33D CONG....2D SESS.

Financial and Territorial Policy of the Administration-Mr. Mayall.

self; that he does not sin per se, (of himself,) though he holds human beings in bondage. Well for them that they have something to console them, and ease the upbraidings of their consciences! Let us suppose the gentleman to possess a hereditary contagious disease. This may be said to be a misfortune, but no crime. But, supposing he is zealous and active in communicating this distemper to others, can it then be said that he does not sin per se ?

The immortal Washington and Jefferson did not desire the extension of slavery. The framers of our Constitution were aware that the institution was incompatible with the declaration of rights. I am sorry to say there is a change for the worse since their day. Many who pretend to be the admirers of those illustrious characters, are now striving not only to have the baneful institution established in perpetuo, but to extend it as far as possible. God deliver us from such spurious Democracy! These men threaten to dissolve the Union if they are prevented from carrying out their base designs. Our Executive possesses almost unlimited power to arrest their effecting so nefarious a purpose. They dare not, they cannot do it. Look at the inevitable consequences of their forming a separate Confederacy. Such an event would not only be the means of liberating their slaves, but the very lives of the leaders of so foolish a project would be sacrificed. The Union will, at all hazards, be preserved. Greece might have given laws to the whole eastern world, but she wasted her energies in civil strife. The monarchs of the Old World are expecting us to accomplish what they cannot effect. They will be disappointed in their hopes. An attempt to separate this Union will be crushed in the bud. I have no fears on that ground. Northern statesmen have too long succumbed to the unreasonable demands of southern politicians. The time has arrived to stop them in their encroachments.

Look at the fugitive slave law—a law that cannot be enforced, except by resorting to the most desperate means. I cannot go into the merits, or rather the demerits, of this law. The fourth article, third section, of the Constitution, gives no countenance to this arbitrary law. The great city of Boston came nigh being deluged in blood in the case of the rendition of Burns. Let the slave States adopt some means of keeping their slaves, or liberate them. It certainly is not reasonable to make slave-catchers of the people of the East and West; and to repeal the fugitive slave act will be the work of the next Congress.

Democrat, whether he voted for or against that
repeal. It is true, I fought against the repeal of
the Missouri compromise, assiduously, night and
day. I spoke against it; I voted against it. I
afterwards voted to suspend the rules to enable
the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. ELIOT]
to introduce his bill for the repeal of the fugitive
slave law. I also voted to abolish the rations of
spiritous liquors in the Navy. In all three of
these positions which I took, and votes which I
gave, I am confident I am sustained by the ap-
proval of my constituents. The leading men of
the Democratic party proper, treated me very
handsomely, and were willing to place my name
before the people, but I did not desire a nomina-
tion. I thought that "discretion was the better
part of valor," and that I would stand aloof from
the present fused and confused state of political |
affairs.

It is true, we all feel the force of the remarks
made daily upon this floor, "that the Nebraska
and Kansas question was no test in our congres-
sional elections. If it had been, all the anti-
Nebraska members would have been returned."

My only reply to this is, my position is sustained
if I am not returned.

It is too apt to be the case, and is an evil which
ought to be corrected, that the people of the North
do not stand by those Representatives and Sen-
ators who firmly stand by them. If the people
would have their sentiments carried out in Con-
gress, they should sustain the men who have the
firmness and fixedness of purpose to carry them
out. Let me say on this floor, it matters not to
me if I am never returned to this Hall again, or if
I never hold another political office in my life; I
will act in conformity to my own honest convic-
tion of right and duty on all questions, independ-
ent of consequences and "the opinion of all man-
kind." If lam charged with having deserted the
ranks of the Democratic party, I reply I have
stood firm to the principles of Democracy as I
have always understood them; and if the leaders
of the Democratic party and the Administration
have proved themselves recreant to those princi-
ples, as I am certain they have, I throw back the
charge of desertion, and declare that it is they
who have been unfaithful to the trust reposed in
them by a confiding people; unfaithful to the prin-
ciples on which they were elected; unfaithful to
the great principles of human rights, on which
all true Democracy is founded; unfaithful to the
promises made on their coming into office, and, as
1 have remained true in all these particulars, there
is, necessarily, a separation for which they alone
are responsible.

