It ceased to be under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction | money; or, if purchased for a post-office, it must be of the United States, within the meaning of the act of Congress, for the reason that it had passed under another and a different jurisdiction. Hence, if we abolish the Territorial Government of Utah, preserving all existing rights, and place the country under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, offenders can be apprehended and brought into the adjacent States or Territories for punishment, in the same manner and under the same rules and regulations which obtained and have been uniformly practiced under like circumstances since 1790. If the plan proposed shall be found an effective and adequate remedy for the evils complained of in Utah, no one, no matter what his political creed or partisan associations, need be apprehensive that it will violate any cherished theory or constitutional right in regard to the government of the Territories. It is a great mistake to suppose that all the territory or land belonging to the United States must necessarily be governed by the same laws and under the same clause of the Constitution, without reference to the purpose to which it is dedicated or the use which it is proposed to make of it; while all that portion of the country which is or shall be set apart to become new States, must necessarily be governed under and consistent with that clause of the Constitution which authorizes Congress to admit new States, it does not follow that other territory, not intended to be organized and admitted into the Union as States, must be governed under the same clause of the Constitution, with all the rights of self-government and State equality. For instance, if we should purchase Vancouver's Island from Great Britain for the purpose f removing all the Indians from our Pacific territories and locating them on that island as their permanent home, with guaranties that it should never be occupied or settled with white men, will it be contended that the purchase should be made and the island governed under the power to admit new States when it was not acquired for that purpose, nor intended to be applied to that object? Being acquired for Indian purposes and applied to Indian purposes, it is not more reasonable to assume that the power to acquire was derived from the Indian clause, and the island must necessarily be governed under and consistent with that clause of the Constitution whichrelates to Indian affairs. Again, suppose we should deem it expedient to buy a small island in the Mediterranean or the Carribean Sea for a naval station, can it be said with any force or plausibility that the purchase should be made or the island governed under the power to admit new States? On the contrary, is it not obvious that the right to acquire and govern in that case is derived from the power" to provide and maintain a navy,' and must be exercised consistently with that power. So, if we purchase land for forts, arsenals, or other military purposes, or set apart and dedicate any territory which we now own for a military reservation, it immediately passes under the military power and must be governed in harmony with it. So if the land be purchased for a mint, it must be governed under the power to coin governed under the power to establish post-offices and post-roads; or, for a custom-house, under the power to regulate commerce; or for a court-house, under the judiciary power. In short, the clause in the Constitution under which any land or territory belonging to the United States must be governed, is indicated by the object for which it was acquired and the purpose for which it is dedicated. So long, therefore, as the organic act of Utah shall remain in force, setting apart that country for a new State, and pledging the faith of the United States to receive it into the Union as soon as it should have the requisite population, we are bound to extend to it all the rights of self-government, agreeably to the clause in the Constitution providing for the admission of new States. Hence the necessity of repealing the organic act-withdrawing the pledge of admission, and placing it under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, in order that persons and property may be protected, and justice administered, and crimes punished under the laws prescribed by Congress in such cases. While the power of Congress to repeal this organic act and abolish the Territorial Government cannot be denied, the question may arise whether we possess the moral right of exercising the power, after the charter has been once granted and the local government organized under its provisions. This is a grave question-one which should not be decided hastily, nor under the influence of passion or prejudice. I am free to say that in my opinion there is no moral right to repeal the organic act of a Territory, and abolish the government organized under it, unless the inhabitants of that Territory, as a community, have done such acts as amount to a forfeiture of all rights under it-such as becoming alien enemies, outlaws, disavowing their allegiance, or resisting the authority of the United States. These, and kindred acts, which we have every reason to believe are daily perpetrated in that Territory, would not only give us the moral right, but make it our imperative duty to abolish the Territorial Government, and place the inhabitants under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, to the end that justice may be done and the dignity and authority of the Government vindicated. I have thus presented plainly and frankly my views of the Utah question-the evils and the remedy-upon the facts as they have reached us, and are supposed to be substantially correct. If official reports and authentic information shall change or modify these facts, I shall be ready to conform my notion to the red facts as they shall