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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858
+by Hon. Jefferson Davis
+
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+Title: Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858
+
+Author: Hon. Jefferson Davis
+
+Release Date: March, 2004  [EBook #5205]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 5, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SPEECHES OF THE HONORABLE JEFFERSON DAVIS 1858 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+Converted by Dave Maddock (dave@pluckerbooks.com)
+Proofread by Curtis Weyant
+
+
+
+
+        Speeches of the Hon. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi,
+
+                 Delivered During the Summer of 1858:
+
+
+
+                   On Fourth of July, 1858, at Sea.
+                   At Serenade, at Portland, Maine.
+                    At Portland Convention, Maine.
+                    At Belfast Encampment, Maine.
+                      At Belfast Banquet, Maine.
+                     At Portland Meeting, Maine.
+                      At Fair at Augusta, Maine.
+                       At Faneuil Hall, Boston.
+                         At New York Meeting.
+                   Before Mississippi Legislature.
+                               &c. &c.
+
+
+                    To the People of Mississippi.
+
+I have been induced by the persistent misrepresentation of popular
+Addresses made by me at the North and the South during the year 1858,
+to collect them, and with extracts from speeches made by me in the
+Senate in 1850, to present the whole in this connected form; to the
+end that the case may be fairly before those by whose judgment I am
+willing to stand or fall.
+
+                                                      Jefferson Davis.
+
+
+
+                Extracts From Speeches in U.S. Senate.
+
+
+In the Senate of the United States, May 8, 1850, in presenting the
+Resolutions of the Legislature of Mississippi:
+
+It is my opinion that justice will not be done to the South, unless
+from other promptings than are about us here--that we shall have no
+substantial consideration offered to us for the surrender of an equal
+claim to California. No security against future harassment by Congress
+will probably be given. The rain-bow which some have seen, I fear was
+set before the termination of the storm. If this be so, those who have
+been first to hope, to relax their energies, to trust in compromise
+promises, will often be the first to sound the alarm when danger again
+approaches. Therefore I say, if a reckless and self-sustaining
+majority shall trample upon her rights, if the Constitutional equality
+of the States is to be overthrown by force, private and political
+rights to be borne down by force of numbers, then, sir, when that
+victory over Constitutional rights is achieved, the shout of triumph
+which announces it, before it is half uttered, will be checked by the
+united, the determined action of the South, and every breeze will
+bring to the marauding destroyers of those rights, the warning: woe,
+woe to the riders who trample them down! I submit the report and
+resolutions, and ask that they may be read and printed for the use of
+the Senate.--(_Cong. Globe_, p. 943-4.)
+
+
+
+In the Senate of the United States, June 27, 1850, on the Compromise
+Bill:
+
+If I have a superstition, sir, which governs my mind and holds it
+captive, it is a superstitious reverence for the Union. If one can
+inherit a sentiment, I may be said to have inherited this from my
+revolutionary father. And if education can develop a sentiment in the
+heart and mind of man, surely mine has been such as would most develop
+feelings of attachment for the Union. But, sir, I have an allegiance
+to the State which I represent here. I have an allegiance to those who
+have entrusted their interests to me, which every consideration of
+faith and of duty, which every feeling of honor, tells me is above all
+other political considerations. I trust I shall never find my
+allegiance there and here in conflict. God forbid that the day should
+ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the
+Union. If, sir, we have reached that hour in the progress of our
+institutions, it is past the age to which the Union should have lived.
+If we have got to the point when it is treason to the United States to
+protect the rights and interests of our constituents, I ask why should
+they longer be represented here? why longer remain a part of the
+Union? If there is a dominant party in this Union which can deny to us
+equality, and the rights we derive through the Constitution; if we are
+no longer the freemen our fathers left us; if we are to be crushed by
+the power of an unrestrained majority, this is not the Union for which
+the blood of the Revolution was shed; this is not the Union I was
+taught from my cradle to revere; this is not the Union in the service
+of which a large portion of my life has been passed; this is not the
+Union for which our fathers pledged their property, their lives, and
+sacred honor. No, sir, this would be a central Government, raised on
+the destruction of all the principles of the Constitution, and the
+first, the highest obligation of every man who has sworn to support
+that Constitution would be resistance to such usurpation. This is my
+position.
+
+My colleague has truly represented the people of Mississippi as
+ardently attached to the Union. I think he has not gone beyond the
+truth when he has placed Mississippi one of the first, if not the
+first, of the States of the Confederation in attachment to it. But,
+sir, even that deep attachment and habitual reverence for the Union,
+common to us all--even that, it may become necessary to try by the
+touchstone of reason. It is not impossible that they should unfurl the
+flag of disunion. It is not impossible that violations of the
+Constitution and of their rights, should drive them to that dread
+extremity. I feel well assured that they will never reach it until it
+has been twice and three times justified. If, when thus fully
+warranted, they want a standard bearer, in default of a better, I am
+at their command.--(_Cong. Globe_, p. 995-6)
+
+
+
+                   On Fourth of July, 1858, At Sea.
+                       [From the Boston Post.]
+
+
+The fine ship _Joseph Whitney_, from Baltimore, Captain S. Howes, was
+making for this port on the day of the celebration of the nation's
+birth, and among an unusually brilliant array of passengers from
+different parts of the country, was the distinguished Senator,
+Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. The patriotic suggestion of the
+captain, to celebrate the day in a manner befitting the great
+anniversary, met with a hearty response from the company, among whom
+were zealous republicans, democrats and Americans. A committee was
+appointed to invite the Senator to make an address, and he consented.
+
+First, the Declaration of Independence was read by Sebastian F.
+Streeter, Esq., of Baltimore, when Senator Davis made an address of
+singular felicity of diction and impassioned eloquence, and of such a
+character as to command the admiration of those who listened to it. He
+commenced by happy allusions to the array of beauty and intelligence
+that stood before him from all parts of our common country; he then
+passed in review the condition of the feeble and separate colonies of
+1776, and contrasted with it the country now--the only proper republic
+on earth, as it stood before the world in its wonderful progress in
+art, and agriculture, and commerce, and all the elements that
+constitute a great nation. When thus sailing on the Atlantic, looking
+to the coast of the United States, he was reminded of those bold
+refugees from the British and French oppression who crosses these
+water to found a home in what was then a wilderness. The memory, too,
+arose of the many sorrowing hearts and oppressed spirits since born
+over these waves to that refuge from political oppression which our
+fathers founded as the home of liberty and the asylum of mankind. Her
+terrtiory {sic}, which now stretches from ocean to ocean, contains a
+vast interior yet unpeopled; and, with a destiny of still further and
+continued expansion of area, why should the gate of the temple be now
+shut upon sorrowing mankind? Rather let it be that the gate should be
+forever open, and an emblematic flag, hereafter as heretofore, wave a
+welcome to all to come to the modern Abdella--fugitives from political
+oppression.
+
+Senator Davis dwelt at some length on the right of search question--on
+the insulting claim which Great Britain made to a peace-right to visit
+our ships. Under the pretence of stopping the slave trade--a trade
+against which the United States was the first nation to raise its
+voice--she had interrupted and destroyed a lucrative commerce we had
+enjoyed in ivory and other products on the coast of Africa. The late
+outrages in the Gulf found us, as a people, with domestic quarrels on
+our hands; but if this power counted on existing divisions and on
+making them wider, the result showed how great was her error. The
+insult was resented by a united people; the Senate, as one man, leaped
+up against British pretensions; while England, as suddenly,
+astonished, withdrew her pretensions. The claim she so long preferred
+is given up--entirely abandoned. The same spirit that resented insult
+in the past will resent it in the future. I stand, said the Senator,
+substantially on the deck of an American vessel; it is American soil;
+the American flag floats over it; its right to course the ocean
+pathway is perfect. When the blue firmament reflected its own color in
+the sea, it was the unappropriated property of mankind; and it was
+arrogant and idle for any nation to deny to the United States her full
+enjoyment of this common property. It was for the full and undisturbed
+enjoyment of this right that out fathers, when much less prepared for
+war than we are now, engaged in the conflict of 1812; and for this
+right we were ready to strike in 1858. Let a feign power, under any
+pretence whatever, insult the American flag, and it will find that we
+are not a divided people, but that a mighty arm will be raised to
+smite down the insulter, and this great country will continue united.
+
+Trifling politicians in the South, or in the North, or in the West,
+may continue to talk otherwise, but it will be of no avail. They are
+like the mosquitoes around the ox: they annoy, but they cannot wound,
+and never kill. There was a common interest which run through all the
+diversified occupations and various products of these sovereign
+States; there was a common sentiment of nationality which beat in
+every American bosom; there were common memories sweet to us all, and,
+though clouds had occasionally darkened our political sky, the good
+sense and the good feeling of the people had thus far averted any
+catastrophe destructive of our constitution and the Union. It was in
+fraternity and an elevation of principle which rose superior to
+sectional or individual aggrandizement that the foundations of our
+Union were laid; and if we, the present generation, be worthy of our
+ancestry, we shall not only protect those foundations from
+destruction, but build higher and wider this temple of liberty, and
+inscribe perpetuity upon its tablet.
+
+In the course of his beautiful speech, senator Davis passed a noble
+eulogium on our mother country; and dwelt on the many reasons why the
+most cordial friendship should be maintained with her; and he
+concluded by a tribute to the fair sex--the women--beautiful woman; to
+the wondrous educational influence as the mother which she exercised
+over the minds of men. It is ever, at all times, felt and
+operative--upon the dreary waste of ocean, on the lonely prairie, in
+the troublous contests at the national halls. And when the arm is
+moved in the deadly conflicts of the battle-field, and the foe is
+vanquished, then the gentle influences instilled by women do their
+work, and the heart melts into tears of pity and prompts to deeds of
+mercy.
+
+After this intellectual repast, then succeeded congratulations; the
+air was made vocal with song; while, through the foresight of the
+gallant captain, at the evening hour, the sky about the good ship
+Joseph Whitney was brilliant with those various pyrotechnic displays
+which must be so grateful to the spirit of patriotic John Adams, of
+bonfire and illumination-memory.
+
+
+
+           Speech at the Portland Serenade, July 9th, 1858.
+
+
+After the music had ceased, Mr. Davis appeared upon the steps, and as
+soon as the prolonged applause with which he was greeted had subsided,
+he spoke in substance as follows:
+
+Fellow Countrymen:--Accept my sincere thanks for this manifestation of
+your kindness. Vanity does not lead me so far to misconceive your
+purpose as to appropriate the demonstration to myself; but it is not
+less gratifying to me to be made the medium through which Maine
+tenders an expression of regard to her sister Mississippi. It is
+moreover, with feelings of profound gratification that I witness this
+indication of that national sentiment and fraternity which made us,
+and which alone can keep us, one people. At a period, but as yesterday
+when compared with the life of nations, these States were separate,
+and in sorts respects opposing colonies; their only relation to each
+other was that of a common allegiance to the government of Great
+Britain. So separate, indeed almost hostile, was their attitude, that
+when Gen. Stark, of Bennington memory, was captured by savages on the
+head waters of the Kennebec, he was subsequently taken by them to
+Albnny {sic} where they went to sell furs, and again led away a
+captive, without interference on the part of the inhabitants of that
+neighboring colony to demand or obtain his release. United as we now
+are, were a citizen of the United States, as an act of hostility to
+our country, imprisoned or slain in any quarter of the world, whether
+on land or sea, the people of each and every State of the Union, with
+one heart, and with one voice, would demand redress, and woe be to him
+against whom a brother's blood cried to us from the ground. Such is
+the fruit of the wisdom and the justice with which our fathers bound
+contending colonies into confederation and blended different habits
+and rival interests into a harmonious whole, so that shoulder to
+shoulder they entered on the trial of the revolution, step with step
+trod its thorny paths until they reached the height of national
+independence and founded the constitutional representative liberty,
+which is our birthright.
+
+When the mother country entered upon her career of oppression, in
+disregard of chartered and constitutional rights, our forefathers did
+not stop to measure the exact weight of the burden, or to ask whether
+the pressure bore most upon this colony or upon that, but saw in it
+the infraction of a great principle, the denial of a common right, in
+defence of which they made common cause; Massachusetts, Virginia and
+South Carolina vieing with each other as to who should be foremost in
+the struggle, where the penalty of failure would be a dishonorable
+grave.
+
+Tempered by the trials and sacrifices of the revolution, dignified by
+its noble purposes, elevated by its brilliant triumphs, endeared to
+each other by its glorious memories, they abandoned the confederacy,
+not to fly apart when the outward pressure of hostile fleets and
+armies were removed, but to draw closer their embrace in the formation
+of a more perfect union. By such men, thus trained and ennobled, our
+Constitution was formed. It stands a monument of principle, of
+forecast, and, above all, of that liberality which made each willing
+to sacrifice local interest, individual prejudice or temporary good to
+the general welfare, and the perpetuity of the Republican institutions
+which they had passed through fire and blood to secure. The grants
+were as broad as were necessary for the functions of the general
+agent, and the mutual concessions were twice blessed, blessing both
+him who gave and him who received. Whatever was necessary for domestic
+government, requisite in the social organization of each community,
+was retained by the States and the people thereof; and these it was
+made the duty of all to defend and maintain.
+
+Such, in very general terms, is the rich political legacy our fathers
+bequeathed to us. Shall we preserve and transmit it to posterity? Yes,
+yes, the heart responds, and the judgment answers, the task is easily
+performed. It but requires that each should attend to that which most
+concerns him, and on which alone he has rightful power to decide and
+to act. That each should adhere to the terms of a written compact and
+that all should cooperate for that which interest, duty and honor
+demand. For the general affairs of our country, both foreign and
+domestic, we have a national executive and a national legislature.
+Representatives and Senators are chosen by districts and by States,
+but their acts affect the whole country, and their obligations are to
+the whole people. He who holding either seat would confine his
+investigations to the mere interests of his immediate constituents
+would be derelict to his plain duty; and he who would legislate in
+hostility to any section would be morally unfit for the station, and
+surely an unsafe depositary if not a treacherous guardian of the
+inheritance with which we are blessed.
+
+No one, more than myself; recognizes the binding force of the
+allegiance which the citizen owes to the State of his citizenship, but
+that State being a party to our compact, a member of our union, fealty
+to the federal Constitution is not in opposition to, but flows from
+the allegiance due to one of the United States. Washington was not
+less a Virginian when he commanded at Boston; nor did Gates or Greene
+weaken the bonds which bound them to their several States, by their
+campaigns in the South. In proportion as a citizen loves his own
+State, will he strive to honor by preserving her name and her fame
+free from the tarnish of having failed to observe her obligations, and
+to fulfil her duties to her sister States. Each page of our history is
+illustrated by the names and the deeds of those who have well
+understood, and discharged the obligation. Have we so degenerated,
+that we can no longer emulate their virtues? Have the purposes for
+which our Union was formed, lost their value? Has patriotism ceased to
+be a virtue, and is narrow sectionalism no longer to be counted a
+crime? Shall the North not rejoice that the progress of agriculture in
+the South has given to her great staple the controlling influence of
+the commerce of the world, and put manufacturing nations under bond to
+keep the peace with the United States? Shall the South not exult in
+the fact, that the industry and persevering intelligence of the North,
+has placed her mechanical skill in the front ranks of the civilized
+world--that our mother country, whose haughty minister some eighty odd
+years ago declared that not a hob-nail should be made in the colonies,
+which are now the United States, was brought some four years ago to
+recognize our pre-eminence by sending a commission to examine our work
+shops, and our machinery, to perfect their own manufacture of the arms
+requisite for their defence? Do not our whole people, interior and
+seaboard, North, South, East, and West, alike feel proud of the
+hardihood, the enterprise, the skill, and the courage of the Yankee
+sailor, who has borne our flag far as the ocean bears its foam, and
+caused the name and the character of the United States to be known and
+respected wherever there is wealth enough to woo commerce, and
+intelligence enough to honor merit? So long as we preserve, and
+appreciate the achievements of Jefferson and Adams, of Franklin and
+Madison, of Hamilton, of Hancock, and of Rutledge, men who labored for
+the whole country, and lived for mankind, we cannot sink to the petty
+strife which would sap the foundations, and destroy the political
+fabric our fathers erected, and bequeathed as an inheritance to our
+posterity forever.
+
+Since the formation of the Constitution, a vast extension of
+territory, and the varied relations arising there from, have presented
+problems which could not have been foreseen. It is just cause for
+admiration--even wonder, that the provisions of the fundamental law
+should have been found so fully adequate to all the wants of
+government, new in its organization, and new in many of the principles
+on which it was founded. Whatever fears may have once existed as to
+the consequences of territorial expansion, must give way before the
+evidence which the past affords. The general government, strictly
+confined to its delegated functions, and the States left in the
+undisturbed exercise of all else, we have a theory and practice which
+fits our government for immeasurable domain, and might, under a
+millennium of nations, embrace mankind.
+
+From the slope of the Atlantic our population with ceaseless tide has
+poured into the wide and fertile valley of the Mississippi, with
+eddying whirl has passed to the coast of the Pacific, from the West
+and the East the tides are rushing towards each other--and the mind is
+carried to the day when all the cultivable and will be inhabited, and
+the American people will sign for more wildernesses to conquer. But
+there is here a physico-political problem presented for our solution.
+Were it was purely physical--your past triumphs would leave but little
+doubt of your capacity to solve it.
+
+A community, which, when less than twenty thousand, conceived the
+grand project of crossing the White Mountains, and, unaided, save by
+the stimulus which jeers and prophecies of failure gave, successfully
+executed the herculean work, might well be impatient, if it were
+suggested that a physical problem was before us, too difficult for
+their mastery. The history of man teaches that high mountains and wide
+deserts have resisted the permanent extension of empire, and have
+formed the immutable boundaries of States. From time to time, under
+some able leader, have the hordes of the upper plains of Asia swept
+over the adjacent country, and rolled their conquering columns over
+Southern Europe. Yet, after the lapse of a few generations, the
+physical law to which I have referred, has asserted its supremacy, and
+the boundaries of those States differ little now from those which
+obtained three thousand years ago. Rome flew her conquering eagles
+over the then known world, and has now subsided into the little
+territory on which her great city was originally built. The Alps and
+the Pyrenees have been unable to restrain imperial France; but her
+expansion was a leverish action; her advance and her retreat were
+tracked with blood, and those mountain ridges are the re-established
+limits of her empire. Shall the Rocky Mountains prove a dividing
+barrier to us? Were ours a central consolidated government, instead of
+a Union of sovereign States, our fate might be learned from the
+history of other nations. Thanks to the wisdom and independent spirit
+of our forefathers, this is not our case. Each State having sole
+charge of its local interests and domestic affairs, the problem which
+to others has been insoluble, to us is made easy. Rapid, safe, and
+easy communication and co-operation among all parts of our
+continent-wide republic. The network of railroads which bind the North
+and the South, the slope of the Atlantic and the valley of the
+Mississippi, together testify that our people have the power to
+perform, in that regard, whatever it is their will to do.
+
+We require a railroad to the States of the Pacific for present uses;
+the time no doubt will come when we shall have need of two or three;
+it may be more. Because of the desert character of the interior
+country the work will be difficult and expensive. It will require the
+efforts of an united people. The bickerings of little politicians, the
+jealousies of sections, must give way to dignity of purpose and zeal
+for the common good. If the object be obstructed by contention and
+division as to whether the route to be selected shall be northern,
+southern or central, the handwriting is on the wall, and it requires
+little skill to see that failure is the interpretation of the
+inscription. You are a practical people and may ask, how is that
+contest to be avoided? By taking the question out of the hands of
+politicians altogether. Let the Government give such aid as it is
+proper for it to render to the Company which shall propose the most
+feasible and advantageous plan; then leave to capitalists with
+judgment sharpened by interest, the selection of the route, and the
+difficulties will diminish as did those which you overcame when you
+connected your harbor with the Canadian Provinces.
+
+It would be to trespass on your kindness and to violate the
+proprieties of the occasion, were I to detain the vast concourse which
+stands before me, by entering on the discussion of controverted
+topics, or by further indulging in the expression of such reflections
+as circumstances suggest.
+
+I came to your city in quest of health and repose. From the moment I
+entered it you have showered upon me kindness and hospitality. Though
+my experience has taught me to anticipate good rather than evil from
+my fellow man, it had not prepared me to expect such unremitting
+attention as has here been bestowed. I have been jocularly asked in
+relation to my coming here, whether I had secured a guaranty {sic} for
+my safety, and lo, I have found it. I stand in the midst of thousands
+of my fellow citizens. But my friend, I came neither distrusting, not
+apprehensive, of which you have proof in the fact that I brought with
+me the objects of tenderest affection and solicitude--my wife and my
+children; they have shared with me your hospitality, and will alike
+remain your debtors. If at some future time, when I am mingled with
+the dust, and the arm of my infant son has been nerved for deeds of
+manhood, the storm of war should burst upon your city, I feel that,
+relying upon his inheriting the instincts of his ancestors and mine, I
+may pledge him in that perilous hour to stand by your side in the
+defence of your hearth stones, and in maintaining the honor of a flag
+whose constellation though torn and smoked in many a battle, by sea
+and land, has never been stained with dishonor, and will I trust
+forever fly as free as the breeze which unfolds it.
+
+A stranger to you, the salubrity of your location and the beauty of
+its scenery were not wholly unknown to me, nor were there wanting
+associations which bust memory connected with your people. You will
+pardon me for alluding to one whose genius shed a lustre upon all it
+touched, and whose qualities gathered about him hosts of friends,
+wherever he was known. Prentiss, a native of Portland, lived from
+youth to middle age in the county of my residence, and the inquiries
+which have been made, show me that the youth excited the interest
+which the greatness of the man justified, and that his memory thus
+remains a link to connect your home with mine.
+
+A cursory view, when passing through your town on former occasions,
+had impressed me with the great advantages of your harbor, its easy
+entrance, its depth, and its extensive accommodation for shipping. But
+its advantages, and if facilities as they have been developed by
+closer inspection, have grown upon me until I realize that it is no
+boast, but the language of sober truth which in the present state of
+commerce pronounces them unequaled in any harbor of our country.
