^JiJ A -^ I SPEECHES OP THE Hon. Jeeferson Dayis, OF IVI IS S ISS I FI^I 3 yX DELIVEKED DURING THE SUMMER OF ISoS: On Fourth of July, ISoS, at Sea. i At Portland Meeting^ Maine At Serenade, at Portland, Maine. " Portland Convention., " *' Belfast Encampment, " " " Banquet, » " Fair at Augusta, " " Faneuil Rail, Boston. " New York Meeting. Before Mississippi Legislature. d'c. &c. («»•«> »-^ Baltimore , . . Printed by John Murphy & Co. Makulk BuiLni^);, IS2 Caltimoiu: sritKUT. 1859. / have been induced by the persistent misrejjresenta- tion of 2)0}mlar Addresses made by me at the North and the South duriyig the year 1858, to collect them, and luith extracts from speeches made by me in the Senate in 1850, to freserd the whole in this connected form; to the end that the case may be fairly before those by whose judgment I am willing to stand or fall. JEFFERSON DAVIS. EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES IN U. S. SENATE. In the Senate of the United States, May 8, 1850, in presentinj; the Ilcsoluiions of the Legislature of Mississippi: It is my opinion that justice will not be donf to the South, unless from other promptings than are about us here — that we shall have no substantial conside- ration offered to us for the surrender of an equal claim to (.,'alifornia. No security against i'uture harassment by Congress will probably be given. Tiie rain-bow which some have seen, I fear was set before the termination of the storm. If this be so, those who have been first to hope, to relax their energies, to trust in compromise promises, will often be the first to sound the alarm when danger again approaches., Therefore I say, if a reckless and seH'sustaining majority shall Iramph; upon her rights, if the Constitutional equality of the States is to be overthrown by force, private and political rights to be borne down by force of numbers, then, sir, when that victory over Constitutional rights is achieved, the shout of triumph which announces it, before it is half uttered, will be checked by the united, the determined action of the South, and every breeze will bring to the marauding destroyers of those rights, the warnnig: woe, woe to the riders who trample them down ! I submit the report and resolutions, and ask that they may be read and printed for the use of the Senate. — (Cong. Globe, p. 913-4.) In the Senate of the United States, June 27, 1850, on the Compromise Bill: If I have a superstition, sir, which governs my mind and holds it captive, it is a superstitious reverence for the Union. If one can inherit a sentiment, I may be said to have inherited this from my revolutionary father. And if educa- tion can develop a sentiment in the heart and mind of man, surely mine has been such as would most develop feelings of attachinent for the Union. But, sir, I have an allegiance to the State which I represent here. I have an alle- giance to those Avho have entrusted their interests to me, which every consid- eration of faith and of duty, which every feeling of honor, tells me is above ail other political considerations. I trust I shall never find my allegiance there and here in conflict. God forbid that the day should ever come wlw-n to be true to ray constituents is to be iiostile to the Union. If, sir, we liave reached that hour in the progress of our institutions, it is past the age to which the Union should have lived. If we have got to the point when it is treason to the United States to protect the rights raid interests of our constituents, 1 ask why should they longer be represented here? why longer remain a part of the Union ? If there is a dominant party in this Union which can deny to us equality, and the rights we derive through the Constitution ; if we are no longer the freemen our fathers left us; if we are to be crushed by the power ol an unrestrained majority, this is not the Union for which the blood of the Revolution was .>;hpd ; this is not the Union I was taught from my cradle to revere; this is not the Union in the service of which a large portion of my life has been passed ; this is not the Union for which our fathers pledged their properly, their lives, and sacred honor. No, sir, this would be a central Government, raised on the destruction of all the principles of the Constitution, and the first, the highest .i^'QK obligation of every man who has sworn to support that Constitution would be resistance to such usurpation. This is my position. My colleague has truly representetl the people of Mississippi as ardently attached to tlie Union. 1 think he has not gone lieyond the truth when he has placed Mississippi one of the first, if not the first, of the Stales of the Con- iederation in attachment to it. But, sir, even that deep attachment and habitual reverence f(jr the Union, common to us all— even that, it may become necessary to try by the touchstone of reason. It is not impossible that they should unfurl the (lag of disunion. It is not impossible that violations of the Constitution and of their rights, should drive them to that dread extremity. 1 feel well assured that they will never reach it until it has heen twice and three limes justified. II, when thus lully warranted, they want a standard bearer, in deiault of a belter, I am at their command.— (Co//g. Globe, p. 995-G.) ON FOUKTH OF JULY, 1858, AT SEA. [From the Boston Post.] The fine ship Joseph JVhitury. from Baltimore, Captain S. Howes, was making for this port on the day'of the celebration of the nation's birth, and among an unusually brilliant array of passengers from diflerent parts of the country, was the disiinguished Senator, .Tj<:i.'feiison Davis, of Mississippi. The pairiotic suggestion of the captain, to celebrate the day in a manner befit- ting the great anniversary, met with a hearty response from the company, among whom were zealous republicans, democrats and Americans. A com- mittee was appointed to invite the Senator to make an address, and he con- sented. First, the Declaration of Independence was read by Sebastian F. Siieeter, Esq., of Baltimore, when Senator Davis made an address of singular felicity of diction and unpassioned elo(]uence, and of such a character as to command the admiration of those who listened to it. He commenced by happy allusions to the array of beauty and intelligence that stood before him from all parts of our common country; he then passed in review the condition of the feeble and separate colonies of 1776, and contrasted with it the country now — the only proper republic on earth, as it stood before the world in its wondf rful progress in art. and agriculture, and commerce, and all the elements that constitute a great nation. When thus sailing on the Atlantic, looking to the coast of the United States, he was reminded of those bold lefugees irom British and French oppressbn who crossed these waters to (bund a hou'ie in what was then a wilder- ness. The memory, too, arose of the many sorrowing hearts and oppressed spirits since born over these waves to that refuge from political oppression which our fathers founded as the home of liberty Tmd the asylum of mankind. Her terrtiory, which now stretches from ocean to ocean, contains a vast inte- rior yet unpeopled ; and. tvith a destiny of still further and continued expansion of area, why should the gate of the temple be now shut upon sorrowing man- kind? Rather let it be tliat the gate should be forever open, and an emblemaiic tag, hereafter as heretofore, wave a welcome to all to come to the modern Abdella — fugitives from political oppression. Senator Davis dwelt at some length on the right-of search question — on the insulting claim which Great Br tarn made to a peace-right to visit our ship^. Under the pretence of stopping the slave trade— a trade against which the United States was the first nation to raise its voice— she had interrupted and destroyed a lucrative commerce we had enjoyed in ivory and other products on the const of Africa. The lato oulra^os in llio Gull" found tis, as a poopic, with domestic quarrels on our hands ; bui if lliis power coiinlcj on existing divisions and on tnakinff iheni wider, ihe result sliowed how great was her error. The insult was resented by a uniied peojile ; the f=!enale, as one man, leaped up against British pretensions; while Eiiiriand, as suddenly, astonished, withdrew her pretensions. The claim she so lung preferred is given up — entirely al)an- doned. The same spirit that resented insult in liie i)asl wdl resent ii in ihe future. I stand, said the Senator, substantially on the deck of an American vessel ; it is American soil ; the American (lag lloats over it ; its right to course the ocean pathway is perfect. When the blue firmament reflected ils -nvn color in the sea, it was the unappropriated property of mankind; and it was arrogant and idle for any nation to deny to ihe Uniied 8tales her full enjoyment of liiis common properly. It was for ihe full and undisturbed enjoyment of this right that our lathers, when much less prepared for war than we are novy, ena-aged in tiie conflict of 1812; and ibr this right we were ready to sirike in IsBs" Let a foreign power, under any pretence whatever, insult ihe American f1anile influences instilled by women do their work, and the heart mells into tears of pity and prompts to deeds of mercy. After tliis intellectual repa.-t, then succeeded congratulations ; the air was made vocal with song ; while, throuirh the foresight of the gallant captain, at the evening hour, the sky about the good ship .Joseph Whiiney was bnlliniii with those various pyrotechnic displays which must be so grateful to the spirit of patriotic John Adams, of bonfire and lUuminaiioa-memory. SPEECH AT THE PORTLAND SERENADE, JuUj dth, 185 8. After the music liati ceased, Mr. Davis appeared upon the steps, and as soon as the prolonged applause with which he was greeted had subsided, lie spoke in sub- stance as follows: Fellow Countrymen: — Accept my sincere thanlcs for this manifestation of your kindness. Vanity does not lead me so far to misconceive vour purpose as to appropriate the demonstration to mysell'; but it is not less gratifyinc: to me to be made the medium Ihroufrh which Maine tenders an expression ot regard to her sister Mississippi. It is moreover, with feelings of prolound gratification that I witness tiiis indication of that national sentiment and frater- nity which made us, and which alone can keep us, one people. At a period, but as yesterday when compared with the life of nations, these States were separate, and in sonis respects opposing colonies; their only relation to each other was that of a common allegiance to the government of Great Britain. So separate, indeed almost hostile, was their attitude, that when Gen. Stark, of Bennington memory, was captured by savages on the head waters of the Ken- nebec, he was subsequently taken by them to Albnny where they went to sell furs, and again led away a captive, without interference on the part of the in- habitants of that neighboring colony to demand or obtain his release. United as we now are, were a citizen of the United States, as an act ol' hostility to our country, imprisoned or slain in any quarter of the world, whether on land or sea, the people of each and every State of the Union, with one heart, and with one voice, would demand redress, and woe be to liim against whom a brother's blood cried to us from the ground. Such is the fruit of the wisdom and the just'ce wiih which our fathers bound contending colonies into confederation and blended different habits and rival interests into a harmonious whole, so that shoulder to shoulder they entered on the trial of the revoluiion, step with step trod its thorny paths until they reached the height of national independence and founded the constitutional representative liberty, which is our birthright. When the mother country entered upon her career of oppression, in disregard of chartered and conslitmional rights, our forefathers did not stop to measure the exact weight of the burden, or to ask whether the pressure bore most upon this colony or upon that, but saw in it the infraction of a great principle, the denial ot a common rigiit, in defence of which they made common cause; Massachusetts, Virginia and South Carolina vieing with each other as to who should be foremost in the struggle, where the penalty of failure would be a dis- honorable grave. Tempered by the trials and sacrifices of the revolution, dignified by its noble purposes, elevated by its brilliant triumphs, endeared to each other by its glorious mt^mories, they abandoned the confederacy, not to fly apart when the outward pressure of hostile fleets and armies were removed, but to draw closer their embrace in the formation of a more perfect union. By such men, thus trained and ennobled, our Constitution was formed. It stands a monument of principle, of forecast, and, above all, of that liberality which made each willing to sacrifice local interpst, individual prejudice or temporary good to the general weliaie, and the perpetuity of the Republican institutions which they had passed through fire and blood to secure. The grants were as broad as were necessary for the functions of the general agent, and the mutual concessions were twice blessed, blessing both him who gave and him who received. Whatever was necessary for domestic government, requisite in the social organization of each commu- nity, was retained by the Stales and the people thereof; and these it was made the duty of all to defend and maintain. Such, in very general terms, is the rich political k^ac.y our latliors bequeathed to us. Shall we preserve and traosuiit it to poslcrily? Yes, yes, tlie heart responds, and the judgment answers, the task is easily perl'orined. It but re- quires liiat each should attend to that which most concerns him, and on which alone he has rightful power to decide and to act. Tliat each should adhere to the terms of a written compact and that all should cooperate for that which interest, duly and honor demand. For the general affairs of our country, both foreign and domestic, we have a national executive and a national Icgis-lature. Representatives and Senators are chosen by districts and by States, but their acts allect the whole country, and their obligations are to the whole people. lie who holding either seat would confine his investigations to the mere interests of his immediate constituents would be derelict to his plain duty; and he who would legislate in hostility to any section would be morally unlit for the station, and surely an unsafe depositary if not a treacherous guardian of the inheritance with which we are blessed. No one, more than myself, recognizes the binding force of the allegiance which the citizen owes to the State of his citizenship, but that State being a parly to our compact, a member of our union, fealty to the federal Consiituliun is not in opposition to, but flows from the allegiance due to one of the Umied States. Washington was not less a Virginian when he commanded at Boston ; nor did Gates or Greene weaken the bonds which bound them to their several States, by their campaigns in the South. In proportion as a citizen loves his own Slate, Avill he strive to honor by preserving her name and her fame free from the tarnish of having failed to observe her obligations, and to fulfil her duties to her sister States. ""Each page of our history is illustrated by the names and the deeds of those who have well understood, and discharged the obligation. Have we so degenerated, that we can no longer emulate their virtues ? Have the purposes for which our Union was formed, lost their value? Has patriot- ism ceased to be a virtue, and is narrow sectionalism no longer to be counted a crime? Shall tlie North not rejoice that the progress of agriculture in the South has given to her great staple the controlling influence of the commerce ol the world, and put inanufacturing nations under bond to keep the peace with the United States ? Shall the South not exult in the fad, that the industry and per- severing intelligence of the North, has placed her mechanical skill in the front ranks oT the civilized world— that our mother country, whose haughty minister some eighty odd years ago declared that not a hob-nail should be made in the colonies, which are now the United States, was brought some four years ago to re- cognize our pre-eminence by sending a commission to examine our work shops, and our machinery, to perfect thei^own manufacture of the arms requisite for their defence ? Do not our whole people, interior and seaboard. North, South, East, and West, alike feel proud of the hardihood, the enterprise, the skill, and the courage of the Yankee sailor, who has borne our ling far as the ocean bears its foam, and caused the name and the character of the United States to be known and respected wherever there is wealth enough to woo commerce, and intelligence enov'gh to honor merit? So long as we preserve, and appreciate theacTiievernents of Jefferson and Adams, of Franklin and Madison, of Ham- ilton, of Hancock, and of Rutledge, men who labored for the whole country, and lived for mankind, we cannot sink to the petty strife which would sap the foundations, and destroy the political fabric our fathers erected, and bequeathed as an inheritance to our posterity forever. Since the formation of the Constitution, a vast extension of territory, and tlie varied relations arising therefrom, have presented problems wiiuh could nol have been