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-store 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." Let the most bigoted Protestant enumerate what he defines to have been the abominations of the church of Rome. The translation of the Bible was the chief What would he say were the worst? The engine in the great work. It threw open, 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. Proзcription, 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 cene so well 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, Unfortunately, I find that our friends this shout and its echoes, this impulse and here are in the same condition in which activity, this concussion, this general effect, the Jews were, when besieged by the Rothis blow, this earthquake, this roar and man general, Titus. Whilst the batteringdashing, this longer and louder strain, this rams of the Romans were beating down public opinion, this liberty to all to think their walls, and the firebrand of the and speak the truth, this stirring of spirits, heathen was consuming their temple, the this opening of eyes, this zeal to know- historian tells us that that great people not nothing-but the truth, that the truth were engaged in intestine commotions, might make them free. How unlike to some advocating the claims of one, and this is Know-Nothingism, sitting and some of another, to the high priesthood brooding in secret to proscribe Catholics of that nation; and instead of the Roand naturalized citizens! Protestantism mans devouring them, they devoured each protested against secrecy, it protested other. God forbid that my brother Amer⚫against shutting out the light of truth, it icans should devour each other, at a time protested against proscription, bigotry, and when every heart and every hand should intolerance. It loosened all tongues, and be enlisted in the same cause, of overthrowfought the owls and bats of night with the ing the common enemy of us all. light of meridian day. The argument of Who is that common enemy? [Voices, Know-Nothings is the argument of silence." The Democratic party."] Yes, that The order ignores all knowledge. And its party have reviled us, abused us, perseproscription can't arrest itself within the cuted us, and all only because we are delimit of excluding Catholics and natural-termined to adhere to the Constitution of ized citizens. It must proscribe natives our country. Give Buchanan a lease of and Protestants both, who will not consent power for four years, and we must toil to unite in proscribing Catholics and natu- through persecution, submit to degradaralized citizens. Nor is that all; it must tion, or cause the streets of our cities to run not only apply to birth and religion, it must blood. But we will submit to degradation necessarily extend itself to the business of provided we can see the end of our troubles. life as well as to political preferments. 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 God which our children are to inherit. 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 were mingled with hisses. Such was the universal excitement, that for some minutes the speaker was obliged to pause. He finally raised his voice above the subsiding storm, and said : Come, my friends, we are all brothers; we are all seeking the same end. Our object is the same. We are all struggling to reach the same haven of safety. The only diffference of opinion is as to the proper means by which to accomplish our common end. Will not Americans learn prudence from the past? Misfortune should have taught us charity for each other. We have passed through the ordeal of persecution together; we have been subjected to the same difficulties, and the same oppression; we have been baptized (I may say) in the same stream of calumny. Then, in the name of God—in the name of our common country-in the name of Americanism-in the name of American nationality-in the name of religious freedom-in the name of the Union, I beseech you to learn charity for the difference of opinion which prevails among you. Let brethren forbear with brethren. Let us recollect that it is not by vituperation, by the censure of our brethren, that we can ever accomplish this great end of conquering a common enemy. My friends, how long are we to suffer? How long will it be before we shall learn that it is only by a union of counsels, a concentration of energy, a combination of purpose, that we can destroy the common enemy of every conservative man. [Great applause.] I shall not attempt to advise you, for I am not competent to do it. You have information which I do not possess. You know all the undercurrents of opinion which prevail here in your community, with which I am unacquainted; but will you allow an humble man to express his opinion to brethren whom he loves? May I do it? I am a Fillmore man-nothing but a Fillmore man, and if I resided here, I would vote no ticket which had not the name of Millard Fillmore at its head, and I would advise no Fillmore man to vote a ticket with Fremont's name on it; but I would vote for that ticket which would make my voice tell at the polls. "putting your trust in God;" but, my friends, is it "keeping your powder dry?" The enemy may steal into the camp while you are asleep, and may pour water upon your cartridges, so that when the day of battle shall come, you may shoot, but you will kill nobody. I want the vote of every American, on Tuesday next, to tell. Would to God that you could give the twentyseven electoral votes of Pennsylvania to Fillmore. Then vote the straight ticket, if that will give him the twenty-seven votes. But suppose it will not (and I am afraid it will not), then the question is, had you better give Buchanan the twentyseven votes, or give Fillmore eight, ten, twelve, or twenty, as the case may be. I go for beating Buchanan. Gentlemen, you do not know what we Americans suffer at the South. I am abused and reviled for standing