SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. CHARLES GIBBONS, 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 NATIONAL HALL, PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 OCTOBER 5tli, 1860, 
 
 In Reply to the Speech of the Hon. W. B. Reed, 
 Delivered before the National Democratic Association, 
 Sept, 4, 1860, on the Presidential Question, 
 
 AND IN 
 
 VINDICATION OF THE PEOPLES’ PARTY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. 607 SANSOM STREET. 
 
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 SPEECH OF MR. GIBBONS. 
 
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 As a private citizen of Pennsylvania, removed for some years, from 
 an active participation in political contests, looking for no political 
 preferment, and desiring none, I have the honor to address you this 
 evening, by invitation of the committee of the People’s party. 
 
 It seems to be understood that, I shall have something to say in 
 reply to an extraordinary speech recently made in this city, by a gentle¬ 
 man who pursues politics as a profession, and who has been the 
 recipient of honors and emoluments from two or three different politi¬ 
 cal parties, at different periods of his life. [Laughter.] I hope it is 
 not expected that I am to forget for the time, anything that is due to 
 justice, honor or truth ; for, however little those virtues may have been 
 observed by some distinguished political leaders, in their recent speeches 
 to citizens of Philadelphia, I hold them, nevertheless, to be better than 
 mountains of gold, and more to be cherished than the highest honors 
 that a people can bestow. [Cheers.] 
 
 With this understanding, I shall endeavour to meet what seems to 
 ,-be the public expectation, and also to vindicate the course of the 
 •- People’s party in its efforts to preserve and perpetuate the blessings of 
 liberty, under the Constitution, as the fathers made, understood and 
 administered it, and to secure to the whole country, the prosperity 
 % and peace that ought to flow from a Republican government, when 
 ^ justly and honestly conducted. [Cheeks.] 
 
 The popular candidate for the Presidency, as is very well known, 
 was an active member of the Whig party, and fought its battles year 
 after year, until it ceased to exist. The protection of American indus¬ 
 try and the encouragement of peaceful arts by friendly legislation— 
 the improvement of the rivers and harbors of the country, whenever 
 demanded for the better development of its wealth and the safety 
 ^ of its commerce—an honest and economical administration of the 
 Federal government and the supremacy of the Federal Constitution, in 
 all questions arising between States, or the citizens of different States, 
 x 'f} were the main points which that party sought to establish, and which 
 they labored in vain to secure. 
 
 On the question of slavery, every Whig had and exercised the right 
 , 4 to think for himself; and, whether he inclined to the one extreme or 
 .3 the other, neither the party nor its chief was held accountable for his 
 
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4 
 
 opinions. It may be said, however, that the great majority of the 
 Whigs were opposed to the extension of slavery, and I believe that no 
 prominent man in the party, ever doubted the constitutional power of 
 Congress to exclude it from the territories. Certainly the power was 
 never questioned by Mr. Clay, or Mr. Webster. 
 
 I think the last time Mr. Clay expressed his views on this subject 
 was but little more than a year before his death, during the" debate on 
 the Compromise resolutions, which he introduced into the Senate. 
 Mr. Jefferson Davis had declared that “he would never take less than 
 the Missouri Compromise line, extended to the Pacific ocean, with the 
 specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below 
 that line; and that before such territories should be admitted into the 
 Union as States, slaves might be taken there from any of the United 
 States, at the option of the owners.” 
 
 To this Mr. Clay replied :— 
 
 “I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from Mississippi, say that he 
 requires, first, the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific; and 
 also that he is not satisfied with that, hut requires, if I understand him correctly, 
 a positive provision for the admission of slavery south of that line. And now, 
 sir, coming from a slave State, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, 
 I owe it to the subject, to state that no earthly power could induce me to vote 
 for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before 
 existed, either south or north of that line. Coming, as I do, from a slave State, 
 it is my solemn, deliberate, and well matured determination that no power—no 
 earthly power, shall compel me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery 
 either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly, too, our 
 British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of 
 America, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of 
 California and of New Mexico, shall reproach us for doing to them just what we 
 reproach Great Britain for doing to us.” 
 
 Mr. Webster made his great speech on the Compromise measures 
 in the Senate, on the 1th of March, 1850. He then referred to the 
 sentiments he had expressed on the slavery question in a speech deliv¬ 
 ered in the city of Hew York, in 1831, and read from that speech as 
 follows : 
 
 “I frankly avow my entire unwillingness to do anything which shall extend 
 the slavery of the African race on this continent, or add other slaveholding States 
 to the Union. When I say that I regard slavery in itself as a great moral, social 
 and political evil, I only use language which has been adopted by distinguished 
 men, themselves citizens of slaveholding States.” 
 
 “I have nothing, sir,” he said “to add to or take from those senti¬ 
 ments.” 
 
 j4nd again, in his compromise speech, he declared: 
 
 “Wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wherever there is a foot of 
 land to be prevented from becoming slave territory, I am ready to assert the prin¬ 
 ciple of the exclusion of slavery.” 
 
 Respecting the morality of slavery, Mr. Clay expressed himself 
 very fully, at an earlier period of his life. In the first volume of Mr. 
 Colton’s “Life and Times of Henry Clay,” published in 1846, the 
 author, referring to a speech delivered at the annual meeting of the 
 
5 
 
 Colonization Society, at Washington, on the 21st of January, 1827, 
 says : 
 
 “The following extracts from this speech stand out in strong relief, as a 
 demonstration of Mr. Clay’s feelings as a man on the slavery question: 
 
 “If I could be instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain ('slavery) from 
 the character of our country, and removing all cause of reproach on account 
 of it by foreign nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul 
 blot that revered State that gave me birth, or that not less beloved State which 
 kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which 
 I should enjoy for the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most suc¬ 
 cessful conqueror. ******** 
 
 “We are reproached with doing mischief by the agitation of this question 
 ('slavery). Collateral consequences we are not responsible for. It is not this 
 society which has produced the great moral revolution which the age exhibits. 
 What would they who reproach us have done ? If they would repress all tenden¬ 
 cies toward liberty, and ultimate emancipation, they must do more than put down 
 the benevolent efforts of this society. They must go back to the era of our liberty 
 and independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous 
 return. They must revive the slave trade with all its train of atrocities. They 
 must blow out the moral lights around us, and extinguish that greatest torch 
 of all, which America presents to a benighted world, pointing the way to their 
 rights, their liberties and their happiness. And when they have achieved all 
 these purposes, their work will yet be incomplete. They must penetrate the 
 human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty. Then, and 
 not till then, when universal darkness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate 
 slavery, and repress all sympathies and all humane and benevolent efforts among 
 freemen in behalf of the unhappy portion of our race doomed to bondage.” 
 
 Gentlemen of Philadelphia—Whigs of Philadelphia—these were the 
 sentiments of a man whom you honored and loved till the day of his 
 death. I knew Mr. Colton, his biographer, very well. He frequently 
 called to see me, when passing through Philadelphia, and I knew of 
 his visits to Ashland while engaged in the preparation of his work. 
 It was a labor of love, as well as a faithful history, and I know how 
 careful he was to introduce nothing in it that could place Mr. Clay in 
 a false position, or give a false coloring to his views on any question. 
 The work was published by the sanction and consent of Mr. Clay, 
 several years before his death, and is therefore the highest authority 
 on all subjects of which it treats. Allow me to ask whether you re¬ 
 spect the memory of Mr. Clay the less, for the utterance of such senti¬ 
 ments respecting an institution which, southern politicians have re¬ 
 cently discovered, to be the only means through which our government 
 can be administered, without violating the Constitution ? If you do, 
 speak out like men, and give a reason for the faith that is in you ! 
 [Cheers.] 
 
 Both the political and moral sentiments of Mr. Clay on the question 
 of slavery were those of the Whig party generally, and were earnestly 
 sustained by the Whigs of Philadelphia. Mr. Lincoln, born of humble 
 parents in the State of Kentucky, and removing finally to the State of 
 Illinois, made free by the blessed ordinance 1787, naturally imbibed 
 the same sentiments. He has always maintained them. He has 
 alway been the manly, consistent, and able advocate of the principles 
 of the Whigs, to which I have briefly referred, and there he stands, on 
 
6 
 
 a platform made up in chief of those very principles—so just, so con¬ 
 servative, so precisely fashioned after the models of the fathers, that 
 our political opponents in the free States prudently let it alone. It 
 expresses or implies no infidelity to the Constitution of the United 
 States. It looks to no interference by Congress with the domestic in¬ 
 stitutions of any State in the Union. It contemplates no measure of 
 injustice or unfairness to the people of the South or of any other sec¬ 
 tion of the country. Mr. Lincoln is the representative, the embodi¬ 
 ment, if you please, of the resolutions composing that platform. 
 [Cheers.] They express the sentiments which he has always enter¬ 
 tained, and which have not been thrust upon him, nor has he assumed 
 them for the occasion. He has never uttered a word of disloyalty to 
 the Constitution, or of hostility to any section of our country. He 
 entertains none. Ho honest man has ever charged him with it. And 
 if he be elected to the Presidency, an event which is very likely to 
 happen, the spectre of disunion which frightens so many of our citizens, 
 will “ vanish into thin air” before the quiet majesty of the law, main¬ 
 tained and administered by an honest and fearless man. [Cheers.] 
 
 Who are the assailants of Mr. Lincoln ? That he should be opposed 
 by the regular and irregular Democracy is not surprising. He never 
 sympathized with any of them, and none of them ever sympathized 
 with him, on any question at issue between them and their political 
 opponents. He was a blooded Whig, and the blood is in him yet, 
 warm and uncorrupted. [Cheers.] They may, and probably do, op¬ 
 pose him on principle, as they certainly have reason to do. They may 
 even denounce him as a black Republican and an abolitionist, for they 
 have always dealt in epithets and falsehoods. They applied them to 
 Mr. Clay and the Whigs. They called him a black abolitionist, a 
 blackleg, a traitor to the South, and “ the murderer of the lamented 
 Cilley !” [That’s true.] Because Mr. Giddings and Mr. Seward and 
 Mr. Adams were acting with the Whigs, and because Mr. Webster, in 
 one of his speeches in the great contest of 1844, called upon the aboli¬ 
 tionists to unite with the Whigs in defeating a measure which both 
 alike condemned, the Whigs, North and South, were denounced as an 
 abolition party, with hostile designs upon the domestic institutions of 
 the South. We were called the black Whigs, the lying Whigs, and 
 the tariff of 1842, was the black tariff all over the south ; but the Polk, 
 Dallas and Texas tariff* in Pennsylvania. Epithets and falsehoods, and 
 frauds defeated us in 1844. They took from Mr. Clay the States of 
 Pennsylvania, Georgia and Louisiana, and placed Mr. Polk in the 
 Presidential chair. I am, therefore, not surprised that the same party 
 should resort to the same tactics again. 
 