be found to exist. I have no such pride of opinion as will induce me to persevere in an error one moment after my judgment is convinced. If, therefore, a better plan can be devised-one more consistent with justice and sound policy, or more effective as a remedy for acknow. ledged evils, I shall take great pleasure in adopting it, in lieu of the one I have presented to you to-night. In conclusion, permit me to express my grateful ac knowledgments for your patient attention and the kind and respectful manner in which you have received my remarks. INVASION OF STATES--SEDITION LAW PROPOSED. SPEECH OF MR. DOUGLAS. On the 16th of January, 1860, Mr. Douglas rely, that a conspiracy of formidable extent, in means and "I have information from various quarters, upon which 1 submitted to the United States Senate the fol-numbers, is formed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New-York, and lowing Resolution : Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to report a bill for the protection of each State and Territory of the Union, against invasion by the authorities or inhabitants of any other State or Territory; and for the suppression and punishment of conspiracies or combinations in any State or Territory with intent to Invade, assail, or molest the government, inhabitants, property, or institutions of any other State or Territory of the Union. This Resolution, coming up as a special order on the 23d of January, Mr. Douglas said: Mr. President, on the 25th of November last, the Governor of Virginia addressed on official communication to the President of the United States, in which he said: other States, to rescue John Brown and his associates, prisoners at Charleston, Virginia. The information is specific enough to be reliable " "Places in Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, have been occupied as depots and rendezvous by these desperadoes, unwe are kept in continual apprehension of outrage fran fire obstructed by guards or otherwise, to invade this State, and and rapine. I apprise you of these facts in order that you may take steps to preserve peace between the States." States, on the 28th of November, returned a reply, from which I read the following sentence: To this communication, the President of the United "I am at a loss to discover any provision in the Constitution or laws of the United States which would authorize me to take steps for this purpose.'" [That is, to preserve the peace between the States.] Mr. Douglas argued at considerable length, to prove that the Constitution does provide for the The question then remaining is, what legislation is, necessary and proper to render this guaranty of the Constitution effectual? I presume there will be very little difference of opinion that it will be necessary to place the whole military power of the Government at the disposal of the President, under proper guards and restrictions against abuse, to repel and suppress invasion when the hostle force shall be actually in the field. But, sir, that is not sufficient. Such legislation would not be a full compliance with this guaranty of the Constitution. The framers of that instrument meant more when they gave the guaranty. Mark the difference in language between the provision for protecting the United States against invasion and that for protecting the States. When it provided for protecting the United States, it said Congress shall have power to repel invasion." When it came to make this guaranty to the States, it changed the language, and said the United States shall "protect" each of the States against invasion. In the one instance, the duty of the Government is to repel; in the other, the guaranty is that they will protect. In other words, the United States are not permitted to wait until the enemy shall be upon your borders; until the invading army shall have been organized and drilled and placed in march with a view to the invasion; but they must pass all laws necessary and proper to insure protection and domestic tranquillity to each State and Territory of this Union against invasion or hostilities from other States and Territories. England against the lives of the princes of France. I States. I predicate my argument upon the Constitution shall not argue the question of comity between foreign by which we are governed, and which we have sworn to obey, and demand that the Constitution be executed in good faith so as to punish and suppress every combina. tion, every conspiracy, either to invade a State or to molest its inhabitants, or to disturb its property, or to subvert its institutions and its government. I believe this can be effectually done by authorizing the United States courts in the several States to take jurisdiction of the offense, and punish the violation of the law with appropriate punishments. It cannot be said that the time has not yet arrived for such legislation. It cannot be said with truth that the Harper's Ferry case will not be repeated, or is not in danger of repetition. It is only necessary to inquire into the causes which produced the Harper's Ferry outrage, and ascertain whether those causes are yet in active operation, and then you can determine whether there is any ground for apprehension that that invasion will be repeated. Sir, what were the causes which produced the Harper's Ferry outrage? Without stopping to adduce evidence in detail, I have no hesitation in expressing my firm and deliberate conviction that the Harper's Ferry doctrines and teachings of the Republican party, as crime was the natural, logical, inevitable result of the explained and enforced in their platform, their par tisun presses, their pamphlets and books, and espe cially in the speeches of their leaders in and out of Congress. (Applause in the galleries.) And, sir, inasmuch as the Constitution of the United States confers upon Congress the power coupled with the duty of protecting each State against external