+
+And surely no place could be more inviting to an invalid who sought a
+refuge from the heat of a southern summer. Here waving elms offer him
+shared walks, and magnificent residences surrounded by flowers, fill
+the mind with ideas of comfort and of rest. If weary of constant
+contact with his fellow men, he seeks a deeper seclusion, there, in
+the back ground of this grand amphitheatre, lie the eternal mountains,
+frowning with brow of rock and cap of snow upon the smiling fields
+beneath, and there in its recesses may be found as much of wildness,
+and as much of solitude, as the pilgrim weary of the cares of life can
+desire. If he turn to the front, your capacious harbor, studded with
+green islands of ever varying light and shade, and enlivened by all
+the stirring evidences of commercial activity, offer him the mingled
+charms of busy life and nature's calm repose. A few miles further, and
+he may site upon the quiet shore to listen to the murmuring wave until
+the troubled spirit sinks to rest, and in the little sail that
+vanishes on the illimitable sea, we may find the type of the voyage
+which he is so soon to take, when, his ephemeral existence closed, he
+embarks for that better state which lies beyond the grave.
+
+Richly endowed as you are by nature in all which contributes to
+pleasure and to usefulness, the stranger cannot pass without paying a
+tribute to the much which your energy has achieved for yourselves.
+Where else will one find a more happy union of magnificence and
+comfort, where better arrangements to facilitate commerce? Where so
+much of industry, with so little noise and bustle? Where, in a phrase,
+so much effected in proportion to the means employed? We hear the puff
+of the engine, the roll of the wheel, the ring of the axe, and the
+saw, but the stormy, passionate exclamations so often mingled with the
+sounds, are no where heard. Yet, neither these nor other things which
+I have mentioned; attractive though they be, have been to me the chief
+charm which I have found among you. For above all these I place the
+gentle kindness, the cordial welcome, the hearty grasp, which made me
+feel truly and at once, though wandering far, that I was still at
+home.
+
+My friends, I thank you for this additional manifestation of your good
+will.
+
+
+
+                  Speech at the Portland Convention.
+
+
+On Thursday, August 24th, 1858, when the Democratic Convention had
+nearly concluded its business, a committee was appointed to wait on
+Mr. Davis, and request him to gratify them by his presence in the
+Convention. He expressed his willingness to comply with the wishes of
+his countrymen, and accordingly repaired to the City Hall. On entering
+he was greeted in the most cordial and enthusiastic manner. After
+business was finished, he proceeded to the rostrum, and, addressing
+the Convention, said:
+
+Friends, fellow-citizens, and brethren in Democracy, he thanked them
+for the honor conferred by their invitation to be present at their
+deliberations, and expressed the pleasure he felt in standing in the
+midst of the Democracy of Maine--amidst so many manifestations of the
+important and gratifying fact that the Democratic is, in truth, a
+national party. He did not fail to remember that the principles of the
+party declaring for the largest amount of personal liberty consistent
+with good government, and to the greatest possible extent of community
+and municipal independence, would render it in their view, as in his
+own, improper for him to speak of those subjects which were local in
+their character, and he would endeavor not so far to trespass upon
+their kindness as to refer to anything which bore such connection,
+direct or indirect--and he hoped that those of their opponents who,
+having the control of type, fancied themselves licensed to manufacture
+facts, would not hold them responsible for what he did not say. He
+said he should carry with him, as one of the pleasant memories of his
+brief sojourn in Maine, the additional assurance, which intercourse
+with the people had given him, that there still lives a National
+Party, struggling and resolved bravely to struggle for the maintenance
+of the Constitution, the abatement of sectional hostility, and the
+preservation of the fraternal compact made by the Fathers of the
+Republic. He said, rocked in the cradle of Democracy, having learned
+its precepts from his father,--who was a Revolutionary Soldier--and in
+later years having been led forward in the same doctrine by the
+patriot statesman--of whom such honorable mention was made in their
+resolutions--Andrew Jackson, he had always felt that he had in his own
+heart a standard by which to measure the sentiments of a Democrat.
+When, therefore, he had seen evidences of a narrow sectionalism, which
+sought not the good of the whole, not even the benefit of a part, but
+aimed at the injury of a particular section, the pulsations of his own
+heart told him such cannot be the purpose, the aim, or the wish of any
+American Democrat--and he saw around him to-day evidence that his
+opinion in this respect had here its verification. As he looked upon
+the weather-beaten faces of the veterans and upon the flushed cheek
+and flashing eye of the youth, which told of the fixed resolve of the
+one, and the ardent, noble hopes of the other, strengthened hope and
+bright anticipations filled his mind, and he feared not to ask the
+questions shall narrow interests, shall local jealousies, shall
+disregard of the high purposes for which our Union was ordained,
+continue to distract our people and impede the progress of our
+government toward the high consummation which prophetic statesmen have
+so often indicated as her destiny?--[Voices, no, no, no! Much
+applause.]
+
+Thanks for that answer; let every American heart respond no; let every
+American head, let every American hand unite in the great object of
+National development. Let our progress be across the land and over the
+sea, let our flag as stated in your resolutions, continue to wave its
+welcome to the oppressed, who flee from the despotism of other lands,
+until the constellation which marks the number of our States which
+have already increased from thirteen to thirty two, shall go on
+multiplying into a bright galaxy covering the field on which we now
+display the revered stripes, which record the original size of our
+political family, and shall shed its benign light over all mankind, to
+point them to the paths of self-government and constitutional liberty.
+
+He here referred to the history of the Democratic party, and numbered
+among its glories the various acts of territorial acquisition and
+triumphs through its foreign intercourse in the march of civilization
+and National amity, as well as in the glories which from time to time
+had been shed by the success of our arms upon the name and character
+of the American people. He alluded to the recent attempt by some of
+the governments of Europe, to engraft upon National law a prohibition
+against privateering. He said whenever other governments were willing
+to declare that private property should be exempt from the rigors of
+war, on sea as it is on land, our government might meet them more than
+half way, but to a proposition which would leave private property the
+prey of national vessels and thus give the whole privateering to those
+governments which maintained a large naval establishment in time of
+peace, he would unhesitatingly answer no. Our merchant marine
+constituted the militia of the sea--how effective it had been in our
+last struggle with a maritime power, he need not say to the sons of
+those who had figured so conspicuously in that species of warfare. The
+policy of our government was peace. We could not consent to bear the
+useless expense of a naval establishment larger than was necessary for
+its proper uses in a time of peace. Relying as we had and must
+hereafter upon the merchant marine to man whatever additional vessels
+we should require, and upon the bold and hardy Yankee sailor, when he
+could no longer get freight for his craft, to receive a proper
+armament, and go forth like a knight errant of the sea in quest of
+adventure against the enemies of his country's flag.
+
+He said our country was powerful for all military purposes, and if
+asked to compare her armies and her navy with those of the great
+powers of Europe, he would answer, that is not our standard. History
+teaches that our strength is in the courage and patriotism, the skill
+and intelligence of our people. A part of the American army was before
+him, and a part of the American navy was lying in the harbor of their
+city. That army and that navy had fought the battles of the
+Revolution, of the "war of 1812" and of the war with Mexico, and would
+never be found wanting, whilst the patriotism of the earlier days of
+the Republic, proved a sufficient cement to hold the different parts
+of our wide spread and extending country together. He said that
+everything around him spoke eloquently of the wisdom of the men who
+founded these colonies-their descendants, who sat before him,
+contrasted strongly, as did their history and present power, stand out
+in bold relief, when compared with those of the inhabitants of Central
+and Southern America. Chief among the reasons for this, he believed to
+be the self-reliant hardihood of their forefathers who, when but a
+handful, found themselves confronted by hordes of savages, yet proudly
+maintained the integrity of their race and asserted its supremacy over
+the descendants of Shem, in whose tents they had come to dwell. They
+preferred to encounter toil, privation and carnage, rather than debase
+their lineage and race. Their descendants of that pure and heroic
+blood have advanced to the high standard of civilization attainable by
+that type of mankind. Stability and progress, wealth and comfort, art
+and science, have followed their footsteps.
+
+Among our neighbors of Central and Southern America, we see the
+Caucasian mingled with the Indian and the African. They have the forms
+of free government, because they have copied them. To its benefits
+they have not attained, because that standard of civilization is above
+their race. Revolution succeeds Revolution, and the country mourns
+that some petty chief may triumph, and through a sixty days'
+government ape the rulers of the earth. Even now the nearest and
+strongest of these American Republics, which were fashioned after the
+model of our own, seems to be tottering to a fall, and the world is
+inquiring as to who will take possession; or, as protector, raise and
+lead a people who have shown themselves incompetent to govern
+themselves.
+
+He said our fathers laid the foundation of Empire, and declared its
+purposes; to their sons it remained to complete their superstructure.
+The means by which this end was to be secured were simple and easy. It
+involved no harder task than that each man should attend to his own
+business, that no community should arrogantly assume to interfere with
+the affairs of another--and that all by the honorable obligation of
+fulfiling that compact which their fathers had made.
+
+He then referred to the commercial position of Maine, and spoke of her
+brightly unfolding prospects of prosperity and greatness. Many
+considered her wealth to consist of her forests, and that her
+prosperity would decline when her timber was exhausted--he held to a
+different opinion, and thought they might welcome the day, when the
+sombre shadows of the Pine gave place to verdant pastures and fruitful
+fields. Was he asked, what then was to become of the interest of
+ship-building? He would answer--let it be changed from wood to iron.
+The skill to be aquired be a few years' experience, would at a fair
+price for iron, enable our ship builders to construct iron ships,
+which, taking into account their greater capacity for freight and
+greater durability, would be cheaper than vessels of wood, even whilst
+timber was as abundant as now;--at least such was the information he
+had derived from persons well informed upon those subjects.
+
+He expressed the gratification he felt for the courtesy of the
+Democracy in Maine, and doubted not that the Democracy of Mississippi
+would receive it, with grateful recognition, as evincing fraternal
+sentiment by kindness done to one of her sons, not the less a
+representative, because a humble member of her Democracy.
+
+
+
+                    Speech at Belfast Encampment.
+
+
+About the o'clock the troops at the encampment being under arms, Col.
+Davis was escorted to the ground and reviewed them. He was then
+introduced to the troops by Gen. Cushman, as follows--
+
+Officers and fellow soldiers, I introduce to you Col. Jefferson Davis,
+an eminent citizen of Mississippi,--a man, and I say a hero, who has,
+in the service of his country, been among and faced hostile guns.
+
+Col. Davis replied as follows--
+
+Citizen Soldiers:--I feel pleased and gratified at the exhibition I
+have witnessed of the military spirit and instruction of the volunteer
+militia of Maine. I acknowledge the compliment which has been paid to
+me, and I welcome it as the indication of the liberality and national
+sentiment which makes the militia of each State the effective, as they
+are the constitutional defenders of our whole country.
+
+To one who loves his country in all its parts, it is natural to
+rejoice in whatever contributes to the prosperity and honor, and marks
+the stability and progress of any portion of its people. I therefore
+look upon the evidence presented to me of the soldierly enthusiasm and
+military acquirements displayed on this occasion, with none the less
+pleasure because I am the citizen of another and distant State. It was
+not the policy of our government to maintain large armies of navies in
+time of peace. The history of our past wars established the fact that
+it was not needful to do so. The militia had bee found equal to all
+the emergencies of war. Their patriotism, their intelligence, their
+knowledge of the use of arms, had given to then all the efficiency of
+veterans, and on many bloody fields they have shown their superiority
+over the disciplined troops of their enemies. A people morally and
+intellectually equal to self-government, must also be equal in
+self-defence. My friends, your worthy General has alluded to my
+connection with the military service of the country. The memory arose
+to myself when the troops this day marched past me, and when I looked
+upon their manly bearing and firm step. I thought could I have seen
+them thus approaching the last field of battle on which I served,
+where the changing tide several times threatened disaster to the
+American flag, with what joy I would have welcomed those striped and
+starred banners, the emblem and the guide of the free and the brave,
+and with what pride would the heart have beaten when welcoming the
+danger's hour, brethren from so remote an extremity of our expanded
+territory.
+
+One of the evidences of the fraternal confidence and mutual reliance
+of our fathers was to be found in their compact or mutual protection
+and common defence. So long as their sons preserve the spirit and
+appreciate the purpose of their fathers, the United States will remain
+invincible, their power will grow with the lapse of time, and their
+example show brighter and brighter as revolving ages roll over the
+temple our fathers dedicated to constitutional liberty, and founded
+upon truths announced to their sons, but intended for mankind. I thank
+you, citizen soldiers, for this act of courtesy. It will long and
+gratefully be remembered, as a token of respect to the distant State
+of which I am a citizen, and I trust will be noted by others, as
+indicating that national sentiment which made, and which alone can
+preserve us a nation.
+
+
+
+                 Banquet After Encampment at Belfast.
+
+
+The Mayor then gave:
+
+The heroes who have fought our country's battles: may their services
+be appreciated by a grateful people.
+
+Loud calls being made for Col. Jefferson Davis, that gentleman arose
+and said:
+
+The sentiment to which he was called to respond excited memories which
+called up proud emotions, though their associations were sad. He could
+not reply to a compliment paid to the gallantry of his comrades in the
+war with Mexico, without remembering how many of them now mingle with
+the dust of a foreign land, and how many of them have sunk after the
+day of toil was done by reason of the exposure endured in the service
+of their country. The land has mourned, and still mourns, the fall of
+its bravest and best, and truly are our laurels mingled with the
+cypress, 'tis well, and 'tis wise, 'tis natural and 'tis proper, that
+in looking on the laurels of our glory we should pause to pay a
+tribute to the cypress which weeps over them, and having paid this
+tribute to the gallant dead, the memory of whose service can never
+die, we pass to the consideration of their acts, and the beneficial
+results which their sacrifices have secured. When that war begun, our
+history recorded evidence only of the power of our people for defence.
+The Fabian policy of Washington, admirably adapted to the condition of
+the Colonies, achieved so much in proportion to the means, that he
+would be rash indeed who should attempt to criticise it.
+The prudent, though daring course of Jackson, fruitful as it was of
+the end to be attained, did not yet serve to illustrate the capacity
+of our people for the trials and the struggles attendant on the
+operations of an invasive war. Hence it was commonly asserted that the
+American people, though they might resist attack, were powerless to
+redress aggression which was not connected with the invasion of their
+territory. The idea of reliance upon undisciplined militia was treated
+with contempt and derision. To borrow a simile from the pit, we were
+regarded as dung-hill soldiers, who would only fight at home. In the
+war with Mexico our armies carried their banners over routes hitherto
+unknown, through mountain passes where nature had almost completed the
+work of defence, and penetrated further into the enemy's country than
+any European army has ever marched from the source of its supplies.
+Not to prolong the comparison by a reference to events of a remote
+period, he would only refer to the last campaign in European war. The
+combined armies of France and England, after preparation worthy of
+their great military power, advanced through friendly territory to the
+outer verge of the country, against which they directed a war of
+invasion, and after a prolonged siege by sea and by land, finally
+captured a seaport town which they could not hold. Before them lay the
+country they had come to invade, but there, at the outer gate, their
+march was arrested, and in sight of the ships which brought them
+supplies and reinforcements, they terminated a campaign, the scale and
+proclaimed objects of which had caused the world to look on in
+expectation of achievements the like of which man had not seen. Why
+was it so? was it not that they were unable to move from the depot of
+supplies, though a distance less than half of that over which our army
+passed before reaching a productive region would have brought the
+allied forces to a country filled with all the supplies necessary for
+the support of an army. Is it boastful to say that American troops,
+and an American treasury, would have encountered and have overcome
+such an obstacle? He did not forget the complaints which had been made
+on account of the vast expenditures which had been made in the
+prosecution of the war with Mexico; but he remembered with pride the
+capacity which the country had exhibited to bear such expenditure, and
+believed that our people had no money standard by which to measure the
+duty of their government, and the honor of their flag. We bear with us
+from the wars in which we have been engaged no other memory of their
+cost than the loss of the gallant dead. To the printed reports and
+tabular statements we must go when we desire to know how many dollars
+were expended. The successful soldier when he returns from the field
+is met by a welcome proportionate to the leaves which he has added to
+the wreath of his country's glory. Each has his reward; to one, the
+admiring listener at the hearthstone; to another, the triumphal
+reception; to all, the respect which patriotism renders to patriotic
+service. To the soldier who, in the early part of the Mexican war, set
+the seal of invincibility upon American arms, and subsequently by a
+signal victory dispersed and disorganized the regular army of Mexico,
+his countrymen voted the highest reward known to our government. Twice
+before have the people in like manner manifested their approbation and
+esteem. Thus has the military spirit of the country been nursed;
+to-day it needs not the monarchial bundles of ribbons, orders and
+titles to sustain it. Thus has the American citizen been made to
+realize that it is sweet and honorable to die for one's country; and
+to feel proudest among his family memories of the names of those who
+successfully fought or bravely died in defence of the national flag.
+Often he had had occasion to feel, and to mark the mingled sensation
+of pride and of sorrow with which friends revert to those who
+gallantly died in the field. Even at this now remote day he could not
+travel in Mississippi without having the recollection of his fallen
+comrades painfully revived by meeting a mother who mourns her son with
+the agony of a mother's grief; a father, whose stern nature vainly
+struggles to conceal the involuntary pang, or tender children who know
+not the extent of their deprivation, though it is indeed the sorest of
+all. Let none then be surprised that he could not see thee laurel save
+through the solemn shade of the cypress. Time, however, softened the
+shadow long before it withers the leaf. On his way to this place he
+learned that it was possible, and he seized the occasion to visit the
+residence of Gen. Knox, of revolutionary memory. His own desire to see
+something which had been identified with a patriot soldier who had so
+largely contributed to the success of the revolution, and the
+establishment of the institutions we inherited, was but an indication
+of the military sentiment which lives in the American heart. It turns
+the step of the traveller from his direct path, it attracts the boy in
+his first reading, it fires the ambition of the youth, and encircles
+the veteran with the kindness of his neighbors, and swells the train
+which follows his bier when, his duty to his country performed, he
+answers the summons of his God, and is translated to a better sphere.
+It is that same military enthusiasm which calls you from the
+avocations and the pleasures of home to the duties and discomforts of
+the camp, that you may prepare yourselves whenever your country needs
+it to render her efficient service. On the militia of the country the
+rights of its citizens, and the honor of its flag, must mainly depend
+in the event of a war; they only need to be organized and instructed
+to render them a secure reliance. Mingled with the great body of the
+people, identified with their feelings and their interests, proud of
+the prowess of their fathers and jealousy careful of the country's
+honor, if properly instructed and prepared, the first trumpet call
+should bring from plain and from mountain a citizen soldiery who would
+encircle the land and check the invader with a wall of fire. Your plan
+of encampment seems best suited to the purposes of practical
+instruction. A pilgrim in search of health, his steps had been
+fortunately directed to Maine, the courtesy of the commander of this
+encampment had induced him to visit it and to review the troops. In
+all respects it had been to him most gratifying. The appointments, the
+movements, the stern faces, and stalwart forms of the men, spoke of
+the power to do, and the will to dare whatever it was needful and
+proper to perform. This day to manifest respect to a citizen of a
+distant State, whose only claim upon them is that he has been an
+American soldier, and is an American citizen, they had cheerfully
+marched through heavy mire. So much had they given to so small a
+demand on their natural sentiment, he could not doubt they would with
+equal alacrity, and with the same firm step, march over a field miry
+with the blood of comrade and of foe, where opposing causes make to
+men a common fate.
+
+Among the objects which were of interest to him and which he had hoped
+to visit, was the fortification at the narrows of the Penobscot.
+During the last session of congress he had endeavored to obtain an
+appropriation for the completion of the work which had advanced to the
+point which made it effective against shipping, but left still liable
+to be carried by land attack. He was not of those who thought it
+necessary to raise walls wherever an enemy might land and march, for
+he would say that henceforward there would remain to an invading army
+but to choose between captivity and a grave. To protect commercial
+ports against naval assault forts are needful and should be completed
+so as to render them defensible by small garrisons, and to save those
+garrisons as far as possible from the sacrifice of life. Our people
+require no wall to separate them from other countries, unless it be
+needful for our own restraint. Our policy is peace, and the fact
+shines brightly on the pages of our history that not one acre of its
+extensive acquisitions have been claimed as the spoil of the sword.
+Unpeopled deserts have been purchased, and on its own application a
+community has been admitted to our family of states. But we have
+offered to the world the singular example of conquered territory
+returned to the vanquished.
+
+Permit me in this connection, whilst ever mindful of the just relation
+and necessity for concurrent action between the civil and military
+departments of government, to bear testimony to the value of the
+militia for the purposes of peace. The principle of self-government
+and the spirit of independence are so deep rooted in the American mind
+that our people would illy brook the enforcement of law by any
+extraneous power, and it is to be hoped we never will see a case in
+which the people of a State will not be able to maintain the civil
+authority, and vindicate offended law against all opposers whomsoever.
+To give energy and activity to such popular action the organization of
+the militia will be most convenient whenever force shall be needful.
+It is not a little remarkable that though the first Presidents in
+emphatic language from time to time recommended a thorough
+organization of the militia as one of the most important duties of the
+government, but little more has yet been done than to make provisions
+for supplying them with arms, and for calling them out when required
+for federal purposes. There is a moral effect arising from the
+spectacle of each State possessed of a body of instructed militia,
+ready not only to maintain its government at home, but to unite with
+the militia of other States and to form an army upon which all can
+rely whenever a common danger calls for a common defence. It has been
+thus that from time to time the fraternity of our revolutionary
+fathers has been renewed among their sons, and additional assurance
+has been given that the sentiment of nationality on which our Union
+was founded could never die. That the expansion of the circle did not
+weaken its cohesive power, nor the piling of arch upon arch endanger
+the foundation on which our political temple was built. It was not a
+structure of expediency; master workmen cleared away the surface where
+the errors and prejudices of ages had accumulated, dug deep down to
+the unmutable rock of truth, and with unchanging principles
+constructed the walls to stand till time should become eternity. Who
+is there, then, forgetful of his revolutionary descent, insensible to
+the pride which the name of the United States justly inspires,
+faithless to the duty which the bond of his fathers imposes, and
+reckless of all which the honorable discharge of that duty ensures,
+would unite with impious purpose to destroy that foundation, and
+strive, with sacrilegious hand to tear the flag under which we had
+marched from colonial dependence to our present national greatness.
+Away with speculative theories, and false philanthropy of
+abstractions, which tend to destroy one half, one third, aye, or a
+single star of that bright constellation which lights the pathway of
+our future career, and sends a hopeful ray through the clouds of
+despotism which hang over less favored lands.
