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by the Assembly two days later, on the 6th of following are extracts from the address then January: adopted:

Whereas, The people of the State of New-Mexico FELLOW-CITIZENS: Hitherto when we have assembled in have petitioned Congress for the establishment of a Ter- Convention, there were well known and well recognized ritorial Government which shall protect them against the bounds to our country, but now that the spirit of coninstitution of domestic Slavery while they remain a ter- quest has been let loose, who can tell where is his counritory of the United States, and have also petitioned Con- try, whether on the Rio Grande, the Sierra Nevada, the gress for protection against the unfounded claims of the Rio Gila or the Gulf of California, or whether part SpanState of Texas to a large portion of their territory lying ish, much Indian, and some Negro, Santa Féan or Cali east of the Rio Grande; and, whereas, it would be un-fornian may not be as good an American citizen as himjust to the people of New-Mexico and California, and self? Our flag is borne, with fixed bayonets to surround revolting to the spirit of the age, to permit domestic it, and unmuzzled grape-shot to clear the way, in the Slavery an institution from which they are now free-conquering footsteps of Cortes-by the base of the snowy to be introduced among them: and, whereas, since the peaks of Popocatapetl, to the Eternal city of the acquisition of New Mexico by the United States the peo- Aztecs-and Mexicans of every color, and every breed, ple thereof have a right to expect the protection of the sprung from commingling Moor and straight-haired AfriGeneral Government, and should be secured in the full can, as well as from Castile and Leon, are made Ameripossession and enjoyment of their Territory: therefore can citizens, or prepared for being made so, by the genResolved, That our Senators and Representatives in tle logic of red-mouthed artillery, thundering from the Congress be requested to use their best efforts to procure bristling heights of Cerro Gordo to the bloody plains of the passage of laws for the establishment of govern- Contreras and Churubusco. Wherever that flag is, with ments for the Territories acquired by the treaty of peace its stars and stripes, the emblem of our Nationality, with Mexico, and that by such laws involuntary servi- there our hearts are; but woe! woe! to the men, we cry, tude, except for crime, be excluded from such Terri- who have dispatched it upon its mission of Conquest, tories. and what is yet worse, the conversion of a Free into a Slaveholding Territory.

Resolved, That the territory lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande is the common property of the United States, and that our Senators and Representatives in Congress be requested to use their best efforts to preserve the same as such common property, and protect it from the unfounded claim of the State of Texas, and prohibit the extension over it of the laws of Texas, or the institution of domestic Slavery.

Resolved, That the existence of prisons for the confinement and marts for the sale of slaves, at the seat of the National Government, is viewed by this legislature with deep regret and mortification; that such prisons and marts ought forthwith to be abolished; therefore be it

farther

Resolved, That our Senators and Representatives in Congress be requested to use their strenuous efforts to procure the passage of a law that shall protect slaves from unjust imprisonment, and shall effectually put an end to the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. Resolved, That the Governor be requested to forward copies of the preceding resolutions to each Senator and Representative in Congress from this State.

MR. DIX FOR SLAVERY PROHIBITION.

These resolutions were presented in the U. S. Senate by the Hon. John A. Dix (now, 1860,) Postmaster of New-York, and defended by him in an elaborate and able speech. On the first resolution, he said:

This resolution was in sentiment, if not in words, identical with those which have been passed by fifteen of the thirty States of the Union. With a single exception, all the non-slaveholding and one of the slaveholding States have declared themselves opposed to the extension of Slavery into territory now free. Sir, I fully concur in the propriety of this declaration. I believe that Congress has the power to prohibit Slavery in California and New Mexico; that it is our duty to exercise the power, and that it should be exercised now. I am always for acting when the proper time for action has come. I am utterly opposed to any course which shall cast upon others the responsibility which belongs to ourselves. The resolution looks to the exclusion of Slavery from New Mexico and California during their territorial condition only. It does not look beyond that condition with a view to control the people when they shall have come into the Union. It contemplates no invasion of State sovereignty. In this view of the subject, one of the New-York presses which has resisted all interference with Slavery, even in the Territories, pronounced these resolutions conciliatory in their character. I do not know that I should call them either conciliatory or the reverse. They take firmly the ground that New-York has always taken, that Slavery shall by no act of hers be further extended. She believes it to be the ground of principle, of justice, and of right, and I do not hesitate to say she will

never abandon it-never, never.