aggression, and inasmuch as that includes the power of suppressing and punishing conspiracies in one State against the institutions, property, people, or government of every other State, I desire to carry out that power vigorously. Sir, give us such a law as the Constitution contemplates and authorizes, and I will show the Senator from New York that there is a constitutional mode of repressing the "irrepressible conflict." I will open the prison doors to allow conspirators against the peace of the Republic and the domestic tranquillity of our States to select their cells wherein to drag out a miserable life as a punishment for their crimes against the peace of society. Then, sir, I hold that it is not only necessary to use the military power when the actual case of invasion shall occur, but to authorize the judicial department of the Government to suppress all conspiracies and combinations in the several States with intent to invade a State, or molest or disturb its government, its peace, its citizens, Its property or its institutions. You must punish the conspiracy, the combination with intent to do the act, and then you will suppress it in advance. There is no principle more familiar to the legal profession than that wherever it is proper to declare an act to be a crime, it is proper to punish a conspiracy or combination with intent to perpetrate the act. Look upon your statute-books, and I presume you will find an enactment to punish the counterfeiting of the coin of the United States; and then Mr. President, the mode of preserving peace is plain. another section to punish a man for having counterfeit This system of sectional warfare must cease. The Concoin in his possession with intent to pass it; and another stitution has given the power, and all we ask of Congress section to punish him for having the molds or dies or in- is to give the means, and we, by indictments and construments for counterfeiting, with intent to use them.victions in the Federal courts of our several States, will This is a familiar principle in legislative and judicial pro- make such examples of the leaders of these conspiracies ceedings. If the act of invasion is criminal, the conas will strike terror into the hearts of the others, and spiracy to invade should also be made criminal. If it be there will be an end of this crusade. Sir, you must unlawful and illegal to invade a State, and run off fugi- check it by crushing out the conspiracy, the combinative slaves, why not make it unlawful to form conspiracies tion, and then there can be safety. and combinations in the several States with intent to do the act? We have been told that a notorious man who has recently suffered death for his crimes upon the gallows, boasted in Cleveland, Ohio, in a public lecture, a year ago, that he had then a body of men employed in running away horses from the slaveholders of Missouri, and pointed to a livery stable in Cleveland which was full of the stolen horses at that time. [A special committee of the Senate, of which Mr. Mason, of Va., was chairman, appointed to investigate the Harper's Ferry affair, ascertain the cause of the raid, and report what laws, if any, were necessary to prevent a repetition, I think it is within our competency, and consequently reported near the close of the session, that our duty, to pass a law making every conspiracy or com- the committee were unable to discover that bination in any State or Territory of this Union to invade another with intent to steal or run away property of any any persons were either directly or indirectly kind, whether it be negroes, or horses, or property of any engaged in the invasion, other than John other description, into another State, a crime, and punish Brown and those who accompanied him to the conspirators by indictment in the United States Harper's Ferry.] courts and confinement in the prisons and penitentiaries of the State or Territory where the conspiracy may be formed and quelled. Sir, I would carry these provisions WHAT POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY HAS DONE. of law as far as our constitutional powers will reach. I would make it a crime to form conspiracies with a From Mr. Douglas' Speech in the Senate, May 16, 1860. view of invading States or Territories to control elections, whether they be under the garb of Emigrant But, we are told that the necessary result of this docAid Societies of New England or Blue Lodges of Mis-trine of non-intervention, which, gentlemen, by way of vari. (Applause in the galleries.) In other words, throwing ridicule upon it, call squatter sovereignty, is this provision of the Constitutions means more than the to deprive the South of all participation in what they mere repelling of an invasion when the invading army call the common Territories of the United States. That shall reach the border of a State. The language is, it was the ground on which the Senator from Misissippi (Mr. shall protect the State against invasion; the meaning of Davis), predicated his opposition to the Compromise which is, to use the language of the preamble to the Con-Measures of 1850. He regarded a refusal to repeal the stitution, to insure to each State domestic tranquillity Mexican law as equivalent to the Wilmot Proviso; a reagainst external violence. There can be no peace, there fusal to recognize by an act of Congress the right to can be no prosperity, there can be no safety in any com- carry a slave there as equivalent to the Wilmot Proviso; munity, unless it is secured against violence from abroad. a refusal to deny to a Territorial Legislature the right to Why, sir, it has been a question seriously mooted in exclude Slavery as equivalent to an exclusion. He beEurope, whether it was not the duty of England, a power lieved at that time that this doctrine did amcunt to a Loreign to France, to pass laws to punish conspiracies in denial of southern rights; and he told the people of Mississippi