up in defence of you. When I hear the whole North denounced as a set of Abolitionists, whose purpose it is to interfere with the peculiar institutions of the South, I brand such charges as slanders on the Northern people. I tell them that the great mass of the Northern people are sound on this question; that they are opposed to slavery, as I should be if I were a Northern man; but that I do not believe that the great mass of the Northern people have any idea of interfering with the constitutional rights of the people of the South. I know that such men as Garrison and Forney have. I know that Garrison believes the Constitution to be a "league with hell," and would therefore destroy it if he could; and I know that Forney loves office so well, that even at the risk of snapping the Union, he will keep alive slavery agitation. But Garrison does not represent New England, and Forney does not repre. sent you. As much as I have been reviled for standing by you, I am so anxious to have Buchanan beaten, that were I residing here, if I could not give Fillmore the whole twenty-seven votes, I would give him all I could, by giving him the number to which he might be entitled by the numerical proportion of the votes at the ballot-box. Yet, if there is a brother American here who Now let us look at this thing practically. feels in his "heart of hearts," that by votIn reading history I have always admired ing that Union ticket, he would comprothe character of Oliver Cromwell. What mise his Americanism, I say to such an was the great motive by which he was one, "do not vote that ticket." At the actuated in overthrowing the house of same time, candor compels me to say, that Stuart? It was unfailing devotion to I differ in opinion with him. If I believed principle. His motto was, "Put your that that ticket was a fusion, or that it trust in God, and keep your powder dry." "called upon any Fillmore man to vote for I admire the devotion to principle in every Fremont, I would advise no one to vote it. man who says that he does not intend to I would not vote a ticket that had on it vote any but the straight ticket, for it the name of Fremont; but I would vote a shows that Americanism has such a lodg-ticket with Fillmore's name upon it, and ment in his heart, that he cannot bear which would give him (if not the twentyeven seemingly to compromise it. That is seven electoral votes) seven, or ten, or twenty, just as the numerical proportion of the votes might decide. I appeal to every conservative, Unionloving man in this nation, who is disposed to give to the South all the constitutional privileges to which she is entitled, and who wishes to rebuke the Democratic party for the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and for keeping up the eternal agitation of slavery. I appeal to you as a southern man—as a slaveholder. I do not ask you to be pro-slavery men, to be the advocates of slavery, when I say to you that we, your brethren of the South, expect you to preserve our constitutional rights-and, God knows, we ask nothing more-against fanatics, either north or south. Will you do it? issue is now pending! We read in the Iliad how, for ten long years, a great people of antiquity were engaged in the siege of Troy. What was the stake for which they contended? It was nothing more than a beautiful woman, who had been ravished by a sprig of the royal line of Troy. What is the stake for which we contend? It is constitutional liberty-the right of the American people to govern their own country—the right of every citizen to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. The great issue is, whether the American flag shall still wave in glory when we shall have gone to our graves, or whether it shall be trailed in dishonor-whether the "blackness of darkness" which would follow the disso I do not tell you how to combine: but I urge you to resort to that mode (if there is such a mode possible), by which you can get together-by which your votes can be made effectual at the polls-by which Millard Fillmore can go before the House of Representatives with the strong moral power which a large electoral vote will give him. My friends, the election is fast approach-lution of this Union, shall cover the land. ing. There is but little time for deliberation left. Is there no way by which the votes of the anti-Buchanan party can be concentrated on the same ticket? I would shed tears of blood-God knows I would if I could be instrumental in prevailing on all true Americans to combine. I cannot tell you how to combine; but is it yet too late? If it is too late to do it throughout the state, cannot you in Philadelphia do it? The Presidential election may depend upon the state of Pennsylvania, and the state of Pennsylvania may depend upon the city of Philadelphia. On the vote of the city of Philadelphia may depend not only our own rights, but the rights of our children and our children's children. I appeal to my brother Americans, for I have no right to appeal to anybody else; I cannot address the Fremont party, for I have no affiliation with them; I cannot address the Buchanan party, for my object is to destroy them if possible. To my American brethren, then, I appeal, for God's sake, do not let the sun rise upon that wrath, which I see divides you. Your object is the same-to rescue your common country. Let me advise you who know nothing of your divisions-who belong neither to one clique or the other. I say with the deepest sincerity that I think all parties ought to have concentrated upon the Fillmore ticket. Mr. Fillmore is a northern man. Your southern brethren were willing to support him. He had guided the ship of state safely through the storm, and it was but reasonable to suppose that in time of difficulty he would again be found the same good pilot. But if we cannot get all others to unite on Mr. Fillmore, each of us must inquire, "What is my duty? If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, shall