THE NEW-YORK WHIGS FOR FREEDOM IN 1847. At the Whig State Convention held at Syraouse, October 6, 1847, the Hon. James Brooks reported a brief address to the Whigs of the State, which was unanimously adopted. The

Fellow-citizens, disguise the Mexican war as sophistry may, the great truth cannot be put down, that it exists because of the annexation of Texas; that from such a cause we predicted such a consequence would follow: and that, but for that cause, no war would have existed at all. Disguise its intent, purposes and consequences as sophistry may struggle to do, the further great truth cannot be hidden, that its main object is the conquest of a Market for Slaves, and that the flag our victorious legions rally around, fight under, and fall for, is to be. desecrated from its holy character of Liberty and Emancipation into an errant of Bondage and Slavery. In obedience to the laws, and in a due and faithful submission to the regularly constituted government of our country, we will rally by and defend our flag on whatever soil or whatever sea it is unfurled; but before high Heaven we protest against the mission on which it is sent, and we demand its recall to the true and proper bounds of our country, as soon as in honor it can be brought home. We protest, too, in the name of the rights of Man, and of Liberty, against the further extension of Slavery in North America. The curse which our mother country inflicted upon us, in spite of our fathers' remon strances, we demand shall never blight the virgin soil of the North Pacific. We will not pour out the blood of our countrymen, if we can help it, to turn a Fren into a Slave soil. We will not spend from fifty to a hundred millions of dollars per year to make a Slave Market for any portion of our countrymen. We will never, for such a purpose, consent to run up an untold mongers, Tax-Brokers, Tax-gatherers, laying an excise or National debt, and saddle our posterity with Fundan impost on everything they taste, touch or live by. The Union as it is, the whole Union, and nothing but the Union, we will stand by to the last-but No More Territory is our watch-word,unless it be Free.

RESOLVES.

Among the Resolutions unanimously adopted by this Convention was the following:

Resolved, That while the Whig Freemen of New-York, represented in this Convention, will faithfully adhere to all the compromises of the Constitution, and jealously maintain all the reserved rights of the States, they declare-since the crisis has arrived when the question must be met their uncompromising hostility to the Extension of Slavery into any Territory now Free, or which may be hereafter acquired by any action of the Government of our Union.

FREE DEMOCRACY OF NEW-YORK CITY AGAINST
SLAVERY EXTENSION.

Park at New-York, October 9, 1848, at which
At a Free Democratic Meeting held in the
Henry Everson presided, and S. J. Tilden, John
Van Buren, and John Cochrane spoke, Mr.
Cochrane introduced the following Resolves,
which were adopted:

Resolved, That the politics of the times indicate precisely to whom remain the principles of the Democracy; that the absence from the field of discussion of the finan cial and commercial questions which formerly defined

law.

political differences, permits that other party tests than single foot of soil where it is not now authorized by those which, even if demanding attention, still as but questions of expediency, should be, as they have been, postponed to the consideration of that one of vital importance, the freedom of our land.

Resolved, that we think contemptuously of the mind which discovers in the extension of the area of Freedom cause for the degradation of the South. Could nature so belie herself that the preservation of their "inalienable rights" to any portion of mankind, must be attended by proportionate violation of those of any other portion, we say, perish those rights dependent on the Slavery of others, rather than one tittle of those be injured that are consistent with the rights of all; that our Constitution and our federal history speak to us through the voices of the Jeffersons, the Pinckneys, the Lees, and the Randolphs of the South, against this miserable, false pretense. It is not so! The success of the free principles for which we contend, will reëstablish the lost equality of the States-lost in the insidious increase of the Slave States from six, their original and constitutional number, to fifteen, the present aggressive and unconstitutional number-lost in the twenty-one voices and votes which Southern chattel slaves possess among the representatives of a free people at Washington-lost in the limited wealth, in the low intelligence, and in the inferior civilization of the South. We would restore this lost equality, and, so far from degrading any portion of the Union, we mean to elevate the whole to the possession of that Freedom which alone should be the National characteristic. Resolved, That our senses reject the audacious assertion that the Extension of Slave Territory at the South will abate the evil at the North. Aside from the absurdity which it involves, that an evil declines in proportion to and expires with the substance which it procures, experience has taught, and the history of the "Peculiar Institution" itself manifests, that the slaveowner of the "Old Dominion" breeds an increasing gang, and amasses an accumulating hoard, just as the demand for slaves increases with the diffusion of Slavery over free territory at the South. In the year 1790, when Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Florida, were free soil, the slave population was 697,896. In the year 1840, when Slavery had spread over this free soil, it numbered 2,487,355, being an