so; but they doubted it. Now let us see how far his theory and suppositions have been verified. I infer that he told the people of Mississippi so, for he makes it a charge in his bill of indictment against me, that I am hostile to southern rights because I gave those votes. Now. what has been the result? My views were incorporated into the Compromise Measures of 1850, and his were rejected. Has the South been excluded from all the territory acquired from Mexico? What says the bill from the House of Representatives now on your table, repealing the slave code in New Mexico, established by the people themselves? It is part of the history of the country that under this doctrine of non-intervention, this doctrine that you delight to call squatter sovereignty, the people of New Mexico have introduced and protected Slavery in the whole of that Territory. Under this doctrine, they have converted a tract of Free Territory into Slave Territory, more than five times the size of the State of New-York. Under this doctrine, Slavery has been extended from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California, and from the line of the Republic of Mexico, not only up to 36 deg. 30 min., but up to 88 deg.-GIVING YOU A DEGREE AND A HALF MORE SLAVE TERRITORY THAN YOU EVER CLAIMED. In 1848 and 1849 and 1850, you only asked to have the line of 86 deg. 80 min. The Nashville convention fixed that as its ultimatum. I offered it in the Senate in August, 1848 and it was adopted here but rejected in the House of Representatives. You asked only up to 86 deg. 80 min., and nonintervention has given you Slave Territory up to 88 deg., A DEGREE AND A HALF MORE THAN YOU ASKED; and yet you say that this is a sacrifice of Southern rights! at tor from Mississippi regards as hostile to the rights of the South. Where did you ever get any other fruits that were more palatable to your taste or more refreshing to your strength? What other inch of Free Territory has been converted into Slave Territory on the American continent, since the Revolution, except in New Mexico and Arizona, under the principle of non-intervention affirmed Charleston? If it be true that this principie of non-inter. vention has given to Slavery all New Mexico, which was surrounded on nearly every side by Free Territory, will not the same principle protect you in the northern states of Mexico when they are acquired, since they are now sur rounded by Slave Territory; are several hundred miles further South; have many degrees of greater heat; and have a climate and soil adapted to Southern products? Are you not satisfied with these practical results? Do you desire to appeal from the people of the Territories to the Congress of the United States to settle this ques tion in the Territories? When you distrust the people and appeal to Congress, with both houses largely against you on this question, what sort of protection will you get? Whenever you ask a Slave code from Congress to protect your institutions in a Territory where the people do not want it, you will get that sort of protection which the wolf gives to the lamb; you will get that sort of friendly hug that the grizzly bear gives to the infant. Appealing to an Anti-Slavery Congress to pass laws of protection, with a view of forcing Slavery upon an unwilling and hostile people! Sir, of all the mad schemes that ever could be devised by the South, or by the enemies of the South, that which recognizes the right of Congress to touch the institution of Slavery either in States or Territories, beyond the single case provided in the Constitu tion for the rendition of fugitive Slaves, is the mos These are the fruits of this principle which the Sena-fatal.-Appendix to Congressional Globe, page 814 · THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. A SPEECH BY WILLIAM H. SEWARD, FELLOW-CITIZENS: The unmistakable outbreaks of zeal which occur all around me, show that you are earnest men -and such a man am I. Let us, therefore, at least for a time, pass by all secondary and collateral questions, whether of a personal or of a general nature, and consider the main subject of the present canvass. The Democratic party, or, to speak more accurately, the party which wears that attractive name, is in possession of the Federal Government. The Republicans propose to dislodge that party, and dismiss it from its high trust. The main subject, then, is, whether the Democractic party deserves to retain the confidence of the American people. In attempting to prove it unworthy, I think that I am not actuated by prejudices against that party, or by prepossessions in favor of its adversary; for I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue. this new continent as an engine of conquest, and for the establishment of monarchical power, by the Portuguese and the Spaniards, and was rapidly extended by them all over South America, Central America, Louisiana, and Mexico. Its legitimate fruits are seen in the poverty, imbecility, and anarchy, which now pervade all Portuguese and Spanish America. The free-labor system is of German extraction, and it was established in our country by emigrants from Sweden, Holland, Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. We justly ascribe to its influences the strength, wealth, greatness, intelligence, and freedom which the whole American people now enjoy. One of the chief elements of the value of human life is freedom in the pursuit of happiness. The slave system is not only intolerant, unjust, and inhuman toward the laborer, whom, only because he is a laborer, it loads down with chains and converts into mer chandise, but is scarcely less severe upon the freeman, to whom, only because he is a laborer from necessity, it dethe community because it cannot enslave and convert him into merchandise also. It is necessarily improvident and ruinous, because, as a general truth, communities prosper and flourish or droop and decline in