me that those articles which are supplied | ought to be rigorously starved to death. to us by Home Production alone are rela- Then what have we gained by getting these tively cheaper than those which are rivalled articles so exorbitantly cheap? or, rather, and competed with from abroad. And I what have we not lost? The labor which am equally confident that the shutting out formerly produced them is mainly struck of Foreign competition from our markets out of existence; the poor widows and for other articles of general necessity and seamstresses among us must still have a liberal consumption which can be made subsistence; and the imported garments here with as little labor as anywhere would must be paid for: where are the profits of be followed by a corresponding result,— our speculation? reduction of the price to the consumer at the same time with increased employment and reward to our Producing Classes.

-a

But even this is not the worst feature of the case. The labor which we have here thrown out of employment by the cheap But, Mr. President, were this only on one importation of this article is now ready to side true, were it certain that the price of be employed again at any price,-if not the Home product would be permanently one that will afford bread and straw, then higher than that of the Foreign, I should it must accept one that will produce potastill insist on efficient Protection, and for toes and rubbish; and with the product reasons I have sufficiently shown. Grant some Free-Trader proceeds to break down that a British cloth costs but $3 per yard, the price and destroy the reward of similar and a corresponding American fabric $4, I labor in some other portion of the earth. still hold that the latter would be decided- And thus each depression of wages proly the cheaper for us. The Fuel, Timber, duces another, and that a third, and so on, Fruits, Vegetables, &c., which make up so making the circuit of the globe,-the aglarge a share of the cost of the Home pro- gravated necessities of the Poor acting and duct, would be rendered comparatively reacting upon each other, increasing the valueless by having our workshops in Eu- omnipotence of Capital and deepening the rope. I look not so much to the nominal dependence of Labor, swelling and pamprice as to the comparative facility of pay-pering a bloated and factitious Commerce, ment. And, where cheapness is only to be attained by a depression of the wages of Labor to the neighborhood of the European standard, I prefer that it should be dispensed with. One thing must answer to another; and I hold that the farmers of this country can better afford, as a matter of pecuniary advantage, to pay a good price for manufactured articles than to obtain them lower through the depression and inadequacy of the wages of the artisan and laborer.

grinding down and grinding down the destitute, until Malthus's remedy for Poverty shall become a grateful specific, and, amid the splendors and luxuries of an all-devouring Commercial Feudalism, the squalid and famished Millions, its dependants and victims, shall welcome death as a deliverer from their sufferings and despair.

I wish time permitted me to give a hasty glance over the doctrines and teachings of the Free Trade sophists, who esteem themselves the Political Economists, christen You will understand me, then, to be ut- their own views liberal and enlightened, terly hostile to that idol of Free Trade and complacently put ours aside as beworship, known as Free or unlimited Com- nighted and barbarous. I should delight petition. The sands of my hour are run- to show you how they mingle subtle fallacy ning low, and I cannot ask time to ex- with obvious truth, how they reason amine this topic more closely; yet I am acutely from assumed premises, which, beconfident I could show that this Freeing mistaken or incomplete, lead to false Competition is a most delusive and dan- and often absurd conclusions,-how they gerous element of Political Economy. Bear contradict and confound each other, and with a brief illustration: At this moment, often, from Adam Smith, their patriarch, common shirts are made in London at the down to McCulloch and Ricardo, either incredibly low price of three cents per pair. make admissions which undermine their Should we admit these articles free of duty whole fabric, or confess themselves ignoand buy them because they are so cheap? rant or in the dark on points the most vital Free trade says Yes; but I say No! Sound to a correct understanding of the great Policy as well as Humanity forbids it. By subject they profess to have reduced to a admitting them, we simply reduce a large Science. Yet even Adam Smith himself and worthy and suffering class of our pop-expressly approves and justifies the British ulation from the ability they now possess of procuring a bare subsistence by their labor to unavoidable destitution and pauperism. They must now subsist upon the charity of relatives or of the community, -unless we are ready to adopt the demoniac doctrine of the Free Trade philosopher Malthus, that the dependent Poor

Navigation Act, the most aggressively Protective measure ever enacted,—a measure which, not being understood and seasonably counteracted by other nations, changed for centuries the destinies of the World,which silently sapped and overthrew the Commercial and Political greatness of Holland,-which silenced the thunder of Van