increase in fifty years of 1,787,457 slaves. The extension of Slavery to new territory, instead of abating the evil in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, where it numbered in the year 1810, 590,000 slaves, has multiplied them to 775,000, in the year 1840, showing an 'increase in thirty years of 185,000 slaves. The existence of Slavery depends on its diffusion.

GREENE C. BRONSON'S OPINION IN 1848.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, GREENE C. BRONSON. To Messrs. J. COCHRANE, and others, Committee. NEW-HAMPSHIRE FOR THE WILMOT PROVISO.

The legislature (then Democratic) of New Hampshire, in June, 1847, passed the following resolution:

Resolved, That in all territory which shall hereafter be added to or acquired by the United States, where Slavery does not exist at the time of such addition,or acquirement, neither Slavery or involuntary servitude, except for the punishment of crime, whereof the party has been duly convicted, ought ever to exist, but the same should ever remain free; and we are opposed to the extension of Slavery over every such Territory-and that we also approve the vote of our Senators and Representatives in Congress in favor of the Wilmot Proviso.

OHIO FOR FREE SOIL.

In the Ohio House of Representatives (session of 1847-8) the following resolution was passed by a vote of 43 to 12:

Resolved, By the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, that the Senators and Representatives from this State in the Congress of the United States be and they are hereby requested, to procure the passage of measures in the National Legislature, providing for the exclusion of Slavery from the Territory of Oregon, and also from any other Territory that now is, or hereafter may be, annexed to the United States.

ILLINOIS FOR FREE SOIL.

the Senate of Illinois on the 8th of January, The following Resolutions were adopted by 1849, and the House of Representatives on the following day. The Legislature was largely Democratic in both branches at the time :

Resolved by the Senate of the State of Illinois, the House of Representatives concurring, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use all honorable means in their power to procure the enactment of such laws by Congress for the government of the countries and territories of the United States acquired by the treaty of peace, friendship, limits and settlement with the Republic of Mexico, concluded February 2, 1848, as shall contain the express declaration" that there shall be neither Slavery nor involunthe punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have

In a letter dated July 15th, 1848, Mr. Bron-tary servitude in said territories otherwise than in son, after declining an invitation to attend a been duly convicted." political meeting, says:

Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring herein, That the Governor be respectfully requested to transmit to each of our Senators and Rep

the Senate, concurred in by the House on the 9th inst., for the exclusion of Slavery from the new territories ac quired by our late treaty with the Republic of Mexico. SOUTH CAROLINA FOR THE FOREIGN SLAVE-TRADE.

Slavery cannot exist where there is no positive law to uphold it. It is not necessary that it should be forbidden;resentatives in Congress a copy of the joint resolution of it is enough that it is not specially authorized. If the owner of slaves removes with or sends them into any country, State or Territory, where Slavery does not exist by law, they will from that moment become free men, and will have as good a right to command the master, as he will have to command them. State laws have no extraterritorial authority; and a law of Virginia which makes a man a slave there, cannot make him a slave in NewYork, nor beyond the Rocky Mountains.

IN the annual message of Governor Adams, of South Carolina, for the year 1856, he proceeded to argue in favor of the reopening of the slave-trade, as follows:

Entertaining no doubt upon that question, I can see no occasion for asking Congress to legislate against the extension of Slavery into free territory, and, as a question It is apprehended that the opening of this trade will of policy, I think it had better be let alone. If our South-lessen the value of slaves, and ultimately destroy the ern brethren wish to carry their slaves to Oregon, New-institution. It is a sufficient answer to point to the fact Mexico or California, they will be under the necessity of asking a law to warrant it; and it will then be in time for the Free States to resist the measure, as I cannot doubt they would, with unwavering firmness.