Mr. Chairman, having answered the gentleman, I trust to his satisfaction, I will now return to my point. There never was an Administration that came into office under more favorable circumstances than the present. It does seem to me hat it was the part of wisdom for the Administration to have pursued a line of policy consistent with its professed principles, reflecting, in their system of legislation, the will of the great American people, which would have rendered it one of the most popular Administrations since the organization of the Government. Then the Democratic members on this floor would have been returned to the Thirty-Fourth Congress, and the Democratic party would have been the great absorbing party of the Union.

Sir, the complaint which I make of the Administration is this: that it should pursue a line of policy, and recommend measures to Congress, which every one must know are perfectly obnoxious and contrary to the sentiments of the people, and then call upon the Democratic party in Congress to pass them through without a consultation. If the repeal of the Missouri compromise was to be forced through the House as a party measure, the Democratic members of Congress who were to take the responsibility between the Administration and the people, should have been called together in caucus, and the subject fully and fairly discussed; and every Democratic member, however humble, was entitled to have a hearing in relation to a measure on which would turn his political success or defeat. We all knew it was the members of this House "on whom the tower in Siloam" was to fall. Hence we were the most vitally interested. If the Administra-lowed the judicious advice and noble example of tion was determined to destroy itself, it had no right to make a slaugter-house of the whole Democratic party. There were some members on this floor who did not desire to be beheaded by the effect of unwise and impolitic measures, forced upon us by the Administration against our own consent. The effect has been, and will be, that two thirds of the Democratic members on this floor are prostrated, politically, and, perhaps, forever. Who is responsible for the defeat of so many Democratic members, and the destruction of the Democratic party? No earthly power but the Administration; and no man can deny it.

My friend near me says I fought against the repeal severely, and he would like to know why I was not again returned. No matter for that, Mr. Chairman. It was "death in the pot" to a New Series.—No. 5.

Had the southern delegation on this floor folsome of its most distinguished members-the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON;] the gentleman from Louisiana, [Mr. HUNT;] the gentlemen from Tennessee, [Messrs. CULLOM and ETHERIDGE;] and the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. MILLSON]-by whose wise and patriotic course they have stamped their characters upon the age in which they live, and have erected enduring monuments in the hearts of the American people, they would have taken a bold stand against this unwise policy of the Administration, and they would have maintained the Missouri compromise as a compact with the North. Had they done this, they would have perpetuated the confidence in the honor and integrity of the South which then existed; the repeal of the fugitive slave act would not have been contemplated; and all parts of this Union

HO. OF REPS.

would have been cemented together as becometh one people-one nation. But they did not do this. It is now too late! The mere reënactment of the Missouri compromise will not appease the rightteous indignation of the northern people. They have lost all faith in compromises with slavery and slaveholders, and nothing short of repealing the fugitive slave act; the removal of slavery from the District of Columbia; the entire dissolution of the Federal Government from all connection with slavery;-will restore that unanimity of feeling which existed in this country previous to the repeal of the Missouri compromise.

Every effort was made to avoid the responsibility of thus opening these Territories to slavery. The people were told that slavery would not be carried there if the prohibition were repealed. After the deed was done, during the late canvass in various northern States, the friends of the Administration endeavored to carry out their pretensions in favor of liberty by insisting that there would be no slavery there. This appears to have been a suitable finale of the deception. Even while these pretensions were being put forth, we saw, published in the newspapers, the prices of certain laborers, mechanics, and other inhabitants of these newly organized Territories. By the aid of the Administration, the slave-dealers were then trafficing in a defenseless part of the population. The excitement on the slave question has increased and swallowed up all others. It now wholly absorbs the popular mind. In these attempts to silence agitation, the President has shown himself wholly incompetent to judge of the popular feeling, and the people no longer confide in his ability to conduct the Government.

