Reeder and his vile myr^nidons, and vote at 
 the point of the howie-lcnife and revolver. Neither give nor take 
 quarter, as our case demands it. It is enough that the Slaveholdiag 
 interest wills it, from which there is no appeal." 
 
 Here is what Atchison said after the invasion : 
 
 " "Well, what next ? Why, an election for members of the Legisla- 
 ture to organize the Territory must be held, .... and, cold and 
 iifl.ement as the weather was, I went over with a company of men, . . . 
 and the Abolitionists of the North said, and published it abroad, that 
 Atchison was there, with bowie-knife and revolver ; and, by God, it 
 was true ! I never did go into that Territory — I never intend to go 
 into that Territory — without being prepared for all such kind of 
 cattle." 
 
 That these men spoke the truth is confirmed by the 
 contemporaneous admission of the Squatter Sovereign^ 
 a paper published at Atchison, and at once the organ 
 of the President and of t.iese Borderers, which, under 
 date of 1st April, thus recounts the victory : 
 
 "Independence, Missouri, March 31, 1855. 
 " Several hundred emigrants from Kansas have just entered our 
 city. They were preceded by the Westport and Independence brass 
 
 bands They gave repeated cheers for Kansas and Missomi. 
 
 They report that not an anti-slavery man will be in the Legislature 
 of Kansas. We have made a clean sweep." * 
 
 * From Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner. 
 
34 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 The report of the Kansas Investigating Committee 
 shows that, of 2871 votes cast at the election for 
 Delegate, 1729 were illegal, leaving but 1142 legal 
 votes. And of the 6320 votes cast at the election for 
 members of the Legislature, 4908 w^ere illegal, leaving 
 but 1412 legal votes. 
 
 Thus were the people of Kansas robbed of every 
 right except the right to choose slavery. This was 
 leaving them " perfectly free," with a vengeance ! 
 
 That the Government does not shrink from the 
 responsibility of these atrocities, may be seen from 
 the fact that the ruffians have six newspapers in the 
 Territory, all sustained more or less by the administra- 
 tion at Washington. The only Free State paper not 
 yet suppressed as a nuisance by order of Judge Le- 
 compte, is the Tribune^ at Topeka, which, since the 
 recent troubles, publishes only an occasional half-sheet. 
 As a specimen of the defiant and monstrous spirit of 
 the administration organs of the Territory, take the 
 following, from the Squatter Sovereign, which is sup- 
 ported by United States advertising, and has the 
 names of Buchanan and Breckenridge at its head : 
 
 " Several parties have inquired of us why the law has not been put 
 in force at Topeka, as well as at LaA^Tence, against abolition newspa- 
 pers ? Topeka is no better than Lawrence ; it is also demoralized ; 
 but it is not so well known abroad. K both Topeka and LawTence 
 were blotted out, entirely obliterated, it would be the best tiling for 
 Kansas that could happen. The sooner the people of Toj)eka sound 
 their death-knell the better ; tliey are too corrupt and degraded to 
 live. We would like to be present and raise our Ebenezer in the 
 funeral. It is silly to suppose for an instant that there can be peace 
 in Kansas as long as one enemy of the South lives upon her soil, or 
 one single specimen of an Abolitionist treads in the sunlight of Kan- 
 sas Territory." 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCEATS. 35 
 
 Here is the law to which the "several parties" 
 referred. It is the twelfth section of an act entitled, 
 " an act to punish offences against slave property." 
 It exhibits the character of the bloody code by which 
 Slavery finds it necessary to hedge itself about ; and to 
 which the freemen of Kansas are required to bend their 
 necks in silence^ on peril of fines^ imprisonment, and 
 DEATH. 
 
 " Sec. 12. If any free person, by speaking or by writing, assert or 
 maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in the Terri- 
 tory, or shall introduce into Kansas, print, publish, write, circulate, or 
 cause to be introduced into the Territory, wi'itten, prmted, published, 
 or circulated in this Territory, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet, or 
 circular, containing any denial of the rights of persons to hold slaves 
 in tliis Territory, such person shall be deemed guilty of felony, and 
 punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term not less than two 
 years." 
 