foreseen. It is just cause for admiration— even wond.r, that the provisions of the fundamental law should have been found so fully adequate to all the wants of government, new in its organization, and new in many of the principles on which it was founded. Whatever fears may have once existed as to the consequences of territorial expansion, must give way before the evidence which the past aflbrds. The general government, strictly conhned to its dele- gated functions, and the States left in the undisturbed exercise of all else, we 8 havea theory find practice which fits our governrripnt for immeasurable domain, and might, undpr a millennium of nations, embrace mankind. From the slope of the Atlantic our population with ceaseless tide has poured into the wide and fertile valley of the Mississippi, wiili eddyiny: whirl has passed to- the coast of the Pacific, from the West and the East the tides are rushing towards each other — and the mind is carried to the day when all the cultivable land wdl be inhabited, and the American people will sigh for more wildernesses to conquer. But there is here a physico-polincal problem presented for our solu- tion. Were it was purely physical— your past triumphs would leave but little doubt of your capacity to solve ii. A community, which, when less than twenty thousand, conceived the grand project of crossing the White Mountains, and, unaided, save by the stimulus which jeers and prophecies of failure gave, successfully executed the herculean work, might well be impatient, if it were suggested that a physical problem was before us, loo difllicult for their mastery. "The history of man teaches that high mountains and wide deserts have resisted the permanent extension of empire, and have formed the immutable boundaries of Slates. From time to time, under some able leader, have the hordes of the upper plains of Asia swept over the adjacent country, and rolled their conquering columns over Southern Europe. Yet, after the lapse of a few generations, the physical law to which I have referred, has asserted its supremacy, and the baundaries of those States difller little now from those which obtained three thousand years ago. Rome flew her conquering eagles over the then known world, and has now subsided into the little territory on which her great city was originally built. Tiie Alps and the Pyrenees have been unable to restrain imperial France ; but her expan- sion was a leverish action ; her advance and her retreat were tracked with blood, and those mountain ridges are the re-established limits of her empire. Shall the Rocky Mountains prove a dividing barrier to us ? Were ours a central consolidated government, instead of a Union of sovereign States, our fate might be learned from the history of other nations. Thanks to the wisdom and inde- pendent spirit of our Ibrefathers, this is not our case. Each State having sole cliaige of its local interests and domestic afl[hirs, the problem which to others has been insoluble, to us is made easy. Rapid, safe, and easy communication between the Ailanticand the Pacific, will give co-inlelligence, unity of interest, and co-operation among all parts of our continent-wide republic. The network of railroads which bind the North and the South, the slope of the Atlantic and the valley of the Mississippi, together testify that our people have the power to perform, in that regard, whatever it is iheir will to do. We require a railroad to the States of the Pacific for present uses; the time no doubt will come when we shall have need of two or three; it may be more. Because of the desert character of the interior country the work will be difficult atid expensive. It will i-equire theefforts of an united people. The bickerings of little politicians, the jealousies of sections, must give way to dignity of pur- pose and zeal for the common good. If the o!)ject he obstructed by contention and division as to whether the route to be selected shall be northern, southern or central, the handwriting is on the wall, and it requires little skill to see that failure is the interpretation of the inscription. You are a practical people and may ask, how is that contest to be avoided ? By taking the question out of the hands of politicians altogether. Let the Government give such aid as it is proper for it to render to the Company which shall propose the most feasible and advantageous plan; then leave to capitalists with judgment sharpened by interest, the selection of the route, and the ditiiculties wilfdiminish as did those which you overcame when you connected your harbor with the Canadian Provinces. It would be to trespass on your kindness and to violate the proprieties of the occasion, were I to detain the vast concourse whicii stands before me, by enter- ing on the discussion of controverted topics, or by further indulging in the expression of such reflections as circumstances sugsest. I camo to your city in quest of hoalih and rcposo. From llio nioiinMit I enliMvd it you liavo showered upon me kindness and liospilaliiy. Tliougli my experien* lias lauglit me lo aniici[)aie good rallier llian evil Irom my lellow man, it Iwd not i)repared me to expect sucli unremitting alienlion as lias here been bestowed. 1 liave been jocularly asked in relation to my coming here, whether i had secured a guaranty lor my salety, and lo, 1 liave louiid i'. I stand in ilv midst ol thousands of my lellow citizens. But my friends, 1 came neither di^lrusiing, nor apprehensive, of which you have proof in the fact that I brought villi me the ohjectsof tenderest afi'ection and solicitude — my wife and my cluldrei\; tiiey have shared with me your hospitality, and will alike remain vour dehloit If at some future time, when I am mingled wiih the dusi, and the arm of lUy infant son has been nerved lor deeds of manhood, the storm of war should mist upon your city, I feel that, relyins upon his inheriting the instincts of Ms ancestors and mine, I may pledge him in that perilous hour to stand by youtside in the defence of your hearth sloues, and in maintaining the honoroV a tlai whose constellation though torn and smoked in many a baitle. by sea and laud, \as never been stained with di.^honor, and will I trust forever (ly as free as the beeze which unfolds it. A stranger t«you, tlie salubrity of your location and the beauty of its scenery were not whollf' unknown to me, nor were there wanting associations wiiich busy memory dDnnected with your people. You will pardon mo lor alluding to one whose g-nius shed a lustre upon all it touched, and whose qualities cathered about \[m hosts of Iriends, wherever he was known. Premiss, a native of PorllaiA, lived from youth to middle age in the county of my resi- dence, and the in^iries which have been made, show me that the youth excited the interest which'he greatness of the man justified, and that his memory thus remains a link lo qnnect your home with mine. A cursory view,vhen parsing tlirough your town on former occasions, had impressed me wiilithe great advantages of your harbor, its easy entrance, its depth, and its extenue accommo'Jation lor shipping. But its advantages, and its facilities as they hve been developed by closer inspection, have grown upon me until 1 realize thS^ it is no boast, but the language of sober truth which in the present state of c(\iiuerce pronounces them unequalled in any harbor oi our country. And surely no place ould be more inviting to an invalid who sought a refuge from the heat of a soi|iern summer. Here waving elms ofi'er him shaded walks, and magnificent-esidences surrounded by fiowers, fill the mind with ideas of comfort and otrest. If weary of constant contact with his fellow men, he seeks a deepeLeclusion, there, in the back ground of this grand amphitheatre, lie the etei'Vl mountains, frowning with brow of rock and cap of snow upon the smiling (.Ids beneath, and there in its recesses may be lound as much of wildness, and aniuch of solitud(>, as the pilgrim weary of the cares of life can desire. If he \u\ to the front, your capacious liaibor, studded with green islands of ever varyin light and shade, and enlivened by all the stirring evidences of commercial aci(\iy, offer him the mingled charms of busy life and nature's calm repose. A fe\, niiles further, and he may sit upon the quiet shore to listen to the murmunv wave until the troubled spirit sinks to rest, and in tlie little sail that vanishes o the illimitable sea, we may lind the type of the voyage which he is so soon to\,ke,'when, his ephemeral existence closed, he emha'rks lor that better state whji jjes beyond the grave. Richly endowed as you are . nature in all which contributes to pleasure and to usefulness, ilie stranger qn^ot pa«s without paying a tribute to the much which your energy lias ac^^ved for yourselves. Where else will one find a more iiappy union of ma^Jficence and comfort, where better arrange- ments to facilitate commerce? Wkfe so much of industry, with so little noise and bustle? Where, in a phrase, Smuch effected in proportion to the means employed? We hear the puff of ti engine, the roll of the wheel, the ring of the axe, and the saw, but the stormy.^assionate exclamations so often mingled with the sounds, are no where hea yet, neither these nor other things 10 ■which I have mentioned, attractive though they be, have been to me the chief charm which 1 have found amona you. For above all these I place tiie gentle kindness, the corilial welcome, the hearty grasp, which made me lee! truly and at once, though wandering far, that I was still at home. My friends, I thank you for this additional manifestation of your good will. -* — ♦ — *- SPEECH AT THE PORTLAND CONVENTION. On Thursday, August 24th, 1858, when tlie Democratic Con veti ion iiad nearly concluded its business, a committee was appointed to wait on Mr. D.vis, and request him to gratify them by his presence in ihe Convention. He express'd his willingness to comply with the wishes of his countrymen, and accordingly reiaired to the City Hall. On entering lie was greeted in the most cordial and enthusiastic manner. After business was finished, lie proceeded to the rostrum, and, a'dressing the Con- vention, said: Friends, fellow-citizens, and brethren in Democracy, he thmked them for the honor conferred by their invitation to he present at ihei' deliberaiions, and expressed the pleasure he felt in standing in the midst o the Democracy of Maine — amidst so many manifestations oi the important and gratifying fact that the Democratic is, in truth, a national party. He didnot fail to remember that the principles of the party declaring for the large.'- amount of personal liberty consistent with good government, and to the grefPst possible extent of community and municipal independence, would render I in their view, as in his own, improper for him to speak of those subjects wich were local in their character, and he would endeavor not so far to trespasfupon their kindness as to refer to anything which bore such connection, dirct or indirect — and he hoped that those of their opponents who, having thecontrol of type, fancied themselves licensed to manufacture facts, would not 'old them responsible lor what he did not say. He said he should carry with Ifn, as one of the pleasant memories of his brief sojourn in Maine, the additiortl assurance, which inter- course with the people "had given liim, that there '11 lives a National Party, struggling and resolved bravely to struggle for the ?aintenance of the Constitu- tion, the abatement of sectional hostility, and the.^resPrvation of the fraternal compact made by the Fathers of the Republic, ie said, rucked in the cradle of Democracy, having learned its precepts from 'S father, — who was a Revo- lutionary Soldier — and in later years having l^n led forward in the same doctrine by the patriot statesman— of whom sue honorable mention was made in their resolutions — Andrew Jackson, he had'ways felt that he had in his own heart a standard by which to ineasurehe sentiments of a Democrat. When, therefore, he had seen evidences of a n row sectionalism, which sought not the gjood of the whole, not even the be'ht of a part, but aimed at the injury of a particular section, the pulsation of his own heart told him such cannot be the purpose, the aim, or the wisl-'f.a")' American Democrat— and he saw around him to-day evidence that hiop'ni^n in this respect had here its verification. As he looked upon the wea*-"'"- beaten faces of the veterans and upon the flushed cheek and flashing eye the youth, which told of the fixed resolve of the one, and the ardent, noble^P^s of the other, strengthened hope and bright anticipations filled his mind, fJ he feared not to ask the question- shall narrow interests, shall local jealou.-^' shall disregard of the high purposes for which our Union was ordained, cor^^e to distract our people and impede 11 the progress of our governmpnt toward (ho hi^jli consumnialioii whii-h jirojjhetic staU'smeri luive so ol'ten indicated as her destiny? — [Voices, no, no, no! Much ap|)hiuse.] Tliunks for that answer; let every American heart respond no; let every American head, let everv American hand unite in the great object of National development. Let our progress be across the land and over the sea, let our ilag as staled in your resolutions, continue to wave its welcome to the oppressed, who (lee from the despotism of other lands, until the constellation which marks the number of our Slates which have already increased I'rom thirteen to thirty- two, shall go on multiplying into a bright galaxy covering the lield on which we now display the revered stripes, which record the original size of our political family, and shall shed its benign light over all mankind, to point them to the paths of self-government and constitutional lii)erty. He here referred to the history of the Democratic party, and numbered among its glories the various acts of territorial acquisition and triumphs through its foreign intercourse in the march of civilization and National amity, as well as in the glories which from time to time had been shed by the success of our arms upon the name and characier of the American people. He alluded to the recent attempt by some of the governments of Europe, to engraft upon National law a prohibition against privateering. He said whenever other governments were willing to declare that private property should be exempt from the rigors of war, on sea as it is on land, our government might meet them more than half way, but to a proposition which would leave private property the prey of national vessels and thus give the whole privateering to those governments which main- tained a large naval establishment in time of peace, he would unhesitatingly answer no. Our merchant marine constituted the militia of the sea — how efieciive it had been in our last strugme of the interests of ship-buildmg ? He would answer — let it be changed from wood i;o iron. The skill to be acquired by a i'f^w years' experience, would at a fair price for iron, enable our ship builders lo construct iron siiips, which, taking into account their greater capacity for freight and greater durability, would he cheaper than vessels of wood, even whilst timber "was as abundant as now ; — at least such was the information he had derived from persons well informed upon those subjects. He expressed the gratification he felt for the courtesy of the Democracy in Maine, and doubted not that the Democracy of Mississippi would receive it, with ;^raieful recognition, as evincing fraternal sentiment by kindness done to one of her sons, not the less a representative, because a humble member of her Democracy. SPEECH AT BELFAST EIS^CAMPMENT. About ten o'clock the troops at the encampment being under arms, Col. Davis was escorted to the ground and reviewed them. He was then introduced to the troops by Gen. Cushman, as follows — OiKcers and fellow soldiers, I introduce to you Col. Jefferson Davis, an eminent citizen of Mississippi, — a man, and I say a hero, who has, in the service of his country, been among and faced hostile guns. CoL Davis replied as follows — Citizen Soldiers; — I fi el pleased and gratified at the exhibition I have wit- nessed of the military spirit and instruction of the volunteer militia of Maine. I acknowledge the compliment which has been paid to me, and I welcome it as the indication of the liberality and national sentiment which makes ihe militia of each State the effective, as they are the constitutional defenders of our whole country. To one who loves his country in all its parts, it is natural to rejoice in what- ever contributes to the prosperity and honor, and marks the stability and pro- 13 gress of any portion of its ppoplo. I thorelbro look upon tho ovidpnoe presenled to me of ihe soldiprly enlluisiasni antl military ao none tlio less pleasuie because 1 am llie cilizeu of anoilier and distant State. It was not llie policy ol' our governuieiil to niauitain lar<5e aruiiea or navies in time of peace. Tlie history ol our past wars eslahlislieil the lact thai it was not needlul to do so. The unlitia had been found (qnal to all the eineroencies of war. Their patriotism, llieir intellig''nce. their knowledge of the use of arms, had given to them all the eliiciency ol viK r:ins, and on many bloody fields they liave shown their superiority over the disciplined troops of their enemies. A people morally and inlelleciually ccpial to sell-jroveriiment, must also be equal to seif-delence. My