+
+Our mission is not that of propagandists--our principles forbid
+interference with the institutions of other countries; but we may hope
+that our example will be imitated, and should so live that this model
+of representative liberty, community independence, and government
+derived from the consent of the governed, and limited by a written
+compact, should commend itself to the adoption of others. We now stand
+isolated among the great nations of the earth; the opposition of
+monarchial governments to the theory on which ours is founded, points
+to the possibility of an alliance against us, by which what is termed
+national law may be modified and warped to our prejudice if not to our
+assailment. It needs the united power, harmonious action and
+concentrated will of the people of all these States to roll the wheel
+of progress to the end which our fathers contemplated, and which their
+sons, if they are wise and true, may behold. May the kindness and
+courtesy which have characterized the present occasion on which
+Mississippi has been greeted by Maine, be a type of the feeling which
+shall ever exist between the extremes of our common country. From
+Florida to California, from Oregon to Maine, from the centre to the
+remotest border, may the possessors of our constitutional heritage
+appreciate its value, and faithfully, fraternally labor for its
+thorough development, looking back to the original compact for the
+purposes for which the Union was established, and forward to the
+blessing which such union was designed and is competent to confer.
+
+
+
+                   Speech at the Portland Meeting.
+
+
+When it became known that Mr. Davis had arrived at the Hall, he was
+loudly called for. Hon. Joseph Howard, chairman of the meeting, then
+introduced Mr. Davis, who, on coming forward, was greeted with cheer
+upon cheer from the vast audience. As soon as the prolonged and
+enthusiastic applause with which he was welcomed had subsided, Mr.
+Davis, addressing the audience as fellow citizens and Democratic
+brethren, said that the invitation with which he had been favored to
+address them, evinced a purpose to confer together for the common
+good--for the maintenance of the constitution, the bond of union. He
+would not be expected to discuss local questions; he would not in this
+imitate the mischievous agitators who inflame the Northern mind
+against the Southern States. He came among them, an invalid, advised
+by his physician to resort to this clime for the restoration of his
+health; as an American citizen, he had not expected that his right to
+come here would be questioned; as a stranger, or if not entirely so,
+known mainly by the detraction which the ardent advocacy of the rights
+of the South had brought upon him, he had supposed that neither his
+coming nor his going would attract attention. But his anticipations
+had proved erroneous. The polite, the manly, elevated men, lifted
+above the barbarism which makes stranger and enemy convertible terms,
+had chosen, without political distinction, to welcome his coming, and
+by constant acts of generous hospitality to make his sojourn as
+pleasant as his physical condition would permit.
+
+On the other hand, men who make a trade of politics, and whose capital
+consists in the denunciation of the institutions of other States, had
+erroneously judged him by themselves, and had regarded his coming as a
+political mission; wherefore it was, he was led to suppose, that the
+scavengers of that party had been employed in the publication of
+falsehoods, both in relation to himself and his political friends at
+the South.
+
+So far as it affected him personally their attacks were no more than
+the barking of a cur, which, by its clamor, indicates the inhospitable
+character of the master who keeps him. If his friends and himself
+were, as had been falsely charged, Disunionists and Nullifiers, they
+might naturally have looked for kinder considerations from a party
+which circulates petitions for a "prompt and peaceful dissolution of
+the Union" on account of the incompatibility of the sections--from a
+party, which, having proved faithless to the obligation of the
+constitution in relation to the fugitive from service or labor, then
+declares null and void the law which their dereliction made it
+necessary for Congress to enact. The fealty of himself and friends to
+the constitution, and their honorable discharge of its obligations was
+their rebuke to this party, in whose hostility he found the highest
+commendation in their power to bestow.
+
+By reckless fabrication, by garbling and inserting new words into
+extracts, they had attempted to deceive the people here as to his
+opinions, and had crowned the fraud by the absurd announcement that
+his was the creed on which the people of Maine must vote next Monday.
+
+It was due to the hospitality which he had received at their hands
+that he should not interfere in their domestic affairs, and he had not
+failed to remember the obligation; when republicans had introduced the
+subject of African slavery he had defended it, and answered
+pharisaical pretensions by citing the Bible, the constitution of the
+United States and the good of society in justification of the
+institutions of the State of which he was a citizen; in this he but
+exercised the right of a freeman and discharged the duty of a Southern
+citizen. Was it for this cause that he had been signalized as a
+slavery propagandists? He admitted in all its length and breadth the
+right of the people of Maine to decide the question for themselves; he
+held that it would be an indecent interference, on the part of a
+citizen of another State, if he should arraign the propriety of the
+judgment they had rendered, and that there was no rightful power in
+the federal government or in all the States combined, to set aside the
+decision which the community had made in relation to their domestic
+institutions. Should any attempt be made thus to disturb their
+sovereign right, he would pledge himself in advance, as a State-rights
+man, with his head, his heart and his hand, if need be, to aid them in
+the defence of this right of community independence, which the Union
+was formed to protect, and which it was the duty of every American
+citizen to preserve and to guard as the peculiar and prominent feature
+of our government.
+
+Why, then, this accusation? Do they fear to allow Southern men to
+converse with their philosophers, and seek thus to silence or exclude
+them? He trusted others would contemn them as he did, and that many of
+our brethren of the South would, like himself, learn by sojourn here,
+to appreciate the true men of Maine, and to know how little are the
+political abolitionists and the abolition papers the exponents of the
+character and the purposes of the Democracy of this State.
+
+And now having brushed away the cob-webs which lay in his path, he
+would proceed to the consideration of subjects worthy of the audience
+he had the honor to address.
+
+Democrats, patriots, by whatever political name any of you may be
+known, you have a sacred duty to perform to your ancestry and to
+posterity. The time is at hand when for good or for evil, the
+questions which have agitated the public mind are to be solved. Is it
+true as asserted by northern agitators that there is such contrariety
+between the North and the South that they cannot remain united! Or
+rather, is it not true as our fathers deemed it, that diversity in the
+character of the population, in the products and in the institutions
+of the several States formed a reason for their union and tended to
+secure to their posterity the liberty which was the common object of
+their love, and by cultivating untrammeled intercourse and free trade
+between the States, to duplicate the comforts of all?
+
+There was a time when the test of patriotism was the readiness to
+sever the bond which bound the colonies to the mother country.
+Recently our people with joyous acclamation have welcomed the
+connection of the United States with Great Britain, by the Atlantic
+cable. The one is not inconsistent with the other. When the home
+government violated the charters of the colonies, and assumed to
+control the private interests of individuals, the love of political
+liberty, the determination at whatever hazard to maintain their
+rights, led our fathers to enter on the trial of revolution. Having
+achieved the separation, they did what was in their power for the
+development of commerce. They secured free trade between the States,
+without surrendering State independence. Their sons, not only free,
+but beyond the possibility of future interference in their domestic
+affairs, now seek the closest commercial connection with the country
+from which their fathers achieved a political separation.
+
+Had the proposition been made to consolidate the States after their
+independence had been achieved, all must know it would have been
+rejected--yet there are those who now instigate you to sectional
+strife for the purpose of sectional dominion and the destruction of
+the rights of the minority. Do they mean treason to the Constitution
+and the destruction of the Union? Or do they vilely practice on
+credulity and passion for personal gain? The latter is suggested by
+the contradictory course they pursue. At the same time they proclaim
+war upon the slave property of the South, they ask for protection to
+the manufactures of the staple which could not be produced if that
+property did not exist. And while they assert themselves to be the
+peculiar friends of commerce and navigation, they vaunt their purpose
+to destroy the labor which gives vitality to both; whilst they
+proclaim themselves the peculiar friends of laboring men at the North,
+they insist that the negroes are their equals; and if they are sincere
+they would, by emancipation of the blacks, bring them together and
+degrade the white man to the negro level. They seek to influence the
+northern mind by sectional issues and sectional organization, yet they
+profess to be the friends of the Union. The Union voluntarily formed
+by free, equal, independent States.
+
+We of the South, on a sectional division, are in the minority; and if
+legislation is to be directed by geographical tests--if the
+constitution is to be trampled in the dust, and the unbridled will of
+the majority in Congress is to be supreme over the States; we should
+have the problem which was presented to our Fathers when the Colonies
+declined to be content with a mere representation in parliament.
+
+If the constitution is to be sacredly observed, why should there be a
+struggle for sectional ascendency? The instrument is the same in all
+latitudes, and does not vary with the domestic institutions of the
+several States. Hence it is that the Democracy, the party of the
+constitution, have preserved their integrity, and are to-day the only
+national party and the only hope for the preservation and perpetuation
+of the Union of the States.
+
+Mr. Jefferson denominated the Democracy of the North, the natural
+allies of the South. It is in our generation doubly true; they are
+still the party with whom labor is capital, and they are now the party
+which stands by the barriers of the constitution, to protect them from
+the waves of fanatical and sectional aggression. The use of the word
+aggression reminded him that the people here have been daily harangued
+about the aggressions of the slave power, and he had been curious to
+learn what was so described. It is, if he had learned correctly, the
+assertion of the right to migrate with slaves into the territories of
+the United States. Is this aggression? If so, upon what? Not upon
+those who desire close association with the negro; not upon
+territorial rights, unless these self-styled lovers of the Union have
+already dissolved it and have taken the territories to themselves. The
+territory being the common property of States, equals in the Union,
+and bound by the constitution which recognizes property in slaves, it
+is an abuse of terms to call aggression the migration into that
+territory of one of its joint owners, because carrying with him any
+species of property recognized by the constitution of the United
+States. The Federal government has no power to declare what is
+property anywhere. The power of each State cannot extend beyond its
+own limits. As a consequence, therefore, whatever is property in any
+of the States must be so considered in any of the territories of the
+United States until they reach to the dignity of community
+independence, when the subject matter will be entirely under the
+control of the people and be determined by their fundamental law. If
+the inhabitants of any territory should refuse to enact such laws and
+police regulations as would give security to their property or to his,
+it would be rendered more or less valueless, in proportion to the
+difficulty of holding it without such protection. In the case of
+property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave
+property, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not
+ordinarily retain it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the
+remedy being withheld, it would follow that the owner would be
+practically debarred by the circumstances of the case, from taking
+slave property into a territory where the sense of the inhabitants was
+opposed to its introduction. So much for the oft repeated fallacy of
+forcing slavery upon any community.
+
+If Congress had the power to prohibit the introduction of slave
+property into the territories, what would be the purpose? Would it be
+to promote emancipation? That could not be the effect. In the first
+settlement of a territory the want of population and the consequent
+difficulty of procuring hired labor, would induce emigrants to take
+slaves with them; but if the climate and products of the country were
+unsuited to African labor--as soon as white labor flowed in, the
+owners of slaves would as a matter of interest, desire to get rid of
+them and emancipation would result. The number would usually be so
+small that this would be effected without injury to society or
+industrial pursuits. Thus it was in Wisconsin, notwithstanding the
+ordinance of '87; and other examples might be cited to show that this
+is not mere theory.
+
+Would it be to promote the civilization and progress of the negro
+race? The tendency must be otherwise. By the dispersion of the slaves,
+their labor would be rendered more productive and their comforts
+increased. The number of owners would be multiplied, and by more
+immediate contact and personal relation greater care and kindness
+would be engendered. In every way it would conduce to the advancement
+and happiness of the servile caste.
+
+No--no--it is not these, but the same answer which comes to every
+inquiry as to the cause of fanatical agitation. 'Tis for sectional
+power, and political ascendency; to fan a sectional hostility, which
+must be, as it has been, injurious to all, and beneficial to none. For
+what patriotic purpose can the Northern mind be agitated in relation
+to domestic institutions, for which they have no legal or moral
+responsibility, and from the interference with which they are
+restrained by their obligations as American citizens?
+
+Is it in this mode that the spirit of mutual support and common effort
+for the common good, is to be cultivated? Is it thus that confidence
+is to be developed and the sense of security to grow with the growing
+power of each and every State? Is it thus that we are to exemplify the
+blessings of self-government by the free exercise in each independent
+community of the power to regulate their domestic institutions as
+soil, climate, and population may determine?
+
+Among the questions which have been made the basis of recent
+agitation, and has contributed as much, perhaps, as any other to
+popular delusion, was the act known as the Missouri Compromise. It
+will be remembered that the agitation of 1819 on the subject of
+slavery, was not masked as it has been since, by pretensions of
+philanthropy--it was an avowed opposition to the admission of a
+slave-holding State. A long and bitter controversy was terminated by
+the admission of the State of Missouri, and the prohibition of slavery
+north of the parallel of 36 deg. 30 minutes. He, and those with whom
+he most concurred, had always contended that Congress had no
+constitutional power to make the interdiction. But the people having
+generally acquiesced, the matter was considered settled; and when
+Texas, a slave-holding State, was admitted into the Union, Southern
+men, regarding the Missouri Act as a compact, assented to the
+extension of the line through the territory of Texas, with a provision
+that any State formed out of the territory north of 36: 30: should be
+non-slaveholding. But when, at a subsequent period, we made extensive
+acquisitions from Mexico, and it was proposed to divide the territory
+by the same parallel, the North generally opposed it, and after a long
+discussion, the controversy was settled on the principle of
+non-intervention by Congress in relation to property in the
+territories. The line of the Missouri Compromise was repudiated. And a
+Senator who had been most prominent in denouncing the repeal of the
+Missouri Compromise as a violation of good faith on the part of the
+South, in 1850, described it as a measure which had been the grave of
+every Northern man who supported it, and objected to the boundary of
+36: 30: for the territory of Utah, because of the political
+implication which its adoption would contain.
+
+The act having been thus signally repudiated by the denial in every
+form of the power of Congress to fix geographical limits within which
+slavery might or might not exist; when it became necessary to organize
+the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, it was but the corollary of
+the proposition which had been maintained in 1850 to repeal the act
+which had fixed the parallel of 36: 30: as the future limit of slavery
+in the territory of Louisiana.
+
+Consistency demanded so much; fairness and manhood could not have
+granted less. He was not then a member of Congress; but if he had
+been, he should have voted for that repeal; for although in 1850 he
+had favored the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the
+Pacific Ocean, and believed that it would most conduce to the harmony
+of the States, he had yielded to the action of the Government, and
+considered the position then taken as conclusive against the retention
+of the line in Louisiana and Texas, which its beneficiaries had
+refused to extend through the territories acquired from Mexico. As a
+general principle, he thought it was best to leave the territories all
+open. Equality of right demanded it, and the federal government had no
+power to withhold it. Whatever validity the Missouri Compromise act
+had, it derived from the acquiescence of the people. After 1850 then
+it had none. The South had not asked Congress to extend slavery into
+the territories, and he in common with most Southern statesmen, denied
+the existence of any power to do so. He held it to be the creed of the
+Democracy, both in the North and the South, that the General
+Government had no constitutional power either to establish or prohibit
+slavery anywhere; a grant of power to do the one must necessarily have
+involved the power to do the other. Hence it is their policy not to
+interfere on the one side or the other, but protecting each individual
+in his constitutional rights, to leave every independent community to
+determine and adjust all domestic questions as in their wisdom may
+seem best.
+
+Politicians of the opposite school seemed to forget the relation of
+the General Government to the States; even so far as to argue as
+though the General Government had been the creator instead of the
+creature of the States. He had learned that attempts had been made to
+impress upon the people of Maine the belief that they were in danger
+of having slavery established among them by decree of the Supreme
+Court of the United States. He scarcely knew how to answer so palpable
+an absurdity. The court was established, among other purposes, to
+protect the people from unconstitutional legislation; and if Congress,
+in the extreme of madness, should attempt thus to invade the
+sovereignty of a State, it would be within the power, and would be the
+duty of the court, to check the aggression by declaring such law void.
+The court have, on more than one occasion, asserted the right of
+transit as a consequence of the guarantees of the Constitution, but it
+would require much ingenuity to torture the protection of a traveller
+or sojourner into an assertion of a right to become resident and
+introduce property in contravention of the fundamental law of the
+State, or of a citizen to hold property within a State in violation of
+its constitution and its policy. The error of the proposition was so
+palpable that, like the truth of an axiom, it could not be rendered
+plainer by demonstration.
+
+It is not within the scope of human foresight to see the
+embarrassments which may arise in the execution of any policy. When it
+was declared that soil, climate, and unrestrained migration should be
+left to fix the _status_ of the territories, and institutions of the
+States to be formed out of them, no one probably anticipated that
+companies would be incorporated to transport colonists into a
+territory with a view to decide its political condition. Congress, as
+he believed, yielding too far to the popular idea, had surrendered its
+right of revision and thus had recently lost its power to restrain
+improper legislation in the territories. From these joint causes had
+arisen the unhappy strife in Kansas, which at one time threatened to
+terminate in civil war. The Government had been denounced for the
+employment of United States troops. Very briefly he would state the
+case.
+
+The movement of the Emigrant Aid Societies of the North was met by
+counteracting movements in Missouri and other Southern States. Thus
+opposing tides of emigration met on the plains of Kansas. The land was
+a scene of confusion and violence. Fortunately the murders which for a
+time filled the newspapers, existed nowhere else; and the men who were
+reported slain, usually turned up after a short period to enjoy the
+eulogies which their martyrdom had elicited. But arson, theft and
+disgraceful scenes of disorder did really exist, and bands of armed
+men indicated the approach of actual hostilities. What was the
+Government to do? Perhaps you will say, call out the militia. But that
+would have been to feed and arm one of the parties for the destruction
+of the other. To call out the militia of neighboring States would have
+been but little better. The sectional excitement then ran so high,
+that they would probably have met upon the fields of Kansas as
+combatants, the government in the meantime furnishing the supplies for
+both armies. It was necessary to have a force--one which would be free
+from sectional excitement or partisan zeal and under executive
+control. The army fulfiled these conditions. It was therefore
+employed. It dispersed marauding parties, disarmed organized invaders,
+arrested disturbers of the peace, gave comparative quiet and repose to
+the territory, without taking a single life, aye, or shedding one drop
+of blood. The end justified the means, and the result equaled all that
+could have been anticipated.
+
+The anomalous condition of a territory possessing full legislative
+power, but not invested with the sovereignty of a State, justified the
+anxiety exhibited by Congress to be relieved from the embarrassment
+which the case of Kansas presented. The Senate passed a bill to
+authorize a convention for the preparation of a constitution for the
+admission of Kansas as a State. It however failed in the House of
+Representatives, and the legislature of Kansas, availing themselves of
+the plenary power conferred upon them by the organic act, proceeded to
+provide for the assembling of a convention, and the formation of a
+constitution. The law was minute and fair in its provisions, so nearly
+resembling the bill of the Senate that the one was probably copied
+from the other. It seemed to secure to every legal voter every
+desirable opportunity to exercise his right. One of the parties of the
+territory, however, denying the legal existence of the legislature,
+chose to abstain from voting. The other elected the delegates who
+formed the constitution. The validity of the instrument he has been
+denied, because it was not submitted for popular ratification. He held
+this position to be wholly untenable, and could but regard it as a
+gross departure from the principle of popular sovereignty. A
+people--he used the word in its strict political sense--having the
+right to make for themselves their fundamental law, may either
+assemble in mass convention for that purpose, or may select delegates
+and limit their power to the preparation of an instrument to be
+submitted to a popular decision; or they may appoint delegates with
+full powers to frame the fundamental law of the land. Whether they
+adopt one mode or the other is a question with which others have no
+right to interfere, and he who claims for Congress the power to sit in
+judgment on the manner in which a people may form a constitution, is
+outside of the barrier which would restrain him from claiming for
+Congress the right to dictate the instrument itself. If the right
+existed to form a constitution at all, the power of Congress in
+relation to the instrument was limited to the simple inquiry: is it
+republican? In this view of the case it would not matter to him the
+ninety-ninth part of a hair whether a people should chose to admit or
+exclude slave property. Their right to enter the Union would be a
+thing apart from that consideration.
+
+He had felt great doubt as to the propriety of admitting Kansas, and
+had only yielded those doubts to the peculiar necessities which seemed
+to make the case exceptional. The inhabitants of the territory had
+however decided not to enter the Union upon the terms proposed, and he
+thought their decision was fortunate. They had not the requisite
+population; their resources were too limited to give assurance that
+they would be able to bear the expenses of their government and
+properly to perform the duties of a State. But more than this, their
+legislative history shows that they are wanting in the essential
+characteristics of a community; whichever party has had the control of
+the legislature, has manifested by its acts not a desire to promote
+the public good, and protect individual rights, but a purpose to war
+upon their political opponents as a hostile power. The political party
+with which he most sympathized had marked its legislation by requiring
+test oaths, offensive to all our notions of political freedom; and the
+other party had assumed to take from the territorial executive the
+control of the militia and to place it in irresponsible hands, where,
+it reports speak truly, it has been employed in the most wanton
+outrages and disgraceful persecution of citizens of the opposite
+political party. He held, therefore, that the decision of the
+inhabitants was fortunate and wise. It was well, that before they
+assume the responsibilities of a State, they should gather population,
+develop the natural resources of the country, and above all acquire
+the homogeneous character which would give security to person and
+property, and fit them to be justly denominated a community.
+
+A stranger, and but a passing observer of events in Maine, he had
+nevertheless seen indications of a reaction in popular opinion, which
+promised hopefully for the future of Democracy, _hopefully_, it might
+be permitted for one to say who believed that the success of the
+Democracy was the only hope for the maintenance of the constitution
+and the perpetuation of the Union which sprung from and cannot outlive
+it. If the language of his friend who preceded him should prove
+prophetic, the waving of the banner he described would be the dawning
+of a day which would bring gladness and confidence to many a heart now
+clouded with distrust, and loud would be the cheers which, on distant
+plain and mountain, would welcome Maine again to her position on the
+top of the Democratic pyramid. He saw a brighter sky above him; he
+felt a firmer foundation beneath his feet, and hoped ere long through
+a triumph achieved by the declaration of principles, suited to every
+latitude and longitude of the United Slates, to receive the assurance
+that we have passed the breakers --that our ship may henceforth float
+freely on--that our flag, no longer threatened with mutilation or
+destruction, shall throw its broad stripes to the breeze and gather
+stars until its constellation shines a galaxy, and records a family of
+States embracing the new world and its adjacent islands.
+
+
+
+                 Speech at State Fair at Augusta, ME.
+               [From the Eastern Argus, Sept 29,1858.]
+
+
+On Thursday evening a large and brilliant audience assembled in the
+Representatives' Hall, in the Capitol, to listen to the distinguished
+statesman from Mississippi, who, upon brief notice and without a
+moment's leisure for preparation, had kindly consented to address the
+Agricultural Society. We have already spoken of the gratifying
+character of what he termed his desultory remarks and of the cordially
+enthusiastic manner in which both the orator and his address were
+received. As the occasion, as well as the character of the remarks,
+will make them interesting to the whole people of our State, we are
+gratified in being able to lay before our readers a more extended and
+accurate report of them than has before appeared.