 It is the refusal to submit passively to such an act, 
 that the political leaders and journals of the Demo- 
 cratic party tln-oughout the country have denounced as 
 " treason and rebellion against the government and laws 
 of the United States ; " thereby approving and indors- 
 ing this atrocious statute. But still stronger proof of 
 the agreement between the Slave Power, and the lead- 
 ers of the so-called Democracy, is furnished in both 
 the platform and the candidate of that party. 
 
 Before examining the platform, it may be well to 
 take a brief sm-vey of the workmen who built it. The 
 picture is drawn by Col. Thomas H. Benton. It will 
 be seen that the Cincinnati Convention was not com- 
 posed of the people, but of " a garrison of office-holders," 
 who have very little sympathy with them. But hear 
 Col. Benton relate what he saw there : 
 
36 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 " I found a garrison of office-holders inside of the Convention, and 
 a besieging army of the same gentry on the outside of it. Packed 
 delegates were there, sent to betray the people. Straw delegates were 
 there, coming from the States which could give no Democratic vote. 
 ^Members of Congress were there, although forbid by their duties from 
 being at such a place. A cohort of office-holders were there, pohtical 
 eunuchs in the federal system, mcapable of voting for the smallest 
 federal office, yet sent there by the Administration to impose a Presi- 
 dent upon the jjeople. ♦ ♦ # * # 
 
 " Such was the composition of nearly one-half of the whole conven- 
 tion, — custom-house officers, postmasters, salaried clerks, packed del- 
 egates, straw delegates, political eunuchs, members of Congress, dis- 
 trict attorneys, federal marshals. The place in which they met, and 
 which had been provided by a packed administration committee, was 
 worthy of the meeting. It was a sort of den, approached by a long 
 narrow passage, barricaded by three doors, each door guarded by 
 armed bullies, with orders to knock down any person that approached 
 without a ticket from the committee, and a special order to be pre- 
 jiared with arms to repulse the Missouri delegation which came to vote 
 for Buchanan — a repulse which they attempted, and got themselves 
 knocked down and trampled mider foot. 
 
 " This den had no windows by wliich people could look in, or see, or 
 the Hght of the sun enter — only a row of glass like a steamboat sky- 
 light, thirty-five feet above the floor. It was the nearest representa- 
 tion of the ' black hole ' in Calcutta, and like that hole had well nigh 
 become notorious for a similar catastrophe. The Uttle panes of glass 
 above were hung on pivots, and turned flat to let in air. A rain came 
 on, drove into the den ; and, to exclude it, the panes were turned up. 
 Smothering ! smothering ! was the cry in the den ; aiid the glass had 
 to be turned up again. Over this place was a small box for the admis- 
 sion of spectators, its a])proach barricaded and guarded, and entrance 
 only obtained upon tickets from the same packed committee, — and 
 to whom they gave tickets was seen when the first votes were given 
 for Buchanan, and when each State that voted for him was hissed — 
 even Virginia ; and the hissing only stopped by a threat to clear the 
 galleries. Such is the pass to wJiich the nomhiation of President is 
 now brought." 
 
 First in the platform, superficially, it looks like a 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 37 
 
 tolerably innocent platform, and few persons, not ac- 
 quainted with the wiles of Slavery, would discover any 
 mischief in it ; but the practised eye sees the lurking 
 devil through every chink in its planks. Let us lift up 
 but a couple of these planks, and the monster is re- 
 vealed. The language of both is ambiguous and 
 obscure, but there is no mistaking their meaning after 
 all. The first was as follows : 
 
 " Besolved, That the American Democracy recognize and 
 
 adopt the j^rincijiles contained in the organic laws establishing the 
 Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, as embodying the only sound and 
 safe solution of the slavery question upon which the great national 
 idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined 
 conservatism of the Union ; non-interference by Congress with slavery 
 in States and Territories " 
 
 Here " the American Democracy " recognize and 
 adopt the principles contained in the " Kansas-Ne- 
 braska act," and of course all the legitimate conse- 
 quences of that act, as "the only sound and safe 
 solution of the slavery question." The plain meaning 
 of which is, that the only sound and safe way to settle 
 the great conflict which always will, and, in the very 
 nature of things, always must, arise between freedom 
 and slavery, is, not only to let slavery go just where it 
 pleases, but to help it by every lawless, brutal, and mur- 
 derous means in your power ! That this is no perver- 
 sion is proved by the next clause, and aU the facts in 
 the case : " Non-interference by Congress with slavery 
 in the States and Territories.^^ " Non-interference" 
 means simply not to interfere — to let it alone ; to let 
 it go just where, and do just what, it pleases. It does 
 not say " non-interference " with Liberty ; it does not 
 mean to let Liberty alone, to go where it pleases. O 
 4 
 
38 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 no ! The spurious " American Democracy " intends to 
 "subdue" that — to "CRUSH IT OUT." Let it 
 not be forgotten, there is a genuine Democracy which 
 " still lives " in this country. 
 
