Chapter LXI: Book III: Great Speeches on Great Issues (12)

Yet this is but an item of our damage. The manufacturing classes feel the first effect of the blow, but it would paralyze every muscle of society. One hundred thousand artisans and laborers, discharged from our ruined factories, after being some time out of employment, at a waste of millions of the National wealth, are at last driven by famine to engage in other avocations,—of course with inferior skill and at an inferior price. The farmer, gardener, grocer, lose them as customers to meet them as rivals. They crowd the labor-markets of those branches of industry which we are still permitted to pursue, just at the time when the demand for their products has fallen off, and the price is rapidly declining. The result is just what we have seen in a former instance: all that any man may make by buying Foreign goods cheap, he loses ten times over by the decline of his own property, product, or labor; while to nine-tenths of the whole people the result is unmixed calamity. The disastrous consequences to a nation of the mere derangement and paralysis of its Industry which must follow the breaking down of any of its great Producing Interests have never yet been sufficiently estimated. Free Trade, indeed, assures us that every person thrown out of employment in one place or capacity has only to choose another; but almost every workingman knows from experience that such is not the fact,—that the loss of situation through the failure of his business is oftener a sore calamity. I know a worthy citizen who spent six years in learning the trade of a hatter, which he had just perfected in 1798, when an immense importation of foreign hats utterly paralyzed the manufacture in this country. He traveled and sought for months, but could find no employment at any price, and at last gave up the pursuit, found work in some other capacity, and has never made a hat since. He lives yet, and now comfortably, for he is industrious and frugal; but the six years he gave to learn his trade were utterly lost to him,—lost for the want of adequate and steady Protection to Home Industry. I insist that the Government has failed of discharging its proper and rightful duty to that citizen and to thousands, and tens of thousands who have suffered from like causes. I insist that, if the Government had permitted without complaint a foreign force to land on our shores and plunder that man’s house of the savings of six years of faithful industry, the neglect of duty would not have been more flagrant. And I firmly believe that the people of this country are One Thousand Millions of Dollars poorer at this moment than they would have been had their entire Productive Industry been constantly protected, on the principles I have laid down, from the formation of the Government till now. The steadiness of employment and of recompense thus secured, the comparative absence of constrained idleness, and the more efficient application of the labor actually performed, would have vastly increased the product,—would have improved and beautified the whole face of the country; and the Moral and Intellectual advantages thence accruing would alone have been inestimable. A season of suspension of labor in a community is usually one of aggravated dissipation, drunkenness, and crime.

But let me more clearly illustrate the effect of foreign competition in raising prices to the consumer. To do this, I will take my own calling for an example, because I understand that best; though any of you can apply the principle to that with which he may be better acquainted. I am a publisher of newspapers, and suppose I afford them at a cheap rate. But the ability to maintain that cheapness is based on the fact that I can certainly sell a large edition daily, so that no part of that edition shall remain a dead loss on my hands. Now, if there were an active and formidable Foreign competition in newspapers,—if the edition which I printed during the night were frequently rendered unsalable by the arrival of a foreign ship freighted with newspapers early in the morning,—the present rates could not be continued: the price must be increased or the quality would decline. I presume this holds equally good of the production of calicoes, glass, and penknives as of newspapers, though it may be somewhat modified by the nature of the article to which it is applied. That it does hold true of sheetings, nails, and thousands of articles, is abundantly notorious.

I have not burdened you with statistics,—you know they are the reliance, the stronghold, of the cause of Protection, and that we can produce them by acres. My aim has been to exhibit not mere collections of facts, however pertinent and forcible, but the _laws_ on which those facts are based,—not the immediate manifestation, but the ever-living necessity from which it springs. The contemplation of these laws assures me that those articles which are supplied to us by Home Production alone are relatively cheaper than those which are rivalled and competed with from abroad. And I am equally confident that the shutting out of Foreign competition from our markets for other articles of general necessity and liberal consumption which can be made here with as little labor as anywhere would be followed by a corresponding result,—a reduction of the price to the consumer at the same time with increased employment and reward to our Producing Classes.