+
+At about half-past eight o'clock, the Society came into the Hall,
+already crowded in every part, and its President, Hon. Samuel F.
+Perley, in brief and complimentary terms, introduced Col. Davis, who
+advanced to the speaker's stand, and was received with loud and
+prolonged applause. He said:
+
+Ladies and gentlemen, friends and countrymen: To the many acts of
+kindness received from the people of Maine, I have to add the welcome
+reception this evening. The invitation of the Agricultural Society,
+with the attendant circumstances, serve further to impress me with the
+hospitality of ray fellow citizens of this State. Coming here, an
+invalid, seeking the benefits which your clime would afford, and
+preceded by a reputation which was expected to prejudice you
+unfavorably towards me, I have everywhere met courtesy and considerate
+attention, from the hour I landed on your coast to the present time.
+It was natural to ask, whence come these manifestations? Is it because
+the opinion which had been formed has been found to be unjust, and the
+reaction has been in proportion to the previous impulse? Or is it the
+exhibition of your regard for loyalty to one's friends, and devotion
+by a citizen to the community to which he belongs? Either the one or
+the other is honorable to you; but there is a broader and more
+beneficent motive--the prompting of that sentiment which would cause
+you to recognize in every American citizen a brother. That feeling
+which Daniel Webster indicated when he met me in company with your
+distinguished townsman, ex-Senator Bradbury, and taking us with the
+right hand and with the left, said in the peculiarly impressive manner
+which belonged to him, "My brethren of the North and of the South, how
+are ye?"
+
+It is usual to offer to an Agricultural Society nothing less than a
+prepared address, and had I come with an intention to speak to you, I
+should not have failed to make that preparation which is evidence of
+due regard for the audience. The invitation under which I now speak,
+having been given and accepted this evening, I have no power to do
+more than to offer you desultory remarks on such subjects as my visit
+to the Fair have suggested, and which may occur to me as I progress.
+
+With great pleasure I have witnessed evidences of much attention and
+deep interest in agriculture. It is the basis of all wealth. It is the
+producer--brings all new contributions to the general store. The
+mechanic arts are essential to its success, and they serve by changing
+the form, to multiply the value of agricultural products. And commerce
+too, by exchanging the products of individuals and of countries,
+enhances the value of labor, and increases the comfort of man. They
+are all essential to each other. I have no disposition to magnify or
+depreciate either, but my proposition is, that the soil is the source
+from which human wealth springs. In addition to these pursuits,
+society requires what are termed liberal professions. They are not
+producers, though they may contribute, by diffusing knowledge, to
+increase production. They may be necessary to give security to
+property and to take care of some physical wants. For instance you
+have lawyers and doctors; and the less need you have of them the
+better; for though necessary, like government, it is evil which makes
+them so. As to another class--those who have the cure of souls--their
+mission is so sacred, their function so high as to place them beyond
+comment; and of them I have nothing to say, except that I propose to
+say nothing.
+
+Among the products of agriculture I of course intended to include the
+farmer's stock, and I must here bear my tribute of admiration to the
+fine display which has been made of horned cattle; particularly of
+work oxen, remarkable for their size, their adaptation to the purposes
+for which they are kept and the docility and yet the unflagging spirit
+which they manifested in the trials of strength and of deep ploughing.
+I have not before seen such fine specimens of the Devon cattle,--of
+course I speak of them as they present themselves to the eye--not
+pretending to judge of their relative value to other stock exhibited.
+Improvement in the breed of domestic animals goes hand in hand with
+agricultural mechanism, to give the ability to make two blades of
+grass to grow where but one grew before, and thus to render you indeed
+benefactors. Skill in the use, and ingenuity in devising and
+constructing implements, serve to render labor productive, and relieve
+it of its most dreary drudgery. It is this mechanical ingenuity which
+has compensated for the high price of labor among us, and aided in the
+development of resources which makes our country the greatest of the
+earth. Blest by soil, climate and government, if we are, as claimed,
+pre-eminent among nations, it is because we have added to other
+advantages a more general cultivation of the mind. The superiority is
+attributable not so much to physical energy, activity and
+perseverance, as to the improvement of that portion of the man which
+lies above the eyes.
+
+Though you have done much for the improvement of agricultural
+implements, your work is far from being completed. It is not a little
+surprising that we should, to this day, have no reliable rule by which
+to make a plough, and though the model has been improved, certainly it
+is yet not unlike, and so far as exact science is concerned, is on a
+par with that implement as used by the Romans, and as it appeared in
+ancient architecture; the form, proportion and angular relation of the
+parts, and the adjustment of the whole to the power to be applied,
+offer problems alike interesting to the mechanic, and useful to the
+cultivator. In your ploughing matches sufficient evidence was afforded
+of the fitness of the implements employed to turn deep and wide
+furrows; but should we be content with such result as is obtained by
+trying different models, and then copying one which is found to be
+good?
+
+Maine was so richly endowed with harbors and forests of ship timber
+that it was naturally to be expected, as it has fallen out, that the
+pursuits of navigation would most occupy the attention of her people.
+But let not her sons look to the period when her forests have
+disappeared as that beyond which her prosperity may not continue.
+There are large tracts of land which when labor is no longer directed
+to lumber, will become, in the hands of the farmer, what the valley of
+the Kennebec now is. The land may not offer soil so deep as alluvial
+districts, nor be at first as productive as those on which a deep
+vegetable mould has accumulated, yet its productiveness may not be
+less permanent than those. In them the elements which support the
+farmer's crop may be exhausted by cultivation or carried down into
+substrata of gravel or sand. In the remote West to which so many are
+pressing, the emigrant will encounter an arid climate in which
+irrigation is necessary to ensure a return for the labor of husbandry,
+and this involves an original expenditure which it will usually
+require large capital to bear. In this climate the sun, like a mighty
+pump, is daily raising the water which the currents of cold air from
+the mountains, or from the sea, precipitate in the form of genial
+showers during the period of your growing crops; and the granite of
+the mountains slowly, but steadily disintegrating, gives up its
+fertilizing property to be scattered by unseen hands over plain and
+over valley. With care and with skill in its use I can see no end to
+the productiveness of that portion of your land which is fit for
+cultivation.
+
+Your crops, and your mode of tillage are different from that to which
+I am accustomed, and the result is that each supplies a different
+segment in the circle of man's wants. I am glad that it is so, that it
+must necessarily be so. Glad, because it is an everlasting bond
+between us; one which, whilst it binds, renders both doubly
+prosperous. Blessed is our lot in this, that our fathers linked us
+together, and established free trade between us. In the diversity of
+climate, and of crops, there is an assurance that entire failure
+cannot occur. If disaster and blight should fall upon one section, it
+need not go to a foreign land in search of bread. Famine, gaunt
+famine, with its skeleton step, can never pass our borders whilst the
+free trade of the Union continues.
+
+But difference in pursuits, in population, and domestic institutions,
+have been made the basis of hostile agitation, and urged as a cause of
+separation. To my mind the reverse would be the rational conclusion.
+Each exchanging, the surplus of that which it can best produce for the
+surplus of another which it most requires, the benefit must be mutual,
+and the advantage common. Here is a commercial, a selfish bond to hold
+us together. But I will stop here, because the current of my thought
+is carrying me beyond the limit of topics proper to the occasion, and
+I must offer as an apology the fact, that though myself a cultivator
+of the soil, my mind has for several years been given so much to
+political subjects, that in speaking without having previously
+arranged what to say, the thought inadvertently runs from the matter I
+wished to present, into collateral questions of governmental concern.
+Before turning back, however, into the original channel, permit me to
+say that the diversity of which I have been speaking, formed no small
+inducement to the union of the States, and that it has been through
+that union that we have attained to our present position, and stand
+to-day, all things considered, the happiest, and among the greatest in
+the family of nations.
+
+In looking around upon the evidences you have brought of mechanical
+and agricultural improvement, I have viewed it not with the curiosity
+of a stranger, but with the interest of one who felt that he had a
+part in it, as an exhibition of the prosperity of his country. The
+whole confederacy is my country, and to the innermost fibres of my
+heart I love it all, and every part. I could not if I would, and would
+not if I could, dwarf myself to mere sectionality. My first allegiance
+is to the State of which I am a citizen, and to which by affection and
+association I am personally bound; but this does not obstruct the
+perception of your greatness, or admiration for much which I have
+found admirable among you.
+
+Yankee is a word once applied to you as a term of reproach, but you
+have made it honorable and renowned. You have borne the flag of your
+country from the time when it was ridiculed as a piece of striped
+bunting, until it has come to be known and respected wherever the ray
+of civilization has reached; and your canvass-winged birds of commerce
+have borne civilization into regions, where it is not boasting to say,
+but for your prowess it would not have gone. You have a right to be
+proud of your achievements as well on the land as the sea. Well may
+you point as you do with satisfaction, to your school houses and your
+work-shops, and to the fruits they have borne on the forum and in the
+council chamber, and in the manufactures which have increased the
+comforts of our own people, and have encircled the globe to find
+exchangeable products required at home. Those are the greatest and
+most beneficent triumphs--the triumph of mind over matter. These are
+the monuments of greatness, which resist both time and circumstance.
+
+I have spoken of diversity among the people of the United States; yet
+there is probably greater similitude than is to be found elsewhere
+over the same extent of country, and in the same number of people. In
+language, especially, our people are one; surely much more so than
+those of any other country. The diversity between the people of the
+different States, even those most remote from each other, is not as
+great as that between inhabitants of adjoining countries of England,
+or departments of France or Spain, where provinces have their separate
+dialects. And chief among the causes for this I would place the
+primary book, in which children of my day learned their letters, and
+took their first lessons in spelling and reading. I refer to the good
+old spelling book of Noah Webster, on which I doubt if there has been
+any improvement, and which had the singular advantage of being used
+over the whole country. To this unity of language and general
+similitude, is to be added a community of sentiment wherever the
+American is brought into contrast or opposition to any other people.
+
+If shadows float over our disc and threaten an eclipse; if there be
+those who would not avert, but desire to precipitate catastrophe to
+the Union, these are not the sentiments of the American heart; they
+are rather the exceptions and should not disturb our confidence in
+that deep-seated sentiment of nationality which aided our fathers when
+they entered into the compact of union, and which has preserved it to
+us. You manifest that sentiment to-day in the courtesy which you have
+extended to me. In what other land could a countryman go so far from
+his home and receive among strangers the attention which could only be
+expected from friends? But it is not your kindness only, which has
+caused me here to feel at home; I have been brought in contact with
+men of my own pursuit, the tillers of the ground and the breeders of
+stock; and in my intercourse with this class of your citizens, I have
+been further confirmed in the high estimate heretofore placed upon
+that portion of our population. Happily for our country and its
+institutions, extensive territory and favorable climate, have
+attracted a large part of our population to agricultural pursuits. It
+is in the individuality, the sobriety, and self reliance of the rural
+population that I look for the highest development of those qualities
+essential to self-government, and the brightest illustration of
+patriotic devotion. They may not be the best informed, but learning
+and wisdom are by no means equivalent terms. Isolation and entire
+dependence upon himself; give independence of character and favor that
+self-inquiry which best enables man to comprehend and measure the
+motives of his fellow. Crowded together in cities originality is lost,
+mind becomes as it were acadamized; and though the intercourse is
+favorable to the acquisition of knowledge, it is most unfriendly to
+that individuality, independence, and purity, without which republican
+governments rapidly sink into decay. It was probably in this view that
+Mr. Jefferson said, great cities were sores upon the body politic.
+Needful for the purposes of commerce, required for the exchanges on
+which agricultural and manufacturing industry depend for their
+prosperity,--they are not evils which we could desire to see abated.
+My desire, however, is, that the rural districts shall not lose their
+relative importance or cease to control in public affairs. Misled and
+deceived they may be, interested in a public wrong they cannot be, and
+theirs is the sober thought upon which reliance must be placed for the
+correction of errors and delusions, which may temporarily prevail.
+
+In societies like this the farmers have the opportunity of comparing
+opinions and results, and thus increasing the amount of their
+knowledge. The spirit of emulation which is excited must lead to
+improvement, by better directing energy in their pursuit. The
+publication of the results and the comparisons thus instituted with
+what is done in other States, encourages State pride and developes
+community feeling. Whatever tends to the cultivation of the idea of
+State sovereignty and community independence, strengthens the
+foundation on which rests our federal government--the fruition of that
+principle which led our fathers into the war of the revolution, where
+they purchased with their blood the rich inheritance transmitted to
+us.
+
+Man once received the title of Domitor Equi, he being proud of the
+achievement of taming the horse, and then, so far as we can learn,
+gentler woman sat like Penelope handling the distaff. Subsequently
+there arose a race of Amazons, who, aspiring to the feats of man, lost
+the gentleness of woman; but in our happy land and day, rising above
+the one without running to the excess of the other, lovely woman, with
+all the gentle charms which graced a Penelope, musters her energy when
+occasion requires, and displays her prowess in commanding the horse.
+Among the interesting features of the exhibition I shall remember the
+equestrianism of the ladies. Though it was beautiful in every sense of
+the word, it was not regarded as mere sport, but the rather looked
+upon as part of that mental and physical training which makes a woman
+more than the mere ornament of the drawing-room--fits her usefully to
+act her appropriate part in the trying scenes to which the most
+favored may be subjected--to become the mother of heroes, and live in
+the admiration of posterity.
+
+Fears had once been entertained and much opposition was formerly made
+to an extension of the area of the United States. A wiser policy,
+however, prevailed, and the introduction of new regions, increasing
+the variety of our productions, have magnified the advantages of free
+trade between the States, and made us almost independent of other
+countries for the supply of every object whether of necessity or of
+luxury. I would be glad to extend our boundary and make the circle of
+our products complete, so that, whilst we would encourage commerce
+with christendom we should be, commercially as we are politically,
+absolutely independent, whenever it should be proper or necessary to
+terminate intercourse with any or every other country. A statesman of
+former days wished that the Atlantic was a sea of fire, that it might
+be a barrier to shut out European contamination. Whatever fear was
+once justifiable, no apprehension now need to exist, that our people
+will imitate or seek to adopt the political theories of Europe. We
+have recently rejoiced in the success of the attempt to establish
+telegraphic communication with England; because in closer commercial
+ties we saw no danger of political influence. I was happy this evening
+to receive assurances that the success of that enterprise was at last
+complete. I have not been of those whose doubts were stronger than
+their hopes--thanks to a sanguine temperament. I have from the
+beginning anticipated success, and have heretofore said that if the
+present attempt riled I was sure that Yankee enterprise and skill
+could make a cable and lay it across the Atlantic. And we look forward
+to the result with hope, not doubting, that the closest commercial
+connexion with other countries can only bring to us benefits. We are
+not, and have not been, political propagandists, yet believing our
+form of government the best, we properly desire its extension and
+invite the world to scrutinize our example of representative liberty.
+
+The stars on our flag, recording the number of the States united, have
+already been more than doubled; and I hopefully look forward to the
+day when the constellation shall become a galaxy covering the stripes,
+which record the original number of our political family, and shall
+shed over the nations of the earth the light of regeneration to
+mankind. It has sometimes been said to he our manifest destiny that we
+should possess the whole of this continent. Whether it shall ever all
+be part of the United States is doubtful, and may never be desirable;
+but that in some form or other, it should come under the protectorate
+or control of the United States, is a result which seems to me, in the
+remote future, certain. It waits as the consequence upon intellectual
+vigor, upon physical energy, upon the capacity to govern, and can only
+be defeated by a suicidal madness, of which it does not belong to the
+occasion to treat.
+
+I would not be understood to advocate what is called fillibustering.
+Our country has never obtained territory except fairly, honorably and
+peaceably. We have conquered territory, but have asserted no title as
+the right of conquest, returning to Mexico all except the part she
+agreed to sell and for which we paid a liberal price. England having
+fillibustered around the world, has reproached us for aggrandizement,
+and we point to history and invite a comparison. There is no stain
+upon our escutcheon, no smoke upon our garments, and thus may they
+remain pure forever! The acquisitions of which I spoke, the
+protectorate which was contemplated, were such as the necessities of
+the future should demand, and the good of others as much as our own
+require, and this step by step, faster or slower, will, I believe,
+finally embrace the continent of America and its adjacent islands.
+
+I am not among those who desire to incorporate into our Union,
+countries densely populated with a different race. Deserts, 'tis the
+province of our people to subdue. A mere handful of inhabitants, such
+as existed in Louisiana, are soon enveloped in the tide of
+immigration; of this character of acquisition I have no fear; but the
+mingling of races is a different thing. I have looked with interest
+and pleasure upon the crosses of your cattle and horses, and saw in it
+the evidence of improvement. Let your Messengers, your Morgans, your
+Drews, and your Eatons be mingled with each other and with new
+inportations; so with your Durhams, Devons, Ayreshires and your
+Jerseys. The limit to these experiments will be where experience shows
+deterioration. There is one cross which it is to be hoped you will
+avoid: 'tis that which your Puritan fathers would not adopt or even
+entertain. They kept pure the Caucasian blood which flowed in their
+veins, and therein is the cause of your present high civilization,
+your progress, your dignity and your strength. We are one, let us
+remain unmixed. In our neighbors of Southern and Central America we
+have a sufficient warning; and may it never be our ill-fortune to
+learn by experience the lessons taught by their example.
+
+It is due to the hospitality and kind consideration with which I have
+been treated since I first came among you that I should not leave you
+under any doubt in relation to the accusations which have been busily
+circulated against me. And this, it is to be hoped, will not be
+mistaken for egotism, since the greatest interest I have in doing so
+is to justify you to yourselves. I know of no selfish purpose, unless
+a proper desire for esteem he such, which would lead me to attempt to
+undeceive you, so far as any of you may have been imposed upon. I
+certainly do not expect to change my residence from the State in which
+I was reared; and I long since avowed the intention never again to
+receive official trust from any other authority than that of the
+people of the State of which I am a citizen. It has been represented
+to you that you were showering attentions upon one who was hostile to
+your interests, and regardless of your rights. I am grateful to you
+for the constant evidence you have given that you discredited the
+statement, and I am therefore the more anxious that you should not
+remain in doubt. The public record contains all I have said and done,
+and in it nothing can be found to sustain the statement. Of this I am
+quite sure, because it has always been with me a principle to exercise
+public functions in the spirit of the Constitution and the purposes of
+the Union. If I know myself, I have never given a vote from a feeling
+of hostility to any portion of our common country; but have always
+kept in view the common obligation for the common welfare, and desired
+by maintaining the constitution in each and every particular, to
+perpetuate the blessings it was designed to secure, and to transmit
+the inheritance received from our fathers unmutilated and
+uncontaminated to remotest posterity. In some positions it has
+devolved upon me to study interests in Maine, with a view to secure
+for them proper provision, and I feel that I am justified in saying
+they were considered as became one who had sworn to protect the
+Constitution, and who had a function to perform in relation to a
+sovereign State of the Union. Heretofore I have been prompted merely
+by what I believed to be duty to you from me as an officer under the
+Constitution. Hereafter, though the principles on which I will act
+cannot vary, I should be less than a man if I did not feel deeper
+interest in whatever concerns you. I shall always bear with me most
+pleasurable recollections of my sojourn among you, and hope it may be
+my good fortune some day to meet some of you in Mississippi, and thus
+have it in my power to reciprocate, imperfectly it may be, the
+kindness which you bestowed upon me. I thank you for your polite
+attention, and cordially wish for you, one and all, present and future
+prosperity.
+
+
+
+       Speech at the Grand Ratification Meeting, Faneuil Hall,
+                  _Monday evening, Oct. 11th, 1858._
+
+
+Countrymen, Brethren, Democrats--Most happy am I to meet you, and to
+have received here renewed assurance--of that which I have so long
+believed--that the pulsation of the democratic heart is the same in
+every parallel of latitude, on every meridian of longitude throughout
+the United States. But it required not this to confirm me in a belief
+so long and so happily enjoyed.--Your own great statesman who has
+introduced me to this assembly has been too long associated with me,
+too nearly connected, we have labored too many hours, sometimes even
+until one day ran into another, in the cause of our country, for me to
+than to understand that a Massachusetts democrat has a heart
+comprehending the whole of our wide Union, and that its pulsations
+always beat for the liberty and happiness of its country. Neither
+could I be unaware such was the sentiment of the democracy of New
+England. For it was lay fortune lately to serve under a President
+drawn from the neighboring, State of New Hampshire, [applause,] and I
+know that he spoke the language of his heart, for I learned it in tour
+years of intimate connection with him, when he said he knew "no north,
+no south, no east, no west, but sacred maintenance of the common bond
+and true devotion to the common brotherhood." Never, sir, in the past
+history of our country, never, I add, in its future destiny, however
+bright it may be, did or will a man of higher and purer patriotism, a
+man more devoted to the common weal of his country, hold the helm of
+our great ship of State, than that same New Englander, Franklin
+Pierce. [Applause.]
+
+I have heard the resolutions read and approved by this meeting; heard
+the address of your candidate for Governor; and these added to the
+address of my old and intimate friend, Gen. Cushing, bear to me fresh
+testimony, which I shall be happy to carry away with me, that the
+democracy, in the language of your own glorious Webster, "still
+lives," lives not as his great spirit did, when it hung 'twixt life
+and death, like a star upon the horizon's verge, but lives like the
+germ that is shooting upward, like the sapling that is growing to a
+mighty tree, the branches of which will spread over the commonwealth,
+and may redeem and restore Massachusetts to her once glorious place in
+the Union.
+
+As I look around me and see this venerable hall thus thronged, it
+reminds me of another meeting, when it was found too small to contain
+the assembly--that great meeting which assembled here, when the people
+were called upon to decide what should be done in relation to the
+tea-tax. Faneuil Hall, on that occasion, was found too small, and the
+people went to the Old South Church, which still stands--a monument of
+your early history. And I hope the day will soon come when many
+Democratic meetings in Boston will be too large for Faneuil Hall!