i'viends, your woriliy General lias alluded to my connection with the military service of the country. The memory aroseio myself when the troops this day maiclK'd past me, and when I looked upon their manly bearing and firm step, 1 Ui(>ughi could I have seen them thus approaching the last field of battle on winch I served, where the changing tide several times threatened disaster to the American fia^;. witn what joy Iwould have welcomed those striped and starred banners, the emblem and the o-uide of the free and the brave, and with what pride would the heart have beaten when welcoming to danger's hour, bicthreu from so remote an extremity of our expanded territory. Une of the evidences of the fraternal confidence and mutual reliance of our faJhers was to be found in their compact lor mutual proiection and common delence. So long as their sons preserve the spirit and appreciate the purpose of their fathers, the United States will remain idvincible, their power will grow with the lapse of time, and their example show brighter and brighter as revolv- ing ases roll over the temple our lathers dedicated to consliuitional liberty, and iounded upon truths announced to their sons', but intended lor mankind. I thank you, citizen soldiers, lor this act of courtesy. It will long and gratefully be remembered, as a token ol respect to the distant Suite of which I am a citizen, and 1 trust will be noted by others, as indicating that naiicM' Ktntimenl whicli made, and wiiich alone can preserve us a nation BANQUET AFTER ENCAMPMENT AT BELFAST. The Mayor then 2;ave: The heroes who have fought our country's battles: may their services be appre- ciated by a grateful people. Loud calls being made for Col. Jefferson Davis, that gentleman arose and said: The sentiment to which he was called to r<'spond e.xcited memories which called up |)roud emotions, though their associations were sad. He could not reply to a compliment paid to the gallantry of his comrades in the war with Mexico, without remembering how many of them now mingle with the dust of a foreign land, and how many of them have sunk after the day of toil was done by reason of the exposure endured in the service of their country. The land has mourned, and still mourns, the tall of its bravest and best, and truly are our laurels mingled wiih the cypress, 'tis well, and 'tis wise, 'lis natural and 'tis proper, that in looking on the laurels of our glory we should pause to pay a tribute to the cypress which weeps over them, and having paid this tribute to the gallant dead, the memory of whose service can never die, we pass to the cons'ideration of their acts, and the beneficial results which their sacrifices have secured. When that war begun, our history recorded evidence only ol the power of our people for delence. The P'abian policy of Washington, admira- bly adapted to the condition of the Colonies, achieved so much in proportion to 14 the means, that he would be rash indeed who should attempt to criticise it. The prudent, though daring course of" Jackson, fruilt'ul as it was of the end to be attained, did not yet serve to illustrate the capacity of our people for the trials and the struggles attendant on the operations of an invasive war. Hence it was commonly asserted that the American people, though they might resist attack, were powerless to redress aggression which was not connected with the invasion of their territory. The idea of reliance upon imdisciplined militia was treated with contempt and derision. To borrow a simile from the pit, we were regarded as dung-hill soldiers, who would only fight at home. In the war with Mexico our armies carried their banners over routes hitherto unknown, through mountain passes where nature had almost completed the work of defence, and penetrated further into the enen)y's country than any European army has ever marched from the source of its supplies. Not to prolong the comparison by a reference to events of a remote period, he would only refer to the last campaign in European war. The combined armies of France and England, alter pre- paration worthy of their great military power, advanced through friendly terri- tory to the outer verge of the country, against which they directed a war of invasion, and after a prolonged seige by sea and by land, finally captured a sea- port town which they could not hold. Before them lay the country they had come to invade, but there, at the outer gate, their march was arrested, and in sight of the ships which brought them supplies and reinforcements, they termi- nated a campaign, the scale and proclaimed objects of which had caused the world to look on in expectation of achievements the like of which man had not seen. Why was it so? was it not that they were unable to move from the depot of supplies, though a distance less than half of that over which our army passed before reaching a productive region would have brought the allied forces to a country filled with all the supplies necessary for the support of an army. Is it boastl'ul to say that American troops, and an American treasury, would have encountered and have overcome such an obstacle? He did not forget the complaints which had been made on account of the vast expenditures which had been made in the prosecution of the war with Mexico; but he remembered with pride the capacity which the country had exhibited to bear such expendi- ture, and believed that our people had no money standard by which to measure the duty of their government, and the honor of their flag. We bear with us from the wars in which we have been engaged no other memory of their cost than the loss of the gallant dead. To the printed reports and tabular statements we must go when we desire to know how many dollars were expended. The successful soldier Avhen he returns from the field is met by a welcome propor- tionate to the leaves which he has added to the wreath of his country's glory. Each has his reward; to one, the admiring listener at the hearthstone; to another, the triumphal reception ; to all, the respect Avhich patriotism renders to patriotic service. To the soldier who, in the early part of the Mexican war, set the seal of invincibility upon American arms, and subsequently by a signal victory dispersed and disorganized the regular army of Mexico, his countrymen voted tlie highest reward known to our government. Twice before have the people in like manner manifested their approbation and esteem. Thus has the military spirit of the country been nursed; to-day it needs not the monarchial bundles of ribbons, orders and titles to sustain it. Thus has the American citizen been made to realize that it is sweet and honorable to die for one's coun- try ; and to feel proudest among his family memories of the names of those who successfully fought or bravely died in defence of the national flag. Often he had had occasion to feel, and to mark the mingled sensation of pride and of sorrow with which friends revert to those who gallantly died in the field. Even at this now remote day he could not travel in Mississippi without having the recollection of his fallen comrades painfully revived by meeting a mother who mourns her son with the agony of a mother's grief; a father, whose stern nature vainly struggles to conceal the involuntary pang, or tender children who know not the extent of their deprivation, though it is indeed the sorest of all. Let none then be surprised that he could not see the laurel save through the 15 solemn shadi' of the cypress. Time, however, sofiened the shadow long l)ofore il wiiliers ihe leaf. On his way to this phice he h-arned that it was possible, and ho seized the occasion to visit the residence of CJcn. Knox, of revolutionary memory. Ilis own desire to see something whicii had been idenlihed wiih a patriot soldiiT wlio had so larg'ely contributed lo the success of the rev(dution, and the establishment of the insiitiitions we inherited, was but an indication of the military sentiment which lives in the American heart. Ft turns the step of the travell(>r from iiis direct path, it attracts the boy in his first reading, it fires the ambiiion of the youth, and encircles the veteran with the kindness of his neiglibors, and swells the train which follows his bier when, his duty to hia country performed, he answers the summons of his God, and is translated to a better sphere. It is that same military enthusiasm which calls you from the avocations and the pleasures of home to the duties and discomforts of the camp, that you may prepare yourselves whenever your country needs it to render her efficient service. On the militia of the country the riglits of its citizens, and the honor of its flag, must mainly depend in the event of a war; they only need to be organized and instructed to render them a secure reliance. Mingled with the great body of the people, identified willi their feelings and their inlereslH, proud of the prowess of tiieir fathers and jealousy careful of the country's honor, if properly instructed and prepared, the first trumpet call should bring from plain and from mountain a citizen soldiery who would encircle the land and check the invader with a wall of fire. Your plan of encampment seems best suited to the purposes of practical instruction. A. pilgrim in search of health, his steps had been fortunately directed to Maine, the courtesy of the commander of this encampment had induced him to visit it and to review the troops. In all respects it had been to him most gratifying. The appointments, the movements, the stern faces, and stalwart forms of the men, spoke of the power to do, and tiie will to dare whatever it was needful and proper to perform. This day to manifest respect to a citizen of a distant State, whose only claim upon them is that he has been an American soldier, and is an American citizen, they had cheerfully marched through heavy mire. So much had they given to so small a demand on their natural sentiment, he could not doubt they would with equal alacritv, and with the same firm step, march over a field miry with the blood of comrade and of foe, where opposing causes make to men a com- mon fate. Among the objects which were of interest to him and which he had hoped to visit, was the fortification at the narrows of the Penobscot. During the last session of congress he had endeavored to obtain an appropriation for the com- pletion of the work which had advanced to the point which made it effective against shipping, but left still liable to be carried by land attack. He was not of those who thought it necessary to raise walls wherever an enemy might land and march, for he would say that henceforward there would remain to an in- vading army but to choose between captivity and a grave. To protect com- mercial ports against naval assault forts are needful and should be completed so as to render them defensible by small garrisons, and to save those garrisons as far as possible from the sacrifice of life. Our people require no wall to separate them from other countries, unless it be needful for our own restraint. Our policy is peace, and the fact shines brightly on the pages of our history that not one acre of its extensive acquisitions have been claimed as the spoil of the sword. Un- peopled deserts have been purchased, and on its own application a conimunity has been admitted to our family of states. But we liave ofl'ered to the world the singular example of conciucrcd territory returned to the vanquished. Permit me in this connection, whilst ever mindful of the just relation and necessity for concurrent action between the civil and military departments of government, to bear testimony lo the value of the militia for the purposes of peace. The principle of self-government and the spirit of independence are so deep rooted in the American mind that our people would illy brook the enforce- ment of law by any extraneous power, and it is to be hoped we never Avill see a case in which the people of a Slate will not be able to maintain the civil 16 authority, and vindicate offended law against all opposers whomsoever. To give energy and activity to such popular action the organization of the militia will be must convenient whenever force shall he needful. It is not a little re- markable that though the tirst Presidents in emphatic language from time to time recommended a thorough organization of the militia as one of the most important duties of the government, but little more has yet been done than to make provisions for supplying ihein with arms, and for calling them out when required for federal purposes. There is a moral effect arising from the spectacle of eacli State poss(\'ple was built. It was not a structure of expediency; master workmen cleared away the sur- face where the errors and prejudices of ages had accumulated, dug deep down to the immutable rock of truth, and with unchanging principles constructed the walls to stand till time should become eternity. Who is there, then, forget- ful of his revolutionary descent, insensible to the pride which the name of the United States justly inspires, faithless to the duly which the bond of his fathers imposes, and reckless of all which the honorable discharge of that duty ensures, would unite with impious purpose to destroy that foundation, and strive, with sacrilegious hand to tear the flag under which we had marched from colonial dependence to our present national greatness. Away with speculative tlieories, and false philanthropy of abstractions, which tend to destroy one hall, one third, aye, or a single star of that bright constellation which lights the pathway of our future career, and sends a hopeful ray through the clouds of despotism which hang over less lavored lands. Our mission is not that of propagandists — our principles forbid interference •with the institutions if other countries; but we may hope that our example Will be imitated, and should so live that this model of representative liberty, community independence, and government derived from the consent of the governed, and limited by a written compact, should commend itself to the adop- tion of others. We now stand isolated among the great nations of the earth ; the opposition of monarchial governments to the theory on which ours is foundfd. points to the possibility of an alliance against us, by which what is termed national law may be modified and warped to our prejudice if not to our assailment. It needs the united power, harmonious action and concentrated will ol the people of all these States to roll the wheel ol progress to the end which our fiitljers contemplated, and which their sons, if they are wise and true, may behold. May the kindness and courtesy which have character- ized the present occasion on which JNIississippi has been greeted by Maine, be a type of the leeling which shall ever exist between the extremes of our com- mon country. From Florida to California, from Oregon to Maine, from the centre to the remotest bonier, may the possessors of our constitutional heritage appreciate its value, and faithfully, fraternally labor for its thorough develop- ment, looking back to the original con)pact for the purposes for which the Union was established, and forward to the blessings which such union was designed and is competent to confer. SPEECH AT THE PORTLAND MEETING. When it became known that Mr. Davis had arrived at the IJall, lie was loudly called for. Hon. Joseph Howard, chairman of the nieetinc:, tiien intro- duced Mr. Davis, who, oncoming forward, was f^reeled willi cheer upon cheer from the vast audience. As soon as the prolonged and enthusiastic applause with wiiich he was welcomed had suhsided, Mr. Davis, addressing the audience as fellow citizens and Democraiic hrelhren, said tiiat the invitation wilii winch he had been favored to address them, evinced a purfiosi' lo confer togetiier for the common good — ibr the maintenance of the conslitulion, the bond of union. He would not be expected to discuss local questions ; he would not in this imitate the mischievous agitators who infiame the Northern mind against the Southern States. He came among them, an invalid, advised by his physician to resort to this clime for the restoration of his heal h ; as an American citizen, he had not expected that his right to come here would be questioned; as a stranger, or if not entirely so, known mainly by the detraction which the ardent advocacy of the rights of the South had brought upon him, he had supposed that neither his coming nor his going would attract attention. But his antici- paiions had proved erroneous. The polite, the manly, elevated men, lifted above the barbarism which makes stranger and enemy convertible terms, had chosen, without political distinction, to welcome his coming, and by constant acts of generous hospitality to make his sojourn as pleasant as liis physical condition would permit. On the other hand, men who make a trade of politics, and whose capital con- sists in the. denunciation of the institutions of other Slates, had erroneously judged him by themselves, and had regarded his coming as a political mission ; wherefore it Avas, he was led to suppose, that the scavengers of tiiat party had been employed in the publication of falsehoods, both in relation to hinisell' and his political friends at the South. So far as it affected him personally their attacks were no more than the barkinjj of a cur, which, by its clamor, indicates the inhospitable character of the master who keeps him. If his friends and himself were, as