But, Mr. President, were this only on one side true,—were it certain that the price of the Home product would be permanently higher than that of the Foreign, I should still insist on efficient Protection, and for reasons I have sufficiently shown. Grant that a British cloth costs but $3 per yard, and a corresponding American fabric $4, I still hold that the latter would be decidedly the cheaper for us. The Fuel, Timber, Fruits, Vegetables, &c., which make up so large a share of the cost of the Home product, would be rendered comparatively valueless by having our workshops in Europe. I look not so much to the nominal price as to the comparative facility of payment. 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.

You will understand me, then, to be utterly hostile to that idol of Free Trade worship, known as Free or unlimited Competition. The sands of my hour are running low, and I cannot ask time to examine this topic more closely; yet I am confident I could show that this Free Competition is a most delusive and dangerous element of Political Economy. Bear with a brief illustration: At this moment, common shirts are made in London at the incredibly low price of _three cents per pair_. Should we admit these articles free of duty and buy them because they are so cheap? Free trade says Yes; but I say No! Sound Policy as well as Humanity forbids it. By admitting them, we simply reduce a large and worthy and suffering class of our population 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 ought to be rigorously starved to death. Then what have we gained by getting these articles so exorbitantly cheap? or, rather, what have we not lost? The labor which formerly produced them is mainly struck out of existence; the poor widows and seamstresses among us must still have a subsistence; and the imported garments must be paid for: where are the profits of our speculation?

But even this is not the worst feature of the case. The labor which we have here thrown out of employment by the cheap importation of this article is now ready to be employed again at any price,—if not one that will afford bread and straw, then it must accept one that will produce potatoes and rubbish; and with the product some Free-Trader proceeds to break down the price and destroy the reward of similar labor in some other portion of the earth. And thus each depression of wages produces another, and that a third, and so on, making the circuit of the globe,—the aggravated necessities of the Poor acting and reacting upon each other, increasing the omnipotence of Capital and deepening the dependence of Labor, swelling and pampering a bloated and factitious Commerce, 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 their own views liberal and enlightened, and complacently put ours aside as benighted and barbarous. I should delight to show you how they mingle subtle fallacy with obvious truth, how they reason acutely from assumed premises, which, being mistaken or incomplete, lead to false and often absurd conclusions,—how they contradict and confound each other, and often, from Adam Smith, their patriarch, down to McCulloch and Ricardo, either make admissions which undermine their whole fabric, or confess themselves ignorant or in the dark on points the most vital to a correct understanding of the great subject they profess to have reduced to a Science. Yet even Adam Smith himself expressly approves and justifies the British 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 mast-head. But I must not detain you longer. I do not ask you to judge of this matter by authority, but from facts which come home to your reason and your daily experience. There is not an observing and strong-minded mechanic in our city who 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 eagle-eyed and genial-hearted LIVING master-spirit [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.

In this country, at this time, does any man think anything? Would he think aloud? Would he speak anything? Would 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, confronted by witnesses and accusers; his prison house has no secrets, and he has the judgment of his peers; and there is nought to make him afraid, so long as he respects the rights of his equals in the eye of the law. Would he propagate truth? Truth is free to combat error. Would he propagate 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.

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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 the maxim: “Once a citizen, always a citizen!” There he is forced to do service to the king of Prussia at this very hour. 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.

Don’t they see, can’t they perceive, that they have no other grounds than those I have urged? He is our citizen, nationalized, 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 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 Know-Nothings 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 Know-Nothing 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 naturalization. We must either have naturalization 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 presented—Our present policy, liberal, and just, and tolerant, and equal: or the European policy of holding the noses of native born slaves to the grind-stone of tyranny all their lives; or, odious distinctions of citizenship tending to social and political 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?

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 the Monasteries and of the Nunneries. The private penalties of the Inquisition’s Scavenger’s Daughter. Proscription, persecution, bigotry, intolerance, shutting up of the book of the word. And do Protestants now mean to out-Jesuit the Jesuits? Do they mean to strike and not be seen? To be felt and not to be heard? To put a shudder upon humanity by the masks of mutes? Will they wear the monkish cowls? Will they inflict penalties at the polls without reasoning together with their fellows at the hustings? Will they proscribe? Persecute? Will they bloat up themselves into that bigotry which would burn nonconformists? Will they not tolerate freedom of conscience, but doom dissenters, in secret conclave, to a forfeiture of civil privileges for a religious difference? Will they not translate the scripture of their faith? Will they visit us with dark lanterns and execute us by signs, and test oaths, and in secrecy? Protestantism! forbid it!