just the degree that they practice or neglect to practice the primary duties of justice and humanity. The free-labor system conforms to the divine law of equality, which is written in the hearts and consciences of men, and therefore is always and everywhere beneficent. Our country is a theatre, which exhibits in full opera-nies facilities for employment, and whom it expels from tion, two radically different political systems; the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor, the other on the basis of voluntary labor of freemen. The laborers who are enslaved are all negroes, or persons more or less purely of African derivation. But this is only accidental. The principle of the system is, that labor in every society, by whoinsoever performed, is necessarily unintellectual, groveling, and base; and that the laborer, equally for his own good and for the welfare of the State, ought to be enslaved. The white laboring man, whether native or foreigner, is not enslaved, only because he cannot, as yet, be reduced to bondage. You need not be told now that the slave system is the older of the two, and that once it was universal. The emancipation of our own ancestors, Caucasians and Europeans as they were, hardly dates beyond a period of five hundred years. The great melioration of human society which modern times exhibit, is mainly due to the incomplete substitution of the system of voluntary labor for the old one of servile labor, which has already taken place. This African slave system is one which, in its origin and in its growth, has been altogether foreign from the habits of the races which colonized these States, established civilization here. It was introduced on The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness. It debases those whose toil alone can produce wealth and resources for defense, to the lowest degree of which human nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and insurrection, and thus wastes energies which otherwise might be employed in national development and aggrandizement. The free-labor system educates all alike, and by opening all the fields of industrial employment, and all the departments of authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of men, at once secures universal contentment, and brings into the highest possible activity all the physical, moral, and social energies of the whole State. In States where the slave system prevails, the masters, directly or indirectly, secure all rolled whole structure of Government broadly on the principie that all men are created equal, and therefore free-little dreaming that, within the short period of one hundred years, their descendants would bear to be told by any orator, however popular, that the utterance of that principle was merely a rhetorical rhapsody; or by any judge however venerated, that it was attended by mental reservations, which rendered it hypocritical and false. By the Ordinance of 1787, they dedicated all of the national domain not yet polluted by Slavery to free labor immediately, thenceforth and forever; while by the new Constitution and laws they invited foreign free labor from all lands under the sun, and interdicted the importation of African Slave Labor, at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances whatsoever. It is true that they necessary and wisely modified this policy of Freedom, by leaving it to the several States, affected as they were by differing circumstances, to abolish Slavery in their own way and at their own pleasure, instead of confiding that duty to Congress, and that they secured to the Slave States, while yet retaining the system of Slave), a three-fifths representation of slaves in the Federal Government, until they should find themselves able to relinquish it with safety. But the very nature of these modifications fortifies my position that the fathers knew that the two systems could not endure within the Union, and expected that within a short period Slavery would disappear forever. Moreover, in order that these modifications might not altogether defeat their grand design of a Republic maintaining universal equality, they provided that two-thirds of the States might amend the Constitution. It remains to say on this point only one word, to guard against misapprehension. If these States are to again become universally slaveholding, I do not pretend to say with what violations of the Constitution that end shall be accomplished. On the other hand, while I do confidently believe and hope that my country will yet become a land of universal Freedom, I do not expect that it will be made so otherwise than through the action of the several States coöperating with the Federal Government, and all acting in strict conformity with their respective Constitutions. The strife and contentions concerning Slavery, which gently-disposed persons so habitually deprecate, are nothing more than the ripening of the conflict which the fathers themselves, not only thus regarded with favor, but which they may be said to have instituted. It is not to be denied, however, that thus far the course of that contest has not been according to their humane anticipations and wishes. In the field of federal politics, Slavery, deriving unlooked-for advantages from commercial changes, and energies unforeseen from the facilities of combination between members of the slaveholding class and between that class and other property classes, early rallied, and has at length made a stand, not merely to retain its original defensive position, but to extend its sway throughout the whole Union. It is certain that the slaveholding class of American citizens indulge this high ambition, and that they derive encouragement for it from the rapid and effective political successes which they have already obtained. The plan of operation is this: By continued appliances of patronage and threats of disunion, they will keep a majority favorable to these