had been falsely charged, Disunionists and Nullifiers, they might naturally have looked for kmder con- siderations from a party which circulates petitions for a " prompt and peacelul dissolution of the Union " on account of the incompatibility of the .sections — from a party, Avhich, having proved faithless to the obligation of the constitu- tion in relation to the fugitive from service or labor, then declares null and void the law which their dereliction made it necessary for Congress to enact. The fealty of himself and friends to the constitution, and their honorable discharge of its obligations was their rebuke to this party, in whose hostility he (bund the highest commendation in their power to bestow. By reckless fabrication, by garbling and inserting new words into extracts, they had attempted to deceive the people here as to his opinions, and had crowned the fraud by the absurd announcement that his was the creed on which the people of Maine must vote next Monday. It was due to the hospitality which lie had received at their hands that he should not interfere in their domestic affairs, and he had not I'ailed to remember the obligation ; when republicans had introduced the subject of African slavery he had defended it, and answered pharisaical pretensions by citing the Bible, the constitution of the United Slates and the good of society in justification of the institutions of the State of wliich he was a citizen ; in this he but exercised the right of a freeman and discharged the duty of a Southern citizen. Was it for this cause that he had been signalized as a slavery propagandist? He admitted in all its length and breadth the right of the people of Maine to decide the question for themselves ; he held that it would be an indecent interference, on the part of a citizen of another State, if he should arraign the propriety of the 18 judi^mentlhey had rendered, and that there was no rightful power in the federa5 government or in all the States combined, to set aside the decision which the community had made in relation to their domestic institutions. Should any attempt be made thus to disturb their sovereign right, he would pfedge himself in advance, as a State-rights man, with his head, his heart and his hand, ii'need be, to aid tliem in the defence of this right of community independence, which the Union was formed to protect, and which it was the duty of every American citizen to preserve and to guard as the peculiar and prominent feature of our government. Why, then, this accusation ? Do they fear to allow Southern men to con- verse with their philosophers, and seek thus to silence or exclude them ? He trusted others would contemn them as he did, and that many of our brethren of the South would, like himself, learn by sojonrn here, to appreciate the true men of Maine, and to know how little are the political abolitionists and the abolition papers the exponents of the character and the purposes of the Democracy o{ this State. And now having brushed away the cob-webs which lay in his path, he would proceed to the consideration of subjects worthy of the audience he had the honor to address. Democrats, patriots, by whatever political name any of you may be known, you have a sacred duty to perform to your ancpstry and to posterity. The time is at hand when for good or lor evil, the questions which have agitated the public mind are to be'solved. Is it true as asserted by norlliern agitators that there is such contrariety between the North and the South that they cannot remain united ! Or rather, is it not true as our fathers deemed it, that diversity in the character of the population, in the products and in the institutions of the several States formed a reason ibr their union and tended to secure to their posterity the liberty which was the common object of their love, and by culti- vating untrammeled intercourse and jree trade between the States, to duplicate the comforts of all ? There was a time when the test of patriotism was the readiness to sever the bond which bound the colonies to the mother country. Recently our people with joyous acclamation have welcomed the connection of the United States with Great Britain, by the Atlantic cable. The one is not inconsistent with the other. When the home government violated the charters of the colonies, and assumed to control the private interests of individuals, the love of political liberty, the determination at whatever hazard to maintain their rights, led our fathers to enter on the trial of revolution. Having achieved the separation, they did what was in their power for the development of commerce. They secured free trade between the States, without surrendering State independence. Their sons, not only free, but beyond the possibility of future interference in their domestic affairs, now seek the closest commercial connection with the country from which their fathers achieved a political separation. Had the proposition been made to consolidate the States after their independ- ence had been achieved, all must know it would have been rejected— yet there are those who now instigate you to sectional strife for the purpose of sectional dominion and the destruction of the rights of the minority. Do they mean treason to the Constitution and the destruction of the Union 1 Or do they vilely practice on credulity and passion for personal gain? The latter is suggested by the contradictory course they pursue. At the same time they proclaim war upon the slave property of the South, they ask for protection to the manufac- tures of the staple which could not be produced if that property did not exist. And while they assert themselves to be the peculiar friends of commerce and navigation, they vaunt their purpose to destroy the labor which gives vitality to both ; whilst they proclaim themselves the peculiar friends of laboring men at the North, they insist that the negroes are their equals ; and if they are sincere they would, by emancipation of'the blacks, bring them together and degrade the white man to the negro level. They seek to influence the northern mind by sectional issues and sectional organization, yet they profess to be the friends of the Union. The Union voluntarily formed by free, equal, independent Slates. 19 We of thp Sonlh, on a sfriionnl division, arf in llio minority; and if Ifpisla- tion is to l)t' dirocted by ycoiirapliical tests — if ihc consiituiion is lo he trampled in tl»e dust, and tlie unbridled will of tlie majority in ( "oiijpprs('d l)y its mciitlian splendor? Are tiiey Ijut pvaiifscfMit clouds that flit across hut cannot obscure thof^real purposes fur wiiicli tlie Constituiiun was esiablislieil ? I htipMlully look forward to the reaction whicli will eslahlisii the fart lliat our sun is yet in llie ascendant — ihat the cloud which has covered our pijJiiical pros- pect is but a mist of the nuirning — that we are aq;ain to he amicably divided in opinion upon measures of expediency, upon questions of rehilive inierest, upon discussions as to the rirrhts of the Stat(>s, and the powers of the federal government, — such discussion as is commemorated in this historical picture [poinliniT to the painting] There your own great Statesman, Webster, addresses his argument to our brigiitest luminary, the incorruptible C'allioun. who leans over to catch the accents of eloquence that fall from his lips. [Loud applause.] They differed as Statesmen and philosophers ; tliey raih d not, warred not against each other; they stood to each other in the relation of afleciion and regard. And never did f see Mr. Webster so agitated, never did I hear his voice so falter, as when he delivered his eulogy en John C. Calhoun. [Api)lause.] But allusion was made to my own connection with your favorite departed Statesman. I will only say on this occasion, that very early in the commence- ment of my congressional life, Mr. Webster was arraigned for an offence wliich affected him most deeply. He was no accountant ; all knew that there wa^^bul little of mercantile exactness in his habits. He was arraigned on a pecuniary charge — the misapplication of what is known as the secret service fund; and I was one of the committee that had to investigate the charge. I endeavored to do justice, to examine the evidence with a view to ascertain the truth. As an American I hoped he would come out without slain or smoke upon his gar- ments. But however the lame of so distinguished an American Statesman might claim such hopes, the duly was rigidly to inquire, and rigorously to do justice. The result was that he was acquittVd of every charge that was made against hill), and it was equally my pride and my pleasure to vindicate hiui in every form which lay witiiin my power. [Applause.] No man who knew Daniel Webster, would have expected less of him. Had our position been reversed, none such could liave believed that he would with a view to a judg- m"nt ask whether a charge was made against a Massachusetts man or a Missis- sippian. No! it belonged to a lower, a later, and I trust a shorter lived race of statesmen [*' hear," " hear,"] to measure all facts by considerations of latitude and longitude. [Warm applause.] I iioiior that sentiment which makes us oftentimes too confident, and to despise too much liie danger of thai agitation which disturbs the peace of the country. 1 honor that feeling which believes the Consiituiional Union too strong to be shaken. But at the same time I say, in sober judgnxnt, ii will not do to treat too lightly the danger which has beset and which siill impends over us. Who has not heard our Constitutional Union compared to the granite cliffs which face the sea and dash back the foam of the waves, unmoved bv their fury. Recently I have stood upon New England's shore, and have seen the waves of a troubled sea dash upon the granite which frowns over the ocean, have seen the spray thrown back from the cliff, and the receding wave frei like thf* impotent rage of baffled malice, fjut wiien the tide had ebbed, I saw that the rock was seamed and worn by the ceaseless beating of the sea, and frag- ments riven from the rock were lying on the beach. Thus the waves of sectional agitation are I'ashinff themselves azainst the granite patriotism of the land. If long continued, that too must show the scams and scars of the conflict. Sectional hostility must sooner or later produce polit- ical fragments. The danger lies at your door, it is lime to arrest it. It i.s time that men should go back to the origin of our institutions They should drink the waters ol the fountain, ascend to the source, of our colonial liislory. You, men of Boston, go to the street where the massacre occurred in 1770. There learn how your fathers unfaltering stood for community right. And 38 near the same spot mark how proudly the delegation of the democracy came to demand the removal of the troops from Boston, and how the venerable Samuel Adams stood as«ening the rights of the people, dauntless as Hampden, clear and eloquent as Sidney. All over our country these monuments, instructive to the present generation, of Avhat our lathers felt and said and did, are to be found. In the library of your association for the collection of your early history, I found a letter descrip- tive of the reading of the address to his army by Gen. Washington during one of those winters when he sought shelter for the ill clad, unshod, but victorious army with which he achieved ihe independence we enjoy; he had built a log- cabin for a meeting house, and there reading his address, his sight I'ailed him, he put on his glasses and with emotion which manifested the reality of his feelings, said, " I have grown gray in the service of my country, and now I am growing blind." Who can measure the value of such incidents in a people's history'? It is a privilege to have access to documents, which cause us to realize the trials, the patient endurance, the hardy virtue and moral grandeur of the men from whom we inherit our political institutions, and to whose teachings it were well that the present generations should constantly refer. If you choose still further to stretch your vision to South Carolina, you will find a parallel to that devotion to their country's cause which illustrates the early history of the Democrats of Boston. The prisoners at Charleston, when con- fined upon the hulks where they were exposed to the small pox, and, wasted by the progress of the infection, were brought upon the shore and assured that if they would enlist in his majesty's service they should be relieved from their present and prospective suffering, but if they refused the rations would be taken from their families, and themselves sent to the hulks and exposed to the infection. Emaciated as they were, distressed with the prospect of their families being turned into the street to starve, the spirit of independence, the devotion to liberty, was so warm within their breasts that they gave one loud hurrah for General Washington, and chose death rather than dishonor. [Loud applause] And if from these glorious recollections, from the emotions they excite, your eye is directed to your present condition, and you mark the prosperity, the growth and honorable career of your country, I envy not the heart of that man whose pulse does not beat quicker, who does not feel within him the exultation of pride at the past glory and the future prospects of his country. These prospects are to be realized if we are only wise and true to the obligations of the compact of our fathers. For all which can sow dissension can slop the progress of the American people, can endanger the achievement of the high prospects we liave before us is that miserable spirit, which, disregarding duty and honor, makes war upon the Constitution. Madness must rule the hour when American citi- zens, trampling as well upon the great principles at the foundation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United Slates, as upon the honorable obligations which their lathers imposed upon them, shall turn with internicine hand to sacrifice themselves as well as their brethren, upon the altar of sectional fanaticism. With these views, it will not be surprising to those who differ from me, that I feel an ardent desire for the success of the State Rights Democracy, that convinced of the destructive consequences ol' the heresies of their opponents, and of the evils upon which they would precipitate the country, I do not for- bear to advocate, here and elsewhere, the success of tliat party which alone is national, on which alone I rely for the preservation of the Constitution, to per- petuate the Union, and to fulfil the purposes which it was ordained to establish and secure. [Loud cheers.] My friends, my brethren, my countrymen — [applause] — I thank you for the patient attention you have given me. it is the first tinie it has been my fortune to address an audience here. It will probably be the last. Residing in a remote section of the country, with private as well as public duties to occupy the whole of my time, it would only be under some such necessity for a restoration of health as has brought me here this season, that I could ever expect to make 39 more ihan a very hurried visit to any oilier portion of the Union than tliat of wiiich I am a citizen. I will say, then, on this occnsion, that 1 am glail. truly glad, that it has been my fbriune to stay lonof enoiiijh anionc; the New Englanders locjijiain a heiter acquaintance than one can who passes in the ordinary way ihrougli the country, at the s[)eed oCilie railroad tourist. 