 Let us lift up the other plank. It reads as follows : 
 
 " Resolved, That the Democratic party will expect of the next Ad- 
 ministration that every proper effort be made to insure om: ascendancy 
 in the Gulf of Mexico — to maintain a pennanent protection of the 
 great outlets through wliich is emptied into its waters the products 
 raised upon om' soil and the commodities created by the industry of 
 the people in our western vaUeys and the Union at large." 
 
 The talk about maintaining " a permanent protection 
 to the great outlets " etc., is all very well ; that is quite 
 innocent in itself. But the phrase, " to insure our as- 
 cendancT/ in the Gulf of Mexico,^^ contains still more 
 of this brooding mischief. The Hon. Harry Hibbard, 
 a leading Democrat, and a delegate to the Cincinnati 
 Convention, made a speech at a mass meeting of the 
 New Hampshire Democracy, at Concord, on June 17, 
 1856, in which he declares the meaning of that clause 
 to be, the " acquiring' of the Island of Cuha.^^ 
 
 Secondly, in the CANDIDATE. JAMES BU- 
 CHANAN, also, looks like a very innocent candidate, 
 personally considered. But we are not to look at him 
 personally^ but officially, as a " candidate " for the Presi- 
 dency. He attended the " Ostend Conference " and 
 signed the famous " Ostend Circular," the following 
 extract from which explains how and on what condi- 
 tions the Island of Cuba is to be " acquned : " 
 
 " After we shall have offered Si)ain a price for Cuba far beyond its 
 present value, and this shall have been refused, it will then be time to 
 consider the question. Does Cuba, in the possession of Spain, seriously 
 endanger om* internal peace and the existence of om- cherished 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 39 
 
 Union ? Should this question be answered in the affirmative, tlien, hy 
 every laio, human and divine, we shall be justified in loresiing it 
 from Spain, if we possess the poioer. And we ought neither to 
 count the cost nor regard the odds which Spain might enHst against 
 us." 
 
 The following brief recurrence to history will explain 
 lioiv "Cuba, in the possession of Spain, might endanger 
 our internal peace," etc. : 
 
 " While Mexico and the South American RepubKcs were struggHng 
 for their independence, as ' Cuba was at a short distance, devoted to 
 the royal cause, and affording a depot for the royal forces ready to 
 prey on their commerce, Mexico and Colombia proposed to invade 
 this island with the -view of throwing off the royal authority.' But 
 this government, true to those slaveholding instincts which had 
 guided and controlled all its foreign relations, saw nothing but 
 mischief in the proposed measm-e. 
 
 « On the 22d of October, 1829, Mr. Van Buren, then Secretary of 
 State, wrote a letter of instructions to Mr. Van Ness, Minister to 
 SjDain, in which he says : ' Considerations connected loith a certain 
 class of our population make it the interest of the Southern sec- 
 tion of the Union that no attempt should be made in that island to 
 throw off the yoke of Spanish dependence ; the first effect of wliich 
 would be, the sudden emancipation of a numerous slave population, 
 whose result could not but be sensibly felt on the adjacent shores of 
 the United States J " 
 
 Thus it appears, after all, that what is meant by 
 " endangering our internal peace and the existence of 
 our cherished Union," is, " endangering the internal 
 peace and existence of our cherished" SLAVERY. 
 
 The following extract, from the Charleston (S. C.) 
 Mercury^ not only explains the motives for acquiring 
 Cuba, but proves that James Buchanan has always 
 been the steadfast and unwavering friend of the Slave 
 Power : 
 
40 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 " But, in order that the absiu'dity of the charge of Mr. Buchanan's 
 bemg a ' free-soiler ' may, if possible, become apparent, we need only 
 cite the fact, that, two )ears ago, he signed the Ostend Manifesto, a 
 document whose sole object was to acquire Cuba, out of icMcli two or 
 three slave States could have been formed. Here, then, is liis rec- 
 ord. The champion of the admission of Arkansas, the champion of 
 the annexation of Texas, the champion of the acquisition of Cuba — 
 where is the tamt or suspicion of free-soihsm in all this ? Whatever 
 are Mr. Buchanan's prejudices against slavery, his votes and his 
 acts are with us." 
 