Tromp, and swept the broom from his confronted by witnesses and accusers; his mast-head. But I must not detain you prison house has no secrets, and he has the longer. I do not ask you to judge of this judgment of his peers; and there is nought matter by authority, but from facts which to make him afraid, so long as he respects come home to your reason and your daily the rights of his equals in the eye of the experience. There is not an observing law. Would he propagate truth? Truth and strong-minded mechanic in our city is free to combat error. Would he propawho could not set any one of these Doctors of the Law right on essential points. I beg you to consider how few great practical Statesmen they have ever been able to win to their standard,-I might almost say none; for Huskisson was but a nominal disciple, and expressly contravened their whole system upon an attempt to apply it to the Corn Laws; and Calhoun is but a Free-Trader by location, and has never yet answered his own powerful arguments in behalf of Protection. On the other hand, we point you to the long array of mighty names which have illustrated the annals of Statesmanship of modern times, to Chatham, William Pitt, and the Great Frederick of Prussia; to the whole array of memorable French Statesmen, including Napoleon the first of them all; to our own WASHINGTON, HAMILTON, JEFFERSON, and MADISON; to our two CLINTONS, TOMPKINS, to say nothing of the eagleeyed and genial-hearted LIVING masterspirit [Henry Clay] of our time. The opinions and the arguments of all these are on record; it is by hearkening to and heeding their counsels that we shall be prepared to walk in the light of experience and look forward to a glorious National destiny. My friends! I dare not detain you longer. I commit to you the cause of the Nation's Independence, of her Stability and her Prosperity. Guard it wisely and shield it well; for it involves your own happiness and the enduring welfare of your countrymen!

Henry A. Wise

Against Know-Nothingism, Sept. 18, 1852. The laws of the United States-federal and state laws-declare and defend the liberties of our people. They are free in every sense-free in the sense of Magna Charta and beyond Magna Charta; free by the surpassing franchise of American charters, which makes them sovereign and their wills the sources of constitutions and laws.

gate error? Error itself may stalk abroad and do her mischief, and make night itself grow darker, provided truth is left free to follow, however slowly, with her torches to light up the wreck! Why, then, should any portion of the people desire to retire in secret, and by secret means to propagate a political thought, or word, or deed, by stealth? Why band together, exclusive of others, to do something which all may not know of, towards some political end? If it be good, why not make the good known? Why not think it, speak it, write it, act it out openly and aloud? Or, is it evil, which loveth darkness rather than light? When there is no necessity to justify a secret association for political ends, what else can justify it? A caucus may sit in secret to consult on the general policy of a great public party. That may be necessary or convenient; but that even is reprehensible, if carried too far. But here is proposed a great primary, national organization, in its inception-What? Nobody knows. To do what? Nobody knows. How organized? Nobody knows. Governed by whom? Nobody knows. How bound? By what rites? By what test oaths? With what limitations and restraints? Nobody, nobody knows! All we know is that persons of foreign birth and of Catholic faith are proscribed; and so are all others who don't proscribe them at the polls. This is certainly against the spirit of Magna Charta.

*

*

*

*

*

A Prussian born subject came to this country. He complied with our naturalization laws in all respects of notice of intention, residence, oath of allegiance, and proof of good moral character. He remained continuously in the United States the full period of five years. When he had fully filled the measure of his probation and was consummately a naturalized citizen of the United States, he then, and not until then, returned to Prussia to visit an aged father. He was immediately, on his return, seized and forced into the Landwehr, or militia system of Prussia, under In this country, at this time, does any the maxim: "Once a citizen, always a citman think anything? Would he think izen!" There he is forced to do service aloud? Would he speak anything? Would to the king of Prussia at this very hour. he write anything? His mind is free; his person is safe; his property is secure; his house is his castle; the spirit of the laws is his body-guard and his house-guard; the fate of one is the fate of all measured by the same common rule of right; his voice is heard and felt in the general suffrage of freemen; his trial is in open court,