1 have stayed longenongii to feel tiial generous hospila'ity wliich evinces itself to-nii'iit, wliich lias showed itself iu every town and village of New England where I have gone — long enough to learn that ihouirh not represented in Congress, there is within the limits of New Eni^land a large mass of as true Democrats as are to be (bund in any portion of the Union. Their purposes, their construction of the Constitution, their hopes for the future, their respect for the past, is the same as that which exists among ray beloved brethren in Mississippi. [Applause.] It is not a great while since one who was endeavoring to pursue me with unfriendly criticism opened an article with my name and '• gone to Boston!" — He seemed to think it a damaging refl^^ction to say of me that I had gone to Boston — I wish he could have been here to look upon thf se Democratic faces to-night, and to listen to your resolutions and the words of your Massachusetts speakers, he might have been taught that a man might go and stay at Boston and learn better Democracy than many have acquired in other places. I shall gratet"ully carry with me tlie recollections of this and -of other meet- ings witnessed since I have been among you. In the hour of apprehension I will hopefully turn back to my observations here — here in this consecrated hall, where men so early devoted themselves to liberty and community independence; and will endeavor to impress upon others who know you only as you are mis- represented in the two Houses of Congress, [applause,] how true and how many are the hearts that beat for constitutional liberiy, and with high resolve to respect every clause and guaranty which the Constitution contains, are pledged i^ovoniriu-nt, u'ln'n tliPfi pnsxrs.i the pniner and jiirisdirtiini vhlrli I)kIoii'xs In llir. projilc (if JVrii^ ]'(>rli, or ami tilher Stiilc, hare the ri'^hl lo decide Ihtit qur.slinii, and no power upon earlh has the ri}j:ht In decide it before that time. [Applause] [Ai tliis point the Yuuii2; Men's Democratic National Cluli. with banners and transparencies, entered tlie garden, and were received witli enthusiastic ciieers ] The (lull remarks, my friends, which I was in the course of malnns: to you, have bp>en interrupted by a beautiful episode, which I am sure will more than exceed the whole value of the poem, it I mav thus ciiaracterize my dull speech. And I am ^lad tiial foremost among all the transparencies and banners, comes this (las: which speaks of the " Young Men's Uemocraiic Naiional Club." — rriiree clieers for Davis.] It is on the youncf men we must rely. I have found that in every severe political sirufrirle, where the contest on the one side was for principle, and on the other for spoils, it has been the gray-haired father and the boy with the peach bloom upon his cheek upon whom principles liad to rely for support. Mv own generation — and I regret to say it — seems too deeply steeped in the trickery of politics to be able lo rise above the influence of per- sonal and political gain inio the pure field of pairiotism. And 1 am theretore glad to see the " Young Men's Democratic National Club" leadmglhis proces sion. But to return to the argument I was making. I said that Congre.ss had no power to legislate upon wiiat should be property anywlx-re; that Congress had no power to discriminate between the ciiizens of the different Stales who should go into the Territories, the common properly of all the Stales, but that those Territories of right remained open to every citizen, and evry species of property recognized in the Constitution, until the inhabitants should b'^come a people, form a fundamental law for themselves, and, as authorized by the Con- stitution, assume the powers, duties, and obligations of a State. And now. my friends, I would ask you, further, of what value would a congressional decision upon that subject be? if it be a constitutional right, as I contend it is, then it is a matter for judicial decision. If Congress should assert that such is not the right of each of our citizens, and the courts appointed as an arbiter in such- cases should decide that it is their rinht, the enactment would, therefore, be void. If, on the other hand, it is not a right, l)ul Congress should assert it to be one, and the courts should declare that no such right exists under the (Constitution, then, Congress has no power to create it; and it is in this sense that Congress i has not the power to establish or prohibit slavery anywhere. [Applause.] Wliat, then, has been the foundation of all this controversy ? Your candidate has justly pointed out to you that unpatriotic struggle for sectional acrarandize- ment which has brouirht about this contest — a contest, as it were, between two contending powers for national predominance — a contest upon the one side to enlarge the majority it now posseses, and a comesi upon ihe other side lo recover the power it has lost, and become the majority. This is liie altitude of hostile nations, and not of States bound together in Iraiernal unity. Tiiis istiie feelinri that one by one is cutting the strands which originally lield the States together. You have seen your churches divided ; you have seen trade turned aside from ils accustomed channel ; you have s( en jealousy and iinchar- itableness and bickering springing up and growing stronger day by day, until at last, if it continue, the cord of union between the States reduced simply to the political strand, may not suffice to hold them together. Once united by every tie of fraternal feeling, shoulder to shoulder, step by step, our lathers went through the revolution, prompted by a common desire for the common good, and animated by devotion lo the principle of popular liberty. They struggled against the mother country, because that coimtry endeavored to legis- late Tor the~colonies. and the colonies claimed as a riglit that they uiusi not be taxed except by their own representatives, and refused to submit to unconstitu- tional legislation. If now, in this struggle lor the ascendancy in power, one 42 action shouIJ gain such predominance as would enable it, by modifying the Consiilution and usurping new power, to legishite for the other, the exercise of that power would throw vs back into the condition of the colonics. And if in the veins of the sons Hows the blood of their sires, they would not fail to redeem thenm-lces from tyranny even should they be driven to resort to revolution. [Applause.] And what is the other question of difference now? It is the agitation, as a national question, of the right of foreigners to suffrage within these Slates. Now, 1 ask, what power has Congress over the question? Yet members to Conirress are elected upon that question. How would Congress legislate upon it 7 They say, by modifying the naturalization laws. What do those laws confer? The right to hold real estate and the right to devise it by Hvill ; the right to sue and be sued in the courts of the United States; and llie rights to receive passports and protection from the government of the United States. Who wishes to withhold those privileges from foreigners? Nobody alleges it. But they say that the ballot-box must be protected from foreign votes. Has Congress the right, to say that loreigners shall not vote wiihin the limits of your Sta'e? Are you willing to leave that to Congress? [Cries of "• No, no, no," and applause.] In some of the States, by State legislalion, foreigners are per- mitted to vote before they can become citizii-ns under the naturalization laws. The naturalization laws are not, therefore, controlling over the question of suffrage. The power of Congress is limited to the establishment of a uniform rule of naturalization tliroughout the States. But what further do they couple with these demands which they make for congressional legislalion ? They proclaim iheir purpose to be to exclude paupers and criminals from abroad. — Do paupers and criminals come for the riglit of suffrage? They come here for bread, or to fly from the laws which they have violated. Whether they shall be entitled to vote or not, would neither increase nor diminish the number of that class by a single individual. But, my friends, who is a pauper, or who is a criminal ? Is a man a pauper merely because he comes here without property, without money in his purse? Go, look along your lines of internal improve- ments, where every mile has mingled Avith it the bones of some foreigner who labored to create it. Go to your battle fields, where your flag has been borne triumphantly, and where fresh laurels have been added to the brow of your country, and ihere you will find the sod dyed as deep by the blood of the foreign born as by that of the native citizen. [Applause.] Is the able-bodied man, who comes hereto contribute to your national interests by building up your public works, or aiding in the erection of your architectural constructions, or who bears your flag in the hour of danger, and who bleeds and dies for your country, is he the pauper you desire to exclude? And who is the criminal? Is it he who, flying from the persecution of despotic governments, seeks our land as the Huguenot did, as did Soule, the stern American orator, as many others within your limits have done under more recent struggles for liberty in Europe? [Applause.] Then, who are the paupers and criminals? Is that to be decided by the ruling of other countries, by the laws of France, or of Eng- land? Or is it to be decided by your own laws, by your own rules of judica- ture? If by the latter, then there is no good ground for controversy. We do not advocate that any country shall empty its poor houses, get rid of the duty of supporting its paupers, and throw that charge upon us. W^e could not permit any counny to empty its prisons and penitentiaries to mingle that por- tion of its population with ours. But we do war against the use of terms that delude the people, and are intended to exclude the higli-spirited and hard-work- ing men who contribute to the bone, the sinew, and the wealth of our country. [Applause.] Such, then, my friends, is the opposition to the democracy, the only national parly. The opposition, I say, claims two things from the federal government, neiiherof which it has the constitutional power to perform. It agitates this section of the Union in relation to property which it has not, and of which, I say, it knows literally noihing. B^or had the orator (Mr. Giddings) who was quoted to-night, known anything of the relations between the master and the 43 slave, he would not have talked of the slave armed with the British bayonet. Our doors are unlocked at night ; we live ainoni^ ilipiii with no more fear ul' ihenn than of our cows and oxen. We lie down to sleep trusiinir to lliein for our defence, and the bond between the master and the slave is as near as that winch exists between capital and labor anywiiere. Now, about the idea of l^riiish bayonets in the hands of slaves : The delusion which has always excited my surprise tiie most has been that which has led so many o( the northern mea to strike hands with the Ptritish abolitionists to make war on their southern brethren. If they could eflect their ends, and Great Biilain could insert the wedge which should separate the States, what further use would slie have for the norihern section ? You are the compeiitors of Great Britain in the vast field of matuifacture, whom she most fears, and though she may be with yoti in the scheme which would elVect a separation of these States, yet the moment that separation should be efiected she would he under the prompiings ol interest your worst enemy. [Applause.] Our fathers fought and bled to secure the common interests of the country. They reclaimed us from colonial bondage to national independence. They stamped upon it free trade in order that the interests of all might he promoted, that each section might be interwoven with the other — in order that there might be the strongest bond of mutual depen- dence. And step by step, from that day to this, that common and mutual dependence has been growing. From the seeds of narrow sectionality and purblind fanaticism, have sprung the tares which threaten the principles of that declaration which made the Colonies independent States, and of that compact by which the States were united by a bond to-day far more valuable than when it was signed. You have among you politicians of a philosophic turn, who preacli a high morality ; a system of wliich they are the discoverers, and it is to he hoped will long reuiain the exclusive possessors. They say, it is true the Constitution dictates this, ilie Bible inculcates that ; but then' is a higher law than those, and call upon you to obey that higher law, of which they are the inspired givers. [Laughter and applause.] Meu who are traitors to the compact of their fathers — men who have perjured Ihc onlha they have Ihcmselvns taken — they who wish to sleep their hands in the blood of their brothers; these are the moral law-givers who pro- claim a higher law than the Bible, the Constitution, and the laws of the land. This higher-law doctrine, it strikes me, is the most convenient one I ever heard of for the criminal. You, no doubt, have a law which punishes a man lor stealing a horse or a bale of goods. But the thief would find more convenient a hiaher law which would justify him in keeping the stolen goods. The doctrine is now advanced to you only in its relation to property of the Southern States, thus it is the pill gilded, to conceal its bitterness; but it will re-act deeply upon yourselves if you accept it. What security have you for your own safety if every man of vile temper, of low instincts, of base purpose, can find in his own heart a higher law than that which is the rule of society, the Constitution, and the Bibie? Thrse hi'j;her-law preachers shanlil be tarred and ftalhered, and whipjied hy llmse they have tinis insli<^aled. This, my friends, is what was called it, irood old rn-o- lutinnary times, f.ynch Lnic. It is sometimes- the very best latv, because il deals summary justice upon those who would otherwise escape from all olh^r kinds of punishment. The man who with sycophantic face and studied phrase, and with assumed philosophic morality, preaches treason to the Constitution and tlie dictates of all human society, is a fit object lor a Lynch law that would be higher than any he could urge. [Applause.] My democratic friends, I am deeply gratified by the exhibition which is before me. I see here a field of faces, assembled in the name of Ueau'cracy, and over it high, bricrht and multiplied for the occasion, as stars have been added by Democracy to the flag of our country, blaze the lights whi(;h tyiuly dem- ocratic principles, pointing upward, to guide our country to that havr n ol pros- perity which our fathers saw in the distant future, and which they left ii lor their sons (o attain. If we are true to ourselves, true to the obligations which the Constitution imposes upon us, and if we are wise and energetic in the struggles which lie before us, our path is onward to more ol national greatness 44 than ever people before possessed. We are held together by that two-fold gov- ernmenl. which is susceptible of being made perfect in the small spheres of State limits, and capable of the greatest imperial power, by the combination of these municipal powers into one for foreign action. It is a form of government such as the wit of man never devised until our fathers, with a wisdom that approached inspiration, framed the Constitution, and transmitted it as a legacy to us. It devolves upon every one of you, to see tiiat each provision of that Constitution is cordially and faithfully observed. If cordially and faithfully observed, the powers of hell and of earth cotnbined can never shake the happiness and prosperity of the people of the United Slates. [Applause.] With every revolving year tliere will arise new motives for holding tena- ciously to each other. With every revolving cycle there will come neAV sources ol' pride and national sentiment to the people. Year alter your (lag will grow more brilliant, by the addition of fresh stars, recording the growth of our political family, and onward, over land and over sea, the progress of American principles, of human liberty illustrated, and protected by the power ol' the United Stales, will hold its way to a triumph such as the earth has never witnessed. [Applause.] On the other hand, what do we see? A picture so black that if I could unveil it, I would not in this cheery moment expose a scene so chilling to your enthusiasm, and revoliiiig to your patriotic hearts. My friends, feeling that I have already detained you too long, 1 now return to you my cordial thanks for the kindness with which you have received me to-night. SPEECH BEFORE THE MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE. MississippiANs: Again it is my privilege and good fortune to be among you, to stand before those whom I have loved, for whom 1 have labored, by whom I have been trusted and honored, and here to answer tor myself. Tune and disease have frosted my hair, impaired my physical energies, and furrowed my brow, but my heart remains unchanged, and its every pulsation is as quick, as strong, and as true to your interests, your honor, and fair Jiime, as in the period of my earlier years. It is known to many of you, that at the close of the last session of Congress, wasted by protracted, violent disease, I went, in accordance with medical advice, to the Northeastern coast of the United Stales. Against the opinion of my physician, I had remained at Washington until my public duties were closed, and then adopted the only course which il was believed gave reasonable ho[)e for a final restoration to healili — that is, sought a region where I should be exempt from the heat of sunnner, and from political excitement. In one respect at least, this accorded with my own feelings, lor physically and menially depressed, fearful that 1 should never again be able to perlorm my part in the trials to which Mississippi might be subjected, 1 turned away from my lellows with such feelings as the wounded elk leaves his herd, and seeks the covert, to die alone. Misrepresentation and calumny followed me even to the brink of the grave, and with hyena instinct would have pursued me beyond it. The political positions which I had always occupied, justihed the expecta- tion that in New England 1 should be left in loneliness, in this 1 was disap- pointed ; courtesy and kindness met me on my first landing, and attended me to the lime of my departure. The manifestions of comity and hospitality , given by the generous and the noble, aroused ihe petty hostility ot the more extreme ol the Black Republicans, and their newspapers assailed me with the low abuse which lor years 1 had been accustomed to receive at their hands. 