If anything was ever open, fair, and free—if anything was ever blatant even—it was the Reformation. To quote from a mighty British pen: “It gave a mighty impulse 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 the spell of misbegotten fear, and gave the watchword; but England joined the shout, and echoed it back, with her island voice, from her thousand cliffs and craggy shores, in a longer and louder strain. With that cry the genius of Great Britain rose, and 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, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and morality, which had then been locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the visions of the Prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers to the meanest of the people. It gave them a common interest in a common cause. Their hearts burnt within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, by giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. It cemented their Union of character and sentiment; it created endless diversity and collision of opinion. They found objects to employ their faculties, and a motive in the magnitude of the consequences attached to them, to exert the utmost eagerness in the pursuit of truth, and the most daring intrepidity in maintaining it. Religious controversy sharpens the understanding by the subtlety and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and braces the will by their infinite importance. We perceive in the history of this period a nervous, masculine intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or, if there were, it is a relaxation from the intense activity which gives a tone to its general character. But there is a gravity approaching to piety, a seriousness of impression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervor of enthusiasm 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 described in Burns’s “Cotter’s Saturday Night.” How unlike this agitation, this 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 know—not 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.

Kenneth Raynor, of North Carolina, on 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 end 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 suppose for one moment that I am the representative of any clique or faction.

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 battering-rams 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.

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 top of Pisgah, and see the promised land 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 enthusiasm.] 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 difference 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.

Now let us look at this thing practically. In reading history I have always admired the character of Oliver Cromwell. What was the great motive by which he was actuated in overthrowing the house of Stuart? It was unfailing devotion to principle. His motto was, “Put your trust in God, and keep your powder dry.” I admire the devotion to principle in every man who says that he does not intend to vote any but the straight ticket, for it shows that Americanism has such a lodgment in his heart, that he cannot bear even seemingly to compromise it. That is “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 twenty-seven 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 twenty-seven 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 represent 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 feels in his “heart of hearts,” that by voting that Union ticket, he would compromise his Americanism, I say to such an one, “do not vote that ticket.” At the same time, candor compels me to say, that I differ in opinion with him. If I believed that that ticket was a fusion, or that it called upon any Fillmore man to vote for Fremont, I would advise no one to vote it. I would not vote a ticket that had on it the name of Fremont; but I would vote a ticket with Fillmore’s name upon it, and which would give him (if not the twenty-seven electoral votes) seven, or ten, or twenty, just as the numerical proportion of the votes might decide.

I appeal to every conservative, Union-loving 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?

My friends, the election is fast approaching. 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?”

I am fighting for the victory which we may obtain in this contest. And what an 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 dissolution of this Union, shall cover the land.

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.

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.

Religious Test.

_Debate in the Convention on that article in the Constitution in regard
to it._

MR. PINKNEY moved that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

MR. SHERMAN thought it unnecessary, the prevailing liberality being a sufficient security against all such tests.

REV. MR. BACKUS of Mass. I beg leave to offer a few thoughts upon the Constitution proposed to us; and I shall begin with the exclusion of any religious test. Many appear to be much concerned about it; but nothing is more evident, both in reason and the Holy Scriptures, than that religion is ever a matter between God and individuals; and that, therefore, no man or set of men can impose any religious test without invading the essential prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ministers first assumed this power under the Christian name, and then Constantine approved 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.

OLIVER WOLCOTT of Conn. For myself I should be content either with or without that clause in the Constitution 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 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.

MR. MADISON of Va. I confess to you, sir, that were uniformity of religion to be introduced by this system, it would, in my opinion, be ineligible; but I have no reason to conclude that uniformity of government will produce that of religion. This subject is, for the honor of America, left perfectly free and unshackled. The government has no jurisdiction over it—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.