I would not needlessly move this question, as it is one of an exciting nature, which tends to sectional division, and may do us harm as a people. I would leave it to the Slaveholding States to decide for themselves, and on their own responsibility, when, if ever, the matter shall be agitated in Congress. It may be that they will act wisely, and never move at all; especially as it seems pretty generally agreed that neither Oregon, New-Mexico, nor California, are well adapted to slave labor. But if our Southern brethren should make the question, we shall have no choice but to meet it; and then, whatever consequences may follow, I trust the people of the Free States will give a united voice against allowing Slavery on a

that unrestricted immigration has not diminished the value of labor in the northwestern Confederacy. The cry there is the want of labor, notwithstanding capital has the pauperism of the old world to press into the grinding service. If we cannot supply the demand for slave labor, then we must expect to supply with a species of labor we do not want, and which is, from the very nature of things, antagonistic to our institutions. It is much better that our drays should be driven by slaves, that our factories should be worked by slaves, that our hotels should be served by slaves, that our locomotives should be managed by slaves, than that we should be exposed to the introduc tion from any quarter of a population alien to us by birth, training, and education, and which in the process of time must lead to the conflict between capital and labor, which makes it so difficult to maintain free institutions in all wealthy and civilized nations where such institutions as

ours do not exist. In all slaveholding States true policy | necessary to a continuance of our monopoly in plantation dictates that the superior race should direct, and the inferior perform all menial service. Competition between the white and black man for this service may not disturb Northern sensibility, but does not exactly suit our latitude. Irrespective, however, of interest, the act of Congress declaring the slave-trade piracy is a brand upon us which I think it important to remove. If the trade be piracy, the slaves must be plunder, and no ingenuity can avoid the logical necessity of such a conclusion. My hopes and fortunes are indissolubly associated with this form of society. I feel that I would be wanting in duty if I did not urge you to withdraw your assent to an act which is itself a direct condemnation of your institutions. But we have interests to enforce a course of self-respect. I believe, as I have already stated, that more slaves are

products. I believe that they are necessary to the fu development of our whole round of agricultural and mechanical resources; that they are necessary to the restoration of the South to an equality of power in the Federal Government, perhaps to the very integrity of slave society, disturbed as it has been by causes which have introduced an undue proportion of the ruling race. To us have been committed the fortunes of this peculiar form of society resulting from the union of unequal races. It has vindicated its claim to the approbation of an enlightened humanity; it has civilized and christianized the African; it has exalted the white race to higher hopes and purposes, and it is perhaps of the most sacred obligation that we should give it the means of expansion, and that we should press it forward to a perpetuity of progress.

MR. HAMLIN RENOUNCES THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

On the 12th of June, 1856, Mr. Hamlin rose in his place in the Senate, and spoke as follows: Mr. Hamlin. Mr. President, I rise for a purpose purely personal, such as I have never before risen for in the Senate. I desire to explain some matters personal to myself and to my own future course in public life. Several Senators.-Go on.

Mr. Hamlin, I ask the Senate to excuse me from further service as Chairman of the Committee on Commerce. I do so because I feel that my relations hereafter will be of such a character as to render it proper that I should no longer hold that position. I owe this act to the dominant majority in the Senate. When I cease to harmonize with the majority, or tests are applied by that party with which I have acted to which I cannot submit, I feel that I ought no longer to hold that respectable position. I propose to state briefly the reasons which have brought me to that conclusion.

During nine years of service in the Senate, I have preferred rather to be a working than a talking member; and so I have been almost a silent one. On the subjects which have so much agitated the country, Senators know that I have rarely uttered a word. I love my country more than I love my party. I love my country above my love for any interest that can too deeply agitate or disturb its harmony. I saw, in all the exciting scenes and debates through which we have passed, no particular good that would result from my active intermingling in them. My heart has often been full, and the impulses of that heart have often been felt upon my lips; but I have repressed

them there.