 The gentleman chosen for this service by the Breckinridge wing of 
 Philadelphia, has assumed the task under somewhat peculiar circum¬ 
 stances. Some of you may remember him as a distinguished leader of 
 the anti-Masonic party. That was before my time. I knew him first 
 as a Whig—and he held office as a Whig. He then hob-nobbed poli¬ 
 tically with the Americans and held office as a hob-nobber; [laughter] 
 and in 1856, he took his final leap into the arms of the Democracy. 
 
7 
 
 Let me do him the justice to say that, he has never forgotten his self- 
 
 * respect so far as to accept an office that would degrade an American 
 gentleman, and never left a party that was able to confer one. [Great 
 laughter.] What he has been and what he is, would be, under some 
 circumstances, no business of yours or mine. But he challenges in¬ 
 quiry on that point, by the graceful ease with which he consigns to 
 perdition all of his old associates, who adhere to those principles re¬ 
 specting the extension of slavery, which he himself professed and 
 taught, until he found a favorable chance to “do better.” [Laughter.] 
 I may, therefore, without impropriety, invite your attention to what 
 he has said and done on that question, in the maturity of his judg¬ 
 ment, and show you how proudly he has presented to the world that 
 ancestor whose name he delights to honor—in the very mantle that 
 has fallen upon the abolitionists of the present day. [Cheers and 
 laughter. ] 
 
 In the year 1847, there was published in this City a contribution to 
 American history, in two octavo volumes, entitled, “ The Life and 
 Correspondence of Joseph Heed,” edited by his grandson, Mr. William 
 B. Heed. In the second volume of that work, the author introduces a 
 history of the Act of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania for the 
 gradual abolition of slavery, passed in the year 1780. Referring to 
 the elforts of the Quakers to abolish slavery in this State, which he 
 alleges “ were singularly inoperative of good,” Mr. Reed says : 
 
 “ The Revolution, asserting a practical equality between man and man, effected 
 much more ; and the men of the Revolution, who were regarded as extreme in 
 their democratic tendencies, had the honor of extinguishing slavery from the 
 
 * soil.” 
 
 r ■, 
 
 The Vice-President, Mr. Bryan, in his message to the Assembly on 
 the 9th of November, 1778, after referring to the heads of a bill for the 
 abolition of slavery furnished to the preceding assembly, says: 
 
 “ This, or some better scheme, would tend to abrogate slavery, the opprobrium 
 of America, from among us. * * * In divesting the State of slavery, you 
 
 will equally serve the cause of humanity and policy, and offer to God one of the 
 most proper and best returns of gratitude for His great deliverance of us and our 
 posterity from thraldom ; you will also set your character for justice and benevo- 
 
 ) lence in the true point of view to all Europe, who are astonished to see a people 
 
 struggling for liberty holding negroes in bondage.” 
 
 But Mr. Reed, after a fling at the Quakers for their inefficiency, 
 claims for his grandfather the honor of striking the most efficient blow 
 for liberty. President Reed earnestly called the attention of the As¬ 
 sembly to the subject early in 1779, by a message in the following 
 words : 
 
 “ We would again bring into your view a plan for the gradual abolition of sla¬ 
 very, so disgraceful to any people, and more especially to those who have been 
 contending in the great cause of liberty themselves, and upon whom Providence 
 has bestowed such eminent marks of its favor and protection. We think we are 
 called on to evince our gratitude in making our fellow men joint heirs with us of 
 the same inestimable blessings, under such restrictions and regulations as will not 
 injure the community, and will imperceptibly enable them to relish and improve 
 the station to which they will be advanced. Honored will that State be in the 
 
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8 
 
 annals of history, which shall first abolish this violation of the rights of mankind, 
 and the memories of those will be held in grateful and everlasting remembrance, 
 who shall pass the law to restore and establish the rights of human nature in 
 Pennsylvania. ’ 5 
 
 “Again,” says the author, on page 176, “to the same body did it become 
 necessary for the Executive to speak, and we find, on the 9th of September, 1779, 
 President Reed urged them to action.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Our anxiety to perpetuate and extend the blessings of freedom and enlarge 
 the circle of humanity, induces me to remind you of the bill emancipating the 
 children born of negro and mulatto parents. We wish to see you give the com¬ 
 plete sanction of law to this noble and generous purpose, and adorn the annals 
 of Pennsylvania with their bright display of justice and public virtue.” 
 
 Now, gentlemen, mark the opinions and the language of the ances¬ 
 tor: that “slavery is disgraceful to any people,”—that “our fellow 
 men” (meaning the negro slaves,) should “be joint heirs with us, in 
 the inestimable blessings of liberty;” that slavery is “a violation of 
 the rights of mankind;” that its abolition would be “a bright display 
 of justice and public virtue.” 
 
 Mr. Reed was proud to say all this of his ancestor in 1847. What 
 does he think of him now? [Cheers and laughter.] Mr. Sumner 
 could hardly say more, nor the “ crazy Frenchman,” Victor Hugo, nor 
 Lord Brougham, nor John Brown, nor Wendell Phillips, nor Gerrit 
 Smith, the abolition candidate for the Presidency. [Cheers.] 
 
 On page 179 of the same volume, Mr. Reed expresses his own 
 opinion of the abolition sentiments of his grandfather and others who 
 passed the Act of 1780. “Abolition with them,” says he, “was the 
 application of high principles of abstract equality, in order to eradicate, 
 without violence and by gradual processes, an admitted and inveterate 
 evil. This it has effected, and without the least agitation. Pennsyl¬ 
 vania, by the wisdom of her revolutionary men, has been relieved 
 from the deep stain on her character and burden on her energies. 
 Pennsylvania was first in the great work.” 
 
 This was written some years before Mr. Reed went to China and 
 studied diplomacy. [Laughter.] 
 
 What did he mean by those “ ominous words”—“high principles of 
 abstract equality”—“an admitted and inveterate evil”—“the deep 
 stain on her character”—“first in the great work ?” They are now his¬ 
 torical. They are in every public library. They are indelibly inscribed 
 on the elaborate monument he has erected to the memory of his grand¬ 
 father. They will be read by his descendants, and future generations, 
 in ignorance of his fugitive political harangues, will give him a niche 
 between President Reed and William Lloyd Garrison, unless by some 
 ingenuity he can blot them from the record. [Cheers and laughter.] 
 
 Allow me to make one more reference to the book already cited. In 
 a foot-note, on page 178, he says : 
 
 “ It may not be inopportune to call public attention in this place, to another 
 legislative measure of kindred interest, the resolution of the Senate and House of 
 Representatives of Pennsylvania, of the 22d December, 1819, on the Missouri 
 question. They were written by Wm. J. Duane, then a representative from 
 Philadelphia. They breathe in eloquent language the Pennsylvania sentiment 
 of 1780.” 
 
9 
 
 Hearken now, my fellow-citizens, to that resolution, which passed 
 both Houses without a dissenting voice, and was voted for by David 
 R Porter, Josiah Randall, William Wilkins, Daniel Sturgeon, and 
 William J. Duane, all known to you as distinguished citizens of our 
 State ; and which Mr. Reed cordially and fully endorses in his history 
 of the Act of 1780. 
 
 “ A measure was ardently supported in the last Congress of the United States, 
 and will probably be as earnestly urged during the existing session of that body, 
 which has a palpable tendency to impair the political relations of the several 
 States ; which is calculated to mar the social happiness of the present and future 
 generations ; which, if adopted, would impede the march of humanity and free¬ 
 dom through the world ; and would transfer from a misguided ancestry an odious 
 stain, and fix it indelibly upon the present race—a measure, in brief, which pro¬ 
 posed to spread the crimes and cruelties of slavery from the banks of the Missis¬ 
 sippi to the shores of the Pacific. When a measure of this character is seriously 
 advocated in the Republican Congress of America, in the nineteenth century, the 
 several States are invoked by the duty which they owe to the Deity, by the vene¬ 
 ration which they entertain for the memory of the founders of the republic, and 
 by a tender regard for posterity, to protest against its adoption, to refuse to cove¬ 
 nant with crime, and to limit the range of an evil that already hangs in awful 
 boding over so large a portion of the Union. 
 
 ********* 
 
 “ If, indeed, the measure against which Pennsylvania considers it her duty to 
 raise her voice, were calculated to abridge any of the rights guaranteed to the 
 several States ; if, odious as slavery is, it was proposed to hasten its extinction 
 by means injurious to the States upon which it was unhappily entailed, Pennsyl¬ 
 vania would be the first to insist upon a sacred observance of the constitutional 
 compact. But it cannot be pretended that the rights of any of the States are at 
 all to be affected by refusing to extend the mischiefs of human bondage over the 
 boundless regions of the West, a territory which formed no part of the Union at 
 the adoption of the Constitution ; which has been but lately purchased from a Euro¬ 
 pean power by the people of the Union at large; which may or may not be admitted 
 as a State into the Union at the discretion of Congress ; which must establish a 
 Republican form of government, and no other; and whose climate affords none of 
 the pretexts urged for resorting to the labor of natives of the torrid zone; 
 such a territory has no right, inherent or acquired, such as those States possessed 
 which established the existing Constitution. When that Constitution was framed 
 in September, 1787, the concession that three-fifths of the slaves in the States 
 then existing should be represented in Congress could not have been intended to 
 embrace regions at that time held by a foreign power. On the contrary, so anx¬ 
 ious were the Congress of that day to confine human bondage within its ancient 
 home, that on the 13th of July, 1787, that body unanimously declared that slavery 
 or involuntary servitude should not exist in the extensive territories bounded by 
 the Ohio, the Mississippi, Canada and the lakes ; and in the 9th article of the 
 Constitution itself, the power of Congress to prohibit the emigration of servile 
 persons after 1808, is expressly recognized. Nor is there to be found in the 
 statute book, a single instance of the admission of a territory to the rank of a 
 State, in which Congress has not adhered to the right vested in them by the Con¬ 
 stitution, to stipulate with the territory upon the conditions of the boon. 
 