+[Applause.] I am welcomed to this hall, so venerable for its
+associations with our early history; to this hall of which you are so
+justly proud, and the memories of which are part of the inheritance of
+every American citizen; and feel, as I remember how many voices of
+patriotic fervor have here been heard; that in it originated the first
+movements from which the Revolution sprung; that here began that
+system of town meetings and free discussion which is the glory and
+safety of our country; that I had enough to warn me, that though my
+theme was more humble than theirs, (as befitted my poorer ability,)
+that it was a hazardous thing for me to attempt to speak in this
+sacred temple. But when I heard your statesman (Gen. Cushing) say,
+that a word once here spoken never dies, that it becomes a part of the
+circumambient air, I felt a reluctance to speak which increases upon
+me as I recall his expression. But if those voices which breathed the
+first instincts into the Colony of Massachusetts, and into those
+colonies which formed the United States, to proclaim community
+independence, and asserts it against the powerful mother country, --if
+those voices live here still, how must they feel who come here to
+preach treason to the Constitution, and assail the Union it ordained
+and established? [Applause.] It would seem that their criminal hearts
+should fear that those voices, so long slumbering, would break their
+silence, that the forms which look down from these walls behind and
+around me, would walk forth. and that their sabres would once more be
+drawn from their scabbards, to drive from this sacred temple fanatical
+men, who desecrate it more than did the changers of money and those
+who sold doves, the temple of the living God. [Loud cheers.]
+
+And here, too, you have, to remind you, and to remind all who enter
+this hall, the portraits of those men who are dear to every lover of
+liberty, and part and parcel of the memory of every American citizen.
+Highest among them all I see you have placed Samuel Adams and John
+Hancock. [Applause.] You have placed them the highest and properly;
+for they were the two, the only two, excepted from the proclamation of
+mercy, when Governor Gage issued his anathema against them and their
+fellow patriots. These men, thus excepted from the saving grace of the
+crown, now occupy the highest place in Faneuil Hall, and thus are
+consecrated highest in the reverence of the people of Boston.
+[Applause.] This is one of the instances in which we find tradition
+more reliable than history; for tradition has borne the name of Samuel
+Adams to the remotest corner of our territory, placed it among the
+household words taught to the rising generation, and there in the new
+States intertwined with our love of representative liberty, it is a
+name as sacred among us as it is among you of New England. [Applause.]
+
+We remember how early he saw the necessity of _community
+independence_. How, through the dim mists of the future, and in
+advance of his day, he looked forward to the proclamation of that
+independence by Massachusetts; how he steadily strove, through good
+report and evil report, with the same unwavering purpose, whether in
+the midst of his fellow citizens, cheered by their voices, or whether
+isolated, a refugee, hunted as a criminal, and communing with his own
+heart, now under all circumstances his eve was still fixed upon his
+first, last hope, the community independence of Massachusetts! And
+when we see him, at a later period, the leader in that correspondence
+which waked the feelings of the other colonies and brought into
+fraternal association the people of Massachusetts with the people of
+other colonies--when we see his letters acknowledging the receipt of
+the rice of South Carolina, the flour, the pork, the money of
+Virginia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and others, contributions
+of affection to relieve Boston of the sufferings inflicted upon her
+when her port was closed by the despotism of the British crown--we
+there see the beginning of that sentiment which insured the
+co-operation of the colonies throughout the desperate struggle of the
+Revolution, and which, if the present generation be true to the
+compact of their sires, to the memory and to the principles of the
+noble men from whom they descended, will perpetuate for them that
+spirit of fraternity in which the Union began. [Applause.]
+
+But it is not here alone, nor in reminiscences connected with the
+objects which present themselves within this hall, that the people of
+Boston have much to excite their patriotism and carry them back to the
+great principles of the revolutionary struggle. Where in this vicinity
+will you go and not meet some monument to inspire such sentiments? On
+one side are Lexington and Concord, where sixty brave countrymen came
+with their fowling pieces to oppose six hundred veterans,--where
+peaceful citizens animated by the love of independence and covered by
+the triple shield of a righteous cause, finally forced those veterans
+back, and pursued them on the road, fighting from every barn and bush,
+and stock, and stone, till they drove them to the shelters from which
+they had gone forth! [Applause.] And there on another side of your
+city stand those monuments of your early patriotism, Breed's and
+Bunker's Hill whose soil drank the sacred blood of men who lived for
+their country and died for mankind! Can it be that any of you tread
+that soil and forget the great purposes for which those men bravely
+fought, or nobly died?" [Applause.] While in yet another direction
+rise the Heights of Dorchester, once the encampment of the great
+Virginian, the man who came here in the cause of American
+independence, who did not ask "Is this a town of Virginia?" but, "Is
+this a town of my brethren?" who pitched his camp and commenced his
+operations with the steady courage and cautious wisdom characteristic
+of Washington, hopefully, resolutely waiting and watching for the day
+when he could drive the British troops out of your city. [Cheers.]
+
+Here, too, you find where once the Old Liberty Tree, connected with so
+many of your memories, grew. You ask your legend, and learn that it
+was cut down for firewood by the British soldiers, as some of your
+meeting houses were pulled down. They burned the old tree, and it
+warmed the soldiers enough to enable them to evacuate the city.
+[Laughter.] Had they been more slowly warmed into motion, had it
+burned a little longer, it might have lighted Washington and his
+followers to their enemies.
+
+But they were gone, and never again may a hostile foe tread your
+shore. Woe to the enemy who shall set his footprint upon your soil; he
+comes to a prison or he comes to a grave! [Applause.] American
+fortifications are not intended to protect our country from invasion.
+They are constructed elsewhere as in your harbor to guard points where
+marine attacks can he made; and for the rest, the breasts of Americans
+are our parapets. [Applause.]
+
+But, my friends, it is not merely in these military associations, so
+honorably connected with the pride of Massachusetts, that one who
+visits Boston finds much for gratification. If I were selecting a
+place where the advocate of strict construction of the Constitution,
+the extreme asserter of democratic state rights doctrine should go for
+his text, I would send him into the collections of your historical
+association. Instead of finding Boston a place where the records would
+teach only federalism, he would find here, in bounteous store, that
+sacred doctrine of state rights, which has been called the extreme and
+ultra opinion of the South. He would find among your early records
+that at the time when Massachusetts was under a colonial government,
+administered by a man appointed by the British crown, guarded by
+British soldiers; the use of this old Faneuil Hall was refused by the
+town authorities to a British Governor, to hold a British festival,
+because he was going to bring with him the agents for collecting, and
+naval officers sent here to enforce, an unconstitutional tax upon your
+commonwealth. Such was the proud spirit of independence manifested
+even in your colonial history. Such the great stone your fathers hewed
+with sturdy hand, and left the fit foundation for a monument to state
+rights! [Applause.] And so throughout the early period of our country
+you find Massachusetts leading, most prominent of all the States, in
+the assertion of that doctrine which has been recently so much
+decried.
+
+Having achieved your independence, having passed through the
+confederation, you assented to the formation of our present
+constitutional Union. You did not surrender your state sovereignty.
+Your fathers had sacrificed too much to claim as the reward of their
+trials that they should merely have a change of masters. And a change
+of masters it would have been had Massachusetts surrendered her State
+sovereignty to the central government, and consented that that central
+government should have the power to coerce a State. But if this power
+does not exist, if this sovereignty has not been surrendered, then, I
+say, who can deny the words of soberness and truth spoken by your
+candidate this evening, when he has plead to you the cause of State
+independence, and the right of every community to he the judge of its
+own domestic affairs? [Applause.] This is all we have ever asked--we
+of the South, I mean,--for I stand before you one of those who have
+been called the ultra men of the South, and I speak, therefore, for
+that class; and tell you that your candidate for Governor has asserted
+to-night everything which we have claimed as a right, and demanded as
+a duty resulting from the guarantees of the Constitution, made for our
+mutual protection. [Applause.] Nor is here alone in that such doctrine
+is asserted, the like it has been my happiness to hear in your
+daughter, the neighboring State of Maine. I have found that the
+democrats there asserted the same broad, constitutional principle for
+which we have been contending, by which we are willing to live, for
+which we are willing to die! [Loud cheers and cries of "good!"]
+
+In this state of the case, my friends, why is the country agitated?
+What is there practical or rational in the present excitement? Why,
+since the old controversies, with all their lights and shadows, have
+passed away, is the political firmament covered by one dark pall, the
+funeral shade of which increases with every passing year?
+
+Why is it, I say, that you are thus agitated in relation to the
+domestic affairs of other communities? Why is it that the peace of the
+country is disturbed in order that one people may assume to judge of
+what another people should do? Is there any political power to
+authorize such interference? If so, where is it? You did not surrender
+your sovereignty. You gave to the federal government certain
+functions. It was your agent, created for specified purposes. It can
+do nothing save that which you have given it power to perform. Where
+is the grant of the Constitution which confers on the federal
+government a right to determine what shall be property? Surely none
+such exists; that question it belongs to every community to settle for
+itself: you judge in your case; every other State must judge in its
+case. The federal government has no power to create or establish; more
+palpably still, it has no power to destroy property. Do you pay taxes
+to an agent that he may destroy your property? Do you support him for
+that purpose? It is an absurdity on the face of it. To ask the
+question is to answer it. The government is instituted to protect, not
+to destroy property. In abundance of caution, your fathers provided
+that the federal government should not take private property, even for
+its own use, unless by making due compensation therefore. One of its
+great purposes was to increase the security of property, and by a more
+perfect union of forces, to render more effective protection to the
+States. When that power for protection becomes a source of danger, the
+purpose for which the government was formed will have been defeated,
+and the government can no longer answer the ends for which it was
+established.
+
+Why, then, in the absence of all control over the subject of African
+slavery, are you agitated in relation to it? With Pharisaical
+pretension it is sometimes said it is a moral obligation to agitate,
+and I suppose they are going through a sort of vicarious repentance
+for other men's sins. [Laughter.] Who gave them a right to decide that
+it is a sin? By what standard do they measure it? Not the
+Constitution; the Constitution recognizes the property in many forms,
+and imposes obligations in connection with that recognition. Not the
+Bible; that justifies it. Not the good of society; for if they go
+where it exists, they find that society recognizes it as good. What,
+then, is their standard? The good of mankind? Is that seen in the
+diminished resources of the country? Is that seen in the diminished
+comfort of the world? Or is not the reverse exhibited? Is it in the
+cause of Christianity? It cannot be, for servitude is the only agency
+through which Christianity has reached that degraded race, the only
+means by which they have been civilized and elevated. Or is their
+charity manifested in denunciation of their brethren who are
+restrained from answering by the contempt which they feel for a mere
+brawler, whose weapons are empty words? [Applause.]
+
+What, my friends, must be the consequences of this agitation? Good or
+evil? They have been evil, and evil they must be only, to the end. Not
+one particle of good has been done to any man, of any color, by this
+agitation. It has been insidiously working the purpose of sedition,
+for the destruction of that Union on which our hopes of future
+greatness depend.
+
+On the one side, then you see agitation, tending slowly and steadily
+to that separation of the states, which, if you have any hope
+connected with the liberty of mankind, if you have any national pride
+in making your country the greatest of the earth, if you have any
+sacred regard for the obligation which the acts of your fathers
+entailed upon you,--by each and all of these motives you are prompted
+to united and earnest effort to promote the success of that great
+experiment which your fathers left it to you to conclude. [Applause.]
+On the other hand, if each community, in accordance with the
+principles of our government, whilst controlling its own domestic
+institutions, faithfully struggles as a part of the united whole, for
+the common benefit of all, the future points us to fraternity, to
+unity, to co-operation, to the increase of our own happiness, to the
+extension of our useful example over mankind, and the covering of that
+flag, whose stars have already more than doubled their original
+number, [applause,] with a galaxy to light the ample folds which then
+shall wave either the recognized flag of every state, or the
+recognized protector of every state upon the continent of America.
+[Applause.]
+
+In connection with the idea, which I have presented of the early
+sentiment of community independence, I will add the very striking fact
+that one of the colonies, about the time that they had resolved to
+unite for the purpose of achieving their independence, addressed the
+colonial congress to know in what condition they would be in the
+interval between their separation from the government of Great Britain
+and the establishment of the government for the colonies. The answer
+of the colonial congress was exactly that which might have been
+expected--exactly that which state rights democracy would answer
+to-day, to such an inquiry--that they must take care of their domestic
+polity, that the congress "had nothing to do with it." [Applause.] If
+such sentiment continued--if it governed in every state--if
+representatives were chosen upon it--then your halls of legislation
+would not be disturbed about the question of the domestic concerns of
+the different states. The peace of the country would not be hazarded
+by the arraignment of the family relations of people over whom the
+government has no control. In harmony working together, in
+co-intelligence for the conservation of the interests of the country,
+in protection to the states and the development of the great ends for
+which the government was established, what effects might not be
+produced? As our government increased in expansion, it would increase
+in its beneficent influence upon the people; we should increase in
+fraternity; and it would be no longer a wonder to see a man coming
+from a southern state to address a Democratic audience in Boston.
+[Applause, cries of "good, good."]
+
+But I have referred to the fact that, at an early period,
+Massachusetts stood pre-eminently forward among those who asserted
+community independence. And this reminds me of an incident, in
+illustration, which occurred when President Washington visited Boston,
+and John Hancock was Governor. The latter is reported to have declined
+to call upon the President, because he contended that every man who
+came within the limits of Massachusetts must yield rank and precedence
+to the Governor of the State; and only surrendered the point on
+account of his personal regard and respect for the character of George
+Washington. I honor him for it,--value it as one of the early
+testimonies in favor of State Rights, and wish all our governors had
+the same high estimate of the dignity of the office of Governor of a
+State as had that great and glorious man. [Applause.]
+
+Thus it appears that the founders of this government were the true
+Democratic States Rights men. That Democracy was States rights, and
+States rights was Democracy, and it is to-day. Your resolutions
+breathe it. The Declaration of Independence embodies the sentiment
+which had lived in the hearts of the people for many years before its
+formal assertion. Our fathers asserted that great principle--the right
+of the people to choose the government for themselves--that government
+rested upon the consent of the governed. In every form of expression
+it uttered the same idea, _community independence_, and the dependence
+of the government upon the community over which it existed. It was an
+American principle, the great spirit which animated our country then,
+and it were well if more inspired us now. But I have said that this
+State sovereignty--this community independence--has never been
+surrendered, and that there is no power in the federal government to
+coerce a State. Does any one ask, then, how it is that a State is to
+be held to its obligations? My answer is: by _its honor_, and the
+obligation is the more sacred to observe every feature of the compact,
+because there is no power to force obedience. The great error of the
+confederation was that it attempted to act upon the States. It was
+found impracticable, and our present form of government was adopted,
+which acts upon individuals and does not attempt to act upon States.
+
+The question was considered in the convention which framed the
+constitution, and after discussion the proposition to give power to
+the general government to enforce upon a resistant State obedience to
+the law was rejected. It was upon this ground of exemption from
+compulsion that the compact of the States became a sacred obligation;
+and it was upon this honorable fulfilment principally that our fathers
+depended for the security of the rights which the Constitution was
+designed to secure. [Applause.]
+
+The fugitive slave compact in the Constitution of the United States
+implied that the States should fulfil it voluntarily. They expected
+the States to legislate so as to secure the rendition of fugitives.
+
+And in 1788 it was a matter of complaint that the colony of Florida
+did not restore fugitive negroes from the United States who escaped
+into that colony, and a committee, composed of Hamilton, of New York,
+Sedgwick, of Massachusetts, and Madison, of Virginia, reported
+resolutions in the Congress instructing the committee for foreign
+affairs to address the _charge d'affaires_ at Madrid to apply to his
+majesty of Spain to issue orders to his governor to compel them to
+secure the rendition of fugitive negroes to any one who should go
+there entitled to receive them. This was the sentiment of the
+committee, and they added, by way of example, as the States would
+return any slaves from Florida who might escape into their limits.
+
+When the Constitutional requirement was imposed, who could have
+doubted that every State faithful to its obligations would comply
+without raising questions as to whether the institution should or
+should not exist in another community over which they had no control.
+Congress was at last forced by the failures of the States, to
+legislate on the subject, and this has been one of the causes by which
+you have been disturbed. You have been called upon to make war against
+a law which would never have been enacted, if each State had
+faithfully discharged the obligation imposed by the compact of the
+Constitution. [Cheers.]
+
+There is another question connected with this negro agitation. It is
+in relation to the right to hold slaves in the Territories. What power
+has Congress to declare what shall be property? None, in the territory
+or elsewhere. Have the States by separate legislation the power to
+prescribe the condition upon which a citizen may enter on and enjoy
+the common property of the United States? Clearly not. Shall those who
+first go into the territory, deprive any citizen of the United States
+subsequently emigrating thither, of those rights which belong to him
+as an equal owner of the soil? Certainly not. Sovereignty jurisdiction
+can only pass to these inhabitants when the States, the owners of that
+territory, shall recognize the inhabitants as an independent
+community, and admit it to become an equal State of the Union. Until
+then the Constitution and laws of the United States must be the rules
+governing within the limits of a territory. The Constitution
+recognizes all property gives equal privileges to every citizen of the
+States; and it would be a violation of its fundamental principles to
+attempt any discrimination. [Applause.] Viewed in any of its phases,
+political, moral, social, general, or local, what is there to sustain
+this agitation in relation to other people's negroes, unless it be a
+bridge over which to pass into office--a ready capital in politics
+available to missionaries staving at home-reformers of things which
+they do not go to learn--preachers without and audience--overseers
+without laborers and without wages--war-horses who snuff the battle
+afar off, and cry: " Aha! aha! I am afar off from the battle." [Great
+laughter and applause.]
+
+Thus it is that the peace of the Union is destroyed; thus it is that
+brother is arrayed against brother; thus it is that the people come to
+consider--not how they can promote each other's interests, but how
+they may successfully war upon them. And the political agitator like
+the vampire fans the victim to which he clings but to destroy.
+
+Among culprits there is none more odious to my mind than a public
+officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution--the compact
+between the States binding each for the common defence and general
+welfare of the other--yet retains to himself a mental reservation that
+he will war upon the principles he has sworn to maintain, and upon the
+property rights the protection of which are part of the compact of the
+Union. [Applause.]
+
+It is a crime too low to be named before this assembly: It is one
+which no man with self-respect would ever commit. To swear that he
+will support the Constitution--to take an office which belongs in many
+of its relations to all the States; and to use it as a means of
+injuring a portion of the States of whom he is thus the
+representative; is treason to every thing honorable in man. It is the
+base and cowardly attack of him who gains the confidence of another,
+in order that he may wound him. [Applause.]
+
+But we have heard it argued--have seen it published--a petition has
+been circulated for signers, announcing that there was an
+incompatibility between the sections; that the Union had been tried
+long enough, and that it had proved to be necessary to separate from
+those sections of the Union in which the curse of slavery existed. Ah!
+those modern saints, so much wiser than our fathers, have discovered
+an incompatibility requiring separation in those relations which
+existed when the Union was formed. They have found the remnants only
+of a diversity which existed when South Carolina sent her rice to
+Boston, and Maryland and Pennsylvania and New York brought in their
+funds for her relief.
+
+They have found the remnants only; for from that day to this the
+difference between the people has been constantly decreasing, and the
+necessity for union which then arose in no small degree from the
+diversity of product, and soil and climate, has gone on increasing,
+both by the extension of our own territory and the introduction of new
+tropical products; so that whilst the difference between the people
+has diminished, the diversity in the products has increased, and that
+motive for union which your fathers found exists in a higher degree
+than it did when they resolved to be united.
+
+Diversity there is of occupation, of habits, of education, of
+character. But it is not of that extreme kind which proves
+incompatibility, or even incongruity; for your Massachusetts man, when
+he comes to Mississippi, adopts our opinions and our institutions, and
+frequently becomes the most extreme southern man among us. [Great
+applause.] As our country has extended--as new products have been
+introduced into it, the free trade which blesses our Union, has been
+of increasing value.
+
+And it is not an unfortunate circumstance that this diversity of
+pursuit and character has survived the condition which produced it.
+Originally it sprang in no small degree from natural causes.
+Massachusetts became a manufacturing and a commercial State because of
+the connection between her fine harbor and water power, resulting from
+the fact that the streams make their last leap into the sea, so that
+the ship of commerce brought the staple to the manufacturing power.
+This made you a commercial and manufacturing people. In the Southern
+States great plains interpose between the last leaps of the streams
+and the sea. Those plains most proximate to navigation, were the first
+cultivated, and the sea bore their products to the most approachable
+water power, there to be manufactured. This was the first cause of the
+difference. Then your longer and more severe winters--your soil not as
+favorable for agriculture, also contributed to make you a
+manufacturing and commercial people.
+
+After the controlling cause had passed away--after railroads had been
+built--after the steam engine had become a motive power for a large
+part of machinery, the characteristics originally stamped by natural
+causes continued the diversity of pursuit. Is it fortunate or
+otherwise? I say it is fortunate. Your interest is to remain a
+manufacturing and ours to remain an agricultural people.
+
+Your prosperity is to receive our staple and to manufacture it, and
+ours to sell it to you and buy the manufactured goods. [Applause.]
+This is an interweaving of interests, which makes us all the richer
+and all the happier.
+
+But this accursed agitation, this offensive, injurious intermeddling
+with the affairs of other people, and this alone it is that will
+promote a desire in the mind of any one to separate these great and
+growing States. [Applause.]
+
+The seeds of dissension may be sown by invidious reflections. Men may
+be goaded by the constant attempt to infringe upon rights and to
+traduce community character, and in the resentment which follows it is
+not possible to tell how far the case may be driven. I therefore plead
+to you now to arrest a fanaticism which has been evil in the
+beginning, and must be evil to the end. You may not have the numerical
+power requisite; and those at a distance may not understand how many
+of you there are desirous to put a stop to the course of this
+agitation. But let your language and your acts teach them to
+appreciate a faithful self-denying minority. I have learned since I
+have been in New England the vast mass of true State Rights Democrats
+to be found within its limits--though not represented in the halls of
+Congress.
+
+And if it comes to the worst; if, availing themselves of a majority in
+the two Houses of Congress, our opponents should attempt to trample
+upon the Constitution; to violate the rights of the States; to
+infringe upon our equality in the Union, I believe that even in
+Massachusetts, though it has not had a representative in Congress for
+many a day, the State Rights Democracy, in whose breasts beats the
+spirit of the revolution, can and will whip the Black Republicans.
+[Great applause.] I trust we shall never be thus purified, as it were,
+by fire; but that the peaceful progressive revolution of the ballot
+box will answer all the glorious purposes of the Constitutional Union.
+[Applause.]
+
+I marked that the distinguished orator and statesman who preceded me
+in addressing you used the words _national_ and _constitutional_ in
+such relations to each other as to show that in his mind the one was a
+synonym of the other. And does he not do so with reason? We became a
+nation by the constitution; whatever is national springs from the
+constitution; and national and constitutional are convertible terms.
+[Applause.]
