[ ^■HB 685 S46 opV i V'fl iFi^ » m^ ft^lB M vB ii N-f I -L^r^-^ Class ^__EjiJLS_ Book .^ ^1 3> TRIBUNE TRACTS. -No. 3. The Admission of Kansas. SPEECH OP WILLIAM II. SEWAED, 'I OF N'JSW YOEIC, DELIVERED IN" THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEB. 29, 1860 Tlie Senate, in pursuance of its special order, took up the bill introduced on the 22d inst. bv Mr. Skwakd, of New York, to admit the State of Kansas into the Union, under the Constitution framed, and with the boundaries prescribed by the Convention, which assembled at Wyandot last July, and Mr. Sewabd opened the debate aa follows : Me. Pp.esidkxt : The admission of Kansas into the Union, witliout farther delay, seems to me equally necessary, just and wise. In recorded de- bates I have already anticipated the argu- ments for this conclusion. In coming forward among the political as- trologers, it shall be an error of judgment, and not of disposition, if my interpretation of the feverish dreams which are disturbing the country .shall tend to foment, rather tlian to allay, the national excitement. I shall say nothing unnecessarily of persons, because, in our system, the public welfare and happiness depend chiefly on institutions, and very little on men. I shall allude but briefly to inci- dental topics, because tliey are ciihemeral, and because, even in the midst of appeals to passion and prejudice, it is always safe to submit solid truth to the deliberate consider- ation of an honest and elightoned people. It will bo an overflowing source of shame, as well as of sorrow, if we, thirty millions — Europeans by extraction, Americans by birth or discipline, and Christians in faith, and meaning to be such in practice — cannot so combine prudence with humanity, in our con- duct concerning the one disturbing subject of slavery, as not only to preserve our un- equalled institutions of freedom, but also to enjoy their benefits with contentment and harmony. Wherever a guiltless slave exists, be he Caucasian, American, Malay, or African, ho is the subject of two distinct and opposite ideas — one that ho is wrongly, the other that he is rightly a slave. The balance of numbers on either side, however great, never com- pletely extinguishes this difference of opinion, for there are always some defenders of slave- ry outside, even if there are none inside of a free State, while also there arc always out- side, if there are not inside of every slavo State, many who assert with Milton, that " no man who knows aught can be so stupid as to deny that all men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God him- self, and were by privilege above all tho crea- tures, born to command and not to obey." H often, perhaps generally liappen.s, however, C^" Fob Sale at the Office or the New York Tribune. Price, per Single Copt, 4o. Dozen Copies, 25o. ; per Hundred, $1 25; pkk Thousand, $10. ^r57^ that in considering the subject of slavery, so- ciety seems to overlook the natural right, or personal interest of the slave himself, and to act exclusively for the welfare of the citizen. But this fact does not materially affect ulti- mate results, for the elementary question of the rightfulness or wrongfulness of slavery in- heres in every form that discussion concern- ing it assumes. "What is just to one class of men can never he injurious to any otlier; and what is unjust to any condition of persons in a State, is necessarily injurious in some degree to the whole community. An economical question early arises out of the subject of slavery — labor either of freemen or of slaves is the cardinal necessity of society. Some States choose the one kind, some the other. Hence two municipal systems widely different arise. The slave State strikes down and af- fects to extinguish the personality of the la- borer, not only as a member of the political body, but also as a parent, husband, child, neighbor, or friend. He thus becomes, in a political view, merely property, without moral capacity, and without domestic, moral and social relations, duties, rights and remedies — a chattel, an object of bargain, sale, gift, inhe- ritance, or theft. His earnings are compen- sated and his wrongs atoned, not to himself, but to his owner. The State protects not the slave as a man, but the capital of another man, which he represents. On the other hand, the State wliich rejects slavery encourages and animates and invigorates the laborer by main- taining and developing his natural personality in all the rights and faculties of manhood, and generally with the privileges of citizenship. In the one case capital invested in slaves be- comes a great political force, while in the other, labor thus elevated and enfranchised, becomes the dominating political power. It thus happens that we may, for convenience sake, and not inaccurately, call slave States capital States, and free States labor States. So soon as a State feels the impulse of com- merce or enterprise or ambition, its citizens begin to study the effects of these systems of capital and labor respectively on its intelli- gence, its virtue, its tranquillity, its integrity or unity, its defense, its prosperity, its liberty, its happiness, its aggrandizement, and its fame. In other words, the great question arises, whe- tlier slavery is a moral, social, and political good, or a moral, social, and political evil. This is the slavery question at home. But there is a mutual bond of unity and brother- hood between man and man throughout the world. Kations examine freely the political systems of each other, and of all preceding times, and accordingly as they approve or dis- approve of the two systems of capital and labor respectively they sanction and prose- cute, or condemn and prohibit commerce in men. Thus, in one way or in another, the slavery question which so many amongst us, who are more willing to rnle tlian patient in studying the conditions of society, think is a merely accidental or unnecessary question that might and ought to be settled and dismissed at once, is, on the contrary, a world-wide and enduring subject of political consideration and civil administration. Men, states, and nations entertain it, not voluntarily, but because the progress of society continually brings it into their way. They divide upon it, not per- versely, but because owing to differences of constitution, condition, or cu-cumstances, they cannot agree. The fathers of the Republic encountered it. ' They even adjusted it so that it might have given us much less than our present disquiet, had not circumstances afterwards occurred which they, wise as they were, had not clearly