designs in the Senate, where each State has an equal representation. Through that majority they will defeat, as they best can, the admission of Free States, and secure the admission of Slave States. Under the protection of the Judiciary, they will, on the principle of the Dred Scott case, carry Slavery into all the Territories of the United States now existing, and hereafter to be organized. By the action of the President and the Senate, using the treaty-making power, they will annex foreign slaveholding States. In a favorable conjuncture they will induce Congress to repeal the act of 1808, which prohibits the foreign slave-trade, and so they will import from Africa, at the cost of only $20 a head, slaves enough to fill up the interior of the continent. Thus relatively increasing the number of Slave States, they will allow no amendment to the Constitution prejudicial to their interest; and so, having permanently established their power, they expect the Federal Judiciary to nullify all State laws which shall interfere with internal or foreign commerce in slaves. When the Free States shall be suffi ciently demoralized to tolerate these designs, they reasonably conclude that Slavery will be accepted by those States themselves. I shall not stop to show how speedy or how complete would be the ruin which the accomplishment of these slaveholding schemes would bring upon the country. For one, I should not remain in the country to test the sad experiment. Having spent my manhood, though not my whole life, in a Free State, no aristocracy of any kind, much less an aristocracy of slaveholders, shall ever make the laws of the land in which I shall be content to live. Having seen the society around me universally engaged in agriculture, manufactures and trade, which were innocent and beneficent, I shall never be a denizen of a State where men and women are reared as cattle, and bought and sold as merchandise. When that evil day shall come, and all further effort at resistance shall be impossible, then, if there shall be no better hope for redemption than I can now foresee, I shall say with Franklin, while looking abroad over the whole earth for a new and more congenial home, Where liberty dwells, there is my country." You will tell me that these fears are extravagant and chimerical. I answer, they are so; but they are so only because the designs of the slaveholders must and can be defeated. But it is only the possibility of defeat that renders them so. They cannot be defeated by inactivity. There is no escape from them, compatible with non-resistance. How, then, and in what way, shall the necessary resistance be made? There is only one way. The Democratic party must be permanently dislodged from the Government. The reason is, that the Democratic party is inextricably committed to the designs of the slaveholders, which I have described. Let me be well understood. I do not charge that the Democratic candidates for public office now before the people are pledged to, much less that the Democratic masses who support them really adopt, those atrocious and dangerous designs. Candidates may, and generally do, mean to act justly, wisely, and patriotically, when they shall be elected; but they become the ministers and servants, not the dictators, of the power which elects them. The policy which a party shall pursue at a future period is only gradually developed, depending on the occurrence of events never fully foreknown. The motives of men, whether acting as electors, or in any other capacity, are generally pure. Nevertheless, it is not more true that "Hell is paved with good intentions," than it is that earth is covered with wrecks resulting from innocent and amiable motives. The very constitution of the Democratic party commits it to execute all the designs of the slaveholders, whatever they may be. It is not a party of the whole Union, of all the Free States and of all the Slave States; nor yet is it a party of the Free States in the North and in the Northwest; but it is a sectional and local party, having practically its seat within the Slave States, and counting its constituency chiefly and almost exclusively there. Of all its representatives in Congress and in the Electoral College, two-thirds uniformly come from these States. Its great element of strength lies in the vote of the slaveholders, augmented by the representation of three-fifths of the slaves. Deprive the Democratic party of this strength, and it would be a helpless and hopeless minority, incapable of continued organization. The Democratic party, being thus local and sectional, acquires new strength from the admission of every new Slave State, aml loses relatively by the admission of every new Free State into the Union. A party is, in one sense, a joint-stock association, in which those who contribute most direct the action and management of the concern. The slaveholders contributing in an overwhelmning proportion to the capital strength of the Democratic party, they necessarily dictate and prescribe its policy. The inevitable caucus system enables them to do so with a show of fairness and justice. If it were possible to conceive for a moment that the Democratic party should disobey the behests of the slaveholders, we should then see a withdrawal of the slaveholders, which would leave the party to perish. The portion of the party which is found in the Free States is a mere appendage, convenient to modify its sectional character, without impairing its sectional constitution, and is less effective in regulating its movement than the nebulous tail of the comet is in determining the appointed though apparently eccentric course of the fiery sphere from which it emanates. office had been filled by slaveholders thirty-two out of forty years. In 1886, Martin Van Buren-the first non-slaveholding citizen of a Free State to whose election the Democratic party ever consented-signalized his inauguration into the