That Senators might have voted for that measure under

the belief then expressed and the predictions to which I have alluded, I can well understand. But how Senators can now defend that measure amid all its evils, which are overwhelming the land, if not threatening it with a conflagration, is what I do not comprehend. The whole of the disturbed state of the country has its rise in, and is attributable to that act alone-nothing else. It lies at the foundation of all our misfortunes and commotions. There would have been no incursions by Missouri borderers into Kansas, either to establish Slavery, or to control elections. There would have been no necessity, either, for others to have gone there partially to aid in preserv ing the country in its then condition. All would have been peace there. Had it not been done, that repose and quiet which pervaded the public mind then, would hold it in tranquillity to-day. Instead of startling events we should have quiet and peace within our borders, and that fraternal feeling which ought to animate the citizens of every part of the Union toward those of all other sections.

Sir, the events that are taking place around us are indeed startling. They challenge the public mind and appeal to the public judgment; they thrill the public nerve as electrity imparts a tremulous motion to the telegraphic wire. It is a period when all good men should unite in applying the proper remedy to secure peace and harmony to the country. Is this to be done by any of us, by remaining associated with those who have been instrumental in producing these results, and who now justify them? I do not see my duty lying in that direction.

I have, while temporarily acquiescing, stated here and at home, everywhere, uniformly, that when the test of those measures was applied to me as one of party fidelity, I would sunder them as flax is sundered at the touch of fire. I do it now.

The occasion involves a question of moral duty; and self-respect allows me no other line of duty but to follow the dictates of my own judgment and the impulses of my own heart. A just man may cheerfully submit to many

Sir, I hold that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a gross moral and political wrong, unequaled in the annals of the legislation of this country, and hardly equaled in the annals of any other free country. Still, sir, with a desire to promote harmony and concord and brotherly feeling, I was a quiet man under all the exciting debates which led to that fatal result. I believed it wrong then; I can see that wrong lying broadcast all around us now. As a wrong, I opposed that measure-enforced humiliations; but a self-degraded man has not, indeed, by my voice, but with consistent and steady and uniform votes. I so resisted it in obedience to the dictates of my own judgment. I did it also cheerfully, in compliance with the instructions of the legislature of Maine, which were passed by a vote almost unanimous. In the House of Representatives of Maine, consisting of one hundred and fifty-one members, only six, I think. dissented; and in the Senate, consisting of thirty-one members, only one member non-concurred.

ceased to be worthy to be deemed a man at all,
Sir, what has the recent Democratic Convention at
Cincinnati done? It has indorsed the measure I have
condemned, and has sanctioned its destructive and ruin-
ous effects. It has done more-vastly more. That prin-
ciple or policy of Territorial Sovereignty which once had,
and which I suppose now has, its advocates within these
walls, is stricken down; and there is an absolute denial
of it in the resolutions of the Convention, if I can draw

to the people of the Territories, of the right to settle the question of Slavery therein. On the contrary, the Convention has actually incorporated into the platform of the Democratic party that doctrine which, only a few years ago, met nothing but ridicule and contempt here and elsewhere, namely: that the flag of the Federal Union, under the Constitution of the United States, carries Slavery wherever it floats. If this baleful principle be true, then that National Ode which inspires us always as on a battle-field, should be re-written by Drake, and should read thus:

But the Missouri restriction was abrogated. The por-right conclusions-a denial equally to Congress, and even tentous evils that were predicted have followed, and are yet following, along in its train. It was done, sir, in violation of the pledges of that party with which I have always acted, and with which I have always voted. It was done in violation of solemn pledges of the President of the United States, made in his Inaugural Address. Still, sir, I was disposed to suffer the wrong, while I should see that no evil results were flowing from it. We were told, by almost every Senator who addressed us upon that occasion, that no evil results would follow; that no practical difference in the settlement of the country, and in the character of the future State, would take place, whether the act were done or not. I have waited calmly and patiently to see the fulfillment of that prediction; and I am grieved, sir, to say now that they have at least been mistaken in their predictions and promises. They have all signally failed.

"Forever float that standard sheet;

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Slavery's soil beneath our feet,

And Slavery's banner streaming o'er us?"
Now, sir, what is the precise condition in which this
matter is left by the Cincinnati Convention? I do not

design to trespass many moments on the Senate ; but al-
low me to read and offer a very few comments upon
some portions of the Democratic platform. The first re-
solution that treats upon the subject is in these words
I read just so much of it as is applicable to my present
remarks:

"That Congress has no power under the Constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that all such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs not prohibited

by the Constitution."