 “The Senate and House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, therefore, cannot 
 but deprecate any departure from the humane and enlightened policy pursued, not 
 only by the illustrious Congress which framed the Constitution, but by their 
 successors without exception. They are persuaded that to open the fertile regions 
 of the West to a servile race would tend to increase their numbers beyond all 
 past example, would open a new and steady market for the lawless vendors of 
 human flesh, and would render all schemes for obliterating this most foul blot 
 upon the American character useless and unavailing. Under these convictions, 
 
10 
 
 and in the full persuasion that upon this topic there is but one feeling in Penn¬ 
 sylvania, 
 
 “ Resolved , By the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth 
 of Pennsylvania, That the Senators of this State in the Congress of the United 
 States be, and they are hereby instructed, and that the Representatives of this 
 State in the Congress of the United States be, and they are hereby requested, to 
 vote against the admission of any territory as a State into the Union, unless said 
 territory shall stipulate and agree that ‘ The further introduction of slavery or 
 involuntary servitude, except for the punishment of crimes whereof the party 
 shall have been duly convicted, shall be prohibited ; and that all children born 
 within the said territory, after its admission into the Union as a State, shall be 
 free, but may be held to service until the age of twenty-five years.’ ” 
 
 This was the spirit of It 80—the liberty-loving spirit of the fathers 
 —as full of vitality in 1819, as when it was first born in the midst of 
 the Revolution. On the floor of Congress it found a champion from 
 our own city, who sustained it with surpassing ability, winning laurels 
 in that great contest which will crown his memory to the latest time. 
 
 I need hardly say that I refer to the late John Sergeant, the Nestor 
 of the Whigs of Philadelphia, one of the ablest lawyers and statesmen 
 that this country has ever produced. [Cheers.] It was my privilege 
 to know him, and to love him, and I do not believe that a better or a 
 purer man ever lived. He went to his grave honored and beloved by 
 his fellow-citizens : and I can say to every young man who aims at an 
 honorable distinction in life, and a spotless fame after death, that he 
 cannot do better than study the character of John Sergeant, and strive 
 to imitate his example. [Applause.] In his great speech on the 
 Missouri restriction, you will find his opinions on the extension of 
 slavery, which are concurrent in all respects with those embodied in 
 the resolutions of the Chicago convention, and maintained by Abraham 
 Lincoln. [Cheers.] 
 
 The Pennsylvania sentiment of It80 was again expressed by the 
 Legislature of the State on the 22d of January, 184?, during the ad¬ 
 ministration of Governor Shunk, in the following words: 
 
 ‘ ‘ Whereas, the existing war with Mexico may result in the acquisition of new 
 territory to the Union. 
 
 ‘ ‘ And whereas, measures are now pending in Congress having in view the 
 appropriation of money and the conferring authority on the treaty-making power 
 to this end. Therefore, 
 
 “ Resolved , By the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth 
 of Pennsylvania, in General Assembly met, That our Senators and Representa¬ 
 tives in Congress be requested to vote against any measure whatever by which 
 territory will accrue to the Union, unless, as a part of the fundamental law upon 
 which any compact or treaty for this purpose is based, slavery or involuntary 
 servitude, except for crime, shall be forever prohibited.” 
 
 This resolution passed the House of Representatives, on a call of 
 the yeas and nays, unanimously. Every Democrat and every Whig 
 voted for it, ninety-five members being present. I was then (Speaker 
 of the Senate, and very well remember when I entered the Senate 
 chamber on the day that it passed that body, I was accosted by Mr. 
 Senator Bigler, who stated that he had just received a letter from one 
 of his political friends in Washington, urging him to have the resolu¬ 
 tion sent to Congress with as little delay as possible, and he asked me 
 
11 
 
 to give him the floor early in the day, for the purpose of moving to 
 take up the resolution. I acceded to his request, and on his motion 
 the resolution was taken up. Not a syllable was uttered against it. 
 But, nevertheless, Mr. Bigler made a speech in support of it, in which 
 he took occasion to avow his most cordial approval of the principle it 
 expressed, declared it to be the true Pennsylvania doctrine, and that 
 he desired to place himself on the record in support of it. He did so 
 —as you will see by reference to the Senate journal of that session. 
 It passed the Senate, on a call of the yeas and nays, almost unani¬ 
 mously, three Senators only voting against it. That was as late as 
 1841—the same year that Mr. Beed published the life and corres¬ 
 pondence of his grandfather. 
 
 Mr. Bigler and myself voted alike on that resolution, and as respects 
 the principle that it involves, I stand now, and ever expect to stand, 
 as I stood then. [Cheers.] Mr. Bigler’s name still stands on the 
 record—but “ negrophobia” has turned his head, and the man has been 
 running away from his record ever since. [Laughter.] 
 
 During the administration of Governor Johnston, who, as Speaker 
 of the Senate succeeded Governor Shunk in 1848, and was elected 
 Governor by the people in the same year, the Pennsylvania doctrine 
 of 1780 was ably sustained. Mr. Beed was on confidential terms with 
 Governor Johnston, who consulted him freely on all important ques¬ 
 tions, and although not officially connected with his administration, 
 was generally considered, and I believe was, the Governor’s chief 
 adviser—whether his advice was asked for or not. [Laughter.] 
 
 In his message of January, 1849, Governor Johnston used the fol¬ 
 lowing language on this question : 
 
 “ This fundamental law (the Constitution} recognizes the right to hold slaves 
 in the States which were parties to the compact, hut it makes no further acknow¬ 
 ledgment. It hears on its plain and expressive page no agreement, expressed or 
 implied, for the further extension of human slavery. That this national wrong 
 has heen extended with the progress of population, is not an argument in favor 
 of its justice, its constitutional right, or of the salutary effects it has produced in 
 the territories where it has heen admitted. Shall it be still further extended ? 
 
 “ To the Congress of the United States belongs the authority to settle this important 
 question . * * ******* 
 
 ‘ ‘ If slavery he in itself an infraction of human rights—if it he directly opposed 
 to the enlightened spirit of our free institutions—if it destroy the equality of 
 power in the general government hy enlarging, where it exists, the constitutional 
 representation—if it possess a direct or indirect influence against Northern and 
 Western policy and interests, hy promoting a system of laws destructive of 
 domestic industry and vitally affecting free labor—if it retard the national growth 
 of population and improvement, by the appropriation of large tracts of land for 
 the benefit of the few and to the injury of the many—if it he in open defiance of 
 the spirit of the age, the march of national truth and the enlightened policy of 
 mankind—it is time to arrest its further progress. These, it is believed, are the 
 settled convictions of our citizens, and their determination to maintain them is unal¬ 
 terable .” 
 
 In his message of 1850, he said : 
 
 “The consent of the free States of the Union to its further progress would evince 
 an ignorance of their interests; of the rights of justice and humanity; and an 
 indifference to the character and dignity of their common country. Where these 
 are implicated, it is an abandonment of duty to compromise.” 
 
12 
 
 In another message of the 22d of March, 1850, which was an able 
 vindication of the Pennsylvania doctrine on the same subject, Gov¬ 
 ernor Johnston referred in plain terms of approval to the Act of 1847, 
 which prohibited any judge, alderman or justice of the peace of this 
 Commonwealth from taking cognizance or jurisdiction of the case 
 of any fugitive from labor, under a severe penalty, denied the use of 
 our prisons for the detention of such fugitives, and repealed that part 
 of the Act of 1780 which authorized the masters or owners of slaves 
 to bring and retain such slaves in servitude for any period of time 
 within this Commonwealth. 
 
 The course and the opinions of Gov. Johnston were fully endorsed 
 and approved, not only by Mr. Reed, but also by Mr. Joseph R. 
 Ingersoll, at a Whig meeting held in the Chinese Museum, on the 3d 
 of June, 1850. Mr. Ingersoll presided at that meeting. He delivered 
 a glowing eulogy on Gov. Johnston and his administration, and 
 among the resolutions presented by Mr. Reed, and approved by Mr. 
 Ingersoll, you will find the following : 
 
 “ Resolved, That as Pennsylvanians, citizens of a State whose loyalty to the 
 Union and Constitution has never faltered, even when under the forms of the 
 Constitution her dearest interests have been sacrificed—which has always yielded 
 implicit obedience to every well ascertained obligation of the Federal compact, 
 however repulsive to mere local sentiment—we thank our chief magistrate (Gov. 
 Johnston) for his assertion of Pennsylvania faith and loyalty and steady principle, 
 in his message of the 22d March, 1850, a State paper, in its spirit and manly 
 patriotism worthy of the best days and best men of the republic.” 
 
 I beg leave to remind Mr. Ingersoll and Mr. Reed of that State 
 paper, which elicited such high praise from them on the occasion re¬ 
 ferred to, and went the full length of the old Pennsylvania doctrine. It 
 would be interesting to know what they think of it now. [Laughter 
 and applause.] 
 