foreseen. Although they had inherited, yet they generally condemned the practice of sla- very and hoped for its discontinuance. They expressed this when they asserted in the De- claration of Independence, as a fundamental principle of American society, that all men are created equal, and have .inalienable rights to life, liberty, and tlie pursuit of happiness. Each state, however, reserved to itself exclu- sive political power over the subject of sla- very within its own borders. Nevertheless, it unavoidably presented itself in their consul- tations on a bond of Federal Union. The new Government was to be a representative one. Slaves were capital in some States, in others capital had no investments in labor. Should those slaves be represented as capital or aa persons, taxed as capital or as persons, or should they not bo represented or taxed at all ? The fathers disagreed, debated long, and compromised at last. Each State, they deter- mined, shall have two Senators in Congress. Three-fifths of the slaves shall be elsewhere represented and be taxed as persons. What should be done if the slave should escape into a labor State ? Should that State confess him :o be a chattel and restore him as such, or might it regard him as a person, and harbor and protect liim as a man ? They comproniisod again, and decided that no person held to labor or service in one State by the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall by any law or regulation of that State, be discharged from such labor or service, but shall be de- livered up on claim to the person to whom Euch labor or service shall be due. Free laborers would immigrate, and slaves might be imported into the States. The fathers agreed that Congress may establish uniform laws of naturalization, and it might prohibit the importation of persons after 1808. Commu- nities in the Southwest, detached from the Southern States, were growing up in the prac- tice of slavery, to be capital States. New States would soon grow up in the Northwest, •while as yet capital stood aloof, and labor had not lifted tlie axe to begin there its endless but benificent task. The fathers authorized Con- gress to make all needful rules and regulations conceruing the arrangements and disposition of the public lands, and to admit new States. So the Constitution, while it does not disturb or affect the system of capital in slaves, existing in any State under its own laws, does, at the same time, recognize every human being when within any exclusive sphere of Federal juris- diction, not as capital but as a person. What was the action of the fathers in Con- gress? They admitted the new States of the Southwest as capital States, because it was practically impossible to do otherwise, and by the ordinance of 1787, confirmed in 1789, they provided for the organization and admis- sion of only labor States in the Northwest. They directed fugitives from service to be re- stored not as chattels, but as persons. They awarded naturalization to immigrant free laborers, and they prohibited the trade in Af- rican labor. This disposition of the whole subject was in harmonr with the condition of society, and, in the main, with the spirit of the age. The seven Northern States contentedly became labor States by their own acts. The six Southern States, with equal tranquillity and by their own determination, remained capital States. The circumstances which the fathers did not clearly foresee were two, namely: tlie reiavigoration of slavery, consequent on the increased consumption of cotton, and the ex- tension of the national domain across the Mississippi, and these occurred before 1820. The State of Louisanfi, formed on a slavehold- ing French settlement, within the newly- acquired Louisianian Territory, had then already been admitted into the Union. There yet remained, however, a vast region, which included Arkansas and Missouri, together with the then unoccupied, and even unnamed Kan- sas and Nebraska. Arkansas, a slaveholding community, was nearly ready to apply, and Missouri, another such Territory, was actually applying for admission into the Federal Union. Tiie existing capital States seconded these applications, and claimed that the whole Louisianian Territory was rightfully open to slavery, and to the organization of future slave States. The labor States maintained that Congress had supreme legislative power within the domain, and could and ought to exclude slavery there. The question thus opened was one which related not at all to slavery in the existing capital States. It was purely and simply a national question whe- ther the common interest of the whole Re- public required that Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, should become capital States, with all the evils and dangers of slavery, or be labor States, with all the se- curity, benefits, and blessings of freedom. On the decision was suspended the question, as was thought, whether ultimately the interior of this new continent should be an asylum for the oppressed and the exile, coming year after year, and age after age, voluntarily from every otlier civilized land, as well as for the children of misfortune in our own, or whe- tlier, through the renewal of the African slave trade, those magnificent and luxuriant' regions should be surrendered to the control of capital, wringing out the fruit of the earcn through the impoverishing toil of negro slaves. That question of 1820 was identical- ly the question of 1860, so far as principle, and even the field of its application was con- cerned. Every element of the controversy now present entered it then ; the rightfulness or the wrongfulness of slavery ; its efixjcts, present and future ; the constitutional authori- ty of Congress ; the claims of the States and of their citizens; tlie nature of the Federal Union, whether it is a compact between the States, or an independent Government ; the springs of its powers, and the ligatures upon their exercise. All these were discussed with zeal and ability which have never been sur- passed. History tells us, I know not how truly, that the Union reeled under the vehe- mence of that great debate. Patriotism took counsel from prudence, and enforced a settle- ment which has proved to be not a final one ; and which, as is now seen, practically left open all the great political issues which were involved. Missouri and Arkansas were ad- mitted as capital States, while labor obtained, as a reservation, the abridged, but yet com- prehensive field of Kansas and Nebraska. Now, when the present conditions of the va- rious parts of the Louisianian Territory are observed, and we see tliat capital retains un- disputed possession of what it then obtained, while labor is convulsing the country with so hard and so prolonged a struggle to regain the lost equivalent which was tiien guaranteed to it under circumstances of so great solemnity, Ave may well desire not to be undeceived if the Missouri compromise was indeed unneces- sarily accepted by tlie free States, influenced by exaggerations of the dangers of disunion. Tiie Missouri debate disclosed truths of great moment for ulterior use : 1st. That it is easy to combine the capital States in defence of even external interests, wliile it it is liard to unite tlie labor States in common policy. 