 Here we not only discover "two or three slave 
 States " hidden under the platform, but a candidate on 
 the platform, ready to unmask them by " WREST- 
 ING" Cuba from Spain, " if ive possess the POWEE." 
 
 That Mr. Buchanan has sufficient devotion to sla- 
 very to do this, if he has the "j^oi^er," will be learned 
 from the following record of his political life by the 
 
 RICHMOND ENQUIRER.- 
 
 " In private as well as in pubKc, Mr. Buchanan has always stood on 
 the side of the Soidh. The citizen and the statesman are one and 
 the same individual. He supported the rights of the South when in 
 office ; he vindicated and maintained those rights when out of office. 
 He protested against the prohibition of the jails in Pennsylvania to 
 Federal officers for the confinement of captured slaves. He denounced 
 the Wilmot Proviso. He approved the Clayton Compromise of 1847. 
 And, to sum up in single sentence, he has at all tifnes and in all 
 p>laccs exerted the authority of his high character and great talents 
 to uphold the Union, defend the Constitution, and protect the South. 
 
 " To ;recapitulate : 
 
 " 1. In 1836, Mr. Buchanan supported a Wlto prohibit the circida- 
 tion of Aholition jjapers through the mails. 
 
 " 2. hi the same year he proposed and voted for the admission of 
 Arkansas. 
 
 " 3. In 1836-7, he denounced and voted to reject petitions for the 
 aboHtion of slavery m the District of Columbia. 
 
 " 4. In 1847, he voted for Mr. Calhoun's famous resolutions, defining 
 the rights of the States and the Hmits of Federal authority, and af- 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 41 
 
 firming it to be tlie duty of the Government to protect and uphold the 
 institutions of the South. 
 
 « 5. In 1838, '39, and '40, he invariably voted with Southern Senators 
 against the consideration of anti-slavery petitions. 
 
 " 6. In 1841-5, he advocated and voted for the annexation of Texas. 
 
 " 7. In 1847, he sustained the Clayton ComiDromise. 
 
 " 8. In 1850, he proposed and m'ged the extension of the Missouri 
 Compromise to the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 " 9. But he promptly acquiesced in the Compromise of 1850, and 
 employed all his influence in favor of the faithful execution of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law. 
 
 " 10. In 1851, he remonstrated against an enactment of the Pennsyl- 
 vania Legislature for obstructing the arrest and return of Fugitive 
 Slaves. 
 
 " 11. In 1854, he negotiated for the acquisition of Cuba. 
 
 " 12. In 1856, he approves the repeal of the Missouri restriction, 
 and supports the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. 
 
 " 13. He never gave a vote against the interests of Slavery, and 
 never uttered a word which coidd pain the most sensitive Southern 
 heart." 
 
 " The Ameriean Democracy," as it impudently styles 
 itself, has not only discovered another " Nabotli's Vine- 
 yard'' in the " Island of Cuba," but has got an " J./ia6 " 
 on its platform^ ready to " take it if he has the power," 
 — as the foregoing record of his devotion to the Slave 
 interest abundantly attests. 
 
 The mass meeting at Concord, just referred to, thus 
 indorses both the platform and the candidate : 
 
 "Resolved, That the Democracy of New Hampslui-e most heartily 
 and unreservedly indorse the principles of the Cincinnati platform, 
 and will join hands with the Democracy of the whole country in then: 
 maintenance. That creed embodies the most cherished principles of 
 our party, and must commend itself to the patriotism and good sense, 
 not only of every Democrat, but of every citizen who prefers the Union 
 to anarchy, and esteems the Constitution a better chart than the doc- 
 trines of ' the higher law.* 
 4* 
 
42 A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 " Resolved, That we are proud to place upon our banners the name 
 of that honored statesman and faithful Democrat, James Buchanan 
 of Pennsylvania, as our candidate for the Presidency." 
 
 The " higher law " here referred to is no other than 
 the law of God. It seems that this Convention has 
 also got a better chart than that. 
 