I take it that this language, thus far, is language which meets a willing and ready response from every Senator here-certainly it does from me. But in the following

resolution I find these words:

"Resolved, That the foregoing proposition covers, and was intended to embrace, the whole subject of Slavery agitation in Congress."

Take all these resolutions together, and the deduction which we must necessarily draw from them is a denial to Congress of any power whatever to legislate upon the subject of Slavery. The last resolution denies to the people of the Territories any power over that subject, save when they shall have a sufficient number to form a constitution and become a State, and also denies that Congress has any power over the subject; and so the resolutions hold that this power is at least in abeyance while the Territory is in a Territorial condition. That is the only conclusion which you can draw from these resolutions, Alas! for short-lived Territorial Sovereignty! It came to its death in the house of its friends; it was buried by the same hands which had given it baptism!

But, sir, I did not rise for the purpose of discussing these resolutions, but only to read them, and state the action which I propose to take in view of them. I may -I probably shall-take some subsequent occasion, when I shall endeavor to present to the Senate and the country a fair account of what is the true issue presented to the people for their consideration and decision. My object now is to show only that the Cincinnati Convention has indorsed and approved of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, from which so many evils have already flowed-from which, I fear, more and worse evils must yet be anticipated. It would of course, be exwould accept, cordially and cheerfully, the platform prepared for him by his party friends. No person can object to that. There is no equivocation on his part about the matter. I beg leave to read a short extract from a speech of that gentleman, made at his own home, within the last few days. In reply to the Keystone Club, which paid him a visit there, Mr. Buchanan said:

The first resolution which I read was adopted years ago in Democratic Conventions. The second resolution which I read was adopted in subsequent years, when a different state of things had arisen, and it became necessary to apply an abstract proposition relating to the States, to the Territories. Hence the adoption of the language contained in the second Resolution which I have read. Now, sir, I deny the position thus assumed by the Cin-pected that the Presidential nominee of that Convention cinnati Convention. In the language of the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden), so ably and so appropriately used on Tuesday last, I hold that the entire and unqualified sovereignty of the Territories is in Congress. That is my judgment; but this resolution brings the Territories precisely within the same limitations which are applied to the States in the resolution which I first read. The two taken together deny to Congress any power of legislation in the Territories,

Follow on, and let us see what remains. Adopted as a part of the present platform, and as necessary to a new state of things, and to meet an emergency now existing, the Convention says:

"The American Democracy recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic law establishing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the Slavery question, upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose, in its determined conservatism of the Union-non-interference by Congress with Slavery in the States and Territories."

Then follows the last resolution:

"Resolved, That we recognize the right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the fairly-expressed will of the majority of actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution, with or without domestic Slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States."

"Gentlemen, two weeks since I should have made you a longer speech; but now I have been placed on a platform of which I most heartily approve, and that can speak for me. Being the representative of the great Democratic party, and cording to the platform of the party, and insert no new plank, not simply James Buchanan, I must square my conduct acnor take one from it."

These events leave to me only one unpleasant duty, which is to declare here that I can maintain political associations with no party that insists upon such doctrines; that I can support no man for President who avows and recognizes them; and that the little of that power with which God has endowed me shall be em ployed to battle manfully, firmly, and consistently for his defeat, demanded as it is by the highest interests of the country which owns all my allegiance.

The President.-The question is on the motion of the Senator from Maine to be excused from further service on the Committee on Commerce.

The motion was agreed to.

ACCEPTANCE OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES.

MESSRS. LINCOLN AND HAMLIN ACCEPT.

THE following is the correspondence between the officers of the Republican National Convention and the candidates thereof for President and Vice-President:

CHICAGO, May 18, 1860.

To the HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, of Illinois.

SIR The representatives of the Republican Party of the United States, assembled in Convention at Chicago, have this day, by a unanimous vote, selected you as the Republican candidate for the office of President of the United States to be supported at the next election; and the undersigned were appointed a Committee of the Convention to apprise you of this nomination, and respectfully to request that you will accept it. A declaration of the principles and sentiments adopted by the Convention accompanies this communication.

In the performance of this agreeable duty we take leave to add our confident assurance that the nomination of the Chicago Convention will be ratified by the suffrages of the people.