 In that year Mr. Clay introduced into the Senate a series of 
 measures known as the compromise measures, intended to pacify those 
 southern politicians who then threatened a dissolution of the Union, 
 because a free State, formed out of part of the territory acquired from 
 Mexico, knocked at the doors of Congress for admission into the Union. 
 It was the third great compromise which liberty was called upon to 
 make with slavery, and we were told then that it would be the last, 
 because it would satisfy the South. On the evening of the 3d of June, 
 1850, Mr. Reed stood up in the same meeting to which I have referred, 
 (at which Mr. Joseph R. Ingersoll presided), read certain resolutions 
 besides the one which I have mentioned, prepared with his accustomed 
 skill—and made a speech. The meeting did not understand the real 
 object of either—for it would have been indiscreet in Mr. Reed to 
 avow it. But there was one fact which did not escape notice. 
 Although the eyes of the country were then directed to Mr. Clay, and 
 his efforts to preserve the Union, which was threatened as well by the 
 abolitionists in the North as the proslavery fanatics in the South—and 
 although the Whigs of Philadelphia had never assembled on any former 
 occasion without some manifestation of affection for the founder and 
 
13 
 
 chief of their party, whom they loved better than any other living man 
 —yet Mr. Reed, on that occasion, when it was difficult to discuss his 
 resolutions without a direct reference to Mr. Clay’s position on the 
 question of the admission of California, did not make the slightest 
 allusion to him. The meeting heard his speech and adopted his reso¬ 
 lutions, but there was a prevailing suspicion that a cat was in the meal 
 tub. [Laughter.] Pardon me, gentlemen, for mentioning the part 
 which I acted on that occasion ; it is a necessary part of its history. 
 I was present, and the meeting called me to the rostrum. Knowing, 
 as I did, the Whig sentiment of Philadelphia, I embodied it in a single 
 resolution, which I presented in the following words : 
 
 “ Resolved, That while we tender to the President of the United States the 
 assurances of our unabated confidence in his devotion to the welfare of the people, 
 we cannot withhold a public expression of our continued regard and admiration 
 for Henry Clay, the patriot statesman, whose services to the country we shall 
 ever hold in grateful remembrance, and whose recent efforts to perpetuate and 
 strengthen our glorious Union have rendered his name and his fame still more 
 dear and illustrious. ’ ’ (Great cheering.) 
 
 The resolution “ took down the house.” It was welcomed by cheer 
 after cheer, and Mr. Reed came forth to define his position. The 
 meeting was turbulent—it caught the idea that he had concealed from 
 them the real meaning of his resolutions, and he tvas hissed. Order 
 being finally restored, he made a clean breast of it, and declared that, 
 if the resolution was intended to endorse the compromise measures, 
 he was opposed to it. His opposition carried no weight with it—the 
 resolution was adopted almost unanimously. He turned to me and 
 said—with unusual excitement—“ You have endorsed the compromise 
 measures.” So I did, and so I intended (with an exception which I 
 shall notice,) for I believed they would satisfy the South, and end the 
 conflict which seemed otherwise “irrepressible.” It turns out that I 
 was mistaken. Mr. Reed, who was then as much opposed to slavery 
 as his grandfather, was opposed to the concessions which those mea¬ 
 sures made to the South. 
 
 Mr. Reed strenuously advocated the re-election of Gov. Johnston, 
 in 1851 ; and I hold in my hand a printed circular, issued on the 6th 
 October of that year, written by him, attesting at once his undying 
 attachment to Whig principles, and his relentless hostility to the 
 Democratic party, “ the party which,” he solemnly assures you in this 
 paper, “ makes war on business interests whenever it suits their pur¬ 
 poses.” Allow me to read a single paragraph from Mr. Reed’s pen 
 of that date : 
 
 “ Gov. Johnston is to be defeated—such is the calculation of his enemies—by 
 a local prejudice, cunningly excited about slavery. For this there is no foun¬ 
 dation. He is no agitator. He stands by the old Pennsylvania doctrine, and has, 
 in no public act, gone as far as in former days John Sergeant, and Horace Binney, 
 and Samuel Breck, and Thos. P. Cope, and William J. Duane went; and their 
 acts and manly opinions did no harm to Philadelphia. They made her respected.” 
 (Cheers and laughter.^ 
 
 In a letter addressed to Hon. A. G. Curtin, dated Philadelphia, July 
 26, 1855, resigning his position as a member of the Whig State Com- 
 
14 
 
 mittee, and published in the North American of August 10th, 1855, 
 Mr. Reed laid down his own platform, in seven brief, comprehensive 
 articles. Referring to what had taken place in the Committee, on the 
 subject of Know-Nothingism, he says : 
 
 “ To the proposition to call a Whig Convention, I cheerfully assented, meaning, 
 as soon as the call was determined on, to ask the Committee, by a manly decla¬ 
 ration of principle, to free that Convention, on its inception, from the suspicion 
 which, since this secret party has existed, has hung round every political body 
 that has met. I therefore offered and asked the Committee to adopt the following 
 brief but comprehensive resolutions, every word of which had been well con¬ 
 sidered, and for every word of which I am willing to be responsible : 
 
 11 Resolved, By the Whig Executive Committee of the State of Pennsylvania, 
 that an address be issued by this Committee, calling a Convention to meet at 
 Harrisburg on-, asserting the following principles of action : 
 
 [The 1st, 2d and 3d relate exclusively to secret political associations, 
 and are condemnatory of them. ] 
 
 “ 4. The assertion of the feeling common to every Whig of Pennsylvania, and 
 to very many of other organizations, that the Nebraska and Kansas measures of 
 the last Congress, the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise line, and, as part of 
 the same system, the lawless and violent conduct of individuals since in Kansas, 
 especially are abhorrent to the people of the North, and ought to be redressed. 
 
 “5. That those measures were a wanton renewal of sectional agitation, for 
 which, in no sense, are the Whigs of the North, and especially the Whigs of 
 Pennsylvania, responsible. 
 
 “ 6. That the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line ought to be demanded 
 and insisted on as a matter of right. 
 
 “ I shall look with deep interest to the constitution and action of the Convention 
 which is summoned to meet at Harrisburg in September. I trust its action may be 
 unreserved in the enunciation of principle—conciliatory to those who agree in 
 principle—and Republican in every sense, and most so in this, that no whisper 
 shall be uttered, no intimations given, that can be construed into an interference 
 with religious liberty which the Constitution guards, or with social or political 
 rights which the Constitution recognizes.” 
 
 Gentlemen, Mr. Reed’s record on this question is not a brief one. 
 It began before he was born. [Laughter.] But I shall soon be done 
 with it. On the 24th of September, 1856, he delivered a speech at a 
 Buchanan meeting held in the town of Somerset, in this State. It 
 was printed in pamphlet form, before delivery, and was afterwards 
 circulated in that form very extensively. I am the fortunate owner of 
 a copy, which I hold in my hand. It is entitled, “ The Appeal to 
 Pennsylvania—a Speech, by Wm. B. Reed.” Not an appeal, but the 
 appeal. He put it forth as the one great speech of the campaign, 
 that eclipsed every other speech, and was to make his calling and 
 election sure in the event of Mr. Buchanan’s success. [Laughter and 
 applause.] From this speech, on the very last page, I now read a 
 brief autobiographical sketch : 
 
 “ 1 am a Philadelphia man, born and bred in the metropolis of my State, which 
 has honored me and confided in me. I have a loyal Pennsylvania heart throbbing 
 within me, for all the fame and all the honor that belong to me and mine were 
 won in Pennsylvania. Among the honors which Pennsylvania wears is her Act of 
 1780, providing for the gradual abolition of slavery within her limits. To that 
 act, as the Chief Magistrate of this Commonwealth, is affixed the name of one who 
 
15 
 
 was near and dear to me (my grandfather), and to the great principle of that act 
 I, and every true Pennsylvanian, steadfastly adhere, because it contains no word 
 of wrong to others, hut all of duty to ourselves. It is to the principles of that 
 act to which Mr. Buchanan adhered when, in the Senate of the United States, in 
 1836, he said his principles as to slavery were those of Pennsylvania.” 
 
 Thus Mr. Reed defined his position on the 24th September, 1856. 
 What the great principle of the Act of 1780 was, and is, I think has 
 been made clear. This completes the first volume of the record—the 
 last honor to the memory of the ancestor. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan thought the speech of 1856 worth a mission to China. 
 [Laughter.] I believe the question of its value gave rise to some 
 discussion in the Cabinet. Had Mr. Reed thrown his grandfather 
 and the Act of 1780 overboard, I mean in the Somerset speech, he 
 would have fared better. [Laughter.] Judge Black was obliged to 
 compromise on the Chinese mission, and Mr. Reed promised himself 
 to “ do better” the next time. 
 
 Now, we have his speech against Mr. Lincoln, against all the free 
 States—against all the citizens of the free States whom Mr. Reed met 
 abroad during what he calls his long exile—against the Pennsylvania 
 sentiment of 1780—against those acts and manly opinions of John 
 Sergeant and Horace Binney, and Samuel Breck and Thomas P. Cope, 
 and William J. Duane, that made Philadelphia respected—and even 
 against the ancestor who was so near and dear to the loving and am¬ 
 bitious descendant. And all for what ? Hear him, and you can judge. 
 I read from the last paragraph of the speech : 
 
 ‘ ‘ Mine are the first words from Pennsylvanian lips that have been spoken for 
 John C. Breckenridge. They have not been inconsiderately uttered. They are 
 probably my last; for I must leave to others the active conduct of this campaign, 
 willing to be a private soldier in the ranks. I shall have my full reward if what 
 I have uttered to-night shall not be in vain.” 
 
 [Shouts of laughter.] 
 
 I perceive you understand him ! 
 
 Now it so happens that Mr. Reed’s were not the first words from 
 Pennsylvania lips that were spoken for John C. Breckenridge. The 
 very association that he addressed had been organized long before. 
 Mr. Benjamin Rush had spoken before in favor of Mr. Breckenridge 
 consistently, and I have no doubt, decently and eloquently. I say 
 consistently, because Mr. Rush has always been a Democrat. Mr. 
 Reed knew all that very well, but he takes the honors as innocently 
 as if they belonged to him, and puts the crown upon his own head like 
 another Napoleon. If Mr. Breckenridge should happen to be Presi¬ 
 dent, whose lips will be so sweet as Mr. Reed’s ? Whose counsel 
 will be sought in Pennsylvania but Mr. Reed’s ? The speech will not 
 have been in vain. He will have his full reward. 
 
 [Cheers and laughter.] 
 
 But he makes provision for another contingency. I read now from 
 the first page of his speech : 
 
 “ Towards these gentlemen (leaders of the Bell and Everett party,) and their 
 principles so far as they have been made known, we all have a respectful feeling, 
 
16 
 
 which I should be sorry to have checked by foolish letters, or foolish speeches, 
 imputing sectionalism to Mr. Breckenridge. ('Admonitory rather .) 
 
 4 ‘ I believe the national sentiment of the country will yet awaken to the 
 necessity of combined and effective action; how, or by what means, I no not 
 pretend to say. It may be at the last moment; (look out for the rocks!) it may be 
 on the very edge of the final contest. No one ought to say a word to render it 
 impossible. No one ought to be restless and fidgetty in promoting it. If it does 
 happen, depend on it, a great element of its successful action, will be the organized 
 Democracy of Pennsylvania, the friends in every county of Breckenridge and Lane. 
 Its integrity must be respected, It will be time enough when, by the spontaneous 
 co-operation of patriotic men through the commonwealth, Mr. Foster shall be 
 elected Governor, as he easily can be.” 
 