Now, sir, the North has taken its position. You have repealed the Missouri compromise. It was the basis of all legislative compromises. With it, all others fall; and so far as the free States are concerned, they are under no obligation whatever to retain any act of Congress passed for the benefit of slavery. Indeed, every moral obligation now rests upon them to repeal immediately so much of the statute of 1807 as authorizes the coastwise slave trade. As the South have refused to permit freedom to exist in Kansas and Nebraska, will they insist, or have they the effrontery to ask, northern men to protect their traffic in our common humanity? Non-intervention," was the cry of the Administration and the South last year; and shall not the next Congress reiterate the watchword when asked to withdraw the protect tion of our flag to that revolting trade? Will any one contend that we are bound to protect this traffic on the high seas, and discard all protection to freedom in our Territories? No, sir. The cry of "popular sovereignty "will be repeated in the next Congress, when the proposition to repeal the statute authorizing the coastwise slave trade shall come up for consideration. Let the people who are shipped on board our vessels for the slave markets of the South, shape their own domestic institutions. Congress ought not to interfere. Let them cast the slave-traders into the briny deep; Congress will not legislate slavery on board American vessels. Will not the North hold the chalice of "non-intervention" and "popular sovereignty" to southern lips? I am aware that the withdrawal of our protection from this unhallowed commerce will seriously affect the vital interests of the slave-growing States. Their principal commerce consists in buying and selling human beings. These are their principal productions, their staple commodities, on which their prosperity depends. I think we are now prepared to adopt the doctrine of "non-intervention," so far as that commerce is concerned. Let those people be invested with the rights of "popular sovereignty;" and, while on board our ships upon the high seas, we will permit them to go voluntarily to the barracoons of the South, or to take possession of the slave-dealers and carry them to the slave marts of. Africa. Let them enslave and sell their masters, or submit to be sold by them.

When the proposition comes up to repeal those laws of the United States which authorize, encourage, or sustain the slave trade and slavery in the District of Columbia, will the South interpose any objection? Will they repudiate the doctrine of "non-intervention?" Shall we withdraw

33D CONG....2D SESS.

compact," and to "choose delegates to represent them in the Continental Congress.'

American Politics-Mr. Keitt.

with heretics, or other persons differing from them in reli-
gious opinions, in any transaction, either of a public or
a private nature?"

The Universities of Paris, Lourain, Alcala,
Douay, Salamanca, and Valadolid declare that
neither the Pope, Cardinals, nor any individuals
in the Catholic Church have any civil authority;
nor can they dispense with an oath; nor are
Catholics justified in not keeping faith in any
transaction, either of a public or a private nature.

Thus it will be seen that all the universities promptly and unequivocally declared that Catholics were under no civil or temporal subjection to the Pope. The Catholic bishops in Great Britain, in the year 1826, declared that "no power in any Pope, or council, or in any individual, or body of men, invested with authority in the Catholic Church, can dispense with any oath by which a Catholic has confirmed his duty of allegiance to his sovereign, or any obligation of duty or justice to a third person."

In 1776 Congress appointed a Commission to repair to Canada, and strive to effect a union between it and the United Colonies. It instructed the Commissioners, in the strongest terms, to assure them (the people of Canada) "that it is our earnest desire to adopt them into our Union as a sister colony, and to secure the same general system of mild and equal laws for them and for ourselves." The next development policy, in relation to foreigners, is found in the Declaration of Independence, which recites, among other wrongs of the King, that "he has endeavored to prevent the population of these States, for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners," &c. The Constitution next provides for immigration to the United States. Thus far the policy of the country has been in favor of immigration. The first departure from it was the "alien and sedition laws." The alien law was founded upon suspicion and dislike to the immigrant and imposed odious discriminations upon him. These laws were soon trampled from the statute-book, amid the fierce execrations of the people. The next blow aimed at the immigrant is years after, and under far different circumstances. The country was engaged in a second war; doubt, distress, darkness hung over our arms, and our existence as a country was upon a trembling equilibrium. The unsparing enemy, with more than Cossack barbarism, had sacked and burned our common Capitol, and, in ashes, had scattered our archives to the winds. His cruisers then darkened our coasts, and his legions were tracked by pillage and conflagration. In this hour of portent, peril, and dismay, a convention met in an eastern State; and for what? "To withhold the resources of New England, and make a separate peace!" Yes, in this troublous and tremendous moment, while the foe was spreading devastation on every side, was marching on by the light of burning villages, and was threatening to blot us from the very map of nations, a convention met in an eastern State to humble our power, and plot our overthrow. What was one of the resolutions of that convention? 12, 1843, expresses warmly the pleasure the letter, will read it to you:

"No person who shall hereafter be naturalized, shall be eligible as a member of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States; nor capable of holding any civil office under the authority of the United States."

Yes, this is a leading resolution of this convention. Need I tell you what convention this is? Others have met, but none other to paralyze the arm of Government, when our soil was dishonored by the tread of a foreign foe, and our common flag struck at, both on the land and on the water. This is the Hartford Convention, which is "incarnidined" by public scorn in the pages of our history, like the "blood spot" upon the "robe." Well comes this warfare upon naturalized citizens into this Hall, borne in by the m mber from Massachusetts, [Mr. BANKS.] It began with Adams, it festered in the counsels of the Hartford Convention, and it should not enter here, borne in by "unlineal hands." Sir, this fact reads us an instructive lesson. The finger of history has moved round the dial plate, and is resting where it rested forty years ago.

The third principle is proscription of the Catholic religion. Is not the imposition of disability and disfranchisement a proscription? Why disfranchise the Catholic? Do you expect to affect his conviction, and change his religion? Can you dig down to the conscience, lay bare its subtlest chords, and remodel the spiritual substance? This you cannot do. Are Catholics under civil subjection to the Pope, as the member from Massachusetts [Mr. BANKS] intimated? What is there in the Catholic creed to warrant this imputation? In 1789 Mr. Pitt, then Prime Minister of England, before he would relax the disabilities of the Irish Catholics, propounded to the great Catholic Universities the following inquiries:

"1. Has the Pope, or Cardinals, or any body of men, or any individual of the Church of Rome, any civil authority, power, jurisdiction, or preeminence whatsoever, within the realm of England?

"2. Can the Pope, or Cardinals, or any body of men, or any individuals of the Church of Rome, absolve or dispense with his Majesty's subjects, from their oath of allegiance upon any pretext whatsoever?

3. Is there any principle in the tenets of the Catholic faith, by which Catholics are justified in not keeping faith

The following is one of the curses of the Catholic Church: "Cursed be all Catholics who will not obey the lawful commands of all Protestant authorities, (spiritual matters excepted,) or who will not fulfill their duty, in every respect, to their lawful Protestant King and country. These facts I find in the works of Bishop England, a man of splendid intellect, stainless honor, and royal scholarship.

The archbishop and bishops of the United
States, in provincial council assembled, at Balti-
more, May, 1843, thus wrote to Pope Gregory
XVI:

"It must not be concealed that most bitter enemies of the
name of Christ, and alas! they are many, endeavor, with
all their ability, to overturn the citadel of faith and destroy it
entirely. To succeed in this, they cast suspicions against us
among the people, * *that we, their Catholic fellow-
citizens, although our forefathers poured out their blood as
water to assert our liberty against a non-Catholic oppressor,
in order to make us suspected by the Government and ob-
noxious to it, lie under political and civil subjection to a
foreign prince, namely, the Roman Pontiff, and are, there-
fore, faithless to the Republic, because, as they (our ene-
mies) falsely assert, we are reduced under this subjection."
Gregory XVI., in reply, by letter of December

of which the above is an extract, afforded him,
and approves its contents.

Ho. OF REPS.

will tell you where Irish blood has flowed, and Irish valor triumphed.