We have the honor to be, with great respect and regard, your friends and fellow-citizens.

GEORGE ASHMUN, of Massachusetts,
President of the Convention.

WM. M. EVARTS, of New-York,

JOEL BURLINGAME, of Oregon,

EPHRAIM MARSH, of New-Jersey,
GIDEON WELLS, of Connecticut,
D. K. CARTER, of Ohio,

CARL SCHURZ, of Wisconsin,

JAMES F. SIMMONS, of Rhode Island,

JOHN W. NORTH, of Minnesota,

GEO. D. BLAKEY, of Kentucky,

PETER T. WASHBURN, of Vermont,

A. C. WILDER, of Kansas,

EDWARD H. ROLLINS, of New-Hampshire,
FRANCIS S. CORKRAN, of Maryland,

NORMAN B. JUDD, of Illinois,

N. B. SMITHERS, of Delaware,
WM. H. MCCRILLIS, of Maine,
ALFRED CALDWELL, of Virginia,
CALEB B. SMITH, of Indiana,
AUSTIN BLAIR, of Michigan,
WM. P. CLARKE, of Iowa,
B. GRATZ BROWN, of Missouri,
F. P. TRACY. of California,
E. D. WEBSTER, of Nebraska,
G. A. HALL, of District of Columbia,
JOHN A. ANDREW, of Massachusetts,
A. H. REEDER, of Pennsylvania.
SPRINGFILD, ILL., May 28, 1860.
HON. GEORGE ASHMUN, President of the Republican
National Convention.

SIR: I accept the nomination tendered me by the
Convention over which you presided, and of which I am

formally apprised in the letter of yourself and others, acting as a Committee of the Convention for that purpose. The declaration of principles and sentiments, which accompanies your letter, meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate, or disregard it, in any part. Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to the views and feelings of all who were represented in the Convention; to the rights of all the States, and Territories, and people of the nation; to the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual union, harmony and prosperity of all, I am most happy to cooperate for the practical success of the principles declared by the Convention.

Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

A similar letter was sent to the nominee for the Vice-Presidency, to which the following is the reply.

WASHINGTON, May 30, 1860. GENTLEMEN: Your official communication of the 18th instant, informing me that the representatives of the Republican party of the United States, assembled at Chicago, on that day, had, by a unanimous vote, selected me as their candidate for the office of Vice-President of the United States, has been received, together with the resolutions adopted by the Convention as its declaration of principles.

as just and necessary to the preservation of the National organization and the sacred right of representation, the action of the Convention over which you continued to preside; and thus approving it, and having resolved to sustain it, I feel that it does not become me to select the position I shall occupy, nor to shrink from the responsibilities of the post to which I have been assigned. Accordingly, I accept the nomination from a sense of public duty, and, as I think, uninfluenced in any degree by the allurements of ambition.

I avail myself of this occasion to say that the confidence in my personal and public character implied by the action of the Convention, will always be gratefully remembered; and it is but just, also, to my own feelings, to express my gratification at the association of my name with that of my friend Gen. Lane, a patriot and a soldier, whose great services in the field and in council entitle him to the gratitude and confidence of his countrymen.

The resolutions adopted by the Convention have my cordial approval. They are just to all parts of the Union, to all our citizens, native and naturalized, and they form a noble policy for any administration.

The questions touching the rights of persons and property, which have of late been much discussed, find in these resolutions a constitutional solution. Our Union is a Confederacy of equal sovereign States, for the purposes enumerated in the Federal Constitution. Whatever the common Government holds in trust for all the States must be enjoyed equally by each. It controls the Territories in trust for all the States. Nothing less than sovereignty can destroy or impair the rights of persons or property. The Territorial Governments are subordinate and temporary, and not sovereign; hence they cannot destroy or impair the rights of persons or property. While they continue to be Territories they are under the control of Congress, but the Constitution nowhere confers on any nate against the rights of the States or the property of their citizens in the Territories. It follows that the citizens of all the States may enter the Territories of the Union with their property, of whatever kind, and enjoy it during the territorial condition without let or hindrance, either by Congress or by the subordinate Territorial Governments.