 These few words pretty clearly foreshadowed a bargain and sale. 
 And the other night—when the honest friends of Mr. Bell were asleep, 
 suspecting no wrong to themselves, and no disgrace to their cause—a 
 few scurvy leaders, on the alert for whatever was to turn up, caught 
 the dulcet notes from the Breckenridge nursery— 
 
 “Bali! mammy black sheep 
 Have you any wool?” 
 
 [Roars of laughter.] 
 
 There was a moment’s pause, and then a response : 
 
 “ Yes, we have, masters, 
 
 Three bags full! ’ * 
 
 [Great laughter.] 
 
 And the terms were settled and the bargain sealed ! When day¬ 
 light came, the scurvy Bell wethers leaped the ditch, expecting the 
 whole flock to follow and be sheared and left to the winter’s cold, 
 while they took all the turnips to themselves ! [Laughter.] The 
 arrangement of this practical little duet required the experience of a 
 diplomat, who knew how to make treaties with the people who speak 
 a language unintelligible outside of the wall, and express their emo¬ 
 tions through gongs and bells. [Laughter.] 
 
 The Chinese party is now fairly in the field, and rallies to the sup¬ 
 port of Mr. Foster. [Tumultuous applause and laughter.] Permit 
 me, however, to express the opinion, that those Whigs of Philadelphia 
 who have espoused the cause of Mr. Bell as the exponent of their 
 principles, expecting to support him in good faith, without corrupt 
 combinations with other parties whose doctrines and practices they 
 have never approved, will hesitate long before they leap the ditch, 
 which, when once crossed, will separate them forever from the faith 
 they have always professed. 
 
 This little matter disposed of, Mr. Reed draws his weapon, and 
 orders himself to charge upon “the common enemy”—Lincoln, and 
 “the compact, fanatical North.” 
 
 He admits what no man can deny—that Mr. Lincoln conducted 
 his discussion with Mr. Douglas with frankness and ability. His 
 speeches were all published, and if they contained a solitary word of 
 disloyalty to the Constitution, it would not have escaped the research 
 of his assailant. If, at any period of his life, he had ever uttered such 
 a word, it would have been moused out, and exhibited, and harped 
 
17 
 
 upon, and magnified like the “higher law” and “irrepressible conflict” 
 of Mr. Seward. But something has been discovered that looks om¬ 
 inous, ambiguous, and ugly, and it is thus announced : 
 
 “ Little more than a year ago he wrote a letter, in which he was betrayed into 
 language which, though not very precise, and a little ambiguous, was ominous. 
 It was this: 
 
 ‘ 1 1 This is a world of compensations and he who would be no slave must consent 
 to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for them¬ 
 selves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.’ 
 
 “It is not easy to say what this means, but it has an ugly look. Since his 
 nomination Mr. Lincoln has spoken once, and once too often. I refer to his speech 
 at Springfield, about four weeks ago, which was the more significant, as he appears 
 to have been taken by surprise, and to have spoken out, under an impulse, his 
 inner thoughts. There is, I believe, a religious sect called ‘ Progressive Friends , ’ 
 so, in politics, there are progressive Republicans, and to this class, it would seem, 
 Mr. Lincoln belongs. I infer this from his speech, which either means this or 
 means nothing. His language was : 
 
 “ ‘ My friends, you will fight for this cause, four years hence, as you now fight 
 for it, and even stronger than you now fight for it, though I may be dead and 
 gone.’ ” 
 
 Xow as to that sentiment which Mr. Beed says “has an ugly look.” 
 It is a moral sentiment. If Mr. Lincoln ever read the Life and Times 
 of Joseph Reed, he found it there. [Applause.] If he was familiar 
 with the Pennsylvania sentiment of 1780, and the resolutions of 1819, 
 and the messages of Governor Johnston, and the speeches, addresses 
 and resolutions of Mr. Reed, at various periods of his life—he saw it 
 as a bright thread running through the whole of them. [Cheers.] If 
 he ever read the speeches of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, he found 
 it in them, a glittering, moral truth. It shines as a beacon for all man¬ 
 kind in the sermon on the Mount, and is written over the gates of 
 salvation. [Applause.] If Mr. Reed had lived in the days of Tibe¬ 
 rius Caesar, and had heard the admonition from the Son of God, “What¬ 
 soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, 
 for such is the law and the prophets,” would he have said “ it has an 
 ugly look !” Would he have said, “ this is higher law doctrine—crucify 
 him?” I do not know what he would have said, or what he would 
 have done, to win a smile from imperial Caesar. 
 
 [Tumultuous applause.] 
 
 The cause which Mr. Lincoln represents, and which he supposed 
 his friends would fight for, four years hence, “ and even stronger than 
 they now fight for it”—is neither more nor less than the cause of 
 the Constitution and the Union. Our country—our whole country. 
 [Cheers.] It is threatened by Mr. Reed’s political friends in the 
 South, that the further advance of liberty towards the free territories 
 of the country will be forever resisted, even to the dissolution of the 
 Union. And in reply to that threat we have only to say that, we are 
 on the side of the Constitution as it was framed and construed by the 
 fathers, that our cause is just in the sight of heaven, and remembering 
 that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, we mean to watch it, and 
 fight for it, and maintain it, and, by the blessing of God, we will hand 
 it down to our children, to be watched, fought for, and maintained by 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 them, and to be transmitted by them to be watched, fought for, and 
 maintained by their posterity forever. 
 
 The Union and the Constitution of these States, and all the rights 
 of all the people of these States, if not inconsistent with that “ higher 
 law,’ 7 the will of Almighty God, shall be perpetuated—if our efforts 
 can accomplish it—to the latest time. [Great applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen, I have no respect, not a particle, for that unmanly spirit 
 that attempts to magnify the few words uttered by Mr. Lincoln on the 
 occasion referred to—while modestly declining the vociferous demand 
 made upon him for a speech, by an enthusiastic multitude of twenty 
 thousand men—into a contemplated offence against a country that he 
 loves with a sincerity and warmth unknown to the heart of his assail¬ 
 ant. [Applause.] 
 
 Mr. Reed treats the matter as if he were prosecuting a case of man¬ 
 slaughter in the Quarter Sessions ! Hear him : 
 
 “Such was the utterance—no doubt the unguarded and genuine utterance 
 —in the West, at Springfield, Mr. Lincoln’s home, on the ninth of last month, 
 August. This was, if I mistake not, on the Thursday of one week, on which day, 
 or thereabouts, Mr. Seward sets out to look after Judge Douglas, in New England, 
 and arrived at Boston, on Monday, the 13th, and then and there, as I have said, 
 close to Edward Everett’s home, as if in insult and defiance, he reproduces his 
 doctrine of ‘irrepressible conflict,’ ‘ ipsissimis verbis, ’ and adds with emphasis— 
 speaking I fear by authority —(1 quote his very words,) ‘ Abraham Lincoln con¬ 
 fesses his obligation to the higher law, which the sage of Quincy proclaimed, and 
 avows himself, for weal or for woe, life or death, a soldier on the side of freedom, 
 in the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery.” ’ 
 
 How horrible! Oh, Mr. Seward! Mr. Seward! what have you 
 done! How could you say such a thing, on Monday, the 13th of 
 August, close to Edward Everett’s home—on the Thursday after you 
 set out in pursuit of Judge Douglas, who was looking for his mother 
 —on the very Thursday that Mr. Lincoln told the people at Spring- 
 field that he thought they would fight for the cause, even harder after 
 he was dead and gone! Mr. Seward—“ it is flat burglary as ever 
 was!” [Great laughter.] 
 
 Mr. Seward seems to take some pleasure in stirring up the indigna¬ 
 tion of a certain class of politicians, by a repetition of those cabalistic 
 words—“irrepressible conflict”—and “higher law.” I once knew a 
 very clever man who always carried a red silk handkerchief. He hap¬ 
 pened one day to be crossing a field where some cattle were grazing, 
 and having occasion to use his handkerchief took it from his pocket. 
 A bull, not far off, caught sight of it as it fluttered in the wind, and 
 immediately made a dash at the possessor, who narrowly escaped 
 severe punishment. Whenever my friend had occasion to cross that 
 field afterwards, he would shake his red handkerchief at the bull, and 
 he would invariably make a mad charge upon the enemy. I asked 
 him one day, “Why do you expose yourself to such danger ?” “ Well,” 
 said he, “it amuses me to see the bull get mad at such a thing—and I 
 want to try if I can’t cure him of it.” [Roars of laughter.] Mr. 
 Seward seems to have a propensity for the same kind of sport. If he 
 happens to see a democrat in repose, he has only to say “ irrepressible 
 
19 
 
 conflict” or “higher law,” to start him to his legs and throw him into 
 an agony of passion. [Shouts of laughter.] 
 
 Gentlemen, this “irrepressible conflict” theory, did not originate 
 with Mr. Seward. It came directly from John C. Calhoun—not 
 ipsissimis verbis, it is true—but substantially, and in fact. You will 
 find it by reading the debate on his famous resolutions of 1838, the 
 third of which declared that 
 
 “This government is bound so to exercise its powers as to give, as far as may 
 be practicable, increased stability and security to the domestic institutions of the 
 States that compose the Union ; and that it is the solemn duty of the government 
 to resist all attempts by one portion of the Union to use it as an instrument to 
 attack the domestic institutions of another, or to weaken or destroy such insti¬ 
 tutions, instead of strengthening and upholding them, as it is in duty bound 
 to do.” 
 