Presidency, by a gratuitous announcement, that under no circumstances would he ever approve a bill for the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia. From 1838 to 1844, the subject of abolishing Slavery in the District of Columbia and in the national dock-yards and arsenals, was brought before Congress by repeated popular appeals. The Democratic party thereupon promptly denied the right of petition, and effectually suppressed the freedom of speech in Congress, so far as the institution of Slavery was concerned. From 1840 to 1843, good and wise men counselled that Texas should remain outside of the Union until she should consent to relinquish her self-instituted slavery; but the Democratic party precipitated her admission into the Union, not only without that condition, but even with a covenant that the State might be divided and reorganized so as to constitute four Slave States instead of one. In 1846, when the United States became involved in a war with Mexico, and it was apparent that the struggle would end in the dismemberment of that republic, which was a non-slaveholding power, the Democratic party rejected a declaration that Slavery should not be estab lished within the territory to be acquired. When, in 1850, governments were to be instituted in the Territo ries of California and New-Mexico the fruits of that war, the Democratic party refused to admit New-Mexico as a Free State, and only consented to admit California as a Free State on the condition, as it has since explained the transaction, of leaving all of New-Mexico and Utah open to Slavery, to which was also added the concession of perpetual Slavery in the District of Columbia, and the passage of an unconstitutional, cruel, and humiliating law, for the recapture of fugitive slaves, with a further stipulation that the subject of Slavery should never again be agitated in either chamber of Congress. When, in 1854, the slaveholders were contentedly reposing on these great advantages, then so recently won, the Democratic party, unnecessarily, officiously, and with superserviceable liberality, awakened them from their slumber, to offer and force on their acceptance the abrogation of the law which declared that neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude should ever exist within that part of the ancient territory of Louisiana which lay outside of the State of Missouri, and north of the parallel of 36 deg. 30 min. of north latitude-a law which, with the exception of one other, was the only statute of Freedom then remaining in the Federal code. In 1856, when the people of Kansas had organized a new State within the region thus abandoned to Slavery, and applied to be admitted as a Free State into the Union, the Democratic party contemptuously rejected their pe tition and drove them, with menaces and intimidations, from the halls of Congress, and armed the President with military power to enforce their submission to a slave code, established over them by fraud and usurpation. At every subsequent stage of the long contest which has since raged in Kansas, the Democratic party has lent its sympathies, its aid, and all the powers of the Government which it controlled, to enforce Slavery upon that unwil ling and injured people. And now, even at this day, while it mocks us with the assurance that Kansas is free, the Democratic party keeps the State excluded from her just and proper place in the Union, under the hope that she may be dragooned into the acceptance of Slavery. The Democratic party, finally, has procured from a Supreme Judiciary, fixed in its interest, a decree that Slavery exists by force of the Constitution in every Terri tory of the United States, paramount to all legislative authority either within the Territory, or residing in Congress. To expect the Democratic party to resist Slavery and favor Freedom, is as unreasonable as to look for Protestant missionaries to the Catholic Propaganda of Rome. The history of the Democratic party commits it to the policy of Slavery. It has been the Democratic party, and no other agency, which has carried that policy up to its preSuch is the Democratic party. It has no policy, State sent alarming culmination. Without stopping to ascertain, or Federal, for finance or trade, or manufacture, or com critically, the origin of the present Democratic party, we merce, or education, or internal improvements, or for the may concede its claim to date from the era of good feeling protection or even the security of civil or religious libwhich occurred under the Administration of President erty. It is positive and uncompromising in the interest Monroe. At that time, in this State, and about that time of Slavery-negative, compromising and vacillating, in in many others of the Free States, the Democratic party regard to everything else. It boasts its love of equality deliberately disfranchised the free colored, or African citi- and wastes its strength, and even its life, in fortifying the sen, and it has pertinaciously continued this disfranchise- only aristocracy known in the land. It professes frater ment ever since. This was an effective aid to Slavery;nity, and, so often as Slavery requires, allies itself with for while the slaveholder votes for his slaves against Freedom, the freed slave in the Free States is prohibited from voting against Slavery. In 1824, the Democracy resisted the election of John Quincy Adams-himself before that time an acceptable Democrat-and in 1828, it expelled him from the Presidency, and put a slaveholder in his place, although the proscription. It magnifies itself for conquests in foreign lands, but it sends the national eagle forth always with chains, and not the olive branch, in his fangs. This dark record shows you, fellow citizens, what I was unwilling to announce at an earlier stage of this argument, that of the whole nefarious schedule of slaveholding designs which I have submitted to you, the Demo |