1 had always despised 45 their malice and defied their enmity ; their assaults did not surprise me, but when I i'oLUui iheni echoed in .Southern papers, it did a-lonish, I will contest, it diti pain me, not for any injury apprehended lo mysell, but lor its evil eHecl upon the cause wiih which 1 was ideniitied. Was it expected that to public and private inanifesialions of kindness by the people of Maine, I should return denuncia'ion and repel their generous ap- proaches with epithets of abuse? If they b.ad deserved such reproach, they could not merit it at my hands. A guest hos|)iiabIy attended, if would have been inconsisient with the character of a genihinan, to have done less than acknowledge their kindness, and it was not in my nature to feel otherwise than grateful to them for the many manifestations of a desire to render pleasant and beneficial the sojourn of an invalid among them. Bui they did not deserve it, and I am happy to state as the result of my ac(|uaintance with them, that we have a large hotly of true friends an)ong them, men wiio maintain our consti- tutional rights as explicitly and as broadly as we assert them, and who have perlormed this service with the foreknowledge that they were thereby to sacrifice their political prospects, at least, untd througli years of paiient exertion they should correct error, su[)press fanaticism, and build for themselves a structure on the basis of truth, which had long been unwelcome and might not soon be understood. But there were other evidences of regard more valuable to me than exhibi- tions of personal kindness. Regard for the people of Mississippi, founded on a special attention to their history ; the gallant services of your sons in the field, were publicly claimed as properly which Mississippi could not appropriate to herself, but which were part of the common wealth of the nation, and belonged equally to the people of Maine. Could 1 be insensible to such rectgniiion of the honorable lame of Mississippi'? No, the memory of the gallant dead, who died at Monterey and Buena Vista, forbade it. At a subsequent period, when in .Massachusetts, one of her distinguished sons, (Gen. Cushing.) paid a compliment to the feat performed by the Mis- sissipi)i Regiment in checking th(> enemies cavalry on the field of Buena Visia, one Black Republican newspaper denied the originality of the movement, and claimed it to have been previously performed by an English regiment at Uunire Bras. This claim was unfounded; the service performed by the British Regi- ment having been of a totally different character and for a dillerenl purpose. — A Southern paper, however, has gone one step beyond that of the Massachu- setts paper, and denies the merit claimed for the service rendered by saying that it was the result of accident, growing out of the peculiar conformation of the ground on which the regiment rallied and that it was necessary for the safety of the regiment, being like the act of a man who leaps from a burning ship and takes the chance of drowning. If this only afTecied myself, I should leave it, like other misrepreseniations, unnoticed, but it concerns the hard earned reputation of the regiment I com- manded. It aflecis the fame of Mississippi, and propagates an error which may pollute the current of history. We live in an age of progress, and it requires a progressive age to produce a military critic wlurshoiild discover that a soldier deserved no credit for availing himself of the accidents of ground. One half of the .science of war consists in teaching how to take advantage of the irregularities of the ground on which military movements are to be niade, or defensive works are to be constructed. The highest reputation of Generals in every age has resulted in their skill in mili- tary topo-^raphy. The most marked compliment ever paid by one (General to another, was that of Napoleon to Caesar, when he bailed on his encampments without a previous reconnoisance. But the regiment did not rally as stated, for it had not been dispersed ; neither was their movement the result of their own neces- sity, or adopted for their own safely. They were marching by the flank, on the side of a ravine, when the enemy's cavalry were seen approaching. 1 hey could have halted on the side of the ravine, which was so precipitous thalthey would have been there as safe from a charge as if they had been in Mississippi. Ihey 46 could have gone down into the ravine, and have been concealed even from the sight of the cavalry. The necessity was to prevent tlie cavalry from passing to the rear of our line of battle, where they mis^ht have attacked, and probably carried our batteries, which were then without the protection of our infantry- escort. It was our country's necessity and not our own which prompted the' service there performed. For this the regiment was formed square across the plain, and there stood motionless as a rock, silent as death, and eager as a grey- hound for the approach of the enemy, at least nine times, numerically, their superiors. Some Indiana troops were formed on the brink of the ravine with the right flank of the iVIississippi Regiment, constituting one branch of what has been called the"V". VVhen the enemy had approached as near as he dared and seemed to shrink from contact with the motionless, resolute living wall which stood before him, the angry crack of the Mississippi rifle was heard, and as the smoke rose and the dust fell, there remained of the host which so lately stood before us but the fallen and the flying. The rear of our line of battle was again secured, and a service had been rendered which in no small degree contributed to the triumph which Anally perched upon the banner of the United States. I am not a disinterested, and may not be a competent judge, but I know how I thought, and still believe, that your sons, given by you to the public service in the war with Mexico, have not received the full rneasure of the credit which was their due. They, however, received so much that we might be content to rest on the history as it has been written. But it constitutes a reason why we should not permit any of the leaves to be unjustly torn away. To return to the consideration of the less important subject, the misrepresen- tation of myself, I will again express the surprise I felt that when abolition papers were assailing me with a view to destroy any power which I might acquire to correct the error which had been instilled into the minds of the people of the North in relation to Southern sentiments and Southern institutions, that they should have received both aid and comfort from Southern newspapers, and been bolstered up in the attempt to misrepresent my political position. When the charge was made, which was copied in Northern papers, that I had abandoned those with whom I co-operated in 1852, to produce a separation of tiie States, my friend, the editor of the Mississippian, seeing the misrepresentation of my position, and naturally supposing, as we had no discussion in 1852, the reference must have been made to the canvass of 1851, quoted from the resolutions of the State-Rights Democratic Convention, and Irom an address published by myself to the people, to show that my position was the reverse of that assigned to me. Before proceeding, I will advert to a reference which has been made to him, as my " organ." He is no more my " organ " than I am his. We have generally con- curred, I and have been able to understand and anticipate his positions as he has mine. I am indebted to him for many favors. He is indebted to me for noth- ing. As Democrats, as gentlemen, as friends, we occupy to each other the relation of exact equality. Notwithstanding that irrefutable answer to the charge, it has been reiterated, and, as before, located in the year 1852. It is known to you all that our discus- sions were in 1851. I then favored a convention of the Southern States, that we mi2;ht take counsel together, as to the future which was to be anticipated, from the legislation of 1850. The decision of the State was to acquiesce in the legislation ot that year, with a series of resolutions in relation to future encroach- ments. I submitted to the decision of the people, and have in good faith adhered to the line of conduct which it imposed. Therefore in 1852 there is no record from which to disprove any allegation, but you know the charge to be utterly unfounded, and charity alone can suppose its reiteration was innocently made. Neither in that year nor in any other, have I ever advocated a dissolution of the Union, or the separation of the State of Mississippi from the Union, except as the last alternative, and have not considered the remedies whicli lie within that extreme as exhausted, or ever been entirely hopeless of their success. I hold now, as announced on former occasions, that whilst occupying a seat in the Senate, I am bound to maintain the Government of the Constitution, and 47 in no manner (o work' for its dpstruction; that llio ohIi2;ation of llic oath of ofTicp, Mississippi's honor ami my own, rpciuire that, as a Senator of llic Uniii'd SiatfS, therp should bo no want ol' loyalty to the Constitntionai Union. Wlnncver Mississippi shall resolve to separate from the Ctmredcraey, I will expect lipr to withdraw her representatives from the General Govprnment, to wiiieh tlipy are accredited. If 1 should ever, whilst a Senator, deem it my duty to assume an attitude of hostility to the Union, I should, immediately thereupon, Ipp) hound to resign the ollice, and return to my consliinency to iiilorm them of the fact. It was this view of the obligations of my position, which caused me, on various occasions, to repel, with such indignation, the accusation ol' being a disunionist, while holding the office of Senator of the United Slates. I have been represented as having advocated " Squatter Sovereignty " in a speech made at Bangor, in the State of Maine. A paragraph has been pub- lished purporting to be an extract from that speech, and vituperative criticism, and forced construction have exhausted themselves upon it, with deductions which are considered authorized, because they are not denied in liie paragraph published. In this case, as in that of the charge in relation to my position in 1852, there is no record with which to answer. I never made a speech at Bangur. And a fair mind would have sought for the speech to see how far the general context explained the paragraph, before indulging in hostile criticism. Senator Douglas, in a speech at Alton, adopting the paragraph published, and evidently drawing his opinion from the unfair construction which had been put upon it, claims to quote Irom a speech made by me at Bangor, to sustain the position taken by him at Freeport. He says : " You will find in a recent speech, delivered by that able and eloquent statesman, Hon. Jeflcrson Davis, at Bangor, INIaine, thai he took the same view of lliis subject that I did in my Freeport speech. He there said :" " ' If the inhabitants of any territory shoidd refuse to enact sue!) laws and police regulations as would give security to their property and liis, it would be rendered more or less valueless, in proportion to the diflicully of holding it without siuh pro- tection. In the case of property in the labor of a man, or what is usually called slave property, the insecurity would i)e so great that the owner could not ordinarily retain it. Therefore, though the riaiht would remain, the remedy beins: withheld, it would follow that the owner would be practically debarred, by the circumstanrcs of the case, from taking slave property into a Territory where the sense of the inhabi- tants was opposed to its introduction. So much for the oft repeated fallacy of forc- ing slavery upon any community.' " It is fair to suppose, if the Senator had known where to find the speech from which this extract was taken, that he would have examined it before proceeding to make such use of it. And I can but believe, if he had taken the paragraph free from the distortion which it had undeigone from others, that he nmsl iiave seen it bore no similitude to his position at Freeport, and could give no countenance to the doctrine lie then announced. He there said : «• The next question Mr. Lincoln propounded to me is: • Can the people of n ter- ritory exclude slavery from their limits by any fair means, before it comes into the Union as a Slate.'' I answer emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times, on every slump in Illinois, thai in my opinion, the people of n terri- tory OU1, by lawful means, exclude slavery t.cfore it comes in ns a Slate. [Cliceis.] Mr. Lincoln knew that I had given that answer over and over again. He lip.ud ine arsue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over the State, in 1854, and '5.5, and '36, and he has now no excuse to pretend to have any doubi upon thai .sui)jeri. What- ever the Suprerne Court may hereafter decide as on the abstract question of whether slavery may go in under the Constitution or not, the people of a territory have the lawful means to admit or exclude it as they please for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless supported by local police ret'ul.ii'mB, furnishing remedies and means of enforcing the right of holding slaves. Tliosf local and police regulations can only be furnished by the local Legislature. If the people of the Territory are opposed to slavery they will elect members to the Legislature who will adopt unfriendly legislation to it. If they are for ii, they will adopt the lec^islative measures friendly to slavery. Hence no matter what may be the decision L 48 of llie Supreme Court, on that ahsfract question, still the rig^lit of the people to make it ;i slave ler-riiiiry or a free tenitory , is [perfect ami complete under the Nebraska Bill. I l)ope Ml-. Lincoln will deem my answer satisfactory on this point." This is the distiact assprlion of the power of territorial legislation to admit or exclude slavery ; of the first in the race of migration who reach a territory, the common property of the people of the United States to enact laws for the exi'ltision of other joint owners of the territory, who may in ihe exercise of (heir equal right to enter the common property, choose to take with tliem pro- perty recognized by the Constitution, but not acceptable to the first emigrants to the Territory. That Senator had too often and too fully discussed with me the question of "squatter sovereignty" to be justified in thus mistaking my opinion. The difference between us is as wide as thai of one who should assert the right to rob from him who admitted the power. It is true, as I stated it at that time, all property requires protection from the society in the midst of which it is held. This necessity does not confer a right to destroy, but rather creates an obligation to protect. It is true as I stated it, that slave property peculiarly requires the protection of society, and would ordinarily become valueless in the midst of a community, which would seek to seduce the slave from his master, and conceal him whilst absconding, and as jurors protect each other in any suit which the master might bring for damages. The laws of the Unitfd States, through the courts ot the United Slates, might enable the master to recover the slave wherever he could find hiiiK But you all know, in such a community as I have supposed, that a slave inclined to abscond would become utterly useless, and that was the extent of the adn)ission. The extract on which reliance has been placed was taken from a speech made at Portland, and both before and after the extract, the language employed conclusively disproves the construction, which unfriendly criticism has put upon the detached passage. Immediately preceding it, the following language, was used : "The Territory bein^; the common property of States, equals in the Union, and bound by the Constitution which recojrnizes propeity in slaves, ii is an abuse of terms to call aggression the migration into that Territory of one of its joint owner.s, because carrying with him any species of properly recognized l)y the Constitution of the United States. The Federal Government has no power to declare what is pro- perty enywliere. The power of each Slate cannot extend beyond its own limits. As a consequence, therefore, whatever is jiroperty in any of the Stales, must be so considered in atiy of the territories of the Un ted States until they reacli to the dii^- nity of community independence, when the subject matter will be entirely under the control of the people, and be determined by their fundamental law. If tfie inhabi- taiils of any territory should refuse to enact such laws and police regulations as would give security to their property or to his, it wou'd be rendered more or less valueless, in proportion to the difficulty of holding it without such protection. In the case of property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave property, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not ordinarily retain it. There- fore, thouffh the right would remain, the remedy being withheld, it would follow that the owner would be practically debarred by the circumstances of the case, from taking slave property into a territory where the sense of the inhabitants was opposed to its iniroduition. So much for the oft repeated fallacy of forcing slavery upon any commuinty." And in a subsequent part of the same speech, the matter was treated of in this wise : " The South had not asked Congress to extend slavery into the territories, and he in common with most other Southern statesmen, denied the existence of any power to do so. He held it to be the creed of the Democracy, boili in the Norih and the South, that the general government had no constitutional power either to establish or pro- hibit slavery anywhere ; a grant of power to do the one must necessarily have involved the power to do the other. Hence it i.s (heir policy not to interfere on the one