I proceed now to the organization of this secret order. My friend from Massachusetts [Mr. BANKS] says they "have the right to secrecy.' That associations of men for political purposes have the legal right to secrecy is indisputable; but the moral aspect of the question is at least debatable. There are two kinds of right, the legal and ethical. The former looks to the peace of society; the latter to morals. The pampered capitalist has a legal right to refuse a penny to the wretch starving upon his door-sill; but is there no obligation of charity upon him? Are there no duties beyond the reach of law? In a state of isolation,

each one possesses rights unqualified by artificial
restraints. Government is established for great
and indispensable purposes, and necessary to it is
the possession of certain powers.
Each one,
therefore, divests himself of certain portions of his
natural rights and power, and bestows them upon
Government. The forms of Government are
numerous, but each form has some great and vital
requirement. The requirement of a Republic is
publicity. Suffrage is its life-blood; and to give
health to the body-politic, it should be not only
free, but intelligent and discriminating. How can
this be, when measures are planned in secret, and
withheld from investigation? I ask, again, is
there no public duty beyond the empire of mere
law? I have the legal right to cast my vote for
the most ignorant and corrupt, but have I the
moral right? We have established a political
organization which affects us all, and have I the
moral right to commit it to those who will use it
to the injury of the others? The interests of all
are affected by the measures of Government, and
does not good faith require that those measures
should be subjected to public examination? In
society we cannot absolutely individualize our-
selves; we must look out beyond self. There is
a difference between associated and individual
action.

Having premised thus much upon the moral right of secrecy, I submit to the committee three objections to the Know-Nothing organization.

1st. It tends to break down the rights of the States.

2d. It attacks the character of the American people.

How long is it since we thought the Catholics unfit for citizenship? Surely the Continental Congress did not think so, when they instructed the 3d. It invades the sanctities of social life. Commissioners to Upper Canada to declare to the 1st. It tends to break down the rights of the inhabitants" that we hold sacred the rights of con- States. Does it not profess to extend all over the science, and promise to the whole people solemnly Union? What are some of its objects? To regthe free and undisturbed exercise of their religion;ulate the right of suffrage, and exclude foreigners and to the clergy the full, perfect, and peaceable possession and enjoyment of all their estates;" and also advised them to "deliberate concerning the establishment of a form of government, and a union with the United Colonies," upon terms, too, "similar to those upon which the other Colonies unite." The Continental Congress surely did not think so, when, in an address to the Catholic inhabitants of Upper Canada, they said:

"We are too well acquainted with the liberality of sentiment distinguishing your nation, to imagine that difference of religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us. You know that the transcendent nature of freedom elevates those who unite in the cause, above all such lowminded infirmities. The Swiss cantons furnish a memorable proof of this truth. Their Union is composed of Catholic and Protestant States, living in the utmost concord and peace with one another, and thereby enabled, ever since they bravely vindicated their freedom, to defy and defeat every foe that has invaded them."

Has the nature of freedom become less transcendent, or are we more discerning than the grand old patriots of the Revolution?

But it is said [Mr. BANKS] that the Pope has not renounced his claim to temporal allegiance from all Catholics. And pray, has England done so? How many princes in Europe have renounced the doctrine of perpetual citizenship? Are we to select a class to war upon, because of a despotic and impotent claim, applicable to most other classes? Have not Catholic soldiers carried their monarchs into the very Vatican, and compelled the Pope to anoint and crown them? Have not Catholic soldiers borne the flags of Protestant rulers to victory? Have Irishmen done no deeds of chivalry in the cause of Protestant England? Spread out the pages of English history, and show me a single battle field where empire has been won, or her meteoric flag has floated in victory, and I

from all offices. Does not the subject of suffrage belong exclusively to the States? If so, is not this interference in the interior affairs of a State? Is not this attempt to control suffrage, digging at the very foundation of the State structures, and claiming a power to recast their deepest foundations? Are not the States foreign to each other, except so far as they have contracted together? Are they not foreign as to the right to regulate suffrage? If so, is not this an attempt to consolidate them together in a vital matter, in which they are distinct and foreign by their organic constitutions? Is not consolidation the breaking down of State rights? The social condition of Massachusetts blends with that of South Carolina, and both simmering and seething together, a tertium quid is evolved which is to be the rule of Government for both.