2d. That t!ie labor States have a natural loyalty to tlie Union, while the capital States have a natural facility for alarming that loyal- ty by threatening disu-iion. 3il. Tiiat the capital states do not practical- ly distinguisli between legitimate and consti- tutional resistance to the extension of slavery in the common territories of the Union, and unconstitutional aggression against slavery es- tablislied l)y local laws in tlie capital States. The early political parties were organized without reference to slavery. But since 1820, European questions have left us practically unconcerned. Tliere has been a great increase of invention, mining, manufacture and cul- tivation. Steam on land and on water has quickened commerce. Tlie press and the telo- grai)h have attained prodigious activity, and the social intercourse between the States and their citizens has been immeasurably in- creased; and consequently their mutual rela- tions affecting slavery have been, for many years, subjects of earnest and often excited discussion. It is in my way only to show- how such disputes have operated on the course of political events, not to re-open them for argument here. There was a slave insur- rection in Virginia. Virginia and Kentucky debated, and, to the great sorrow of the freo States, rejected the system of voluntary labor. The Colonization Society was established with much favor in the capital States, Emancipa- tion societies arose in the free States. South Carolina instituted proceedings to nullify ob- noxious Federal revenue laws. Tlie capital States complained of courts and legislatures in the labor States for interpreting the constitu- tional provision for the surrender of fugitives from service so as to treat them as persons, and not property, and they discriminated against colored persons of the labor States, when they came to the capital States. They denied in Congress the right of petition, and embarrassed or denied freedom of debate on the subject of slavery. Presses, which under- took tlie defence of the labor system in the capital States, were suppressed by violence, and even in the labor States, public assem- blies, convened to consider slavery questions, were disjier^ed by mobs sympathizing with the capital States. The Whig party, being generally an opposi- tion party, i)ractised some forbearance toward the interest of labor. The Democratic party, not without demonstrations of dissent, was generally' found sustaining the policy of capi- tal. A disposition toAvards the removal of slavery from the presence of the national Ca- pitol appeared in tiie District of Columbia, Mr. Van Buren, a Democratic President, launclied a prospective veto against the antici- pated measure. A Democratic Congress brought Texas into the Union, stipulating practically for its future reorganization in four slave States. Mexico Avas incensed. "War en- sued. The labor States asked that the Mexi- can law of liberty, wiiich covered the territo- ries brought in by the treaty of peace, might remain and be confirmed. The Democratic party refused. The Missouri debate of 1820 recurred noAV, under circumstances of heat and excitement, in relation to these conquests. The defenders of labor took alarm lest the number of neAV capital States might become so great as to enable that class of States to dictate the whole policy of the Government; flnd in case of constitntional resistance, tlien to form a now slaveholdins:: confetleracy aronnil tlie Gulf of Mexico. By tliis time, tlie capital Srates seemed to have become fixed in a de- termination that the Federal Government, and even the labor States, should recofrnize their slaves, tliough outside of the slave States, and within the territories of the United States, as property of which the master conld not be in any way or by any authority divested; and the labor States, having become now more es- sentially Democratic than ever before, by the great developjnent of free labor, more firmly tiian ever insisted on the constitutional doctrine tliafc slaves voluntarily carried by their masters into the conmion territories or into labor States, are persons — men. Under the auspicious influence of a Whig success, California and N"ew Mexico appeared before Congress as labor States. The capital States refused to consent to their admission into the Union ; and again threats of disunion carried terror and consternation throughout the land. Another compromise was made. Specific enactments admitted California as a labor State, and remanded New Mexico and Utah to remain Territories, with the right to choose freedom or slavery when ripened into States, while they gave new remedies for the recaption of fugitives from service, and abol- ished the open slave market in the District of Columbia. These new enactments, collated with tlie existing statutes, namely, the ordi- nance of 1787, the Missouri prohibitory law of 1820, and the articles of Texas annexation, disposed by law of the subject of slavery in all the Territories of the United States. And so the compromise of 1850 was pronounced a full, final, absolnte, and cx)mprehensive settle- ment of all existing and all possible disputes concerning slavery under the Federal autho- rit}'. The tv\-o great parties, fearful for the Union, struck hands in making and in pre- senting this as an adjustment, never after- ward to be opened, disturbed, or even qnes- tioned, and the people accepted it by majorities unknown before. The new President, chosen over an illustrious rival, unequivocally on the ground of greater ability, even if not more reliable purpose to maintain the new treaty inviolate, made haste to justify this expecta- tion when Congress assembled. He said : "When the (rravo shall have closed over all who are now endeavoring to meet the obligationa of duty, the year ISjO will be recurred to as a period filled with anxiety aud apprehcusjoii. A successCul war has just terminated : peace brou, 'lit with