side or the other, but protecting each individual m his constitutional rights, to leave every indecendenl community to determine and adjust all domestic questions aa in their wisdom may .seem best." 49 In other speeches made elsewhere, in New Ennjland and in New York, the equalitv of the South as joint owners was cicclarcd and maintained, as I had often done before the people of Mississippi and in llie .Senate of the Unitod States when the subject was in controversy. The position taken by me in 1850, in the form of an amendment oflered to one of the compromise measures of that year, was intended to assert the equal right of all property to the protection of the United States, and to deny to any legislative body the power to abridge that right. The decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case has fully sus- tained our position in the following passage : " If Congress itself cannot do tliis, (prohibit slavery in a Territory,) if it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government — it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a territorial j^overnment to exercise them. // could confer no power on any local government established by its authority, to violate the provisiotis of the Constitution. "And if the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the master in a slave; and makes no distinction between that description of property and other property owned by a citizen, no tribunal, acting under the authority of the United Slates, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, has aright to draw such a distinction, or deny to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees which have been provided for the protection of private property against the encroachments of the govern- ment." At the time of the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, it certainly was understood that the constitutional rights to take slaves into any territory of the United States should thenceforth be regarded as a judicial question ; and there- fore special provision was made to facilitate the bringing of such questions before the Supreme Court of the United States. After the decision to which reference has just been made, the prominent advocate of the bill at the time of its enactment should have been estopped from recurring to his "squatter sov- ereignty" heresies, though the decision should have been different from his anticipation or desire. And as much interest has been felt in relation to his position, and some inquiry has been made as to my view of it, I will here say, that I consider him as having recanted the better opinions announced by him in 1854, and that I cannot be compelled to choose between men, one of whom asserts the power of Congress to deprive us of a constitutional right, and the other only denies the power of Congress, in order to transfer it to the territorial legislature. Neither the one nor the other has any authority to sit in judgment on our rights under the Constitution. Between such positions, Mississippi cannot have a preference, because she cannot recognize anything tolerable in either of them. Having called your attention to the speech made at Portland, to show that other parts of it disprove the construction put upon the paragraph, which was taken from it, and reported to be a part of the speech dr-livered at Bangor, it may be as well on this occasion to state the circumstances under which the speech was made at Portland. Immediately preceding the State election, I was invited, by the democracy of that city, to address them, and my attention was especially called to a delusion practiced on the people of Maine, by which many were led to believe that there was a purpose on the part of tiie South, through the government of the United States, to force slavery not only into the terri- tories, but also into the non-slaveholding States of the Union. It was repre- sented to me that in the last Presidential canvass that one of the Senators of Maine had convinced many of the voters that if Mr. Buchanan should be elected, slavery would be forced upon Maine, and that the other Senator was arguing that the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court had given authority to introduce and hold slaves in that State. To counteract such impressions, injurious to the South and her friends, the remarks which have been extracted were made. On that, as on other occasions, it was deemed a duty to correct misrepresen- tation and seek to vindicate our purposes from the prejudice which ignorance and agitation had created against us. If it was in my power in any degree to allay sectional excitement, to cultivate sounder opinions and a more fraternal 4 50 feeling, it was a task most acceptable to me, and one ibr the performance of which I could not doubt your approval. But it has been my fortune to be the object of a malice which I have not striven to appease because I was conscious that it rested upon no injury or injustice inflicted by me. The land swarms with Presidential candidates, announced by their agents or their friends, or by themselves, as the mode most available for preventing too zealous and partial friends from putting them in nomination. To these it was the source of un- founded apprehension, that I went to the coast of New England, instead of returning to Mississippi. If any of them had known the necessity which kept me from home, it is fair to suppose the aspirant for such distinction could not have been guilty of the meanness of suppressing that fact, and allowing misrep- resentation to do its work in my absence. For the wretch who is doomed to go through the world bearing a personal jealousy lor a personal inalignity, Avhich renders him incapableof doing justice, and studious of misrepresentation, I can only feel pity, and were it possible to •to feel revengeful, could consign him to no worse punishment than that of his own tormentors, the vipers nursed in his own breast. But long have I delayed what is my chief purpose, to speak to my friends, the men whose good opinion is to me of importance only second to the ap- proval of my own conscience. So far as they have misunderstood me, it is a pleasure to set forth the true meaning of both my words and my deeds. To my traducers I have no explanations to offer and no apologies for any one. If State Rights men in the excess of their zeal have censured me, I have no reproaches for them, but cheerfully bear the burden which may be imposed upon me by zeal in the cause to which my political life has been devoted, and in imitation of Job, would bless the State Rights Democracy of Missis sippi, even if the object of its vengeance : "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." If I had been asked what interpretation might possibly be put upon the pub- lished sketch of the remarks made by me at sea on the Fourth of July last, speculation would have been exhausted before it would have occurred to me that my State Rights friends would consider themselves described under the head of "trifling politicians," who could not believe that the country would remain united to repel insult to our flag as it had recently been on the occasion of the attempt to exercise visit and search in the Gulf of Mexico, under the pretext of checking the African slave trade. The publisher of that sketch has already announced that it was not a report, and that for its language I could not justly be considered responsible. To this it is needless that I should add any thing. But I have treated it, and will treat it in the view necessarily taken by those who construed it before such denial was made. Durmg the period of greatest adversity, in the hour of gloom and defeat, the State Rights Democracy had no cause to complain of my fealiy. We struggled together, fell together, rose together, and to them I am indebted for whatever of consideration or position I possess. Endeared to me by our common suffering; grateful to them for the steadfast support with which they have honored me, accustomed to refer with pride to my identity with them, it would have been strange indeed, if when separated from them under cir- cumstances which turned my eyes, with more than ordinary anxiety towards my home, I should then have sought an occasion to heap reproachful language upon them. Often it has been my duty to repel the accusations of others who sought to attribute to the State Rights Democracy opinions not their own, and to impute to them the purpose to agitate for the destruction of the government we in- herited. As one of the State Rights party, I deny that the language published is a picture of me or my class, and 1 have as little disposition now, as at any former time, to separate myself from the body of the party, with which I have 80 long acted, which I rejoice to see in power at home, and daily more and more respected in the other States. I have thus defined who were not meant, and will now tell who were meant. First, they were the noisy agitators who were constantly disturbing the public 51 peace and proclaiming that slavery is so great an evil, that the presnrvation of the Union is suhordinate to the purpose of aholishing it. They wlio object to any protection, on the hi^h seas or elsewhere, beiniT ijiven to slave property by the government of the United States; who would rejoice in any insult oiTered to the national flag if borne by a vessel sailing from a Southfru port; and who have been for some time back circulating petitions for a dissolution of the Union on the ground of the incompatibility of the sections. And to these may be added the few, the very few of Southern men who fancying that they would have advantages out of ihe Union which they cannot possess within it, however fully the compact should be observed and Slate Equality maintained, desire its dissolution, and taking counsel of their passions, decry the labors of all who seek to preserve the government as our fathers formed it, and to develope the great purposes for which it was ordained and established. The other phrase which has been the subject of comment was, "and this great country will remain united." How "united" is set forth in the language to which this clause was a conclusion, "united to protect our national flag whenever a foreign power, presuming on our domestic disscntion, should dare to insult it." The unanimity with which men of all parties in the two houses of Congress rallied to support the executive in maintaining the rights of our flag, had been the subject of ray commendation. Upon that fact the idea expressed rested. At worst it could but have evinced too much credulity, and I trust I may die believing that whenever the honor of our fla* shall demand it, every mountain and valley and plain, will pour forth their hardy sons, and that shoulder to shoulder they will march against any foreiga foe which shall invade the rights of any portion of the United States. And here permit me as a duty to you, and an obligation upon myself, to pay the tribute which I believe to be due the Northern Democracy. Havinof formed my opinion of them upon insufficient data, I have had occasion, after much intercourse with them, to modify it. I believe that a great reaction has commenced ; how far it will progress I do not pretend to say, but am hopeful that agitation will soon become unprofitable to political traders in Nfw Eno^- land, and this hope rests upon the high position taken by the Nothern De- mocracy, and upon the increased vote which in some of the States, under the more distinct avowal of sound principles, their candidates have received. You may now often hear among them not only the unqualified defence of your constitutional rights, but the vindication of your institutions in the abstract, and in the concrete. In the town of Portland, just preceding the election, a Democrat of large means and extensivelv engaged in commercial transactions and city improve- ments addressed the Democracy, arguing tiiat their prosperity depended upon their connection with countries, the products of which were dependent upon slave labor; and the future growth and prosperity of their city depended upon the extension of slave labor into all countries where it could be profitably em- ployed. He showed by a statistical statement the paralysing etTect which would be produced upon their interest by the abolition of slavery. The Black Re- publican papers of course abused him, and compared him to Davis and Toombs, but his sound views were approved by the Democracy, and so far as 1 could judge, he gainod consideration i)y their manly utterance. A genpration had been educated in error, and the South had done ndhing in defence of the abstract right of slavery. Within a few yearvS essays have been written, books have been published, by northern as well as by souih-rn men, and with the increase of information, there has been a subsidence of prt'judice, and a preparation of the mind to receive truth. Our friends are still m a ininoriiy. It would be vain to speculate as to the period when their position will be reversed. Whether sooner or later, or never, they are still entitled to our regard and respect. A few years ago those who maintained our consti- tutional right, and to secure it voted for the Kansas and Nebraska bill, weal home to meet reproach and expulsion from public emploympnt. Even their social position wasafi'ected by that political act. The few year«^ however, which have elapsed, have produced a great change. They have 52 recovered all except their political position. That bill which was considered when it was enacted, a Southern measure, for which Northern men bravely sacrificed their political prospecis, has of late been denounced at the South as a cheat and a humbug. A poor return certainly , to those who conscientiously maintaining our rights, surrendered their popularity to secure what the men for whom they made the sacrifice now pronounce to' have been a cheat. It is true that bill has recently received in some quarters a construction which its friends did not place upon it when it was enacted. But it should be judged by its terms and by contemporaneous construction. When I visited the people of Mississippi last year, the question of greatest public excitement, was connected with the action of the Executive in relation to the admission of Kansas as a State of the Union. You had been led to suppose that the President would attempt to control the action of the conven- tion, and if the constitution was not submitted to a popular vote, would oppose by all the means within his power, the admission of the State within the Union. You were also excited at a dogma which had been put forth, to the effect that no more slave States should be admitted. I agreed with you then, that if the President took such position he would violate the obligations of his office, and be faithless to the trust which you had reposed in him. I agreed with you then, that the exclusion of a State, because it was slaveholding, would be such an offence against your equality as would demand at your hands the vindication of your rights. What has been the result? The con- vention framed the constitution, submitted only the clause relating to slavery to a popular vote, and applied for admission. The President in his annual message referred in favorable terms to the application, then not formally made, and when the Constitution reached him transmitted it to Congress with a special message, in which he fully and emphatically maintained the right of admission. After the convention had adjourned, Mr. Stanton, acting Governor of the Territory, called and extra session of the Freesoil Legislature, which has been elected, and it passed an act to submit the whole constitution to a popular vote. The President removed him from office, — a further evidence of the sincerity with which he was fulfilling your expectations in relation to Kansas. And it gives me pleasure here to say of him, what I am assured I can now say with confidence, that he will not shrink a hair's breadth from the position he has taken, but will move another step in advance, and fall, if fall he must, man- fully upholding the rights and defying the insolence of ill-gotten power. When the bill was presented to the Senate for the admission of the State of Kansas, after a long discussion, it was adopted, with a provision which re- quired the State after admission to relinquish its claim to all the land asked for in its ordinance, except 5,000,000 acres, that being the largest amount which had been ever granted to a Slate at the period of its admission. There was also a provision declaratory of the right of the people to change their consti- tution at any time ; though the instrument itself had restricted them for a term of years. I considered both those provisions objectionable; the first, because it was directory of legislation to be enacted by a State ; and the second, because it was inviting to a disregard of the i'undam.ental law, and had too much the seeming of a concession to the anti-slavery feeling which was impatient for a change of the constitution. That bill failed in the House, and was succeeded by a bill of the Opposition which recognized the right of Kansas to be admitted with a pro-slavery constitution, provided it should be adopted by a popular vote. This also failed, and in the division between the two Houses, a com- As there has been much diversity of opinion in relation to that law, and I think much misapprehension as lo its character, I will be pardoned