 This attempt to obtain from the free States the concession and de¬ 
 claration that it is the duty of the Federal government to give increased 
 stability and security to the institution of slavery, and to strengthen 
 and uphold it, met with such general opposition from Senators North 
 and South, that Mr. Calhoun saw the struggle was then hopeless. 
 But he never abandoned it. He always considered that it was the 
 true policy of the South to insist upon it, and demand it, as the only 
 principle on which the Union could be preserved. In 1841, lie wrote 
 a letter to a member of the Alabama Legislature, in which he declared 
 that he was from the beginning in favor of “ forcing” the slavery issue 
 on the North. He considered delay dangerous, and the South morally 
 and politically stronger than she ever would be again. And no man 
 in his senses can deny the historical fact, that this conflict has been 
 going on ever since the Constitution was adopted. Manifestoes of 
 State conventions, resolutions of town meetings, pledges of political 
 parties, and legislative measures of compromise, all intended to put an 
 end to it, lie scattered and trampled upon all over the whole length of 
 years that have passed since the Union was formed, and the conflict 
 still rages, worse now than ever before. The only possible way to 
 check the conflict is to stop the further extension of the system. 
 [Cheers.] When that is declared to be the settled policy of the govern¬ 
 ment, we shall have no more excitement or agitation respecting it. 
 Mr. Seward has happily expressed Mr. Calhoun’s theory in the few 
 words which he now uses as a handkerchief to excite the bull. [Laugh¬ 
 ter and applause.] 
 
 The doctrine of “ the higher law” was also accepted and avowed by 
 Mr. Calhoun. Mr. Clay once referred to him in the Senate as a par¬ 
 tisan of Mr. Van Buren’s administration. Mr. Calhoun repelled the 
 charge, and denied that he was the partisan of any man or any admin¬ 
 istration. “It was,” he said, “ his fortune to stand in the Senate alone, 
 with no other guide but God and his conscience.” In his memorable 
 reply to Mr. Clay in 1838, on the Independent Treasury bill, he said : 
 
 “In a conversation with a friend about the responsibility I would assume, he 
 remarked, that my own State might desert me. I replied, that it was not impro¬ 
 bable ; but the result has proved that I under-estimated the intelligence and 
 
 ) 
 
20 
 
 patriotism of my noble and virtuous State. I ask her pardon for the distrust 
 implied in my answer; but I ask with the assurance that it will be granted on the 
 grounds that 1 shall put it —that in being prepared to sacrifice her confidence, as 
 dear to me as light and life, rather than disobey on this great question the dictates 
 of my judgment and conscience , I proved myself worthy of being her representa¬ 
 tive ” 
 
 When that distinguished man said that he stood in the Senate alone, 
 “ with no guide , but God and his conscience ,” and that he was ready 
 to sacrifice the confidence of his State, as dear to him as light and life, 
 rather than disobey the dictates of his judgment and conscience , he 
 distinctly recognized the existence of a “ higher law” than the Consti¬ 
 tution of the United States, to which he was subject. I have always 
 supposed that all civilized nations admitted the will of God to be a 
 higher law than ever can be made by human agency. History fur¬ 
 nishes us with a solitary exception, and that was of brief duration. 
 The fiendish spirits of the French Revolution impiously denied the 
 Divine authority in the affairs of men, and for a time, the world beheld 
 an entire people openly and defiantly renouncing their responsibility 
 to God, and the representatives of a great nation, doing public homage 
 to the Goddess of Reason, in the person of a wretched prostitute. 
 [Great applause.] 
 
 “ The higher law” explicitly asserts the authority of civil govern¬ 
 ment, and enjoins obedience to it. It commands, amongst other things, 
 “ Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake.” 
 He who is under the influence of the “ higher law” is therefore in sub¬ 
 mission to the Constitution and laws of his country, and cannot fail to 
 be a good citizen. Those only who deny or disregard the authority of 
 such a law are depredators upon society, or disturbers of the public 
 peace. [Cheers.] And nowhere, in no section of the country, do you 
 find them so numerous as among the new political friends of Mr. Reed 
 in the Southern States, who are threatening us with a dissolution of 
 the Union for performing our duty to the country, by electing the man 
 of our choice to the Presidency of the United States. But Mr. Reed 
 does not rebuke those treasonable threats. On the contrary, he en¬ 
 courages them by the expression of an opinion that Mr. Lincoln’s 
 election is full of threatened evil to the Union, and he can find no 
 other ground for it than the “ sad conviction” that Mr. Lincoln and his 
 friends will not adopt the theory of Mr. Calhoun, that this government 
 is bound to legislate for the protection of slavery in free territories. 
 [Cheers.] 
 
 That Mr. Lincoln will maintain the Pennsylvania doctrine of 1180, 
 on the subject of slavery extension, I have no earthly doubt. That he 
 will be influenced in the administration of the government by fanatical 
 men, who set the laws of their country at defiance, either in the North 
 or the South, no man has any reason to believe. The effort to hold 
 him responsible for the speeches and sentiments of Mr. Seward, Mr. 
 Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and Victor Hugo and Lord Brougham, is 
 the artful policy that was resorted to by the Democratic party in 1844 
 to exclude Mr. Clay from the Presidential chair, to which I have 
 already referred, and which was only too successful. The Whigs of 
 
 
21 
 
 Philadelphia at that time had sense enough to see through it; they 
 had no sympathy whatever with the abolitionists, and they clung all 
 the more closely to our gallant chief, because of the calumny with 
 which he was assailed. [Applause.] 
 
 If the votes of abolitionists corrupt the blood of a candidate, and 
 inoculate him with the disease, it would be good policy in them to 
 distribute their suffrages among Breckinridge, Douglas, and Bell, and 
 thus abolitionize the whole concern. It would make no odds to them 
 who wins, and all agitation would cease. But I hope nobody who has 
 the itch will vote for Mr. Lincoln. [Applause and laughter.] 
 
 Mr. Reed is painfully impressed with the rescue of a fugitive slave 
 in one of the northwestern States. So painful is it to his feelings that 
 he devotes, including his appendix, nearly three closely printed pages 
 to the subject, giving the details with a minuteness that might lead 
 one to suppose that, he belongs to the reportorial corps of the Pennsyl¬ 
 vanian. It is true that such things occasionally happen, and I condemn 
 as emphatically as Mr. Reed all such resistance to the laws of the land. 
 He distinctly admits, that prior to the decision of the Prigg case by 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, the recapture and surrender 
 of fugitive slaves was as simple and easy as the surrender of a fugitive 
 from justice. What, then, has wrought this change in the North ? and 
 with whom rests the responsibility? The difficulty commenced, not 
 with a New England judge, as the gentleman asserts, but with the 
 State of Maryland. In 1826, that State appointed a commission, con¬ 
 sisting, I think, of three of her distinguished citizens, to make applica¬ 
 tion to the Legislature of Pennsylvania for the passage of a law to 
 facilitate the capture and surrender of slaves escaping into this State. 
 This resulted in the passage of such an act as was required, entitled 
 “ An Act to give effect to the provisions of the Constitution of the 
 United States, relative to fugitives from labor, for the protection of 
 free people of color, and to prevent kidnapping.” It was approved on 
 the 25th of March, 1826. 
 
 We got along smoothly enough with our neighbors, as Mr. Reed 
 admits, until a man by the name of Prigg, a citizen of Maryland, was 
 arrested, tried, and convicted in York county of kidnapping, under the 
 provisions of that act. Prigg was represented by counsel employed by 
 the State of Maryland to defend him. There was no difficulty or disa¬ 
 greement about the facts, but the defence set up was, that the act 
 under which he was convicted was unconstitutional, and therefore void. 
 For the purpose of testing the question thus raised by our sister State, 
 in order to relieve one of her citizens from punishment for the offence 
 he had committed, Pennsylvania, at the instance of the State of Mary¬ 
 land, passed a special act on the 22d of May, 1839, by which the case 
 was finally removed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
 the question there raised as to the power of State legislation over 
 that part of the Constitution of the United States which relates to 
 fugitive slaves. 
 
 The question was argued in that Court by the Attorney General of 
 Pennsylvania, the late Ovid F. Johnson, in support of the law, and by 
 
22 
 
 the counsel of the State of Maryland on the other side. The Court, at 
 January Term, 1842, unanimously adjudged the act of Pennsylvania, , 
 
 upon which the indictment of Prigg was founded, to be unconstitutional 
 and void. It was also held by a majority of the Court that the States 
 had no right to legislate on the subject at all, not even for the purpose 
 of facilitating the arrest of fugitives. That the States might prohibit 
 their own officers from taking jurisdiction in such cases, although the 
 act of Congress of 1193 conferred such authority on the State magis¬ 
 trates. It was further held, that the owner of a fugitive slave had a 
 right, under the Constitution, to follow him into any State, capture 
 and remove him, provided he could do so without committing a breach 
 of the peace. Thus it was “ that all local, auxiliary legislation” on the 
 subject was annuled. The trouble commenced not with a New En¬ 
 gland judge, as Mr. Reed most unfairly asserts, but with the State of 
 Maryland. [Cheers.] 
 
 The case is reported in 16 Peters, page 539. 
 
 This decision left the free colored population of the southern counties < 
 
 of this State without protection. Several of them were kidnapped 
 by bands of miscreants organized for the purpose, and there was strong 
 reason to suspect that certain justices of the peace and constables in 
 our own State gave countenance to the outrages, under color of the 
 Act of Congress of 1193. This led to the Pennsylvania Act of 1841, 
 prohibiting such officers from exercising any jurisdiction whatever in 
 such cases, and denying the use of our jails for the imprisonment or 
 detention of persons claimed as fugitive slaves. Then followed the 
 Fugitive Slave Law of Congress, passed in 1850, which contains pro¬ 
 visions that have rendered it offensive to thousands of high-toned men 
 of the North, who have no sympathy whatever with abolitionists, and 
 who are as loyal to the Constitution as Mr. Reed, or any other man. 
 
 It provides among other things, that an officer charged with the execu¬ 
 tion of a warrant for the arrest of a fugitive, may call any citizen to his 
 aid, and thereupon it shall be the duty of that citizen to assist in the 
 capture. George Alberti, with such a warrant in his hands, may tap 
 Mr. Reed, or any other citizen, on the shoulder, and order him to go 
 into Bedford street, or elsewhere, and assist him in the capture of a 
 runaway negro. The Commissioner who issues the warrant may 
 summon all the people of the county for the same purpose, and the 
 law requires them to obey. When the fugitive is arrested, if the Com¬ 
 missioner surrender him as a slave, he is entitled to a fee of ten 
 dollars; if he turns out to be a free man, he receives a fee of five 
 dollars. These insulting provisions in the bill were totally unnecessary 
 to its efficient operation; but southern members of Congress madly 
 and arrogantly demanded them, and succeeded in their object. If a 
 slave escapes from Mr. Keitt, of South Carolina, and happens to reach 
 Philadelphia, the merchant, the clerk, the mechanic, the doctor, the 
 lawyer, and even the bishop must all turn out, if they are ordered to do 
 so by a United States Commissioner, and assist in securing the fugitive 
 and returning him to his owner ! 
 