it a great angraentatiou of territor.v. Disturbiiisf questions arose bearing upon the domestic institutiuns of a portion of the Confedera<\v. and involving the con- stitutional rights of the States. But, notwithstand- ing differences of opinion and sentiment, in relation to details and specilic provisions, the acquiescence of distinguished citizens, whose devotion to the Union can never be doubted, has given renewed vigor to our institutions, and restored a sense of se- curity and repose to the public mind throughout the Confederacy. Tiiat this repose is to suffer no shock during my oiScial term, if 1 have the power to avert it, those who placed me here may be assured." Hardly, however, had these ins[iinng sounds died away, throughout a reassured and de- lighted land, before the national repose was shocked again ; shocked, indeed, as it had never before been, and smitten this time by a blow from the very hand that had just re- leased the chords of the national harp from their utterance of that exalted syinphony of peace. Kansas and Xebr.oska, the long-devoted re- servation of labor and freedom, saved in tho agony of national fear in 1820, and saved again in the panic of 1850, were now to be opened by Congress, that tho never-ending course of seed time and harvest miglit begin. The slave capitalists of Missouri, from their own well-assured homes on the eastern banks of their noble river, looked down upon and coveted tho fertile prairies of Kansas ; while a sudden terror ran through all the capital States, when they saw a seeming certainty that at last a new labor State would be builfc on their western border, inevitably fraught, as they said, with a near or remote abolition of slavery. What could be done ? Congress could hardly be expected to intervene directly for their safety so soon after the compromise of 1850. The labor hive of the free States was distant, tho way new, unknown, and not without perils. Missouri was near and watch- ful, and held tho keys of the gates of Kansas. She might seize the new and smiling Territory by surprise, if only Congress would remove tho barrier established in 1820. The conjunc- ture was favora1)le. Clay aud Webster, the distinguished citizens whoso nnquestionable devotion to the Union was manifested bj their acquiescence in the compromise of 1850, had gone down already into their honored graves. The labor States had dismissed many of their representatives here for too great fidelity to freedom, and too 6 great distrust of the eflBcacy of that new bond of peace, and had replaced them -with partisans who were only timid, but not un- willing. The Democratic President and Con- gress hesitated, but not long. They revised the last great compromise, and found, with delighted surprise, that it was so far from confirming the law of freedom of 1820, that, on the other hand, it exactly provided for the abrogation of that venerated statute; nay, that the compromise itself actually killed the spirit of the Missouri law, and devolved on Congress the duty of removing the lifeless letter from the national code. The deed was done. The new enactment not only repealed the Missouri prohibition of slavery, but it pro- nounced the people of Kansas and Nebraska perfectly free to establish freedom or slavery ; and pledged Congress to admit them in due time as States, either of capital or of labor, into the Union. The Whig representatives of the capital States, in an hour of strange bewil- derment, concurred ; and the Whig party in- stantly went down, never to rise again. De- mocrats seceeded, and stood aloof; the country Avas confounded ; and, amid the perplexities of the hour, a Republican party was seen gathering itself together with much earnest- ness, but with little show of organization, to rescue if it were not now tQO late, the cause of freedom and labor, so unexpectedly and grievously imperilled in the Territories of the United States. I will not linger over the sequel. The pop- ular sovereignty of Kansas proved to be the State sovereignty of Missouri, not only in the persons of the rulers, but even in the letter of an arbitrary and cruel code. The perfect free- dom proved to bo a hateful and intolerable bondage. From 1855 to 18C0, Kansas sus- taincd°and encouraged only by the Republican party, has been engaged in successive and ever-varying struggles, which have taxed all her virtue, wisdom, moderation, energies, and resources, and often even her jihysical strength and martial courage, to save herself from being betrayed into the Union as a slave State. Nebraska, though choosing freedom, is, through the direct exercise of the Executive power, over-riding her own will, held as a slave Territory ; and New Mexico has relapsed voluntarily into the practice of slavery, from which she had redeemed herself while she yet remained a part of the Mexican Republic. Meantime, the Democratic party, advancing from the ground of popular sovereignty as far as that, ground is from the ordinance of 1787, now stands on the position that both terri- torial governments and Congress are incom- petent to legislate against slavery in the Ter- ritories, while they are not only competent, but are obliged, when it is necessary, to legis- late for its protection there. In this new and extreme position the Demo- cratic party now masks itself behind the bat- tery of the Supreme Court, as if it were pos- sibly a true construction of the Constitution, that the power of deciding practically forever between freedom and slavery in a portion of the continent far exceeding all that is yet organized, should be renounced by Congress, which alone possesses any legislative author- ity, and should bo assumed and exercised by a court which can only take cognizance of the great question collaterally, in a private action between individuals, and which action the Constitution will not suffer the court to enter- tain, if it involves twenty dollars of money, without the overruling intervention of a jury of twelve good and lawful men of the neigh- borhood where the litigation arises. The independent, ever-renewed, and ever recur- ring representative Parliament, Diet, Con- gress, or Legislature, is the one chief, para- mount, essential, indispensable institution in a Republic. Even liberty, guaranteed by organic law, yet if it be held by other tenure than the guardian care of such a representa- tive popular assembly, is but precariously maintained, while slavery, enforced by an ir- responsible judicial tribunal, is the completcst possible development of despotism. Mr. President, did ever the annals of any Government show a more rapid or more com- plete