He applies for protection to the United States. Would the Know-Nothings interpose in his behalf or not? Look at the principles involved. We, by our laws, encouraged him to come to our country, and here he was allowed to become naturalized, and to that end required to renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to the

king of Prussia, and to swear allegiance and fidelity to the United States. The king of Prussia now claims no legal forfeiture from him-he punishes him for no crime -he claims of him' no legal debt- he claims alone that very allegiance and fidelity which we required the man to abjure and renounce. Not only so, but he hinders the man from returning to the United States, and from discharging the allegiance and fidelity we required him to swear to the United States. The king of Prussia says he should do him service for seven years, for this was what he was born to perform; his obligations were due to him first, and his laws were first binding him. The United States say-true, he was born under your laws, but he had a right to expatriate himself; he owed allegiance first to you, but he had a right to forswear it and to swear allegiance to us; your laws first applied, but this is a case of political obligation, not of legal obligation; it is not for any crime or debt you claim to bind him, but it is for allegiance; and the claim you set up to his services on the ground of his political obligation, his allegiance to you, which we allow him to abjure and renounce, is inconsistent with his political obligation, his allegiance, which we required him to swear to the United States; he has sworn fidelity to us, and we have, by our laws, pledged protection to him.

Such is the issue. Now, with which will the Know-Nothings take sides? With the king of Prussia against our naturalized citizen and against America, or with America and our naturalized citizen? Mark, now, Know-Nothingism is opposed to all foreign influence against American institutions. The king of Prussia is a pretty potent foreign influence he was one of the holy alliance of crowned heads. Will they take part with him, and not protect the citizen? Then they will aid a foreign influence against our laws! Will they take sides with our naturalized citizen? If so, then upon what grounds? Now, they must have a good cause of interposition to justify us against all the received dogmas of European despotism.

and naturalized citizens are to be citizens and yet to be proscribed from office, they must be rated as an inferior class—an excluded class of citizens. Will it be said that the law will not make this distinction? Then are we to understand that KnowNothings would not make them equal by law? If not by law, how can they pretend to make them unequal, by their secret order, without law and against law? For them, by secret combination, to make them unequal, to impose a burthen or restriction upon their privileges which the law does not, is to set themselves up above the law, and to supersede by private and secret authority, intangible and irresponsible, the rule of public, political right. Indeed, is this not the very essence of the "Higher Law" doctrine? It cannot be said to be legitimate public sentiment and the action of its authority. Public sentiment, proper, is a concurrence of the common mind in some conclusion, conviction, opinion, taste, or action in respect to persons or things subject to its public notice. It will, and it must control the minds and actions of men, by public and conventional opinion. Count Molé said that in France it was stronger than statutes. It is so here. That it is which should decide at the polls of a republic. But, here is a secret sentiment, which may be so organized as to contradict the public sentiment. Candidate A. may be a native and a Protestant, and may concur with the community, if it be a KnowNothing community, on every other subject except that of proscribing Catholics and naturalized citizens: and candidate B. may concur with the community on the subject of this proscription alone, and upon no other subject; and yet the Know-Nothings might elect B. by their secret sentiment against the public sentiment. Thus it attacks not only American doctrines of expatriation, allegiance, and protection, but the equality of citizenship, and the authority of public sentiment. In the affair of Koszta, how did our blood rush to his rescue? Did the Know-Nothing side with him and Mr. Marcy, or with Hulseman and Austria? If with Koszta, why? Let them ask themselves for the rationale, and see if it can in reason abide with their orders. There is no middle ground in respect to

Don't they see, can't they perceive, that they have no other grounds than those I have urged? He is our citizen, national-naturalization. We must either have natu ized, owing us allegiance and we owing him protection. And if we owe him protection abroad, because of his sworn allegiance to us as a naturalized citizen, what then can deprive him of his privileges at home among us when he returns? If he be a citizen at all, he must be allowed the privileges of citizenship, or he will not be the equal of his fellow-citizens. And must not Know-Nothingism strike at the very equality of citizenship, or allow him to enjoy all its lawful privileges? If Catholics

ralization laws and let foreigners become citizens, on equal terms of capacities and privileges, or we must exclude them altogether. If we abolish naturalization laws, we return to the European dogma: "Once a citizen, always a citizen." If we let foreigners be naturalized and don't extend to them equality of privileges, we set up classes and distinctions of persons wholly opposed to republicanism. We will, as Rome did, have citizens who may be scourged. The three alternatives are pre

sented-Our present policy, liberal, and the spell of misbegotten fear, and gave the just, and tolerant, and equal: or the Euro-watchword; but England joined the shout, pean policy of holding the noses of native and echoed it back, with her island voice, born slaves to the grind-stone of tyranny from her thousand cliffs and craggy shores, all their lives; or, odious distinctions of in a longer and louder strain. With that citizenship tending to social and political cry the genius of Great Britain rose, and aristocracy. I am for the present laws of

naturalization.