Again, "no foreigner shall hold an office of honor or trust. Is not this intruding into the domestic affairs of a State? Proscription must go into everything-into police institutions, into private corporations, into municipal affairs, into the charity of the hospital, and into the garbage of the gutter. If this foreign interference with, and control of, the purely domestic affairs of a State does not break down State rights, I am at a loss to conceive what will. What is consolidation? Is it not a crushing of the States into one whole, so that the inhabitants of each portion may interfere in the management of the domestic affairs of the others? Is not this such an interference? What interior interest is free from its grasp? It controls the municipal council, and clutches at the ermine and jury box. It prescribes the sexton, and lays its hand upon the watchman's rattle. Other national organizations have connected themselves

33D CONG....2D SESS.

only with national interests. They professed to take cognizance only of such matters as were common to all by the stipulations of the Constitution; this organization glides along beneath the very foundations of the States, and mangles them, interior, federal, and foreign, into one totality. Its members are secret, are silent, are Know-Nothings! Sir, their designation is aptly chosen, for if they succeed, they are mutes in the funeral procession of the Republic.

ist. Of the Senators and Representatives elected, enough is known to be tolerably certain that a reliable man will be chosen to the United States Senate, and effectual provision made for protecting the inhabitants of the State against the fugitive slave hunt."

Thus have acted the Know-Nothings of Massachusetts. How spoke they? I will read the resolutions of a Know-Nothing convention in Norfolk, Massachusetts:

does she want to build up castes among the whites?
Have not her institutions been assailed, and by
those who originated this new order? Sir, what
an awful spectacle did the member from Massa-
chusetts [Mr. BANKS] reveal, in his description of
the social condition of that State? Two thirds of
the population of Massachusetts pressed into the
gutter by selfish capital, disowning their manhood,
and compelled, in the dark hours of the night, to
flit along subterranean paths, and conspire in
secret against their own Government. Sir, only
insurgent slaves hide from their masters, and con-
spire at midnight. Are these men, who are the
slaves of capital, and who are compelled to plot
in secret against their wealthy lords, the men to
reform our institutions, and brand us with in-
feriority? Eighty thousand freemen in a republic Republican party as an organization which invites the
conspiring, in under ground ways, to vindicate
their rights at the ballot-box against forty thou-
sand! Is this freedom? Is this free labor society?

Sir, I object sternly to this new order, because its march is over the ruins of the States. State sovereignty is the corner stone of our Federal Temple, and upon it rest our destinies. Consolidate this Government, and no human power can save you from despotism. Can we, dare we, trifle with this great principle? The cause of State sovereignty is a grand and sacred one. Escorted by the memories of the past and the hopes of the future, and crowned, too, with all the royalties of intellect, comes it to us. It has been won Sir, often nominal freedom is practical slavery; through too much blood, and hallowed by sacri- and nominal slavery practical freedom. There fices too august and too tremendous to be shattered are two modifications of social existence; the one by the hand of tyranny. I will not give aught a corelation of mutual obligation, i. e., inseparaof encouragement to any association which flings bility between capital and labor; the other, the even a shadow over the integrity of this principle. dissolution of continuity, i. e., independence beI object, in the second place, to this secret organtween capital and labor. In the former the electization, because it attacks the character of the ive franchise is limited to a portion of the comAmerican people. Their character has ever been munity; but there is no starvation. In the other frank, manly, and magnanimous. They have it is unqualified; but in crowded civic populations never paltered with principle upon flimsy subtle- ten per cent. die of starvation, directly or indities, nor stifled the voice of public faith upon peti-rectly, through typhus fever, insufficient food, fogging technicalities. They have not stooped to sophims and subterfuges to vindicate an equivocal honesty, nor have they "hidden in misty generalities their violations of chartered rights." No, they have been proud even in error, and brave even in wrong. God forbid that the manhood of the American character should sicken and disappear under the poison of trickery and insincerity. Evasions and sophisms are an ethical poison, and corrode the best character.