departure from the wisdom and virtue of its founders ? Did ever the Government of a great empire, founded on the rights of human labor, slide away so fast and so far, and moor itself so tenaciously on the basis of capital, and that capital invested in laboring men ? Did over a free representative Legis- lature, invested with powers so great, and wth the guardianship of rights so important, of trusts so sacred, of interests so precious, and of hopes at once so noble and so compre- hensive, surrender and renounce them all so unnecessarily, so unwisely, so fatally, and so ingloriously ? If it be true, as every mstinct of our nature, and every precept of political experience teaches us, tbat " III fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay." then -where in Ireland, in Italy, in Poland, or in Hungary, has any ruler prepared for a generous and confiding people disappoint- ments, disasters, and calamities equal to those which the Government of the United States holds now suspended over so large a portion of the continent of North America ? Citizens of tlie United States, in the spirit of this policy, subverted the free Republic of Nicaragua, and opened it to slavery and the African slave trade, and held it in that condi- tion waiting annexation to the United States, until its sovereignty was restored by a combi- nation of sister Republics exposed to the same danger, and apprehensive of similar subver- sion. Other citizens re-opened the foreign slave trade in violation of our laws and treaties; and, after a suspension of that shameful traffic for fifty years, savage Afri- cans have been once more landed on our shores and distributed, unreclaimed and with impunity, among our plantations. For this policy, so far as the Government has sanctioned it, the Democratic party avows itself responsible. Everywhere complaint against it is denounced, and its opponents proscribed. "When Kansas was writhing un- der the wounds of incipient, servile war, be- cause of her resistance, the Democratic press deridingly said, "let her bleed." Official integrity has been cause for rebuke and pun- ishment, when it resisted frauds designed to promote the extension of slavery. Through- out the whole Republic there is not one known dissenter from that policy remaining in place, if within the reach of the executive arm. Nor over the face of the whole world is there to be found one representative of our country who is not an apologist of the exten- sion of slavery. It is in America that these things have hap- pened. In the nineteenth century, the era of tlie world's greatest progress, and wliilo all nations but ourselves have been either abridg- ing or altogether suppressing commerce in men; at the very moment when the Russian serf is emancipated, and the Georgian captive, the Neubian prisoner, and the Abyssinian savage are lifted up to freedom by the succes- sor of Mohammed. The world, prepossessed in our behalf by our early devotion- to the rights of human nature, as no nation ever be- fore engaged its respect and sympathies, asks, in wonder and amazement, what all this de- moralization means ? It has an excuse better than the world can imagine, better than we are generally conscious of ourselves, a vir tuous excuse. We have loved not freedom so much less, but the Union of our country so much more. "We have been made to believe, from time to time, that, in a crisis, both of these precious institutions could not bo saved together, and therefore we have, from time to time, surrendered safeguards of freedom to propitiate the loyalty of capital, and stay its hands from doing violence to the Union. The true state of the case, however, ought not to be a mystery to ourselves. Prescience, jn- deed, is not giveit to statesmen ; but wo are without excuse when we foil to apprehend the logic of current events. Let parties, or the Government, choose or do what they may, the people of the United States do not prefer wealth to liberty, capital to labor, African slaves to white freemen, in the national terri- tories and in future States. That question has never been distinctly recognized or acted on by them. The Republican party embodies the popular protest and reaction against a policy which has been fastened upon the nation by surprise, and which its reason and conscience, concurring with the reason and conscience of mankind, condemn. The choice of the nation is now between the Democratic party and the Republican party. Its principles and policy are, there- fore, justly and even necessarily examined. I know of only one policy which it has adopted or avowed, namely : the saving of the Terri- tories of the United States, if possible, by con- stitutional and lawful means, from being homes for slavery and polygamy. "Who, that con- siders where this nation exists, of what races it is composed, in what ago of the world it acts its part on the public stage, and what are its predominant institutions, customs, habits, and sentiments, 'doubts that the Republican party can and wi-ll, if unwaveringly faithful to that policy, and just and loyal in all beside, carry it into triumphal success ? To doubt ie to be uncertain whether civilization can im- prove or Christianity save mankind. I may, perhaps, infer from the necessity of 8 the case, that it will, in all courts and places, stand by the freedom of speech and of the pres<, and the constitutional rights of freemen everywhere ; that it will favor the speedy im- provement of the public domain by homestead laws, and will encourage mining, manufacture and internal commerce, with needfnl connec- tions between the Atlantic and Pacific States — for all these are important interests of free- dom. For all the rest, the national emer- gencies, not individual influences, must deter- mine, as society goes on, tlio policy and character of the Republican party. Already bearing its part in legislation and in treaties, i-t feels the necessity of being practical in its care of the national health and life, while it leaves metaphysical speculation to those whose duty it is to cultivate the ennobling science of political philosophy. But in the midst of these sabjects, or rather, before fully reaching them, tiie Republican party encounters unexpectedly, a new and po- tential issue — one prior, and therefore para- mount to all others, one of national life and death. Just as if so much had not been al- ready conceded; nay, just as if nothing at all had ever been conceded to the interest of capital invested in men, we hear menaces of disunion, louder, more distinct, more emphatic, than ever, with the condition annexed, that tliey