 That this provision of the law was unnecessary, is manifest from the 
 
 
23 
 
 fact that it has never been acted upon. But there it stands, a burning 
 and gratuitous insult to every freeman in the North; and it is no 
 wonder that the law is unpopular. The Constitution of the United 
 States distinctly declares that fugitives shall be surrendered to the 
 persons to whom their services are due, and it is our duty to respect 
 it. T do not doubt that a law to make effectual that provision of the 
 Constitution, free from the offensive and degrading provisions to which 
 I have referred, would be obeyed in the North as fully and universally 
 as any other law on the Statute-book. The laws of a Republican 
 government respecting personal rights and obligations, should conform 
 as nearly as circumstances will admit, to the enlightened popular 
 sentiment; because public opinion, and not the point of the bayonet, 
 is the efficient engine for their enforcement. [Applause.] 
 
 I do not justify the violation of the law to which Mr. Reed has re¬ 
 ferred, and we are not supporting a candidate for the Presidency who 
 does so, or who is responsible or answerable for it in any sense. It is 
 much more adroit than just to reproach Mr. Lincoln for the offences of 
 Massachusetts and Wisconsin, on the ground that he is likely to re¬ 
 ceive the electoral votes of those States. 
 
 While the gentleman was looking up and manufacturing charges 
 
 against “the compact, fanatical North,” and was overflowing with 
 
 sympathy for “the stricken and insulted South,” he would have done 
 
 well to consider what laws of the countrv have been set at defiance in 
 
 */ 
 
 that quarter, to which all his affections, and all his vaunted hereditary 
 loyalty to Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, so suddenly—in the twink¬ 
 ling of a Chinese eye—have been transferred. [Great laughter.] He 
 might then have answered his own challenge to the friends of Mr. Lin¬ 
 coln, to tell him what is meant by Southern aggression. He used to 
 know very well. No man understood it better or condemned it more 
 eloquently than he. “ Has the South,” he wishes to know, “ ever stolen 
 any of our property from us ?” If his question be limited to the circle 
 of Democratic politicians in the South with whom he is now acting, I 
 answer—they have. 
 
 He himself belonged to and was the property of Pennsylvania ; by 
 which 4 ! mean that he owed service and allegiance to the State, mental 
 and physical service, which, according to the Dred Scott decision, and 
 the new school of Constitutional lawyers, converts the man himself 
 into a chattel and makes him property. [Laughter and cheers.] He 
 is now a fugitive—a fugitive from the North. South Carolina has 
 caught him, and holds him, and claims him. It is true we have made 
 no demand for his surrender, but that does not change the moral aspect 
 of the case. The South should send him back, she knows he is none 
 of hers. She should hang the life of General Reed about his neck, and 
 turn his face to the north star ! [Great laughter.] 
 
 The gentleman assures his fellow citizens that, if they “ask the 
 most or the least declamatory railer against the South who is now 
 marshalling the forces of Mr. Lincoln, to tell you what he means by 
 Southern aggression, he won’t know what to say, short of offensive 
 generalities.” 
 
 j 
 
24 
 
 I am no railer against the South, and never have been. I have 
 friends and kindred there whom I respect and love, and I have a share, 
 like all of you, in the tomb of Washington, and the glories of York- 
 town, which is not for sale. [Cheers.] But I will endeavor to answer 
 the gentleman’s question. 
 
 Aggression, according to the lexicographers, means the first attack 
 or act of hostility, the first act of injury, or the first act leading to a 
 controversy. And Southern aggression means acts of that character 
 by Southern politicians, leading to controversies with the North. The 
 claim of the South to introduce slavery into all the territory of the 
 country purchased by the government or obtained by conquest, accom¬ 
 panied by threats of a dissolution of the Union if refused, was an act 
 of aggression. Such a claim and such threats were made in 1818, and 
 led to the Missouri controversy and Compromise. 
 
 The claim was again made by the South in 1849, accompanied by 
 the same threats, in anticipation of the probable formation of a free 
 State out of part of the territory acquired from Mexico ; and of any 
 action by Congress excluding slavery from the territory. A sectional 
 address, prepared by Mr. Calhoun, and signed by the Southern mem¬ 
 bers of Congress, was issued to the Southern States, and responded to 
 by several of them, in language of defiance to the North, and treason 
 to the Constitution. 
 
 The claim was repeated by the South, with the same threats, in 
 1850, when California applied for admission as a State, with a free 
 constitution adopted by her own citizens, twelve thousand votes being 
 cast in its favor, and only eight hundred and eleven against it. Her 
 admission was violently opposed by the South, because her citizens 
 had voted to exclude slavery. Mr. Calhoun said it was a monstrous 
 assumption. She was finally admitted, on the adoption of the Com¬ 
 promise measures, which the North accepted as a final settlement of 
 the slavery question. 
 
 Notwithstanding the Compromise, the question of disunion was kept 
 alive in the South, and the peace of the country threatened. In South 
 Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, open ground was taken 
 in favor of secession and a Southern Confederacy. Several presses in 
 Georgia advocated immediate secession. A leading paper at Colum¬ 
 bus, said: 
 
 “We have all along contended that the admission of California would fill to 
 overflowing the poisoned cup of degradation, which the North has for years been 
 preparing for the South. * * *. We abandon the Union as an engine of 
 infamous oppression. * * *. Henceforth we are for war upon the government; it 
 has existed but for our ruin, and to the extent of our ability to destroy it, it shall 
 exist no longer.” 
 
 In November of the same year, the Nashville Convention assembled, 
 with representatives from Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, 
 Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina. That body adopted a series 
 of resolutions, one of which asserted the right of any State to with¬ 
 draw from the Union. Another was in the following words : 
 
 “ Resolved, That all the evils anticipated by the South, and which occasioned 
 
25 
 
 this convention'to assemble, have been realized by the failure to extend the 
 Missouri line of Compromise to the Pacific ocean, by the admission of California 
 as a State—by the organization of the territorial government for Utah and New 
 Mexico, without giving adequate protection to the property of the South—by the 
 dismemberment of Texas, by the abolition of the slave trade, and the emanci¬ 
 pation of slaves carried into the District of Columbia for sale.” 
 
 They demanded protection to slavery in the territories as a consti¬ 
 tutional right. They recommended the slaveholding States to meet 
 in a congress or convention, and on failure to obtain a full recognition 
 of all their rights which they claimed, to provide for their future safety 
 and independence. All these were so many acts of aggression. Add 
 to them the other aggressions complained of in Mr. Reed’s resolution 
 of 1855—the Nebraska and Kansas measures—the abrogation of the 
 Missouri Compromise line—the lawless and violent conduct of indi¬ 
 viduals in Kansas, and then his fifth resolution, declaring that those 
 measures were a wanton renewal of sectional agitation for which the 
 North was not responsible, and still the roll is unfinished. 
 
 They attempted, under General Jackson’s administration, to nullify 
 the acts of Congress which gave incidental protection to American 
 industry. 
 
 They not only assert that the Constitution authorizes Congress to 
 pass laws for the protection of their slave property in the territories, 
 but threaten, in case such laws are not passed, that the Union shall be 
 dissolved; and they deny the right of Congress to protect the property 
 of the poor white man of the North, which consists not of negroes, but 
 of the products of his own industry, and threaten if you do protect it, 
 that the Union shall be dissolved. [Cheers.] 
 
 They deny the power of Congress to make appropriations for the 
 improvement of our rivers and harbors, while they assert its authority 
 to levy a tax of two hundred millions of dollars upon the people for the 
 purchase of Cuba. [Cheers.] 
 
 They vote in almost solid column against the appropriations for the 
 extension of our lighthouse system, made necessary for the safety of 
 our commerce, by recent discoveries of new channels and new shoals 
 on our coasts—and now contemplate a new aggression by demanding 
 the repeal of the law which declares the African slave trade to be 
 piracy. 
 
 They sanction and encourage buccaneering expeditions for the inva¬ 
 sion and seizure of whole districts of country belonging to a people 
 with whom they have no cause of quarrel; and when the lawless in¬ 
 vaders are driven off and their robber chief returns with the blood of 
 his innocent victims upon his hands, they receive him into their houses 
 as a gentleman and a hero, and supply him with the means to renew 
 his horrible work of plunder and of death. [Cheers.] And when a 
 daring fanatic, instructed by such an example, gathers around him a little 
 band of vagabonds, and crosses the borders of Virginia on a similar 
 expedition, they charge the entire North with complicity in his crime, 
 and declare it to be the result of the doctrines taught by Mr. Reed and 
 his grandfather. [Cheers and laughter.] 
 
26 
 
 Such are some of the aggressions and inconsistencies of those demo¬ 
 cratic politicians of the South with whom Mr. Reed is now associated, 
 who are seeking to convert a government founded on principles of 
 morality, justice and beneficence, into a mighty engine of oppression, 
 to be used for the sole purpose of extending and strengthening the 
 institution of slavery. Driven out of Pennsylvania by the humanity 
 and virtue of the men of the revolution, and acting upon the doctrine 
 recently asserted by Mr. Yancey, that it is easier to degrade the white 
 man than to improve the slave, this restless spirit of aggressive slavery 
 again enters our borders and finds a willing instrument in a former foe. 
 
 “ Here perhaps 
 
 Some advantageous act may be achieved 
 By sudden onset; either with hell-fire 
 To waste his whole creation, or possess 
 All as our own, and drive, as we were driven, 
 
 The puny habitants ; or, if not drive, 
 
 Seduce them to our party, that their Grod 
 May prove their foe, and with repenting hand 
 Abolish his own works !” 
 
 [Tumultuous applause.] 
 