Those resolutions enunciate clearly and forcibly the principles which unite us, and the objects proposed to be accomplished. They address themselves to all, and there is neither necessity nor propriety in my entering upon a discussion of any of them. They have the approval of my judgment, and in any action of mine will be faith-branch of the Federal Government the power to discrimifully and cordially sustained.

I am profoundly grateful to those with whom it is my pride and pleasure politically to coöperate, for the nomination so unexpectedly conferred; and I desire to tender through you, to the members of the Convention, my sincere thanks for the confidence thus reposed in me. Should the nomination, which I now accept, be ratified by the people, and the duties devolve upon me of presiding over the Senate of the United States, it will be my earnest endeavor faithfully to discharge them with a just regard for the rights of all.

It is to be observed, in connection with the doings of the Republican Convention, that a paramount object with us is to preserve the normal condition of our Territotorial Domain as homes for Free men. The able advocate and defender of Republican principles, whom you have nominated for the highest place that can gratify the ambition of man, comes from a State which has been made what it is, by special action, in that respect, of the wise and good men who founded our institutions. The rights of free labor have there been vindicated and maintained. The thrift and enterprise which so distinguish Illinois, one of the most flourishing States of the glorious West, we would see secured to all the Territories of the Union; and restore peace and harmony to the whole country, by bringing back the Government to what it was under the wise and patriotic men who created it. If the Republicans shall succeed in that object, as they hope to, they will be held in grateful remembrance by the busy and teeming millions of future ages.

I am, very truly yours, H. HAMLIN. The Hon. GEORGE ASHMUN, President of the Convention, and others of the Convention.

MR. BRECKINRIDGE ACCEPTS.

WASHINGTON CITY, July 6, 1860. DEAR SIR: I have your letter of the 28d ultimo, by which I am officially informed of my nomination for the office of President of the United States by the Democratic National Convention lately assembled at Baltimore.

The circumstances of this nomination will justify me in referring to its personal aspect.

I have not sought nor desired to be placed before the country for the office of President. When my name was presented to the Convention at Charleston, it was withdrawn by a friend in obedience to my expressed wishes. My views had not changed when the Convention reassembled at Baltimore, and when I heard of the differences which occurred there, my indisposition to be connected prominently with the canvass was confirmed and expressed to many friends.

Without discussing the occurrences which preceded the nominations, and which are or soon will be well understood by the country, I have only to say that I approved,

These principles flow directly from the absence of sovereignty in the Territorial Governments, and from the equality of the States. Indeed, they are essential to that equality, which is, and ever has been, the vital principle of our Constitutional Union. They have been settled legislatively settled judiciously, and are sustained by right reason. They rest on the rock of the Constitutionthey will preserve the Union.

It is idle to attempt to smother these great issues, or to misrepresent them by the use of partisan phrases, which are misleading and delusive. The people will look beneath such expressions as "Intervention," "Congressional Slave Code," and the like, and will penetrate to the real questions involved. The friends of Constitutional equality do not and never did demand a "Congressional Slave Code," nor any other code in regard to property in the Territories. They hold the doctrine of non-intervention by Congress, or by a Territorial Legislature, either to establish or prohibit Slavery; but they assert (fortified by the highest judicial tribunal in the Union) the plain duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments, to secure, when necessary, to the citizens of all the States, the enjoyment of their property in the common Territories, as everywhere else within its jurisdiction. The only logical answer to this would seem to be to claim sovereign power for the Territories, or to deny that the Constitution recognizes property in the services of negro slaves, or to deny that such property can exist.

Inexorable logic, which works its steady way through clouds and passion, compels the country to meet the issue. There is no evasive middle ground. Already the signs multiply of a fanatical and growing party, which denies that under the Constitution, or by any other law, slave property can exist; and ultimately the struggle must come between this party and the National Democracy, sustained by all the other conservative elements in the Union,

The

I think it will be impossible for a candid mind to discover hostility to the Union or a taint of sectionalism in the resolutions adopted by the Convention. Constitution and the Union repose on the equality of the States, which lies like a broad foundation underneath our whole political structure. As I construe them, the resolutions simply assert this equality. They demand nothing for any State or section that is not cheerfully conceded to all the rest. It is well to remember that the chief disorders which have afflicted our country have grown out of the violation of State equality, and that as long as this great principle has been respected

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