shall be executed the moment that a Re- publican administration, though constitution- ally elected, shall assume the Government. I do not certainly know that the people are prepared to call such an Administration to power. I know only, that through a succes- sion of floods which never greatly excite, and ebbs which never entirely discourage me, the volume of Republicanism rises continually liigher and higher. They are probably wise, vrtose apprehensions admonish them that it is already strong enough for eti'ect. Hitherto the Republican party has been con- tent with one self-interrogatory — how many votes it can cast? These threats enforce ano- ther — has it determination enough to cast them? This latter question touches its spirit and pride. I am quite sure, however, that as it has hitherto practised self-denial in so many other forms, it will in this emergency lay aside all impatience of temper, together with all ambi- tion, and will consider these extraordinary declamations seriously and witli a just modera- tion. It would be a waste of words to demon- strate that they are unconstitutional, and equally idle to show that the respouhibility for disunion. attempted or eflfccted, must rest not with those who in the exercise of constitu- tional authority maintain the Government, but with those who unconstitutionally engage in the mad Avork of subverting it. "What are the excuses for these menaces ? They resolve themselves into this, that the Republican party in the North is hostile to the South. But it already is proved to be a ma- jority in the North ; it is therefore practically the people of the North. Will it not still be the same North that has forborne with you so long and conceded to you so much ? Can you justly assume that affection which has been so complying, can all at once change to hatred intense and inexorable ? You say that the Republican party is a sec- tional one. Is the Democratic party less sec- tional ? Is it easier for us to bear your section- al sway than for you to bear ours ? Is it un- reasonable that for once we should alternate? But is the Republican party sectional ? Not unless the Democratic party is. The Repub- lican party prevails in the House of Represen- tatives sometimes ; the Democratic party in the Senate always. "Which of the two is the most proscriptive ? Come, if you will, into the free States, into the State of New York, anywhere from Lake Erie to Sag Harbor, among my neighbors in the Owasgo Valley, hold your conventions, nominate your candi- dates, address the people, submit to them, fully, earnestly, eloquently, all your complaints and grievances of northern disloyalty, oppres- sion, perfidy ; keep nothing back, speak just as freely and as loudly there as you do here; you will have hospitable welcomes, and ap- preciating audiences, with ballot-boxes open for all the votes you fcan win. Are you less sectional than this ? Extend to us the same privileges, and I will engage that you will very soon have in the South as many Repub- licans as we have Democrats in the North. There is, however, a better test of nationality than the accidental location of parties. Our policy of labor in the territories was not sec- tional in the first forty years of the Republic, Its nature inheres. It will be national again, during the third forty years, and forever after- wards. It is not wise and beneficent for us alone or injurious to you alone. Itseftects are eqnal, and the same for us all. 9 Ton accnse the Rep«blican party of ulterior and secret designs. How can a party that counts its votes in this land of free speech and free press by the hundreds of thousands, have any secret designs ? Who is the conjurer, and where are the hidden springs by which he can control its uncongregated and widely-dispersed masses, and direct them to objects unseen and purposes unavowed? But what are these hidden purposes ? You name only one. That erne is to introduce negro equality among you. Suppose we had the power to change your social system : what warrant have you for supposing that we should carry negro equality among you? We know, and wo will show you, if you will only give heed, that what our system of labor works out, wherever it works out anything, is the equality of white men. The laborer in the free States, no matter how humble his occupation, is a white man, and he is politically the equal of his employer. Eighteen of our thirty-three States are free- labor Statas. There they are : Maine, I^ew Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indi- ana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, California, and Oregon. I do not array them in contrast with the capital States. I am no assailant of States. All of the States are parcels of my awn country — the best of them not so wise and great as I am sure it will hereafter be ; the State least developed and perfected among them all is wiser and better than any foreign state I know. Is it then in any, and in which, of the States I have named that negro equal- ity oftends the white man's pride ? Through- out the wide world, where is the State where class and caste are so utterly extinguished as tJiey are in each and every one of them ? Let tlie European immigrant, who avoids the Af- rican as if his skin exhaled contagion, answer. You find him always in the State where labor is ever free. Did Washington, Jefferson, and Henry, when tliey implored you to relinquisli your system and accept the one wo have adopted, propose to sink you down to the level of the African, or was it their desire to exalt all white men to a common political eleva- tion? But we do not seek to force, or even to intrude, our system, on you. We are excluded justly, wisely, and contentedly, from all poli- tical p"wer and responsibility in your capital States. You are sovereign on the subject of slavery within your own borders, as we are on the same subject within our borders. It ia well and wisely so arranged. U.