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 committed by religious persecution. Under the color of religious tests, the utmost cruelties have been exercised. Those in power have generally considered all wisdom centred in themselves, that they alone had the right to dictate to the rest of mankind, and that all opposition to their tenets was profane and impious. The consequence of this intolerant spirit has been that each church has in turn set itself up against every other, and persecutions and wars of the most implacable and bloody nature have taken place in every part of the world. America has set an example to mankind to think more rationally—that a man may be of religious sentiments differing from our own, without being a bad member of society. The principles of toleration, to the honor of this age, are doing away those errors and prejudices which have so long prevailed even in the most intolerant countries. In Roman Catholic lands, principles of moderation 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 liberty, should adopt principles on this subject that were narrow, despotic, and illiberal.”

Speech of Henry W. Davis, of Maryland,

_On the Mission of the American Party_.

EXTRACT from Mr. Davis’s speech in the House of Representatives, on
the 6th of Jan., 1857, on the results 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.

“The Republican party was a hasty levy, en masse, of the Northern people to repel or revenge an intrusion by Northern votes alone. With its occasion it must pass away. The gentlemen of the Republican side of the House can now do nothing. They can pass no law excluding 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?

“Between these two stand the firm ranks of the American party, thinned by desertions, but still unshaken. To them the eye of the country turns in hope. The gentleman from Georgia saluted the Northern Democrats with the title of heroes—who swam vigorously down the current. The men of the American party faced, in each section, the sectional madness. They would cry neither free nor slave Kansas; but proposed a safe administration of the laws, before which every right would find protection. Their voice was drowned amid the din of factions. The men of the North would have no moderation, and they have paid the penalty. The American party elected a majority of this House: had they of the North held fast to the great American principle of silence on the negro question, and, firmly refusing to join either agitation, stood by the American candidate, they would not now be writhing, crushed beneath an utter overthrow. If they would now destroy the Democrats, they can do it only by returning to the American party. By it alone can a party be created strong at the South as well as at the North. To it alone belongs a principle accepted wherever the American name is heard—the same at the North as at the South, on the Atlantic or the Pacific shore. It alone is free from sectional affiliations at either end of the Union which would cripple it at the other. Its principle is silence, peace, and compromise. It abides by the existing law. It allows no agitation. It maintains the present condition of affairs. It asks no change in any territory, and it will countenance no agitation for the aggrandizement of either section. Though thousands fell off in the day of trial—allured by ambition, or terrified by fear—at the North and at the South, carried away by the torrent of fanaticism in one part of the Union, or driven by the fierce onset of the Democrats in another, who shook Southern institutions by the violence of their attack, and half waked the sleeping negro by painting the Republican as his liberator, still a million of men, on the great day, in the face of both factions, heroically refused to bow the knee to either Baal. They knew the necessities of the times, and they set the example of sacrifice, that others might profit by it. They now stand the hope of the nation, around whose firm ranks the shattered elements of the great majority may rally and vindicate the right of the majority to rule, and of the native of the land to make the law of the land.

The recent election has developed, in an aggravated form, every evil against which the American party protested. Again in the war of domestic parties, Republican and Democrat have rivalled each other in bidding for the foreign vote to turn the balance of a domestic election. Foreign allies have decided the government of the country—men naturalized in thousands on the eve of the election—eagerly struggled for by competing parties, mad with sectional fury, and grasping any instrument which would prostrate their opponents. Again, in the fierce struggle for supremacy, men have forgotten the ban which the Republic puts on the intrusion of religious influence on the political arena. These influences have brought vast multitudes of foreign born citizens to the polls, ignorant of American interests, without American feelings, influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote on American affairs; and those votes have, in point of fact, accomplished the present result.

The high mission of the American is to restore the influence of the interests of the people in the conduct of affairs; to exclude appeals to foreign birth or religious feeling as elements of power in politics; to silence the voice of sectional strife—not by joining either section, but by recalling the people from a profitless and maddening controversy which aids no interest, and shakes the foundation not only of the common industry of the people, but of the Republic itself; to lay a storm amid whose fury no voice can be heard in behalf of the industrial interests of the country, no eye can watch and guard the foreign policy of the government, till our ears may be opened by the crash of foreign war waged for purposes of political and party ambition, in the name, but not by the authority nor for the interests, of the American people.