As to religion, the Constitution of the United States, art. 6, sec. 3, especially provides that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. The state of Virginia has, from her earliest history, passed the most liberal laws, not only towards naturalization, but towards foreigners. But I have said enough to show the spirit of American laws and the true sense of American maxims.

3d. Know-Nothingism is against the spirit of Reformation and of Protestantism. What was there to reform?

threw down the gauntlet to the nations. There was a mighty fermentation: the waters were out; public opinion was in a state of projection; liberty was held out to all to think and speak the truth; men's brains were busy; their spirits stirring; their hearts full; and their hands not idle. Their eyes were opened to expect the greatest things, and their ears burned with curiosity and zeal to know the truth, that the truth might make them free. The death blow which had been struck at scarlet vice and bloated hypocrisy, loosened tongues, and made the talismans and love tokens of popish superstitions with which she had beguiled her followers and committed abominations with the people, fall harmless from their necks."

The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work. It threw open,

Let the most bigoted Protestant enumerate what he defines to have been the abominations of the church of Rome. What would he say were the worst? The secrets of Jesuitism, of the Auto da fe, of by a secret spring, the rich treasures of rethe Monasteries and of the Nunneries. The ligion and morality, which had then been private penalties of the Inquisition's Scav- locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the enger's Daughter. Proscription, persecu- visions of the Prophets, and conveyed the tion, bigotry, intolerance, shutting up of lessons of inspired teachers to the meanest the book of the word. And do Protestants of the people. It gave them a common now mean to out-Jesuit the Jesuits? Do interest in a common cause. Their hearts they mean to strike and not be seen? To burnt within them as they read. It gave a be felt and not to be heard? To put a mind to the people, by giving them comshudder upon humanity by the masks of mon subjects of thought and feeling. It mutes? Will they wear the monkish cowls? cemented their Union of character and Will they inflict penalties at the polls with- sentiment; it created endless diversity and out reasoning together with their fellows collision of opinion. They found objects at the hustings? Will they proscribe? to employ their faculties, and a motive in Persecute? Will they bloat up themselves the magnitude of the consequences attached into that bigotry which would burn non- to them, to exert the utmost eagerness in conformists? Will they not tolerate free- the pursuit of truth, and the most daring dom of conscience, but doom dissenters, in intrepidity in maintaining it. Religious secret conclave, to a forfeiture of civil controversy sharpens the understanding by privileges for a religious difference? Will the subtlety and remoteness of the topics they not translate the scripture of their it discusses, and braces the will by their faith? Will they visit us with dark lanterns infinite importance. We perceive in the and execute us by signs, and test oaths, history of this period a nervous, masculine and in secrecy? Protestantism! forbid it! intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no in If anything was ever open, fair, and free difference; or, if there were, it is a relaxa-if anything was ever blatant even-it tion from the intense activity which gives was the Reformation. To quote from a a tone to its general character. But there mighty British pen: "It gave a mighty is a gravity approaching to piety, a seriousimpulse and increased activity to thought and inquiry, agitated the inert mass of accumulated prejudices throughout Europe. The effect of the concussion was general, but the shock was greatest in this country' (England). It toppled down the full grown intolerable abuses of centuries at a blow; heaved the ground from under the feet of bigoted faith and slavish obedience; and the roar and dashing of opinions, loosened from their accustomed hold, might be heard like the noise of an angry sea, and has never yet subsided. Germany first broke

ness of impression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervor of enthu siasm in their method of handling almost every subject. The debates of the schoolmen were sharp and subtle enough: but they wanted interest and grandeur, and were besides confined to a few. They did not affect the general mass of the community. But the Bible was thrown open to all ranks and conditions "to own and read," with its wonderful table of contents, from Genesis to the Revelation. Every village in England would present the scene so well)