<«o your authority to maintain what system you please. We are not distrustful of the result. We liave wisely, as wo think, exercised ours to protect and perfect tiio manliood of the members of the State. Tlie whole sovereignty upon do- mestic concerns within the Union is divided between us by unmistakable boundaries. You have your fifteen distinct parts ; we eighteea parts, equally distinct. Each must be main- tained in order that the wliole may be pre- served- If ours shall be assailed, within or without, by any enemy, or for any cause, and we shall have need, we shall expect you to defend it. If yours shall be so assailed, in the emergency, no matter what the cause or the pretext, or who the foe, wo shall defend your sovereignty as the equivalent of our own. We cannot, indeed, accept your system of capital or its ethics. That would bo to sur- render and subvert our own, which we esteem to be better. Besides, if we could, what need for any division into States at all ? You are equally at liberty to reject our system and its ethics, and to maintain the superiority of your own by all the forces of persuasion and argu- ment. We must, indeed, mutually discuss both systems. All the world discusses all systems. Especially must we discuss them since we have to decide as a nation wliioh of the two wo ought to ingraft on the new and future States growing up in the great public domain. Discussion then being unavoidable, what could be more wise tlian to conduct it witli mutual toleration and in a fraternal spirit ? You complain that Republicans discourse too boldly and directly, when tliey express with confidence their belief that the system of labor will, in the end, be universally accepted by tlie capital States, acting for themselves, and in conformity with their own constitu- tions, while they sanction too unreservedly books designed to advocate emancipation. But surely you can hardly expect the Federal Gov- ernment or the political parties of the nation to maintain a censorship of the press or of debate. The theory of our system is, tliat error of opinion may in all cases safely be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. Will it bo claimed that more of modera- 10 tion and tondorness in debate are exhibited on your side of the great argument than our own ? * "We all learned our polemics, as well as our principles, from a common master. "We are sure that we do not, on our side, exceed his lessons and example. Thomas Jefferson ad- dressed Dr. Price, an Englishman, concern- ing his treatise on emancipation in America, iu this fashion: " Southward of tte Chesapeake, your book -will find but few readers concurring with it in sentiment on the subject of slavery. From the month to the head of the Chesapeake, the bulk of the people will approve it in theory, and it will find a respectable minority ready to adopt it in practice ; a minority which, for weight, and worth of character, prepond- erates against the greater number who have not the courage to divest their families of a property which, however, keeps their consciences unquiet. North- ward of the Chesapeake, you may tind here and there an opponent to your doctrine, as you may tind here and there a robber or a murderer ; but in no greater number." ''This (Virginia) is the nest State to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in cnnflict with avarice and oppression — a conflict where the sacred side is gaining daily new recruits from the influx into office of young men, grown and growing up." " Be not, then, discouraged. What you have written will do a great deal of good ; and could you still trouble yourself about our welfare, no man is more able to hell) the laboring side." Ton see, sir, tliat whether we go for or against slavery anywhere, we must follow southern guides. You may change your pi- lots with the winds or the currents ; but we, whose nativity, reckoned under the North Star, has rendered us somewhat superstitious, must be excused for constancy in following the guidance of those who framed the national ship and gave us the chart for its noble voy- age. A profound respect and friendly regard for the Vice-President of the United States has induced me to weigh carefully the testimony he has given on the subject of the hostility against the South imputed to the Republican party, as derived from the relations of the re- presentatives of the two parties at this capital. He says that ho has seen here in the represen- tatives of the lower southern States a most resolute and earnest spirit of resistance to the Republican party ; that he perceives a sensible loss of that spirit of brotherhood and that feeling of loyalty, together with that love for a common country, which are at last the surest cement of the Union ; so that, in the present unhappy condition of affairs, he is almost tempted to exclaim, that we are dissolving week by week and month by month; that the threads are gradually fretting them- selves asunder ; and a stranger might suppose that the Executive of the United States was the President of two hostile Eepublics. It is not for me to raise a doubt upon the correctness of this dark picture, so far as the southern groups upon the canvas are concerned, but I must be indulged in the opinion that I can pronounce as accurately concerning the northern or Republican representatives here as any one. I know their public haunts and their private ways. "We are not a hostile Re- public, or representatives of one. We confer together, but only as the organs of every party do, and must do in a political system wliich obliges us to act sometimes as partisans, wljjle it requires us always to be patriots and statesmen. Differences of opinion, even oa the subject of slavery, with us are political, not social or personal differences. There is not one disunionist or disloyalist among us all. We are altogether unconscious of any process of dissolution going on among us or around us. We have never been more patient, never loved the representatives of other sections more than now. "We bear the same testimony for the people around us here, who, tliougli in the very center where the bolt of disunion must fall first and be most fearful in its effects, seemed Tiever less disturbed tban now. "We bear the same testimony for all the districts and States we represent. Tlie people of tbe North are not enemies, but friends and brethren of tlie South, faithful and true as in the days wlien death has dealt his arrows promiscuous- ly among them on common battle-fields of freedom. We Avill not suffer ourselves here to dwell on any evidences of a different temper in the South ; but we shall be content with express- ing our belief that hostility that is not de- signedly provoked, and that cannot provoke retaliation, is an anomaly that must be traced to casual excitements, which cannot perpetu- ate alienation. A canvass for a presidential election, in some respects more import.nnt, perhaps, than any since 1800, has recently begun. The House of Representatives was to be organized by a majority, while no party could cast more than ft plurality of votes. The gloom of the late tragedy in Virginia rested on the Capitol from the day when Congress assembled. While the 11 two great political parties were peacefully, lawfully, and constitutionall}', tliouiiU