 If he were an honest man when he wrote the life of his grandfather 
 —if that work is to be regarded as a history, and not as fiction ; if he 
 were honest in his former opinions that slavery is wrong per se , sec¬ 
 tional and not national, and that Congress ought not to protect it: if 
 he were honest when he declared, in his well-considered resolutions of 
 1855, that the Kansas and Nebraska measures were a wanton renewal 
 of sectional agitation for which the North was not responsible ; that 
 those measures, with the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise line, 
 were abhorrent to the people of the North, and ought to be redressed; 
 if he were honest in the expression of his earnest hope that the action 
 of a Whig convention to assemble in 1855, might be unreserved in the 
 enunciation of the principles which he then avowed, and Republican 
 in every sense ; if he were honest in all these, what are we to think 
 of him now ? 
 
 I can understand how a man, who has pursued a long career of 
 folly and of crime, may be suddenly arrested in his course by a flash 
 of conscience that, makes the higher law, written by the finger of God 
 upon his heart, plain to his understanding, and turns him from the 
 error of his ways. But I can conceive of no rational or moral excuse for 
 one, who has spent a longlife in bringing the palpable, practical truths 
 of Christianity to bear upon and strengthen the political objection to 
 the extension of slavery, to fly suddenly from his natural orbit—a 
 circle of living light—and become the willing and truculent assailant 
 of all that he has ever written—all that he has ever professed before 
 God and man—and by indirection, at least, of all whom he has ever 
 loved and honored, within and without the line of his ancestry. [Tu¬ 
 multuous applause.] I cannot measure the height that he has fallen, 
 for I cannot fathom the dark abyss where he now moves, in counsel 
 
with the spirits of discord and disunion. For his own sake, I could 
 hope that he has found that 
 
 “ Slow and silent stream, 
 
 * * * * whereof who drinks 
 
 Forthwith his former state and being forgets: 
 
 Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.” 
 
 [Great applause.] 
 
 Better for him had he died before the faith of his fathers was ex¬ 
 changed for the already faded honors of a foreign mission. [Cheers.] 
 For then, history might have said that he was valiant for freedom, 
 vindicated the rights of humanity, withstood temptation, and carried 
 to his grave the respect of many good and virtuous men. And if 
 those who live and die in the same faith be permitted to renew their 
 associations, when raised as spiritual bodies, he would have enjoyed 
 the unspeakable pleasure of spending his eternity with that ancestor 
 whose virtues he has so often extolled, and whose public career he 
 once deemed so worthy of emulation. [Great applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen, there are other points presented in this ultra-sectional 
 speech which I should be glad to notice fully, if time and my own 
 strength would permit, and your patience would endure. I can but 
 give them a passing glance. 
 
 A tariff man all his life, he now tells his fellow-citizens that “ the 
 great southern staple holds the world in tribute and more than any¬ 
 thing keeps the peace ; and that peace is worth all the protection 
 which legislative commercial restrictions promise.” 
 
 You will observe that he is now against the tariff. Cotton is peace 
 —peace is protection—therefore cotton is protection ! Protection is 
 peace—peace is cotton—therefore protection is cotton ! It is all 
 cotton. [Laughter.] Cotton is worth more than truth, else Mr. Reed 
 would not have said that Mr. Lincoln is shaking his fist at the South ; 
 else he would not have said that Mr. Lincoln tells the South that no 
 man shall be permitted to be free who owns slaves. This is not clever, 
 because it is not true. The gentleman is shaking his own fist at the 
 North, “ the compact, fanatical north.” He would be glad to drive the 
 spirit of his grandfather out of Pennsylvania. [Great cheering.] He 
 would be glad to blot out from our recollections those “ manly opinions 
 of John Sergeant, Horace Binney, Samuel Breck, Thos. P. Cope, and 
 Wm. J. Duane, which made Philadelphia respected.” [Cheers.] He 
 would convince you, if he could, and he tries to do it, for he asserts it, 
 that Pennsylvania’s true interests lie in the South and Southwest. He 
 says they are our natural allies ! But he fails to tell us what the South 
 and Southwest have done for us as allies. They have opposed all 
 legislation for the protection of our industry—the three old Whig 
 States excepted. 
 
 They took from us the tariff of 1842, for which you will hardly be 
 content to accept cotton as a substitute. They oppose the extension 
 of our light-house system, so necessory to our commerce and to the 
 lives of American seamen. They oppose your Homestead bill because 
 
28 
 
 they are opposed to white men settling in the territories unless they 
 take slaves with them. They want no other relation there but that of 
 master and slave. Listen to what Governor Adams, of South Carolina, 
 one of these new found natural allies, says to the Legislature of that 
 State in his message of 1856 : 
 
 “ It is much better that our drays should be driven by slaves, that our factories 
 should be worked by slaves, that our hotels should be served by slaves, that our 
 locomotives should be managed by slaves, than that we should be exposed to the 
 introduction from any other quarter of a population alien to us by birth, training 
 and education, and which, in the process of time, must lead to the conflict be¬ 
 tween capital and labor which makes it so difficult to maintain free institutions in 
 all wealthy and civilized nations where such institutions as our ("slave institution) 
 do not exist.” 
 
 Again he says : 
 
 “If we cannot supply the demand for slave labor, then we must expect to 
 supply with a species of labor we do not want, and which is, from the very nature 
 of things, antagonistic to our institutions.” 
 
 You will observe that Governor Adams and Mr. Reed differ slightly. 
 The Governor wouldn’t have you as an ally He would be happy to 
 accept Africa, or Cuba, but no white settlement—no State like Penn¬ 
 sylvania, that has been innoculated by Mr. Reed and his ancestor with 
 a pestilent spirit of liberty [Cheers.] 
 
 The gentleman is much concerned on the subject of the tariff. He 
 objects to the resolution of the Chicago Convention relating to that 
 subject, because he considers it involved in obscure generalities ; 
 and expresses the opinion that Pennsylvania is not safe in the com¬ 
 pany of “the compact, fanatical North.” Mr. Adams, of Massachu¬ 
 setts, who made a speech in this hall some time since, did not refer 
 to the tariff, and Mr. Reed considers that very suspicious. He admits 
 that the South, our “ natural ally,” is free trade, and has a proposition 
 to make by which we shall be saved. Here it is : 
 
 “ If Pennsylvania, vigilant of her interests, has to choose between two schools 
 of free trade, that which is candidly, and manfully, and honestly professed by the 
 South, and that which is in masquerade in the North and East, her chance will be 
 better with the first, for all the tariff she needs (especially if she earns confident and 
 gratitude by fidelity to the Constitution , the Union, and the adjudicated rights of the 
 South'), than if led away from the path in which she has always walked, turned 
 from the safe democratic groove in which she has always moved, she trusts herself 
 to that vast conglomeration of fanatical and mercenary communities and bankrupt 
 railroad corporations—for such, almost without exception, are the Northern and 
 Northwestern Railroad Companies, which at this moment constitute the great 
 Lincoln army of the North.” 
 
 Gentlemen, that is pretty strong. Coupled with the sad conviction 
 which presses upon him, that Mr. Lincoln and his friends regard 
 slavery as wrong, per se, and that Congress has no right, under the 
 Constitution, to authorize the armies of the United States to be em¬ 
 ployed for the subjugation of freedom in those territories where 
 slavery has not yet entered, it looks to me, very much like a farewell 
 address to the North. [Cheers.] Can it be possible that Mr. Bu¬ 
 chanan has made out a commission, appointing him to fill the vacancy 
 
29 
 
 on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, to be pre- 
 % sented as the reward for all this truculent demonstration against free 
 
 institutions ? 
 
 Has he the promise of that high position for effecting what he called, 
 in 1851, in this circular, “ the most discreditable local combinations” to 
 defeat our candidates for Governor, Congress, the State Legislature, 
 and municipal offices ? Cannot three honest men be found—one from 
 the Breckenridge, one from the Douglas, and one from the Constitu¬ 
 tional Union party—to look in his boot, as the three militia men did in 
 the boot of Major Andre, for the terms on which the liberty and inde¬ 
 pendence of the North are to be surrendered ? [Tumultuous applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen, the resolution of the Chicago Convention is as full and 
 free from ambiguity on the subject of protection to the industrial 
 interests of the country, as any that was ever passed in a Whig 
 National Convention. 
 
 And, in answer to all the artful quibbling of the gentleman, I have 
 ^ only to add in conclusion on this point, that, at the very last session 
 
 of Congress, every Republican in both Houses recorded his vote in 
 favor of a tariff for the protection of our industry. They formed a 
 solid column, not merely to increase the duty on the staples of Penn¬ 
 sylvania—which would benefit no other interest, and would be sec¬ 
 tional therefore—but to establish a system and a principle, under which 
 all the great interests of the entire nation would be raised from death 
 into vigorous, active life. [Applause.] 
 
 My fellow citizens, I did not come here to indulge a personal feeling 
 of unkindness to Mr. Reed—for it is not in my heart. I came to ex¬ 
 pose the duplicity, the selfishness and the corruption of the politician, 
 and vindicate myself and those with whom I am acting, in our com¬ 
 mon efforts to elevate honest men to office, through whom the 
 government may be administered according to the precedents of the 
 fathers ; the rights of the people respected ; concord, peace and pros¬ 
 perity restored, and the strength of the nation renewed. [Cheers.] 
 
 The remedy for the disturbance, distrust and agitation which have 
 prevailed so long is plain. That remedy is in the hands of the people. 
 The persistent and irritating efforts of corrupt politicians to extend the 
 institution of slavery, and the practical right of three-fifths of all the 
 slaves to vote, through their owners for representatives in Congress, 
 has for its sole object, the perpetuation of their own power. They 
 must be checked. No concessions we have ever made to them have 
 availed, to preserve the peace which we have so often purchased. 
 Pennyslvania must nail her ancient banner to the ark of the Consti¬ 
 tution, and proclaim that, henceforth, the free territories of the country 
 are for free men and free institutions. This, and this alone will end 
 the struggle. Slavery will remain where it is, a complete work— 
 watched by its masters and perhaps admired by their children—always 
 secure to them by the guarantees of the Federal Constitution, till it 
 gradually disappears under the peaceful influences of an enlightened 
 Christianity. But liberty will lead the van in the holy work of ex- 
 
30 
 
 tending her own empire westward, until an electric flash from the Pacific 
 shall announce to her sister Ocean—it is finished. Esto perpetual 
 
 [On the conclusion of the speech, the audience expressed their appreciation Gf 
 it by three hearty cheers for the speaker, and separated with cheers for Lincoln 
 and the People’s candidates.]