Unfortunately, I find that our friends here are in the same condition in which the Jews were, when besieged by the Roman general, Titus. Whilst the batteringrams of the Romans were beating down their walls, and the firebrand of the heathen was consuming their temple, the historian tells us that that great people were engaged in intestine commotions, some advocating the claims of one, and some of another, to the high priesthood of that nation; and instead of the Romans devouring them, they devoured each other. God forbid that my brother Americans should devour each other, at a time when every heart and every hand should be enlisted in the same cause, of overthrowing the common enemy of us all.

described in Burns's "Cotter's Saturday | suppose for one moment that I am the repNight." How unlike this agitation, this resentative of any clique or faction. shock, this angry sea, this fermentation, this shout and its echoes, this impulse and activity, this concussion, this general effect, this blow, this earthquake, this roar and dashing, this longer and louder strain, this public opinion, this liberty to all to think and speak the truth, this stirring of spirits, this opening of eyes, this zeal to knownot nothing-but the truth, that the truth might make them free. How unlike to this is Know-Nothingism, sitting and brooding in secret to proscribe Catholics and naturalized citizens! Protestantism protested against secrecy, it protested ⚫against shutting out the light of truth, it protested against proscription, bigotry, and intolerance. It loosened all tongues, and fought the owls and bats of night with the light of meridian day. The argument of Know-Nothings is the argument of silence." The order ignores all knowledge. And its proscription can't arrest itself within the limit of excluding Catholics and naturalized citizens. It must proscribe natives and Protestants both, who will not consent to unite in proscribing Catholics and naturalized citizens. Nor is that all; it must not only apply to birth and religion, it must necessarily extend itself to the business of life as well as to political preferments.

Who is that common enemy? [Voices, The Democratic party."] Yes, that party have reviled us, abused us, persecuted us, and all only because we are determined to adhere to the Constitution of our country. Give Buchanan a lease of power for four years, and we must toil through persecution, submit to degradation, or cause the streets of our cities to run blood. But we will submit to degradation provided we can see the end of our troubles. We are willing to go through a pilgrimage, not only of four years, but of ten, or twenty, or forty years, provided we can have an assurance that at last we shall reach the

Kenneth Raynor, of North Carolina, on top of Pisgah, and see the promised land

Fusion of Fremont and Fillmore

Forces.

Extracts from his Speech at Philadelphia, November 1, 1856.

My brother Americans, do you intend to let these mischief-makers put you and me together by the ears? [Many voices; "no, no."] Then let us beat James Buchanan for the Presidency. ["We will-we will," and great applause.] He is the representative of slavery agitation; he is the representative of discord between sections; he is the man whom Northern and Southern agitators have agreed to present as their candidate. If he be elected now, and the difficulties in Kansas be healed, at the erd of four years they will spring upon you another question of slavery agitation. It will be the taking of Cuba from Spain, or cutting off another slice from Mexico for the purpose of embroiling the North against the South; and then, if I shall resist that agitation, I shall be called an Abolitionist, again.

*

*

*

*

*

My countrymen, God forbid that I should attempt to dictate to you or even advise you. I am not competent to do so. I know that divisions exist among you, while I feel also confident that the same purpose animates all your hearts. Do not

which our children are to inherit. God has not given to us poor frail mortals the power, at all times, of controlling events. When we cannot control events, should we not, where no sacrifice of honor is involved, pursue the policy of Lysander, and where the lion's skin is too short, eke it out with the fox's [applause]-not where principle is involved-not where a surrender of our devotion to our country is at stake. No; never, never!

I know nothing of your straight-out ticket; I know nothing of your Union ticket; I know nothing of Fremont. I do know something of Fillmore; but I would not give my Americanism, and the hopes which I cherish of seeing Americanism installed as the policy of this nation, for all the Fillmores, or Fremonts, or Buchanans, that ever lived on the face of the earth.

St. Paul says, "if it offends my brother, I will eat no meat;" and if it offends my brother here, I will not open my mouth. Nobody can suspect me. [Voices: "certainly not."] Then I say, can't you combine the vote of this state, and beat Buchanan? [This question was responded to in the affirmative, with the greatest en thusiasm. Repeated cheers were proposed for the straight ticket, but the responding voices were by no means numerous, and