This order requires evasion as the sacrament of admission into it, and under the sophism of individuality, it cleaves down, in secret, the rights of others. It avows not its principles in public, and courts not the light, but it plots at midnight, and strikes under a mask. The elements of manly character are not nursed in secret, and matured upon subterfuges. Against this secret organization the common manhood of the country rises up, for it insidiously attacks the very foundations of magnanimity and frankness in the character of the American people. Private worth is the foundation of public greatness; strike down the one and you destroy the other.

In the third place, I object to it, because it invades the sanctity of society. Does it not invade the relations of life, and corrupt the faith between man and man? If it does not preach, does it not connive at a morality which permits you to betray a friend and deceive an enemy? Will not political treachery, even if it does not fasten upon the character, at least produce chronic and incurable distrust, alienation, and selfishness? Have not men belonged to this secret order while they occupied high places under their old party organization, and thus betrayed their old allegiance? Have not associations of men accepted the candidates of their former party, and carried them with hosannas from hustings to hustings, while they were active members of the new order, and working for its success? Sir, if these things be true-and they are affirmed-do they not poison all the relations of men? What deadlier wrong can you inflict upon society than to obliterate all confidence, and blast fidelity between man and man? Do this, and how know you that the hand you grasp in political fellowship, is not the hand of a political enemy? that the man you shelter is not a spy? Infuse infidelity into your relations, and how know you that treason clings not around your hearth-stone, and stoops not over the couch of friendship? Are great principles to be thus achieved? and can the car of party only be rolled on over the softest charities of the heart, and the sacred ordinances of Society?

I now crave the indulgence of the committee while I examine, in the fourth place, the application and bearing of the new organization upon the South. Why should the South encourage it? Is her system of labor threatened with pauperism, or

"Resolved, That we hail with hope and joy the recent brilliant successes of the Republican party in the States of Maine, Iowa, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and we trust those victories are a foreshadow of others soon to come, by which the free States shall present one solid phalanx of opposition to the aggressions of slavery. "Resolved, That in the present chaotic condition of parties in Massachusetts, the only star above the horizon is the love of human liberty and the abhorrence of slavery, and that it is the duty of anti-slavery men to rally around the united action of the people on the one transcending question of slave dominion which now divides the Union." "Whereas, Roman Catholicism and slavery being alike founded and supported on the basis of ignorance and tyranny, and being, therefore, natural allies in every warfare against liberty and enlightenn ent: Therefore be it

"Resolved, That there can exist no real hostility to Roman Catholicism which does not embrace slavery, its natural co-worker in opposition to freedom and republican institutions."

How spoke Gardner, their Governor elect, in reply to the charge that he had aided in the rendition of Burns? He says, in a letter to Mr. Wilson, a Free-Soil leader:

"Were the same charge made against yourself, it could not be more groundless than it is against me. The power of language does not permit me to express the utter loathing I have for the conduct attributed to me. Far sooner would I be the poor quivering wretch on the road again to the agony of bondage, than a volunteer guard to aid in his return. He who invented the charge grossly slandered me; they who repeat it, or believe it, do not know me.

"It is not true that I am, or have ever been, in favor of the fugitive slave bill. I never voted for a man who favored it, knowing such to be his views, and I must very much change before I ever do. I never, by word, act, or vote, favored its passage, and I am an advocate of its essential modification, or in lieu thereof, its unconditional repeal. Returning from Canada last June, I read in the cars that there was a petition for its repeal at the Exchange news room, and, on my arrival, before even going to my place of business, I hastened to the Exchange, and signed the peti

tion."