+
+Your candidate for the high office of governor--whom I have been once
+or twice on the point of calling your governor, and whom I hope I may
+be able soon to call so, [applause]--in his remarks to you has
+presented the same idea in another form. And well may Massachusetts
+orators, without even perceiving what they are saying, utter
+sentiments which lie at the foundation of your colonial as well as
+your revolutionary history, which existed in Massachusetts before the
+revolution, and have existed since, whenever the true spirit which
+comes down from the revolutionary sires has been aroused into
+utterance within her limits. [Applause.]
+
+It has been not only, my friends, in this increasing and mutual
+dependence of interest that we have formed new bonds. Those bonds are
+both material and mental. Every improvement in the navigation of a
+river, every construction of a railroad, has added another link to the
+chain which encircles us, another facility for interchange and new
+achievements, whether it has been in arts or in science, in war or in
+manufactures, in commerce or agriculture, success, unexampled success
+has constituted for us a common and proud memory, and has offered to
+us new sentiments of nationality.
+
+Why, then, I would ask, do we see these lengthened shadows, which
+follow in the course of our political day? is it because the sun is
+declining to the horizon? Are they the shadows of evening; or are
+they, as I hopefully believe, but the mists which are exhaled by the
+sun as it rises, but which are to be dispersed by its meridian
+splendor? Are they but evanescent clouds that flit across but cannot
+obscure the great purposes for which the Constitution was established?
+
+I hopefully look forward to the reaction which will establish the fact
+that our sun is yet in the ascendant--that the cloud which has covered
+our political prospect is but a mist of the morning--that we are again
+to be amicably divided in opinion upon measures of expediency, upon
+questions of relative interest, upon discussions as to the rights of
+the States, and the powers of the federal government,--such discussion
+as is commemorated in this historical picture [pointing to the
+painting.] There your own great Statesman, Webster, addresses his
+argument to our brightest luminary, the incorruptible Calhoun, who
+leans over to catch the accents of eloquence that fall from his lips.
+[Loud applause.]
+
+They differed as Statesmen and philosophers; they railed not, warred
+not against each other; they stood to each other in the relation of
+affection and regard. And never did I see Mr. Webster so agitated,
+never did I hear his voice so falter, as when he delivered his eulogy
+on John C. Calhoun. [Applause.]
+
+But allusion was made to my own connection with your favorite departed
+Statesman. I will only say on this occasion, that very early in the
+commencement of my congressional life, Mr. Webster was arraigned for
+an offence which affected him most deeply. He was no accountant; all
+knew that there was but little of mercantile exactness in his habits.
+He was arraigned on a pecuniary charge--the misapplication of what is
+known as the secret service fund; and I was one of the committee that
+had to investigate the charge. I endeavored to do justice, to examine
+the evidence with a view to ascertain the truth. As an American I
+hoped he would come out without stain or smoke upon his garments. But
+however the fame of so distinguished an American Statesman might claim
+such hopes, the duty was rigidly to inquire, and rigorously to do
+justice. The result was that he was acquitted of every charge that was
+made against him, and it was equally my pride and my pleasure to
+vindicate him in every form which lay within my power. [Applause.] No
+man who knew Daniel Webster, would have expected less of him. Had our
+position been reversed, none such could have believed that he would
+with a view to a judgment ask whether a charge was made against a
+Massachusetts man or a Mississippian. No! it belonged to a lower, a
+later, and I trust a shorter lived race of statesmen ["hear," "hear,"]
+to measure all facts by considerations of latitude and longitude.
+[Warm applause.]
+
+I honor that sentiment which makes us oftentimes too confident, and to
+despise too much the danger of that agitation which disturbs the peace
+of the country. I honor that feeling which believes the Constitutional
+Union too strong to be shaken. But at the same time I say, in sober
+judgment, it will not do to treat too lightly the danger which has
+beset and which still impends over us. Who has not heard our
+Constitutional Union compared to the granite cliffs which line the sea
+and dash back the foam of the waves, unmoved by their fury. Recently I
+have stood upon New England's shore, and have seen the waves of a
+troubled sea dash upon the granite which frowns over the ocean, have
+seen the spray thrown back from the cliff, and the receding wave fret
+like the impotent rage of baffled malice. But when the tide had ebbed,
+I saw that the rock was seamed and worn by the ceaseless beating of
+the sea, and fragments riven from the rock were lying on the beach.
+
+Thus the waves of sectional agitation are dashing themselves against
+the granite patriotism of the land. If long continued, that too must
+show the seams and scars of the conflict. Sectional hostility must
+sooner or later produce political fragments. The danger lies at your
+door, it is time to arrest it. It is time that men should go back to
+the origin of our institutions. They should drink the waters of the
+fountain, ascend to the source, of our colonial history.
+
+You, men of Boston, go to the street where the massacre occurred in
+1770. There learn how your fathers unfaltering stood for community
+right. And near the same spot mark how proudly the delegation of the
+democracy came to demand the removal of the troops from Boston, and
+how the venerable Samuel Adams stood asserting the rights of the
+people, dauntless as Hampden, clear and eloquent as Sidney.
+
+All over our country these monuments, instructive to the present
+generation, of what our fathers felt and said and did, are to be
+found. In the library of your association for the collection of your
+early history, I found a letter descriptive of the reading of the
+address to his army by Gen. Washington during one of those winters
+when he sought shelter for the ill clad, unshod, but victorious army
+with which he achieved the independence we enjoy; he had built a log
+cabin for a meeting house, and there reading his address, his sight
+failed him, he put on his glasses and with emotion which manifested
+the reality of his feelings, said, "I have grown gray in the service
+of my country, and now I am growing blind." Who can measure the value
+of such incidents in a people's history? It is a privilege to have
+access to documents, which cause us to realize the trials, the patient
+endurance, the hardy virtue and moral grandeur of the men from whom we
+inherit our political institutions, and to whose teachings it were
+well that the present generations should constantly refer.
+
+If you choose still further to stretch your vision to South Carolina,
+you will find a parallel to that devotion to their country's cause
+which illustrates the early history of the Democrats of Boston. The
+prisoners at Charleston, when confined upon the hulks where they were
+exposed to the small pox, and, wasted by the progress of the
+infection, were brought upon the shore and assured that if they would
+enlist in his majesty's service they should be relieved from their
+present and prospective suffering, but if they refused the rations
+would be taken from their families, and themselves sent to the hulks
+and exposed to the infection. Emaciated as they were, distressed with
+the prospect of their families being turned into the street to starve,
+the spirit of independence, the devotion to liberty, was so warm
+within their breasts that they gave one loud hurrah for General
+Washington, and chose death rather than dishonor. [Loud applause.] And
+if from these glorious recollections, from the emotions they excite,
+your eye is directed to your present condition, and you mark the
+prosperity, the growth and honorable career of your country, I envy
+not the heart of that man whose pulse does not beat quicker, who does
+not feel within him the exultation of pride at the past glory and the
+future prospects of his country. These prospects are to be realized if
+we are only wise and true to the obligations of the compact of our
+fathers. For all which can sow dissension can stop the progress of the
+American people, can endanger the achievement of the high prospects we
+have before us is that miserable spirit, which, disregarding duty and
+honor, makes war upon the Constitution. Madness must rule the hour
+when American citizens, trampling as well upon the great principles at
+the foundation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
+of the United States, as upon the honorable obligations which their
+fathers imposed upon them, shall turn with internicine hand to
+sacrifice themselves as well as their brethren, upon the altar of
+sectional fanaticism.
+
+With these views, it will not be surprising to those who differ from
+me, that I feel an ardent desire for the success of the State Rights
+Democracy, that convinced of the destructive consequences of the
+heresies of their opponents, and of the evils upon which they would
+precipitate the country, I do not forbear to advocate, here and
+elsewhere, the success of that party which alone is national, on which
+alone I rely for the preservation of the Constitution, to perpetuate
+the Union, and to fulfil the purposes which it was ordained to
+establish and secure. [Loud cheers.]
+
+My friends, my brethren, my countrymen--[applause]--I thank you for
+the patient attention you have given me. It is the first time it has
+been my fortune to address an audience here. It will probably be the
+last. Residing in a remote section of the country, with private as
+well as public duties to occupy the whole of my time, it would only be
+under some such necessity for a restoration of health as has brought
+me here this season, that I could ever expect to make more than a very
+hurried visit to any other portion of the Union than that of which I
+am a citizen.
+
+I will say, then, on this occasion, that I am glad, truly glad, that
+it has been my fortune to stay long enough among the New Englanders to
+obtain a better acquaintance than one can who passes in the ordinary
+way through the country, at the speed of the railroad tourist. I have
+stayed long enough to feel that generous hospitality which evinces
+itself to-night, which has showed itself in every town and village of
+New England where I have gone--long enough to learn that though not
+represented in Congress, there is within the limits of New England a
+large mass of as true Democrats as are to be found in any portion of
+the Union. Their purposes, their construction of the Constitution,
+their hopes for the future, their respect for the past, is the same as
+that which exists among my beloved brethren in Mississippi.
+[Applause.]
+
+It is not a great while since one who was endeavoring to pursue me
+with unfriendly criticism opened an article with my name and "gone to
+Boston!"--He seemed to think it a damaging reflection to say of me
+that I had gone to Boston--I wish he could have been here to look upon
+these Democratic faces to-night, and to listen to your resolutions and
+the words of your Massachusetts speakers, he might have been taught
+that a man might go and stay at Boston and learn better Democracy than
+many have acquired in other places.
+
+I shall gratefully carry with me the recollections of this and of
+other meetings witnessed since I have been among you. In the hour of
+apprehension I will hopefully turn back to my observations here--here
+in this consecrated hall, where men so early devoted themselves to
+liberty and community independence; and will endeavor to impress upon
+others who know you only as you are misrepresented in the two Houses
+of Congress, [applause,] how true and how many are the hearts that
+beat for constitutional liberty, and with high resolve to respect
+every clause and guaranty which the Constitution contains, are pledged
+to faithfully uphold the rights of any and every portion of the
+States, and of the people. [Tremendous cheering.]
+
+
+
+                   Speech in the City of New York,
+               _Palace Garden Meeting, Oct. 19, 1858._
+
+
+Countrymen, Democrats:--When I accepted this evening the invitation to
+meet you here, it was to see and to hear, not to speak. I have
+listened with pleasure to the language addressed to you by your
+candidate for the highest office in the State. It is the language of
+patriotism; it is an appeal to the common sense of the people in favor
+of that fraternity on which our Union was founded, and on which alone
+it can long continue to exist. I have rejoiced to hear the applause
+with which such sentiments, when he uttered them, have been received
+by those here convened, and trust it is but an indication of that
+onward progress of reaction which I believe has already commenced, and
+which is to sink to the lowest depths of forgetfulness the struggle
+which has so long agitated the country, and prompted an internecine
+war against your countrymen. [Applause.]
+
+Truly has the distinguished gentleman pointed out to you the extreme
+absurdity of attempting to excite you upon the ground of southern
+aggression upon the north. We have nothing to aggress upon. We have
+not now, as he has told you, the power, though once we had, to
+interfere with your domestic institutions. We never had the will to do
+so. And if we had the power now, true to the instincts and history of
+our fathers, we would abstain from intermeddling in your domestic
+affairs. [Applause.] I have no purpose on this or any other occasion
+to mingle in the consideration of those questions which are local to
+you. I am not sufficiently learned in conchology to do it if I would,
+[laughter,] and I have too great a respect for community independence
+to do it if I could. My purpose then is, simply in answer to your
+call, to offer you a few reflections, such as may occur to me, as I
+progress, upon those questions which are common to us all, and which
+belong to the memories of our fathers, and are linked with the hopes
+of our children. [Applause.] If; then, without preparation, I do it in
+unvarnished phrase, if I cannot carry you along with me because of the
+want of that flowing diction which might catch the ear, still I ask
+you to hear me for my cause, for it is the cause of our country, it is
+the cause of democracy, it is the cause of human liberty. [Applause.]
+
+Who now stand arrayed against the democratic party? The relations of
+parties and the issues upon which we have been divided have changed.
+What now is the basis of opposition to the democratic party? It is
+twofold--interference with the negroes of other people, and
+interference with the rights now secured to foreigners who expatriate
+themselves and come to our land. ["Hear, hear," and applause.] To each
+community belongs the right to decide for itself what institutions it
+will have. To each people sovereign within their own sphere, belongs,
+and to them only belongs, the right to decide what shall be property.
+You have decided it for yourselves. Who shall gainsay your decision?
+Mississippi has decided it for herself; who has the right to gainsay
+her decision? The power of each people to rule over their domestic
+affairs lies at the foundation of that Declaration of Independence to
+which you owe your existence among the nations of the earth; that
+declaration which led your fathers into and through the war of the
+revolution. _It is that which constitutes to-day the doctrine of
+State-rights, upon which it is my pride and pleasure to stand._
+[Applause.] Congress has no power to determine what shall be property
+anywhere. Congress has only such grants as are contained in the
+Constitution. And the Constitution confers upon it no power to rule
+with despotic hand over the inhabitants of the Territories. Within the
+limits of those Territories, the common property of the Union, you and
+I are equal; we are joint owners. Each of us has the right to go into
+those Territories, with whatever property is recognized by the
+Constitution of the United States. [Applause.] Congress has no power
+to limit or abridge that right. But the inhabitants of a Territory
+when as a people they come to form a State government, _when they
+possess the power and jurisdiction which belongs to the people of New
+York, or any other State, have the right to decide that question, and
+no power upon earth has the right to decide it before that time._
+[Applause.]
+
+[At this point the Young Men's Democratic National Club, with banners
+and transparencies, entered the garden, and were received with
+enthusiastic cheers.]
+
+The dull remarks, my friends, which I was in the course of making to
+you, have been interrupted by a beautiful episode, which I am sure
+will more than exceed the whole value of the poem, if I may thus
+characterize my dull speech. And I am glad that foremost among all the
+transparencies and banners, comes this flag which speaks of the "Young
+Men's Democratic National Club."--[Three cheers for Davis.] It is on
+the young men we must rely. I have found that in every severe
+political struggle, where the contest on the one side was for
+principle, and on the other for spoils, it has been the gray-haired
+father and the boy with the peach bloom upon his cheek upon whom
+principles had to rely for support. My own generation--and I regret to
+say it--seems too deeply steeped in the trickery of politics to be
+able to rise above the influence of personal and political gain into
+the pure field of patriotism. And I am therefore glad to see the
+"Young Men's Democratic National Club" leading this procession.
+
+But to return to the argument I was making. I said that Congress had
+no power to legislate upon what should be property anywhere; that
+Congress had no power to discriminate between the citizens of the
+different States who should go into the Territories, the common
+property of all the States, but that those Territories of right
+remained open to every citizen, and every species of property
+recognized in the Constitution, until the inhabitants should become a
+people, form a fundamental law for themselves, and, as authorized by
+the Constitution, assume the powers, duties, and obligations of a
+State. And now, my friends, I would ask you, further, of what value
+would a congressional decision upon that subject be? If it be a
+constitutional right, as I contend it is, then it is a matter for
+judicial decision. If Congress should assert that such is not the
+right of each of our citizens, and the courts appointed as an arbiter
+in such cases should decide that it is their right, the enactment
+would, therefore, be void. It, on the other hand, it is not a right,
+but Congress should assert it to be one, and the courts should declare
+that no such right exists under the Constitution, then, Congress has
+no power to create it; and it is in this sense that Congress has not
+the power to establish or prohibit slavery anywhere. [Applause.]
+
+What, then, has been the foundation of all this controversy? Your
+candidate has justly pointed out to you that unpatriotic struggle for
+sectional aggrandizement which has brought about this contest--a
+contest, as it were, between two contending powers for national
+predominance--a contest upon the one side to enlarge the majority it
+now possesses, and a contest upon the other side to recover the power
+it has lost, and become the majority. This is the attitude of hostile
+nations, and not of States bound together in fraternal unity. This is
+the feeling that one by one is cutting the strands which originally
+held the States together. You have seen your churches divided; you
+have seen trade turned aside from its accustomed channel; you have
+seen jealousy and uncharitableness and bickering springing up and
+growing stronger day by day, until at last, if it continue, the cord
+of union between the States reduced simply to the political strand,
+may not suffice to hold them together. Once united by every tie of
+fraternal feeling, shoulder to shoulder, step by step, our fathers
+went through the revolution, prompted by a common desire for the
+common good, and animated by devotion to the principle of popular
+liberty. They struggled against the mother country, because that
+country endeavored to legislate for the colonies, and the colonies
+claimed as a right that they must not be taxed except by their own
+representatives, and refused to submit to unconstitutional
+legislation. If now, in this struggle for the ascendency in power, one
+action should gain such predominance as would enable it, by modifying
+the Constitution and usurping new power, to legislate for the other,
+_the exercise of that power would throw us back into the condition of
+the colonies._ And if in the veins of the sons flows the blood of
+their sires, _they would not fail to redeem themselves from tyranny
+even should they be driven to resort to revolution._ [Applause.]
+
+And what is the other question of difference now? It is the agitation,
+as a national question, of the right of foreigners to suffrage within
+these States. Now, I ask, what power has Congress over the question?
+Yet members to Congress are elected upon that question. How would
+Congress legislate upon it?--They say, by modifying the naturalization
+laws. What do those laws confer? The right to hold real estate and the
+right to devise it by will; the right to sue and be sued in the courts
+of the United States; and the rights to receive passports and
+protection from the government of the United States. Who wishes to
+withhold those privileges from foreigners? Nobody alleges it. But they
+say that the ballot-box must be protected from foreign votes. Has
+Congress the right to say that foreigners shall not vote within the
+limits of your State? Are you willing to leave that to Congress?
+[Cries of " No, no, no," and applause.] In some of the States, by
+State legislation, foreigners are permitted to vote before they can
+become citizens under the naturalization laws. The naturalization laws
+are not, therefore, controlling over the question of suffrage. The
+power of Congress is limited to the establishment of a uniform rule of
+naturalization throughout the States. But what further do they couple
+with these demands which they make for congressional legislation? They
+proclaim their purpose to be to exclude paupers and criminals from
+abroad.--Do paupers and criminals come for the right of suffrage? They
+come here for bread, or to fly from the laws which they have violated.
+Whether they shall be entitled to vote or not, would neither increase
+nor diminish the number of that class by a single individual. But, my
+friends, who is a pauper, or who is a criminal? Is a man a pauper
+merely because he comes here without property, without money in his
+purse? Go, look along your lines of internal improvements, where every
+mile has mingled with it the bones of some foreigner who labored to
+create it. Go to your battle fields, where your flag has been borne
+triumphantly, and where fresh laurels have been added to the brow of
+your country, and there you will find the sod dyed as deep by the
+blood of the foreign born as by that of the native citizen.
+[Applause.] Is the able-bodied man, who comes here to contribute to
+your national interests by building up your public works, or aiding in
+the erection of your architectural constructions, or who bears your
+flag in the hour of danger, and who bleeds and dies for your country,
+is he the pauper you desire to exclude? And who is the criminal? Is it
+he who, flying from the persecution of despotic governments, seeks our
+land as the Huguenot did, as did Soule, the stern American orator, as
+many others within your limits have done under more recent struggles
+for liberty in Europe? [Applause.] Then, who are the paupers and
+criminals? Is that to be decided by the ruling of other countries, by
+the laws of France, or of England? Or is it to be decided by your own
+laws, by your own rules of judicature? If by the latter, then there is
+no good ground for controversy. We do not advocate that any country
+shall empty its poor houses, get rid of the duty of supporting its
+paupers, and throw that charge upon us. We could not permit any
+country to empty its prisons and penitentiaries to mingle that portion
+of its population with ours. But we do war against the use of terms
+that delude the people, and are intended to exclude the high-spirited
+and hard-working men who contribute to the bone, the sinew, and the
+wealth of our country. [Applause.]
+
+Such, then, my friends, is the opposition to the democracy, the only
+national party. The opposition, I say, claims two things from the
+federal government, neither of which it has the constitutional power
+to perform. It agitates this section of the Union in relation to
+property which it has not, and of which, I say, it knows literally
+nothing. For had the orator (Mr. Giddings) who was quoted to-night,
+known anything of the relations between the master and the slave, he
+would not have talked of the slave armed with the British bayonet. Our
+doors are unlocked at night; we live among them with no more fear of
+them than of our cows and oxen. We lie down to sleep trusting to them
+for our defence, and the bond between the master and the slave is as
+near as that which exists between capital and labor anywhere. Now,
+about the idea of British bayonets in the hands of slaves: The
+delusion which has always excited my surprise the most has been that
+which has led so many of the northern men to strike hands with the
+British abolitionists to make war on their southern brethren. If they
+could effect their ends, and Great Britain could insert the wedge
+which should separate the States, what further use would she have for
+the northern section? You are the competitors of Great Britain in the
+vast field of manufacture, whom she most fears, and though she may be
+with you in the scheme which would effect a separation of these
+States, yet the moment that separation should be effected she would be
+under the promptings of interest your worst enemy. [Applause.] Our
+fathers fought and bled to secure the common interests of the country.
+They reclaimed us from colonial bondage to national independence. They
+stamped upon it free trade in order that the interests of all might be
+promoted, that each section might be interwoven with the other--in
+order that there might be the strongest bond of mutual dependence. And
+step by step, from that day to this, that common and mutual dependence
+has been growing.
+
+From the seeds of narrow sectionality and purblind fanaticism, have
+sprung the tares which threaten the principles of that declaration
+which made the Colonies independent States, and of that compact by
+which the States were united by a bond to-day far more valuable than
+when it was signed. You have among you politicians of a philosophic
+turn, who preach a high morality; a system of which they are the
+discoverers, and it is to be hoped will long remain the exclusive
+possessors. They say, it is true the Constitution dictates this, the
+Bible inculcates that; but there is a higher law than those, and call
+upon you to obey that higher law, of which they are the inspired
+givers. [Laughter and applause.] Men who are _traitors_ to the compact
+of their fathers--_men who have perjured the oaths they have
+themselves taken_--they who wish to steep their hands in the blood of
+their brothers; these are the moral law-givers who proclaim a higher
+law than the Bible, the Constitution, and the laws of the land. This
+higher-law doctrine, it strikes me, is the most convenient one I ever
+heard of for the _criminal_. You, no doubt, have a law which punishes
+a man for stealing a horse or a bale of goods. But the thief would
+find more convenient a higher law which would justify him in keeping
+the stolen goods. The doctrine is now advanced to you only in its
+relation to property of the Southern States, thus it is the pill
+gilded, to conceal its bitterness; but it will re-act deeply upon
+yourselves if you accept it. What security have you for your own
+safety if every man of vile temper, of low instincts, of base purpose,
+can find in his own heart a higher law than that which is the rule of
+society, the Constitution, and the Bible? _These higher-law preachers
+should be tarred and feathered, and whipped by those they have thus
+instigated. This, my friends, is what was called in good old
+revolutionary times. Lynch Law._ It is sometimes the very best law,
+because it deals summary justice upon those who would otherwise escape
+from all other kinds of punishment. The man who with sycophantic face
+and studied phrase, and with assumed philosophic morality, preaches
+treason to the Constitution and the dictates of all human society, is
+a fit object for a Lynch law that would be higher than any he could
+urge. [Applause.]