for speak- ing of it somewhat minutely. When it was known that the Conference Committee had prepared a bill, I mittee of conference was appointed, which framed the bill that became a law. being at the time confined to my house by disease, invited my colleague and the Representatives from the Slate to visit me, that we might confer together and decide upon the course which we would pursue. Before the evening of 53 our meetinsj, a clistinffuished membpr of the House of Rpprpsontativps, a mombor of tlie Coininiltpp, callpil and rpad to nip llio hill wliicli ilicy had prpparpd. It coiuained some features which I considered ohjeciionable. He concurred with me, and promised to usp his eflbrts to have them stricken out. AV'lipn the Mississippi delegation assembled, our conference was full, and marked hy the desire, first to protect the rights of our State, and secondly, to secure unanimity of action by its delegation. The objections which were urged, rel'prred,as my memory serves me, entirely to the leatures which I had reason to liope would be stricken out. One of the delegation announced an unwillingness to support the proposed modification of the Senate proposition, lest it should be considered as yielding the point on which we had insisted that Congress could not rpquire the Constitution to be submitted to a popular vote. I refer to the lamented Q,uitman, whose sincere devotion to Southern interests, no one, who knew him, could question. I regretted that he deemed it necessary to vote, finally, against the measure, but I honor the motive which governed his course. The ordinance which was attached to the Constitution, was not a part of it, but a condition annexed to the application for admission. If Congress had stricken the ordinance out, the effect, I believe, would have been that of admitting the State without any reservation of the public land ; would have transferred as an attribute of sovereignty the useful as well as the eminent domain. The Southern Senators who received the soubriquet of Southern ultras, held that position in 1850, in relation to the public lands of California, and it constituted one of their objections to the admission of that State at the time it was effected. To modify the ordinance, that is to change the con- dition on which the inhabitants of Kansas proposed to enter into the Union was necessarily to give them the right to withdraw their proposition. It remained then for Congress if they reduced the amount of land asked for in the ordinance, either to provide the mode in which the inhabitants should accept or reject the modification or leave them to do it in such manner as they might adopt. The convention was defunct, the legislature was black repub- lican and thought to be entitled to little confidence, and it seemed to be better that Congress should itself provide the mode of ascertaining the public will than leave that duty to the territorial legislature, such as it was believed and proven to be. It was a mere question of expediency, and I think the best course was pursued. To have admitted the State without modification of the ordinance, would have been to grant five times as much of the public land as had ever been given to a State at the period of admission. There was nothing to justify such a discrimination, and otherwise the State could not be admtled without referring the question or violating the principle of State sovereignty. As a condition precedent, the general government may require the recog- nition of its right to control the primary disposal of the land, but can have no right to impose a condition witli the mandate that it shall be subsequently ful- filled and no power to enforce the mandate if the State admitted should refuse to comply. Not for all the land in Kansas, not for all the land between the Missouri and the Pacific ocean, not for all the land of the continent of North America, would I agree that the federal government should have the power to coerce a State. The necessity for having all conditions agreed upon before the admi'^sion of a State was demonstrated by Mr. Soule, in 1850, in the discussion of the bill for the admission of California. Mr. Webster replied to him but did not answer his argument, and the course of events seems likely to verify all that Senator Soule foretold. Of the three methods which were supposable, I think Congress adopted the best; it was the only one which was attainable and securpd all which was of value to the South. It was the admission by Congress of a State with a pro- slavery Constitution ; it was the triumph of the principle that forbade Con- gress to interfere either as to the matter of the Constitution or the manner in which it should be formed and adopted. 54 The refusal of the inhabitants to accept the reduced endowment offered to them, and their decision to remain in a territorial condition, was, in my opin- ion, wise on their part and fortunate on ours. The late Governor, Denver, has forcibly pointed out to them their want of means to support a State gov- ernment, and the propriety of giving their first attention to the establishment of order and the development of their internal resources. There were many reasons to doubt the fitness of the inhabitants of Kansas to be admitted as a State. The condition of the country and the previous legislation of Congress made the case exceptional, and, in my judgment, justified the course adopted. I have, therefore, no apology or regret to offer in the case. The Northern opponents of the measure have, among otlier denunciatory epithets, applied to it those of "bribery" and "coercion." "Bribery" to give less by twenty millions of acres of land than was claimed, and " coer- cion " to leave them to the option of receiving the usual endowment, or wait- ing until they had an amount of population which would give some assurance of their ability to maintain a State government. Though such is the require- ment of the law, and designed to secure exemption from the mischievous agi- tation which has for several years disturbed the country and benefitted only the demagogues who make a tradeof politics, we may scarcely hope to escape from a renewal of the agitation which has been found so profitable. The next phase of the question will probably be in the form of what is termed an "enabling act," — a favorite measure with the advocates of "squatter sovereignty," who, claiming for the inhabitants of a Territory all the power of the people of a State, nevertheless consider it necessary that Congress should confer the power to form a Constitution and apply as a State. Congress has given authority for admission in some cases, but I think it better to avoid than to follow the precedent. Not that I am concerned for the doctrine of" squat- ter sovereignty," but that I would guard against the mischievous error of con- sidering the federal government as the parent of States, and would restrict it to the function of admitting new Stales into the Union, balrring all pretension to the power of creating them. It seems now to be probable that the Abolitionists and their allies will have control of the next House of Representatives, and it may be well inferred from their past course that they will attempt legislation both injurious and offensive to the South. I have an abiding faith that any law which violates our constitutional rights, will be met with a veto by the present Executive. — But should the next House of Representatives be such as would elect an Abolition President, we may expect that the election will be so conducted as probably to defeat a choice by the people and devolve the election upon the House. Whether by the House or by the people, if an Abolitionist be chosen Pres- ident of the United States, you will have presented to you the question of whether you will permit the government to pass into the hands of your avowed and implacable enemies. Without pausing for your answer, I will state my own position to be that such a result would be a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would be destroyed and the obser- vance of its mere forms entitled to no respect. In that event, in such manner as should be most expedient, I should deem it your duty to provide for your safety outside of a Union with those who have already shown the will, and would have acquired the power, to deprive you of your birthright and to reduce you to worse than the colonial dependence of your fathers. The master mind of the so-called Republican party. Senator Seward, has in a recent speech at Rochester, announced the purpose of his party to dislodge the Democracy from the possession of the federal Government, and assigns as a reason the friendship of that party for what he denominates the slave sys- tem. He declares the Union between the States having slave labor and free labor to be incompatible, and announces that one or the other must disappear. He even asserts that it was the purpose of the framers of the Government to 55 destroy slave property, and cites as evidence of it, tlin provision for an amend- ment of tlie Constitution. He seelis to alarm his audiiurs by assuring tlietn of the purpose on the part of the South and llie Democratic party to force slavery upon all the States of the Union. Absurd as all this may seem to you, and incredulous as you may be of its acceptance by any intelligent por- tion of the citizens of the United States, I have reason to believe that it has been inculcated to no small extent in the Northern mind. It requires but a cursory examination of the Constitution of the United States ; but a partial knowledge of its history and of the motives of the men who formed it, to see how utterly fallacious it is to ascribe to them the purpose of interfering with the domestic institutions of any of the States. But if a disrespect for that instrument, a fanatical disregard of its purposes, should ever induce a majority, however large, to seek by amending the Constitution, to pervert it from its original object, and to deprive you ot the equality wliich your fathers bequeathed to you, I say let the star of Mississippi be snatched from the constellation to sliine by its inherent light, if it must be so, through all the storms and clouds of war. The same dangerously powerful man describes the institution of slavery as degrading to labor, as intolerant and inhuman, and says the white laborer among us is not enslavi'd only because he cannot yet be reduced to bondage. Where he learned his lesson, I am at a loss to imagine ; certainly not by observation, for you all kndj^ that by interest, if not by higher motive, slave labor bears to capital as kind a relation as can exist between them anywhere j that it removes from us all that controversy between the laborer and the caoi- talist, which has filled Europe with starving millions and made their poor- houses an onerous charge. You too know, that among us, white men have an equality resulting from a presence of the lower caste, which cannot exist where white men till the position here occupied by the servile race. The mechanic who comes among us, employing the less intellectual labor of the African, takes the position which only a master-workman occupies where all the mechanics are white, and therefore it is that our mechanics hold their position of absolute equality among us. I say to you here as I have said to the Democracy of New York, if it should ever come to pass that the Constitution shall be perverted to the destruction of our rights so that we shall have the mere right as a feeble minority unprotected by the barrier of the Constitution to give an ineffectual negative vote in the Halls of Congress, we shall then bear to the federal government the relation our colonial fathers did to the British crown, and if we are worthy of our lineage we will in that event redeem our rights even if it be through the process of revolution. And it gratifies me to be enabled to say that no portion of the speech-to which I have referred was received with more marketl approbation by the Democracy there assembled than the senti- ment which has just been cited. I am happy also to state that during the past summer I heard in many places, what previously I had only heard from the late President Pierce, the declaration that whenever a Northern army should be assembled to march for the subjugation of the South, they would have a battle to fight at home before they passed the limits of their own Slate, and one in which our friends claim that the victory will at least be doubtful. Now, as in 1851, I hold separation from the Union by the State of Missis- sippi to be the last remedy — the final alternative. In the language of the ven- erated Calhoun I consider the disruption of the Union as a great though not the greatest calamity. I would cling tenaciously to our constitutional Govern- ment, seeing as I do in the fraternal Union of equal States the benefit to all and the fulfillment of that high destiny which our fathers hoped for and left it for their sons to attain. I love the flag of my country with even more than a filial affection. Mississippi gave me in my boyhood to her military service. For many of the best years of my life I have followed that flag and upheld it on fields where if I had fallen it might have been claimed as my winding sheet. When I have seen it surrounded by the flags of foreign countries, the pulsations of my heart have beat quicker with every breeze which displayed 56 its honored stripes and brilliant constellation. I have looked with veneration on those stripes as recording the original size of our political family and with pride upon that constellation as marking the family's growth; I glory in the position which Mississippi's star holds in the group ; but sooner than see its lustre dimmed — sooner than see it degraded from its present equality — would tear it from its place to be set even on the perilous ridge of battle as a sign round which Mississippi's best and bravest should gather to the harvest-home of death. As when I had the privilege of addressing the Legislature a year ago, so now do I urge you to the needful preparation to meet whatever contingency may befall us. The maintenance of our rights against a hostile power is a physical problem and cannot be solved by mere resolutions. Not doubtful of what the heart will prompt, it is not the less proper that due provision should be made for physical necessities. Why should not the State have an armory for the repair of arms, for the alteration of old models so as to make them conform to the improved weapons of the present day, and for the manufacture on a limited scale of new arms, including cannon and their carriages ; the casting of shot and shells, and the preparation of fixed ammunition'? Such preparation will not precipitate us upon the trial of secession, for I hold now, as in 1850, that Mississippi's patriotism will hold her to the Union as long as it is constitutional, but it will give to our conduct the character of earnestness of which mere paper declarations h<^e somewhat deprived us ; it will strengthen the hands of our friends at the North, and in the event that separation shall be forced upon us, we shall be prepared to meet the contin- gency with whatever remote consequences may follow it, and give to manly hearts the happy assurance that manly arms will not lail to protect the gentle beauty which blesses our land and graces the present occasion. You are already progressing in the construction of railroads which, whilst they facilitate travel, increase the products of the State and the reward of the husbandman, are a great element of strength by the means they afford for rapid combination at any point where it may be desirable to concentrate our forces. To those already in progress I hope one will soon be added to connect the interior of the State with the best harbor upon our Gulf coast. When this shall be completed a trade will be opened to that point which will produce direct importation and exportation to the great advantage of the planter as well as all consumers of imported goods ; and furnishing " exchange," will protect us from such revulsion as was suffered last fall when during a period of entire prosperity at home, our market was paralyzed by failures in New York. / The contemplated improvement in the levee system, will give to our people/ a mine of untold wealth ; and as we progress in the development of our resources and the increase of our power, so will we advance in Stale pride i and the ability to maintain principles far higher in value than mountains of gold or oceans of pearl. But I find myself running into those visions which have hung before me from my boyhood up; which at home and abroad have been the hope con- stantly attending upon me, and which the cold wing of time has been unable to wither. I am about to leave you to discharge the duties of the high trust with which you have honored me. I go with the same love for Mississippi which has always animated me; with the same confidence in her people, which has cheered me in the darkest hour. As often as I may return to you, I feel secure of myself, and say I shall come back unchanged. Or should the Providence which has so often kindly protected me, not permit me to return again, my last prayer will be for the honor, the glory and the happiness of Mississippi. MuiiPHT & Co. Bouh-selkrs, PiihlisJters, Printrrs, and Statinners, 182 Baltimore street, Balliviore. I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 011 898 356 7