 But let us look again at the 13th number of the 
 record of IVIr. Buchanan, whose name " the Democracy 
 of New Hampshire " " are proud to place upon their 
 banners." 
 
 " lie never gave a vote against the interests of 
 SLAVERY." How many votes he has given " against 
 the interests of" FREEDOM the Enquirer does not tell 
 us. But, as he never voted against slavery, the inference 
 is fair that he always voted against FREEDOM, 
 whenever the issue was presented. The record says 
 farther : " He never uttered a word which could pain the 
 most sensitive Southern heartP By a " Southern 
 heart " is meant, of course, a slaveholder'' s heart. Of 
 the " sensitiveness " of such hearts it is needless to 
 speak. How many Northern hearts his "words" or 
 his votes have " pained " seems to be a matter of no 
 consequence whatever. 
 
 Such is the platform, and such the candidate, of the 
 political leaders of the so-called Democratic party. 
 That the slaveholders are fully satisfied with both, but 
 especially the latter, is fully attested ; as Mr. Buchanan 
 is also the candidate of the SLAVE POWER, and 
 is fully endorsed by PRESTON S. BROOKS, of 
 South Carolina, and Governor Wise, and the Rich- 
 mond Enquirer^ of Virginia, — the two last urging as 
 reasons for his election, that it will result in bringing in 
 Kansas and several other Territories as slave States, 
 
TO HONEST DEMOCRATS. 43 
 
 the acquisition of additional temtory from Mexico, 
 Cuba, and several other West India Islands, and that 
 these acquisitions will so increase the demand for 
 slaves, or "laborers," that the cash price of such 
 persons will rise from the average of one thousand up 
 to three, four, or five thousand dollars, and the grand 
 result would be, a glorious millennium of SLAVE- 
 BREEDERS. 
 
 Here, then, is the plot, so far developed as to enable 
 us to trace out its leading parts, — the design of which 
 is to ^'subdue'' and CRUSH OUT LIBERTY on 
 this Western continent. 
 
 Here, then, are these two great antagonistic principles 
 arrayed against each other, — slavery agsiinst freedom, 
 and FREEDOM against SLAVERY. There is no 
 middle ground, and no other issue involved in the 
 approaching contest. The representatives of both 
 these principles may say, with truth, " He that is not 
 for me is against me." 
 
 If you wish to see the black flag of SLAVERY 
 waving its murky folds all over our broad land, go and 
 enlist under its banner, and fight its battles. 
 
 But if, on the contrary, you desire the triumph of 
 those great principles of FREEDOM embodied in the 
 Declaration of Independence, then, I conjure you, by 
 your veneration for the fathers, — by your attachment 
 to the ancient Democratic faith, — by your innate love 
 of justice and liberty, to unite with the noble company 
 of those who are laboring to deliver our country from 
 its most terrible scourge and most withering curse. 
 
f-y 
 
KANSAS! KANSAS! 
 
 Now Ready: 
 
 AN INTENSELY INTEKESTING WORK, 
 
 ENTITLED 
 
 SIX MONTHS IN KANSAS! 
 
 BY 
 
 A HIGHLY CULTIVATED LADY OF BOSTON. 
 
 She went to Kansas last September, and was there during all the ear- 
 lier struggles of the pioneer settlers ; and describes, in the most graphic 
 manner, the perils which surrounded them, and the sufferings which 
 they endured. She gives, also, a most glowing picture of the country, 
 — its climate, surface, soil, productions, etc. etc. It is, in fact, just 
 
 THE BOOK FOR THESE TIMES; 
 
 for we all want to know all that can be known of the country and its 
 suffering people. 
 
 Price, 50 cents, in paper ; 75 cents, bound in cloth. 
 
 ALSO, 
 
 A SUPERB MAP OF KANSAS, 
 
 The only complete and thoroughly accurate and reliable Map, from 
 actual surveys, which has yet been published. 
 
 Messrs. E. B. Whitman and A. D. Searl, the authors, have been over 
 the ground several times, and, with the assistance which they have re- 
 ceived from other engineers, have produced a Map both beautiful and 
 in every respect full and accurate. 
 
 Price, 50 cents. 
 
 Copies of the above Works sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of the 
 price. 
 
 JOHN P. JEWETT & CO., Publishers, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
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