+
+My democratic friends, I am deeply gratified by the exhibition which
+is before me. I see here a field of faces, assembled in the name of
+Democracy, and over it high, bright and multiplied for the occasion,
+as stars have been added by Democracy to the flag of our country,
+blaze the lights which typify democratic principles, pointing upward,
+to guide our country to that haven of prosperity which our fathers saw
+in the distant future, and which they left it for their sons to
+attain. It we are true to ourselves, true to the obligations which the
+Constitution imposes upon us, and if we are wise and energetic in the
+struggles which lie before us, our path is onward to more of national
+greatness than ever people before possessed. We are held together by
+that two-fold government, which is susceptible of being made perfect
+in the small spheres of State limits, and capable of the greatest
+imperial power, by the combination of these municipal powers into one
+for foreign action. It is a form of government such as the wit of man
+never devised until our fathers, with a wisdom that approached
+inspiration, framed the Constitution, and transmitted it as a legacy
+to us. It devolves upon every one of you, to see that each provision
+of that Constitution is cordially and faithfully observed. If
+cordially and faithfully observed, the powers of hell and of earth
+combined can never shake the happiness and prosperity of the people of
+the United States. [Applause.] With every revolving year there will
+arise new motives for holding tenaciously to each other. With every
+revolving cycle there will come new sources of pride and national
+sentiment to the people. Year after your flag will grow more
+brilliant, by the addition of fresh stars, recording the growth of our
+political family, and onward, over land and over sea, the progress of
+American principles, of human liberty illustrated, and protected by
+the power of the United States, will hold its way to a triumph such as
+the earth has never witnessed. [Applause.] On the other hand, what do
+we see? A picture so black that if I could unveil it, I would not in
+this cheery moment expose a scene so chilling to your enthusiasm, and
+revolting to your patriotic hearts. My friends, feeling that I have
+already detained you too long, I now return to you my cordial thanks
+for the kindness with which you have received me to-night.
+
+
+
+              Speech Before the Mississippi Legislature.
+
+
+Mississippians: Again it is my privilege and good fortune to be among
+you, to stand before those whom I have loved, for whom I have labored,
+by whom I have been trusted and honored, and here to answer for
+myself. Time and disease have frosted my hair, impaired my physical
+energies, and furrowed my brow, but my heart remains unchanged, and
+its every pulsation is as quick, as strong, and as true to your
+interests, your honor, and fair fame, as in the period of my earlier
+years.
+
+It is known to many of you, that at the close of the last session of
+Congress, wasted by protracted, violent disease, I went, in accordance
+with medical advice, to the Northeastern coast of the United States.
+Against the opinion of my physician, I had remained at Washington
+until my public duties were closed, and then adopted the only course
+which it was believed gave reasonable hope for a final restoration to
+health--that is, sought a region where I should be exempt from the
+heat of summer, and from political excitement.
+
+In one respect at least, this accorded with my own feelings, for
+physically and mentally depressed, fearful that I should never again
+be able to perform my part in the trials to which Mississippi might be
+subjected, I turned away from my fellows with such feelings as the
+wounded elk leaves his herd, and seeks the covert, to die alone.
+Misrepresentation and calumny followed me even to the brink of the
+grave, and with hyena instinct would have pursued me beyond it.
+
+The political positions which I had always occupied, justified the
+expectation that in New England I should be left in loneliness. In
+this I was disappointed; courtesy and kindness met me on my first
+landing, and attended me to the time of my departure. The
+manifestations of comity and hospitality, given by the generous and
+the noble, aroused the petty hostility of the more extreme of the
+Black Republicans, and their newspapers assailed me with the low abuse
+which for years I had been accustomed to receive at their hands. I had
+always despised their malice and defied their enmity; their assaults
+did not surprise me, but when I found them echoed in Southern papers,
+it did astonish, I will confess, it did pain me, not for any injury
+apprehended to myself, but for its evil effect upon the cause with
+which I was identified.
+
+Was it expected that to public and private manifestations of kindness
+by the people of Maine, I should return denunciation and repel their
+generous approaches with epithets of abuse? If they had deserved such
+reproach, they could not merit it at my hands. A guest hospitably
+attended, it would have been inconsistent with the character of a
+gentleman, to have done less than acknowledge their kindness, and it
+was not in my nature to feel otherwise than grateful to them for the
+many manifestations of a desire to render pleasant and beneficial the
+sojourn of an invalid among them. But they did not deserve it, and I
+am happy to state as the result of my acquaintance with them, that we
+have a large body of true friends among them, men who maintain our
+constitutional rights as explicitly and as broadly as we assert them,
+and who have performed this service with the foreknowledge that they
+were thereby to sacrifice their political prospects, at least, until
+through years of patient exertion they should correct error, suppress
+fanaticism, and build for themselves a structure on the basis of
+truth, which had long been unwelcome and might not soon be understood.
+
+But there were other evidences of regard more valuable to me than
+exhibitions of personal kindness. Regard for the people of
+Mississippi, founded on a special attention to their history; the
+gallant services of your sons in the field, were publicly claimed as
+property which Mississippi could not appropriate to herself; but which
+were part of the common wealth of the nation, and belonged equally to
+the people of Maine. Could I be insensible to such recognition of the
+honorable fame of Mississippi? No, the memory of the gallant dead, who
+died at Monterey and Buena Vista, forbade it.
+
+At a subsequent period, when in Massachusetts, one of her
+distinguished sons, (Gen. Cushing,) paid a compliment to the feat
+performed by the Mississippi Regiment in checking the enemies cavalry
+on the field of Buena Vista one Black Republican newspaper denied the
+originality of the movement, and claimed it to have been previously
+performed by an English regiment at Quatre Bras. This claim was
+unfounded; the service performed by the British Regiment having been
+of a totally different character and for a different purpose.--A
+Southern paper, however, has gone one step beyond that of the
+Massachusetts paper, and denies the merit claimed for the service
+rendered by saying that it was the result of accident, growing out of
+the peculiar conformation of the ground on which the regiment rallied
+and that it was necessary for the safety of the regiment, being like
+the act of a man who leaps from a burning ship and takes the chance of
+drowning.
+
+If this only affected myself, I should leave it, like other
+misrepresentations, unnoticed, but it concerns the hard earned
+reputation of the regiment I commanded. It affects the fame of
+Mississippi, and propagates an error which may pollute the current of
+history.
+
+We live in an age of progress, and it requires a progressive age to
+produce a military critic who should discover that a soldier deserved
+no credit for availing himself of the accidents of ground. One half of
+the science of war consists in teaching how to take advantage of the
+irregularities of the ground on which military movements are to be
+made, or defensive works are to be constructed. The highest reputation
+of Generals in every age has resulted in their skill in military
+topography. The most marked compliment ever paid by one General to
+another, was that of Napoleon to Cæsar, when he halted on his
+encampments without a previous reconnoisance. But the regiment did not
+rally as stated, for it had not been dispersed; neither was their
+movement the result of their own necessity, or adopted for their own
+safety. They were marching by the flank, on the side of a ravine, when
+the enemy's cavalry were seen approaching. They could have halted on
+the side of the ravine, which was so precipitous that they would have
+been there as sate from a charge as if they had been in Mississippi.
+They could have gone down into the ravine, and have been concealed
+even from the sight of the cavalry. The necessity was to prevent the
+cavalry from passing to the rear of our line of battle, where they
+might have attacked, and probably carried our batteries, which were
+then without the protection of our infantry escort. It was our
+country's necessity and not our own which prompted the service there
+performed. For this the regiment was formed square across the plain,
+and there stood motionless as a rock, silent as death, and eager as a
+greyhound for the approach of the enemy, at least nine times,
+numerically, their superiors. Some Indiana troops were formed on the
+brink of the ravine with the right flank of the Mississippi Regiment,
+constituting one branch of what has been called the "V". When the
+enemy had approached as near as he dared and seemed to shrink from
+contact with the motionless, resolute living wall which stood before
+him, the angry crack of the Mississippi rifle was heard, and as the
+smoke rose and the dust fell, there remained of the host which so
+lately stood before us but the fallen and the flying. The rear of our
+line of battle was again secured, and a service had been rendered
+which in no small degree contributed to the triumph which finally
+perched upon the banner of the United States.
+
+I am not a disinterested, and may not be a competent judge, but I know
+how I thought, and still believe, that your sons, given by you to the
+public service in the war with Mexico, have not received the full
+measure of the credit which was their due. They, however, received so
+much that we might be content to rest on the history as it has been
+written. But it constitutes a reason why we should not permit any of
+the leaves to be unjustly torn away.
+
+To return to the consideration of the less important subject, the
+misrepresentation of myself; I will again express the surprise I felt
+that when abolition papers were assailing me with a view to destroy
+any power which I might acquire to correct the error which had been
+instilled into the minds of the people of the North in relation to
+Southern sentiments and Southern institutions, that they should have
+received both aid and comfort from Southern newspapers, and been
+bolstered up in the attempt to misrepresent my political position.
+When the charge was made, which was copied in Northern papers, that I
+had abandoned those with whom I co-operated in 1852, to produce a
+separation of the States, my friend, the editor of the Mississippian,
+seeing the misrepresentation of my position, and naturally supposing,
+as we had no discussion in 1852, the reference must have been made to
+the canvass of 1851, quoted from the resolutions of the State-Rights
+Democratic Convention, and from an address published by myself to the
+people, to show that my position was the reverse of that assigned to
+me. Before proceeding, I will advert to a reference which has been
+made to him, as my "organ." He is no more my "organ" than I am his. We
+have generally concurred, I and have been able to understand and
+anticipate his positions as he has mine. I am indebted to him for many
+favors. He is indebted to me for nothing. As Democrats, as gentlemen,
+as friends, we occupy to each other the relation of exact equality.
+
+Notwithstanding that irrefutable answer to the charge, it has been
+reiterated, and, as before, located in the year 1852. It is known to
+you all that our discussions were in 1851. I then favored a convention
+of the Southern States, that we might take counsel together, as to the
+future which was to be anticipated, from the legislation of 1850. The
+decision of the State was to acquiesce in the legislation of that
+year, with a series of resolutions in relation to future
+encroachments. I submitted to the decision of the people, and have in
+good faith adhered to the line of conduct which it imposed. Therefore
+in 1852 there is no record from which to disprove any allegation, but
+you know the charge to be utterly unfounded, and charity alone can
+suppose its reiteration was innocently made. Neither in that year nor
+in any other, have I ever advocated a dissolution of the Union, or the
+separation of the State of Mississippi from the Union, except as the
+last alternative, and have not considered the remedies which lie
+within that extreme as exhausted, or ever been entirely hopeless of
+their success. I hold now, as announced on former occasions, that
+whilst occupying a seat in the Senate, I am bound to maintain the
+Government of the Constitution, and in no manner to work for its
+destruction; that the obligation of the oath of office, Mississippi's
+honor and my own, require that, as a Senator of the United States,
+there should be no want of loyalty to the Constitutional Union.
+Whenever Mississippi shall resolve to separate from the Confederacy, I
+will expect her to withdraw her representatives from the General
+Government, to which they are accredited. If I should ever, whilst a
+Senator, deem it my duty to assume an attitude of hostility to the
+Union, I should, immediately thereupon, feel bound to resign the
+office, and return to my constituency to inform them of the fact. It
+was this view of the obligations of my position, which caused me, on
+various occasions, to repel, with such indignation, the accusation of
+being a disunionist, while holding the office of Senator of the United
+States.
+
+I have been represented as having, advocated "Squatter Sovereignty" in
+a speech made at Bangor, in the State of Maine, A paragraph has been
+published purporting to be an extract from that speech, and
+vituperative criticism, and forced construction have exhausted
+themselves upon it, with deductions which are considered authorized,
+because they are not denied in the paragraph published.
+
+In this case, as in that of the charge in relation to my position in
+1852, there is no record with which to answer. I never made a speech
+at Bangor. And a fair mind would have sought for the speech to see how
+far the general context explained the paragraph, before indulging in
+hostile criticism.
+
+Senator Douglas, in a speech at Alton, adopting the paragraph
+published, and evidently drawing his opinion from the unfair
+construction which had been put upon it, claims to quote from a speech
+made by me at Bangor, to sustain the position taken by him at
+Freeport. He says:
+
+"You will find in a recent speech, delivered by that able and eloquent
+statesman, Hon. Jefferson Davis, at Bangor, Maine, that he took the
+same view of this subject that I did in my Freeport speech. He there
+said:"
+
+"'If the inhabitants of any territory should refuse to enact such laws
+and police regulations as would give security to their property and
+his, it would be rendered more or less valueless, in proportion to the
+difficulty of holding it without such protection. In the case of
+property in the labor of a man, or what is usually called slave
+property, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not
+ordinarily retain it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the
+remedy being withheld, it would follow that the owner would be
+practically debarred, by the circumstances of the case, from taking
+slave property into a Territory where the sense of the inhabitants was
+opposed to its introduction. So much for the oft repeated fallacy of
+forcing slavery upon any community.'"
+
+It is fair to suppose, if the Senator had known where to find the
+speech from which this extract was taken, that he would have examined
+it before proceeding to make such use of it. And I can but believe, if
+he had taken the paragraph free from the distortion which it had
+undergone from others, that he must have seen it bore no similitude to
+his position at Freeport, and could give no countenance to the
+doctrine he then announced. He there said:
+
+"The next question Mr. Lincoln propounded to me is: 'Can the people of
+a territory exclude slavery from their limits by any fair means,
+before it comes into the Union as a State?' I answer emphatically, as
+Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times, on every stump in
+Illinois, that in my opinion, the people of a territory can, by lawful
+means, exclude slavery before it comes ill as a State. [Cheers.] Mr.
+Lincoln knew that I had given that answer over and over again. He
+heard me argue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over the State,
+in 1854, and '55, and '56, and he has now no excuse to pretend to have
+any doubt upon that subject. Whatever the Supreme Court may hereafter
+decide as on the abstract question of whether slavery may go in under
+the Constitution or not, the people of a territory have the lawful
+means to admit or exclude it as they please for the reason that
+slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless supported by
+local police regulations, furnishing remedies aid means of enforcing
+the right of holding slaves. Those local aid police regulations can
+only be furnished by the local Legislature. If the people of the
+Territory are opposed to slavery they will elect members to the
+Legislature who will adopt unfriendly legislation to it. If they are
+for it, they will adopt the legislative measures friendly to slavery.
+Hence no matter what may be the decision of the Supreme Court, on that
+abstract questions still the right of the people to make it a slave
+territory or a free territory, is perfect and complete under the
+Nebraska Bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln will deem my answer satisfactory on
+this point." This is the distinct assertion of the power of
+territorial legislation to admit or exclude slavery; of the first in
+the race of migration who reach a territory, the common property of
+the people of the United States to enact laws for the exclusion of
+other joint owners of the territory, who may in the exercise of their
+equal right to enter the common property, choose to take with them
+property recognized by the Constitution, built not acceptable to the
+first emigrants to the Territory. That Senator had too often and too
+fully discussed with me the question of "squatter sovereignty" to be
+justified in thus mistaking my opinion. The difference between us is
+as wide as that of one who should assert the right to rob from him who
+admitted the power. It is true, as I stated it at that time, all
+property requires protection from the society in the midst of which it
+is held. This necessity does not confer a right to destroy, but rather
+creates an obligation to protect. It is true as I stated it, that
+slave property peculiarly requires the protection of society, and
+would ordinarily become valueless in the midst of a community, which
+would seek to seduce the slave front his master, and conceal him
+whilst absconding, and as jurors protect each other in any suit which
+the master might bring for damages. The laws of the United States,
+through the courts of the United States, might enable the master to
+recover the slave wherever he could find him. But you all know, in
+such a community as I have supposed, that a slave inclined to abscond
+would become utterly useless, and that was the extent of the
+admission.
+
+The extract on which reliance has been placed was taken from a speech
+made at Portland, and both before and after the extract, the language
+employed conclusively disproves the construction, which unfriendly
+criticism has put upon the detached passage. Immediately preceding it,
+the following language was used:
+
+"The Territory being the common property of States, equals in the
+Union, and bound by the Constitution which recognizes property in
+slaves, it is an abuse of terms to call aggression the migration into
+that Territory of one of its joint owners, because carrying with him
+any species of property recognized by the Constitution of the United
+States. The Federal Government has no power to declare what is
+property enywhere.{sic} The power of each State cannot extend beyond
+its own limits. As a consequence, therefore, whatever is property in
+any of the States, must be so considered in any of the territories of
+the United States until they reach to the dignity of community
+independence, when the subject matter will be entirely under the
+control of the people, and be determined by their fundamental law. If
+the inhabitants of any territory should refuse to enact such laws and
+police regulations as would give security to their property or to his,
+it would be rendered more or less valueless, in proportion to the
+difficulty of holding it without such protection. In the case of
+property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave
+property, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not
+ordinarily retain it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the
+remedy being withheld, it would follow that the owner would be
+practically debarred by the circumstances of the case, from taking
+slave property into a territory where the sense of the inhabitants was
+opposed to its introduction. So much for the oft repeated fallacy of
+forcing slavery upon any community."
+
+And in a subsequent part of the same speech, the matter was treated of
+in this wise:
+
+"The South had not asked Congress to extend slavery into the
+territories, and he in common with most other Southern statesmen,
+denied the existence of any power to do so. He held it to be the creed
+of the Democracy, both in the North and the South, that the general
+government had no constitutional power either to establish or prohibit
+slavery anywhere; a grant of power to do the one must necessarily have
+involved the power to do the other. Hence it is their policy not to
+interfere on the one side or the other, but protecting each individual
+in his constitutional rights, to leave every independent community to
+determine and adjust all domestic questions as in their wisdom may
+seem best."
+
+In other speeches made elsewhere, in New England and in New York the
+equality of the South as joint owners was declared and maintained, as
+I had often done before the people of Mississippi and in the Senate of
+the United States when the subject was in controversy. The position
+taken by me in 1850, in the form of an amendment offered to one of the
+compromise measures of that year, was intended to assert the equal
+right of all property to the protection of the United States, and to
+deny to any legislative body the power to abridge that right. The
+decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case has fully
+sustained our position in the following passage:
+
+"If Congress itself cannot do this, (prohibit slavery in a Territory,)
+if it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government--it
+will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a
+territorial government to exercise them. _It could confer no power on
+any local government established by its authority, to violate the
+provisions of the Constitution._
+
+"And if the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the
+master in a slave; and makes no distinction between that description
+of property and other property owned by a citizen, _no tribunal_,
+acting under the authority of the United States, whether legislative,
+executive, or judicial, has a right to draw such a distinction, or
+deny to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees which have
+been provided for the protection of private property against the
+encroachments of the government."
+
+At the time of the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, it certainly
+was understood that the constitutional rights to take slaves into any
+territory of the United States should thenceforth be regarded as a
+judicial question; and therefore special provision was made to
+facilitate the bringing of such questions before the Supreme Court of
+the United States. After the decision to which reference has just been
+made, the prominent advocate of the bill at the time of its enactment
+should have been estopped from recurring to his "squatter sovereignty"
+heresies, though the decision should have been different from his
+anticipation or desire. And as much interest has been felt in relation
+to his position, and some inquiry has been made as to my view of it, I
+will here say, that I consider him as having recanted the better
+opinions announced by him in 1854, and that I cannot be compelled to
+choose between men, one of whom asserts the power of Congress to
+deprive us of a constitutional right, and the other only denies the
+power of Congress, in order to transfer it to the territorial
+legislature. Neither the one nor the other has any authority to sit in
+judgment on our rights under the Constitution.
+
+Between such positions, Mississippi cannot have a preference, because
+she cannot recognize anything tolerable in either of them.
+
+Having called your attention to the speech made at Portland, to show
+that other parts of it disprove the construction put upon the
+paragraph, which was taken from it, and reported to be a part of the
+speech delivered at Bangor, it may be as well on this occasion to
+state the circumstances under which the speech was made at Portland.
+Immediately preceding the State election, I was invited, by the
+democracy of that city, to address them, and my attention was
+especially called to a delusion practiced on the people of Maine, by
+which many were led to believe that there was a purpose on the part of
+the South, through the government of the United States, to force
+slavery not only into the territories, but also into the
+non-slaveholding States of the Union. It was represented to me that in
+the last Presidential canvass that one of the Senators of Maine had
+convinced many of the voters that if Mr. Buchanan should be elected,
+slavery would be forced upon Maine, and that the other Senator was
+arguing that the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court had given
+authority to introduce and hold slaves in that State. To counteract
+such impressions, injurious to the South and her friends, the remarks
+which have been extracted were made.
+
+On that, as on other occasions, it was deemed a duty to correct
+misrepresentation and seek to vindicate our purposes from the
+prejudice which ignorance and agitation had created against us. If it
+was in my power in any degree to allay sectional excitement, to
+cultivate sounder opinions and a more fraternal feeling, it was a task
+most acceptable to me, and one for the performance of which I could
+not doubt your approval. But it has been my fortune to be the object
+of a malice which I have not striven to appease because I was
+conscious that it rested upon no injury or injustice inflicted by me.
+The land swarms with Presidential candidates, announced by their
+agents or their friends, or by themselves, as the mode most available
+for preventing too zealous and partial friends from putting them in
+nomination. To these it was the source of unfounded apprehension, that
+I went to the coast of New England, instead of returning to
+Mississippi. If any of them had known the necessity which kept me from
+home, it is fair to suppose the aspirant for such distinction could
+not have been guilty of the meanness of suppressing that fact, and
+allowing misrepresentation to do its work in my absence.
+
+For the wretch who is doomed to go through the world bearing a
+personal jealousy or a personal malignity, which renders him incapable
+of doing justice, and studious of misrepresentation, I can only feel
+pity, and were it possible to feel revengeful, could consign him to no
+worse punishment than that of his own tormentors, the vipers nursed in
+his own breast.