not Mahomet go to the mountain; and if he will not go to the mountain, in heaven's name, shall he not go half way y?" I am fighting for the victory which we may obtain in this contest. And what an That is the way in which we must view the question as practical men. Yet so different are the conditions of our nature, so different the sentiments which actuate us, that I will not be guilty of such presumption, as to tell any man what particular course he should take. You know my opinions; if they are worth anything, receive them into your hearts, simply as the sentiments of a brother American; if they are worth nothing, let them pass as the idle wind. In conclusion I will only say that whether we be defeated or whether we be victorious, the only reward I ask for in the labor in which I am engaged is, that you may recollect me as one who had at heart only the welfare of his country, and who endeavored to promote it by appealing to the associations of the past, and all the hopes of the future. it; but nothing is more evident, both in | part of the world. America has set an exreason and the Holy Scriptures, than that ample to mankind to think more rationreligion is ever a matter between God and ally-that a man may be of religious senindividuals; and that, therefore, no man timents differing from our own, without beor set of men can impose any religious ing a bad member of society. The printest without invading the essential pre- ciples of toleration, to the honor of this rogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ. Min- age, are doing away those errors and preisters first assumed this power under the judices which have so long prevailed even Christian name, and then Constantine ap-in the most intolerant countries. In Roproved of the practice when he adopted the profession of Christianity as an engine of state policy. And let the history of all nations be searched, from that day to this, and it will appear that the imposing of religious tests hath been the greatest engine of tyranny in the world. man Catholic lands, principles of modera tion are adopted, which would have been spurned a century or two ago. It will be fatal, indeed, to find, at the time when examples of toleration are set even by arbitrary governments, that this country, so impressed with the highest sense of libOLIVER WOLCOTT of Conn. For my-erty, should adopt principles on this subself I should be content either with or ject that were narrow, despotic, and without that clause in the Constitution illiberal." Speech of Henry W. Davis, of Maryland, which excludes test laws. Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not Representatives, on the 6th of Jan., 1857, on the results what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be destructive of the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it superfluous to have added a clause which secures us from the possibility of such oppression. of the recent Presidential election: * * * * * * * "The great lesson is taught by this election that both the parties which rested their hopes on sectional hostility, stand at this day condemned by the great majority of the country, as common disturbers of the public peace of the country. MR. MADISON of Va. I confess to you, sir, that were uniformity of religion to be introduced by this system, it would, in my "The Republican party was a hasty opinion, be ineligible; but I have no levy, en masse, of the Northern people to reason to conclude that uniformity of gov- repel or revenge an intrusion by Northern ernment will produce that of religion. votes alone. With its occasion it must This subject is, for the honor of America, pass away. The gentlemen of the Republeft perfectly free and unshackled. The lican side of the House can now do nothgovernment has no jurisdiction over it-ing. They can pass no law excluding the least reflection will convince us there is no danger on this ground. Happily for the states, they enjoy the utmost freedom of religion. This freedom arises from that multiplicity of sects which pervades America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For, where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest. slavery from Kansas in the next Congress -for they are in a minority. Within two years Kansas must be a state of the Union. She will be admitted with or without slavery, as her people prefer. Beyond Kansas there is no question that is practically open. I speak to practical men. Slavery does not exist in any other territory,-it is excluded by law from several, and not likely to exist anywhere; and the Republican party has nothing to do and can do nothing. It has no future. Why cumbers it the ground? The MR. IREDELL of N. C. used this language: "Every person in the least conversant with the history of mankind, knows what dreadful mischiefs have been com- "Between these two stand the firm ranks mitted by religious persecution. Under of the American party, thinned by deserthe color of religious tests, the utmost tions, but still unshaken. To them the cruelties have been exercised. Those in eye of the country turns in hope. power have generally considered all wis- gentleman from Georgia saluted the dom centred in themselves, that they Northern Democrats with the title of healone had the right to dictate to the rest of roes-who swam vigorously down the curmankind, and that all opposition to their rent. The men of the American party tenets was profane and impious. The faced, in each section, the sectional madconsequence of this intolerant spirit has ness. They would cry neither free nor been that each church has in turn set it- slave Kansas; but proposed a safe adminself up against every other, and persecu- istration of the laws, before which every tions and wars of the most implacable and right would find protection. Their voice bloody nature have taken place in every I was drowned amid the din of factions. The |