imperfect shelter, and all the accompaniments of
pauperism. Take you, now, slavery and safety,
or free labor, with paper rights and starvation.
What remedy, let me ask, is proposed for these
evils of your civic population? Socialism! Yes,
socialism you prescribe. Your French socialist
teachers tell you the evils of society spring from
the freedom of society. Labor, through compe-
tition, enslaves itself, they say. To guard against
this, labor must be organized. What means this
organization of labor? Why, it means social
slavery. Laborers shall not compete, they shall
not dispose of their own time and strength-
socialism is social slavery. Will the South, then, Is this unbroken testimony of deed and speech
go into this new organization because it is pauper- nothing? Will the South unite with this northern
ism enlisted against wealth and charters, and the Know-Nothing movement, animated with the sen-
establishment of a system of social slavery? Will timents of Socialism and Abolitionism? Will the
she go into it because of its Abolition tendencies? South enlist in a crusade of Socialism and Aboli-
Do they not exist? Has not the National Whig tionism that she may exclude from our councils
party disunited because of the Abolition tendencies men who, like Gaston, wove laurels in the history
of its northern wing? Will this wing have less of North Carolina, or who, like Porter, whom
Abolition feeling under a new organization? Will Louisiana loved to honor, graced the Senate Hall?
those northern Democrats, who abandoned their Will the Whig party of the South go into it? I
party because they said it was allied with slavery, ask the Whigs of the South, why did you break
be more moderate Abolitionists in the new party? up your old party organization? Did you not do
Do not such materials make up the northern it because the northern wing of it was too much
"Know-Nothing" party? Is not its object power abolitionized? Did not the northern members of
and place? Will it not, then, seize upon all ele- it say to you, "let us agree to disagree upon the
ments of strength which can carry it into power? question of slavery," and sooner than agree to
and are not the elements floating about at the this, did you not break it up? Will you now
North, and eager for coalition, the Abolition enter into a new organization with these men, and
and Free-Soil element? They have been strong agree to disagree upon the same subject? If your
enough to shatter an old and powerful organiza-devotion to the Constitution and the South made
tion, and will they lose their virus and purpose in

a new one?

What, too, have been the practical results of this new party? In Massachusetts alone it has been victorious through its own strength; and what see we there? Is not the Abolition and Free-Soil flag the only one flying? How stand its members elect? I read an extract from the correspondent of the National Era (an Abolition paper) of November 23, 1853. The writer is stated to be John G. Whittier, coeditor, I believe, of the Era, and a distinguished Abolitionist of Massachusetts, who, as much as any man, is booked up in reference to its politics, particularly Free-Soil:

"C. L. Knapp, of the eighth district, is an old liberty man, true as steel. DEWITT in the Worcester district, Trafton in the eleventh, Comins in the fourth, Damrell in the third, and Burlingame in the fifth district, are also FreeSoilers. N. P. BANKS, jr., is triumphantly reelected from the seventh district, against the combined opposition of the Pierce Democracy and the Whigs. He goes back to Washington an Anti-Administration Fusionist. Buffington, of the second district, and Morris, of the tenth, are reliable Anti-Slavery Whigs. Of Davis, of the sixth, and Hall, of the first, we have no very definite knowledge.

"Gardner, the Governor elect, stands openly pledged
against the Nebraska fraud and the fugitive slave law. His

past history has been evidently that of a Pro-Slavery Whig,
but we speak now only of his present position. Brown,
Lieutenant Governor, is a Free-Soil Democrat and Fusion-

you break up your old party organization, will you trample upon that devotion in joining a new one? I now ask the Whigs of the South-and they are gallant men-whether they will abandon and break up their old party, with its saints, its confessors, and its whole army of martyrs, and fall abject and helpless into the clutches of this new order, with its past of pauperism, and its future of ablitionism and consolidation? Will the Democracy of the South go into this order? Will they abandon their old cause of State rights and the Constitution? Will they desert their old flag which they have waved so often in the breach and over the field, and have illumined even in defeat, and ferment in this new order? The member from Massachusetts, [Mr. BANKS,] the champion of the Know-Nothings here, abandoned the Democratic party because it was not Free-Soil. Has he become pro-slavery? or will the South become anti-slavery? Shall the South contract this alliance? What a picture rises up. There stands the sculptured genius of socialism and proscription, grinning hate against the South-with the saturnalia of emancipation in the front-while the member from Massachusetts is seen in the

back-ground, flying wildly in abhorrence from the "black hearse of slavery," his footsteps lighted up