+
+But long have I delayed what is my chief purpose, to speak to my
+friends, the men whose good opinion is to me of importance only second
+to the approval of my own conscience. So far as they have
+misunderstood me, it is a pleasure to set forth the true meaning of
+both my words and my deeds. To my traducers I have no explanations to
+offer and no apologies for any one. If State Rights men in the excess
+of their zeal have censured me, I have no reproaches for them, but
+cheerfully bear the burden which may be imposed upon me by zeal in the
+cause to which my political life has been devoted, and in imitation of
+Job, would bless the State Rights Democracy of Mississippi, even if
+the object of its vengeance: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in
+him."
+
+If I had been asked what interpretation might possibly be put upon the
+published sketch of the remarks made by me at sea on the Fourth of
+July last, speculation would have been exhausted before it would have
+occurred to me that my State Rights friends would consider themselves
+described under the head of "trifling politicians," who could not
+believe that the country would remain united to repel insult to our
+flag as it had recently been on the occasion of the attempt to
+exercise visit and search in the Gulf of Mexico, under the pretext of
+checking the African slave trade. The publisher of that sketch has
+already announced that it was not a report, and that for its language
+I could not justly be considered responsible. To this it is needless
+that I should add any thing. But I have treated it, and will treat it
+in the view necessarily taken by those who construed it before such
+denial was made.
+
+During the period of greatest adversity, in the hour of gloom and
+defeat, the State Rights Democracy had no cause to complain of my
+fealty. We struggled together, fell together, rose together, and to
+them I am indebted for whatever of consideration or position I
+possess. Endeared to me by our common suffering; grateful to them for
+the steadfast support with which they have honored me, accustomed to
+refer with pride to my identity with them, it would have been strange
+indeed, if when separated from them under circumstances which turned
+any eyes, with more than ordinary anxiety towards my home, I should
+then have sought an occasion to heap reproachful language upon them.
+
+Often it has been my duty to repel the accusations of others who
+sought to attribute to the State Rights Democracy opinions not their
+own, and to impute to them the purpose to agitate for the destruction
+of the government we inherited. As one of the State Rights party, I
+deny that the language published is a picture of me or my class, and I
+have as little disposition now, as at any former time, to separate
+myself from the body of the party, with which I have so long acted,
+which I rejoice to see in power at home, and daily more and more
+respected in the other States.
+
+I have thus defined who were not meant, and will now tell who were
+meant. Firsts they were the noisy agitators who were constantly
+disturbing the public peace and proclaiming that slavery is so great
+an evil, that the preservation of the Union is subordinate to the
+purpose of abolishing it. They who object to any protection, on the
+high seas or elsewhere, being given to slave property by the
+government of the United States; who would rejoice in any insult
+offered to the national flag if borne by a vessel sailing from a
+Southern port; and who have been for some time back circulating
+petitions for a dissolution of the Union on the ground of the
+incompatibility of the sections. And to these may be added the few,
+the very few of Southern men who fancying that they would have
+advantages out of the Union which they cannot possess within it,
+however fully the compact should be observed and State Equality
+maintained, desire its dissolution, and taking counsel of their
+passions, decry the labors of all who seek to preserve the government
+as our fathers formed it, and to develop the great purposes for which
+it was ordained and established.
+
+The other phrase which has been the subject of comment was, "and this
+great country will remain united." How "united" is set forth in the
+language to which this clause was a conclusion, "united to protect our
+national flag whenever a foreign power, presuming on our domestic
+dissention, should dare to insult it." The unanimity with which men of
+all parties in the two houses of Congress rallied to support the
+executive in maintaining the rights of our flag, had been the subject
+of my commendation. Upon that fact the idea expressed rested. At worst
+it could but have evinced too much credulity, and I trust I may die
+believing that whenever the honor of our flag shall demand it, every
+mountain and valley and plain, will pour forth their hardy sons, and
+that shoulder to shoulder they will march against any foreign foe
+which shall invade the rights of any portion of the United States.
+
+And here permit me as a duty to you, and an obligation upon myself, to
+pay the tribute which I believe to be due the Northern Democracy.
+Having formed my opinion of them upon insufficient data, I have had
+occasion, after much intercourse with them, to modify it. I believe
+that a great reaction has commenced; how far it will progress I do not
+pretend to say, but am hopeful that agitation will soon become
+unprofitable to political traders in New England, and this hope rests
+upon the high position taken by the Northern Democracy, and upon the
+increased vote which in some of the States, under the more distinct
+avowal of sound principles, their candidates have received. You may
+now often hear among them not only the unqualified defence of your
+constitutional rights, but the vindication of your institutions in the
+abstract, and in the concrete.
+
+In the town of Portland, just preceding the election, a Democrat of
+large means and extensively engaged in commercial transactions and
+city improvements addressed the Democracy, arguing that their
+prosperity depended upon their connection with countries, the products
+of which were dependent upon slave labor; and the future growth and
+prosperity of their city depended upon the extension of slave labor
+into all countries where it could be profitably employed. He showed by
+a statistical statement the paralysing effect which would be produced
+upon their interest by the abolition of slavery. The Black Republican
+papers of course abused him, and compared him to Davis and Toombs, but
+his sound views were approved by the Democracy, and so far as I could
+judge, he gained consideration by their manly utterance.
+
+A generation had been educated in error, and the South had done
+nothing in defence of the abstract right of slavery. Within a few
+years essays have been written, books have been published, by northern
+as well as by southern men, and with the increase of information,
+there has been a subsidence of prejudice, and a preparation of the
+mind to receive truth. Our friends are still in a minority. It would
+be vain to speculate as to the period when their position will be
+reversed. Whether sooner or later, or never, they are still entitled
+to our regard and respect. A few years ago those who maintained our
+constitutional right, and to secure it voted for the Kansas and
+Nebraska bill, went home to meet reproach and expulsions from public
+employment.
+
+Even their social position was affected by that political act. The few
+years, however, which have elapsed, have produced a great change. They
+have recovered all except their political position. That bill which
+was considered when it was enacted, a Southern measure, for which
+Northern men bravely sacrificed their political prospects, has of late
+been denounced at the South as a cheat and a humbug. A poor return
+certainly, to those who conscientiously maintaining our rights,
+surrendered their popularity to secure what the men for whom they made
+the sacrifice now pronounce to have been a cheat. It is true that bill
+has recently received in some quarters a construction which its
+friends did not place upon it when it was enacted. But it should be
+judged by its terms and by contemporaneous construction.
+
+When I visited the people of Mississippi last year, the question of
+greatest public excitement, was connected with the action of the
+Executive in relation to the admission of Kansas as a State of the
+Union. You had been led to suppose that the President would attempt to
+control the action of the convention, and if the constitution was not
+submitted to a popular vote, would oppose by all the means within his
+power, the admission of the State within the Union. You were also
+excited at a dogma which had been put forth, to the effect that no
+more slave States should be admitted. I agreed with you then, that if
+the President took such position he would violate the obligations of
+his office, and be faithless to the trust which you had reposed in
+him. I agreed with you then, that the exclusion of a State, because it
+was slaveholding, would be such an offence against your equality as
+would demand at your hands the vindication of your rights. What has
+been the result? The convention framed the constitution, submitted
+only the clause relating to slavery to a popular vote, and applied for
+admission. The President in his annual message referred in favorable
+terms to the application, then not formally made, and when the
+Constitution reached him transmitted it to Congress with a special
+message, in which he fully and emphatically maintained the right of
+admission.
+
+After the convention had adjourned, Mr. Stanton, acting Governor of
+the Territory, called and extra session of the Freesoil Legislature,
+which has been elected, and it passed an act to submit the whole
+constitution to a popular vote. The President removed him from
+office,--a further evidence of the sincerity with which he was
+fulfiling your expectations in relation to Kansas. And it gives me
+pleasure here to say of him, what I am assured I can now say with
+confidence, that he will not shrink a hair's breadth from the position
+he has taken, but will move another step in advance, and fall, if fall
+he must, manfully upholding the rights and defying the insolence of
+ill-gotten power.
+
+When the bill was presented to the Senate for the admission of the
+State of Kansas, after a long discussion, it was adopted, with a
+provision which required the State after admission to relinquish its
+claim to all the land asked for in its ordinance, except 5,000,000
+acres, that being the largest amount which had been ever granted to a
+State at the period of its admission. There was also a provision
+declaratory of the right of the people to change their constitution at
+any time; though the instrument itself had restricted them for a term
+of years. I considered both those provisions objectionable; the first,
+because it was directory of legislation to be enacted by a State; and
+the second, because it was inviting to a disregard of the fundamental
+law, and had too much the seeming of a concession to the anti-slavery
+feeling which was impatient for a change of the constitution. That
+bill failed in the House, and was succeeded by a bill of the
+Opposition which recognized the right of Kansas to be admitted with a
+pro-slavery constitution, provided it should be adopted by a popular
+vote. This also failed, and in the division between the two Houses, a
+com- {sic}
+
+As there has been much diversity of opinion in relation to that law,
+and I think much misapprehension as to its character, I will be
+pardoned for speaking of it somewhat minutely.
+
+When it was known that the Conference Committee had prepared a bill, I
+mittee of conference was appointed, which framed the bill that became
+a law. being at the time confined to my house by disease, invited my
+colleague and the Representatives from the State to visit me, that we
+might confer together and decide upon the course which we would
+pursue. Before the evening of our meeting, a distinguished member of
+the House of Representatives, a member of the Committee, called and
+read to me the bill which they had prepared. It contained some
+features which I considered objectionable. He concurred with me, and
+promised to use his efforts to have them stricken out. When the
+Mississippi delegation assembled, our conference was full, and marked
+by the desire, first to protect the rights of our State, and secondly,
+to secure unanimity of action by its delegation. The objections which
+were urged, referred, as my memory serves me, entirely to the features
+which I had reason to hope would be stricken out. One of the
+delegation announced an unwillingness to support the proposed
+modification of the Senate proposition, lest it should be considered
+as yielding the point on which we had insisted that Congress could not
+require the Constitution to be submitted to a popular vote. I refer to
+the lamented Quitman, whose sincere devotion to Southern interests, no
+one, who knew him, could question. I regretted that he deemed it
+necessary to vote, finally, against the measure, but I honor the
+motive which governed his course.
+
+The ordinance which was attached to the Constitution, was not a part
+of it, but a condition annexed to the application for admission. If
+Congress had stricken the ordinance out, the effect, I believe, would
+have been that of admitting the State without any reservation of the
+public land; would have transferred as an attribute of sovereignty the
+useful as well as the eminent domain. The Southern Senators who
+received the soubriquet of Southern ultras, held that position in
+1850, in relation to the public lands of California, and it
+constituted one of their objections to the admission of that State at
+the time it was effected. To modify the ordinance, that is to change
+the condition on which the inhabitants of Kansas proposed to enter
+into the Union was necessarily to give them the right to withdraw
+their proposition.
+
+It remained then for Congress if they reduced the amount of land asked
+for in the ordinance, either to provide the mode in which the
+inhabitants should accept or reject the modification or leave them to
+do it in such manner as they might adopt. The convention was defunct,
+the legislature was black republican and thought to be entitled to
+little confidence, and it seemed to be better that Congress should
+itself provide the mode of ascertaining the public will than leave
+that duty to the territorial legislature, such as it was believed and
+proven to be. It was a mere question of expediency, and I think the
+best course was pursued.
+
+To have admitted the State without modification of the ordinance,
+would have been to grant five times as much of the public land as had
+ever been given to a State at the period of admission.
+
+There was nothing to justify such a discrimination, and otherwise the
+State could not be admitted without referring the question or
+violating the principle of State sovereignty.
+
+As a condition precedent, the general government may require the
+recognition of its right to control the primary disposal of the land,
+but can have no right to impose a condition with the mandate that it
+shall be subsequently fulfiled and no power to enforce the mandate if
+the State admitted should refuse to comply. Not for all the land in
+Kansas, not for all the land between the Missouri and the Pacific
+ocean, not for all the land of the continent of North America, would I
+agree that the federal government should have the power to coerce a
+State.
+
+The necessity for having all conditions agreed upon before the
+admission of a State was demonstrated by Mr. Soule, in 1850, in the
+discussion of the bill for the admission of California. Mr. Webster
+replied to him but did not answer his argument, and the course of
+events seems likely to verify all that Senator Soule foretold.
+
+Of the three methods which were supposable, I think Congress adopted
+the best; it was the only one which was attainable and secured all
+which was of value to the South. It was the admission by Congress of a
+State with a pro-slavery Constitution; it was the triumph of the
+principle that forbade Congress to interfere either as to the matter
+of the Constitution or the manner in which it should be formed and
+adopted.
+
+The refusal of the inhabitants to accept the reduced endowment offered
+to them, and their decision to remain in a territorial condition, was,
+in my opinion, wise on their part and fortunate on ours. The late
+Governor, Denver, has forcibly pointed out to them their want of means
+to support a State government, and the propriety of giving their first
+attention to the establishment of order and the development of their
+internal resources. There were many reasons to doubt the fitness of
+the inhabitants of Kansas to be admitted as a State.
+
+The condition of the country and the previous legislation of Congress
+made the case exceptional, and, in my judgment, justified the course
+adopted. I have, therefore, no apology or regret to offer in the case.
+
+The Northern opponents of the measure have, among other denunciatory
+epithets, applied to it those of "bribery" and "coercion." "Bribery"
+to give less by twenty millions of acres of land than was claimed, and
+"coercion" to leave them to the option of receiving the usual
+endowment, or waiting until they had an amount of population which
+would give some assurance of their ability to maintain a State
+government. Though such is the requirement of the law, and designed to
+secure exemption from the mischievous agitation which has for several
+years disturbed the country and benefitted only the demagogues who
+make a trade of politics, we may scarcely hope to escape from a
+renewal of the agitation which has been found so profitable. The next
+phase of the question will probably be in the form of what is termed
+an "enabling act,"--a favorite measure with the advocates of "squatter
+sovereignty," who, claiming for the inhabitants of a Territory all the
+power of the people of a State, nevertheless consider it necessary
+that Congress should confer the power to form a Constitution and apply
+as a State. Congress has given authority for admission in some cases,
+but I think it better to avoid than to follow the precedent. Not that
+I am concerned for the doctrine of "squatter sovereignty," but that I
+would guard against the mischievous error of considering the federal
+government as the parent of States, and would restrict it to the
+function of admitting new States into the Union, barring all
+pretension to the power of creating them.
+
+It seems now to be probable that the Abolitionists and their allies
+will have control of the next House of Representatives, and it may be
+well inferred from their past course that they will attempt
+legislation both injurious and offensive to the South. I have an
+abiding faith that any law which violates our constitutional rights,
+will be met with a veto by the present Executive.--But should the next
+House of Representatives be such as would elect an Abolition
+President, we may expect that the election will be so conducted as
+probably to defeat a choice by the people and devolve the election
+upon the House.
+
+Whether by the House or by the people, if an Abolitionist be chosen
+President of the United States, you will have presented to you the
+question of whether you will permit the government to pass into the
+hands of your avowed and implacable enemies. Without pausing for your
+answer, I will state my own position to be that such a result would be
+a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would
+be destroyed and the observance of its mere forms entitled to no
+respect.
+
+In that event, in such manner as should be most expedient, I should
+deem it your duty to provide for your safety outside of a Union with
+those who have already shown the will, and would have acquired the
+power, to deprive you of your birthright and to reduce you to worse
+than the colonial dependence of your fathers.
+
+The master mind of the so-called Republican party, Senator Seward, has
+in a. recent speech at Rochester, announced the purpose of his party
+to dislodge the Democracy from the possession of the federal
+Government, and assigns as a reason the friendship of that party for
+what he denominates the slave system. He declares the Union between
+the States having slave labor and free labor to be incompatible, and
+announces that one or the other must disappear. He even asserts that
+it was the purpose of the framers of the Government to destroy slave
+property, and cites as evidence of it, the provision for an amendment
+of the Constitution. He seeks to alarm his auditors by assuring them
+of the purpose on the part of the South and the Democratic party to
+force slavery upon all the States of the Union. Absurd as all this may
+seem to you, and incredulous as you may be of its acceptance by any
+intelligent portion of the citizens of the United States, I have
+reason to believe that it has been inculcated to no small extent in
+the Northern mind.
+
+It requires but a cursory examination of the Constitution of the
+United States; but a partial knowledge of its history and of the
+motives of the men who formed it, to see how utterly fallacious it is
+to ascribe to them the purpose of interfering with the domestic
+institutions of any of the States. But if a disrespect for that
+instrument, a fanatical disregard of its purposes, should ever induce
+a majority, however large, to seek by amending the Constitution, to
+pervert it from its original object, and to deprive you of the
+equality which your fathers bequeathed to you, I say let the star of
+Mississippi be snatched from the constellation to shine by its
+inherent light, if it must be so, through all the storms and clouds of
+war.
+
+The same dangerously powerful man describes the institution of slavery
+as degrading to labor, as intolerant and inhuman, and says the white
+laborer among us is not enslaved only because he cannot yet be reduced
+to bondage. Where he learned his lesson, I am at a loss to imagine;
+certainly not by observation, for you all know that by interest, if
+not by higher motive, slave labor bears to capital as kind a relation
+as can exist between them anywhere; that it removes from us all that
+controversy between the laborer and the capitalist, which has filled
+Europe with starving millions and made their poor houses an onerous
+charge. You too know, that among us, white men have an equality
+resulting from a presence of the lower caste, which cannot exist where
+white men fill the position here occupied by the servile race. The
+mechanic who comes among us, employing the less intellectual labor of
+the African, takes the position which only a master-workman occupies
+where all the mechanics are white, and therefore it is that our
+mechanics hold their position of absolute equality among us.
+
+I say to you here as I have said to the Democracy of New York, if it
+should ever come to pass that the Constitution shall be perverted to
+the destruction of our rights so that we shall have the mere right as
+a feeble minority unprotected by the barrier of the Constitution to
+give an ineffectual negative vote in the Halls of Congress, we shall
+then bear to the federal government the relation our colonial fathers
+did to the British crown, and if we are worthy of our lineage we will
+in that event redeem our rights even if it be through the process of
+revolution. And it gratifies me to be enabled to say that no portion
+of the speech to which I have referred was received with more marked
+approbation by the Democracy there assembled than the sentiment which
+has just been cited. I am happy also to state that during the past
+summer I heard in many places, what previously I had only heard from
+the late President Pierce, the declaration that whenever a Northern
+army should be assembled to march for the subjugation of the South,
+they would have a battle to fight at home before they passed the
+limits of their own State, and one in which our friends claim that the
+victory will at least be doubtful.
+
+Now, as in 1851, I hold separation from the Union by the State of
+Mississippi to be the last remedy--the final alternative. In the
+language of the venerated Calhoun I consider the disruption of the
+Union as a great though not the greatest calamity. I would cling
+tenaciously to our constitutional Government, seeing as I do in the
+fraternal Union of equal States the benefit to all and the fulfilment
+of that high destiny which our fathers hoped for and left it for their
+sons to attain. I love the flag of my country with even more than a
+filial affection. Mississippi gave me in my boyhood to her military
+service. For many of the best years of my life I have followed that
+flag and upheld it on fields where if I had fallen it might have been
+claimed as my winding sheet. When I have seen it surrounded by the
+flags of foreign countries, the pulsations of my heart have beat
+quicker with every breeze which displayed its honored stripes and
+brilliant constellation. I have looked with veneration on those
+stripes as recording the original size of our political family and
+with pride upon that constellation as marking the family's growth; I
+glory in the position which Mississippi's star holds in the group; but
+sooner than see its lustre dimmed--sooner than see it degraded from
+its present equality-would tear it from its place to be set even on
+the perilous ridge of battle as a sign round which Mississippi's best
+and bravest should gather to the harvest-home of death.
+
+As when I had the privilege of addressing the Legislature a year ago,
+so now do I urge you to the needful preparation to meet whatever
+contingency may befall us. The maintenance of our rights against a
+hostile power is a physical problem and cannot be solved by mere
+resolutions. Not doubtful of what the heart will prompt, it is not the
+less proper that due provision should be made for physical
+necessities. Why should not the State have an armory for the repair of
+arms, for the alteration of old models so as to make them conform to
+the improved weapons of the present day, and for the manufacture on a
+limited scale of new arms, including cannon and their carriages; the
+casting of shot and shells, and the preparation of fixed ammunition?
+
+Such preparation will not precipitate us upon the trial of secession,
+for I hold now, as in 1850, that Mississippi's patriotism will hold
+her to the Union as long as it is constitutional, but it will give to
+our conduct the character of earnestness of which mere paper
+declarations have somewhat deprived us; it will strengthen the hands
+of our friends at the North, and in the event that separation shall be
+forced upon us, we shall be prepared to meet the contingency with
+whatever remote consequences may follow it, and give to manly hearts
+the happy assurance that manly arms will not fail to protect the
+gentle beauty which blesses our land and graces the present occasion.
+
+You are already progressing in the construction of railroads which,
+whilst they facilitate travel, increase the products of the State and
+the reward of the husbandman, are a great element of strength by the
+means they afford for rapid combination at any point where it may be
+desirable to concentrate our forces. To those already in progress I
+hope one will soon be added to connect the interior of the State with
+the best harbor upon our Gulf coast. When this shall be completed a
+trade will be opened to that point which will produce direct
+importation and exportation to the great advantage of the planter as
+well as all consumers of imported goods; and furnishing "exchange,"
+will protect us from such revulsion as was suffered last fall when
+during a period of entire prosperity at home, our market was paralyzed
+by failures in New York.
+
+The contemplated improvement in the levee system, will give to our
+people a mine of untold wealth; and as we progress in the development
+of our resources and the increase of our power, so will we advance in
+State pride and the ability to maintain principles far higher in value
+than mountains of gold or oceans of pearl.
+
+But I find myself running into those visions which have hung before me
+from my boyhood up; which at home and abroad have been the hope
+constantly attending upon me, and which the cold wing of time has been
+unable to wither. I am about to leave you to discharge the duties of
+the high trust with which you have honored me. I go with the same love
+for Mississippi which has always animated me; with the same confidence
+in her people, which has cheered me in the darkest hour. As often as I
+may return to you, I feel secure of myself, and say I shall come back
+unchanged. Or should the Providence which has so often kindly
+protected me, not permit me to return again, my last prayer will be
+for the honor, the glory and the happiness of Mississippi.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SPEECHES OF THE HONORABLE JEFFERSON DAVIS 1858 ***
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