zeal- ously, conducting the great national issue be- tween free labor and capital labor for tlie Ter- ritories to its proper solution, througli the ti-ials of the ballot, operating directly or indi- rectly on the various departments of the Gov- ernment, a band of exceptional men, contempt- uous equally of that great question and of the parties to the controversy, and impatient of the constitutional system which confines the citizens of every State to political action by sullrage, in organized parties witliin their own borders, inspired by an enthusiasm pecu- liar to themselves, and exasperated by griev- ances and wrongs tliat som« of them had suffered by inroads of armed propagandists of slavery in Kansas, unlawful as their own retaliation was, attempted to subvert slavery in Virginia by conspiracy, am- bush, invasion, and force. The method we have adopted, of appealing to the reason and judgment of the people, to be pronoimced by suffrage, is the only one by which free gov- ernment can be maintained anywhere, and the only one as yet devised which is in harmony with the spirit of the Christian religion. While generous and charitable natures will probably concede that John Brown and his associates acted on earnest thougli fatally er- roneous convictions, yet all good citizens will nevertheless agree, that this attempt to exe- cute an unlawful purpose in Vii-ginia by inva- sion, involving' servile war, was an act of sed- tion and treason, and criminal in just the extent that it affected the public peace and was destructive of human happiness and human life. It is a painful reflection that, after so long an experience of the beneficent working of our system as we have enjoyed, we have had these new illustrations in Kansas and' Vir- ginia of the existence among us of a class of men so misguided and so desperate as to seek to enforce their peculiar principles by the sword, drawing after it a need for the further illustration by their punishment of that great moral truth, especially applicable in a Rei)ub- lic, that they who take up the sword as a weapon of controversy shall perish by the oword. In the latter case, the lamented deaths of so many citizens, slain from an am- bush and by surprise— all the more lament- able because they were innocent victims of a frenzy kindled without their agency, in far distant fires — the deaths even of the offenders themselves, pitiable, although necessary and just, because the}' acted under delirium, which blinded their judgments to the real nature of their criminal enterprise ; the alarm and con- sternation naturally awakened througliout the country, exciting, for the moment, the fear that our whole system, witli all its securities for life and liberty, was coining to an end — a fear none the more endurable because conti- nually aggravated by new chimeras to which the great leading event lent an air of prob- ability ; surely all these constituted a sum of public misery, which ought to have satisfied the most morbid appetite for social horrors. But, as in the case of the gunpowder plot, and the Salem witchcraft, and the New York colonial negro plot, so now ; the original actors were swiftly followed by anotlier and kindred class, who sought to prolong and widen the public distress by attempting to direct the indignation which it had excited against parties guiltless equally of complicity and of sympathy with the offenders. Posterity will decide in all the recent cases where political responsibility for public disas- ters must fall; and posterity will give little heed to our instructions. It was not until the gloomy reign of Domitian had ended, and liberty and virtue had found assured refuge under the sway of the milder Xerva, that the historian arose whose narrative of that period of tyranny and terror has been accepted by mankind. The Republican party being thus vindicated against the charge of hostility to the South, which has been offered in excuse for the menaces of unconstitutional resistance in the event of its success, I feel well assured that it will sustain me in meeting them in the spirit of the defender of the English Common- wealth : " Snroly they that shall boast as we do to be a free nation, and having the power, shall not also have the courage to rLMnove, constitutionally, every Governor, whether he be the supreme or subordinate, may please tiieir fancy with a ridiculous and painted freedom, lit to cozen babit-s, l)ut are, indeed, under tyranny and servitude, as wantinc; th.at ))ower. which is the root and source of all liberty, to dis])ose of and ecoMoinize in the land which God hath given theiu, as members of family in their own home and free in- heritance. Without which natural and essential power of a free nation, though bearing high their heads, they can, in due esteem, be thought no bet- ter than slaves and vassals born in the tenure and occupation of another inheriting lord, whose govern- ment, though not illegal or intolerable, hangs on 12 them as a lordly scourge, not as a free govern- ment." The RepnLlican party knows, as the whole country will ultimately come to understand, that the noblest objects of national life must perish, if that life shall be lost, and, there- fore, it will accept the issue tendered. It will take up the word Union, which others are so "willing to renounce, and combining it with that other glorious thought, Liberty, which has been its inspiration so long, it will move firmly onward, with the motto inscribed on its banner, " Union and Liberty, come what may, in victory as in defeat, in power as out of power, now and for ever." If the Republican party maintain the Union, who and what party is to assail it? Only the Democratic party, for th«re is no other. "VTill the Democratic party take up the assault ? The menaces o-f disunion are made, though not in its name, yet in its behalf It must avow or disavow them. Its silence, thus far, is portentous, but is not alarming. The ef- fect of the intimidation, if successful, would be to continue the rule of the Democratic party, though a minority, by terror. It cer- tainly ought to need no more than this to secure the success of the Republican party. If, indeed, the time has come when the Demo- cratic party must rule by terror, instead of ruling through conceded public confidence, then it is quite certain that it cannot be dis- missed from power too soon. Ruling on that odious principle, it could not long save either the Constitution or public liberty. But I sliall not believe the Democratic party will consent to stand in this position, .though it does, through the action of its representatives, seem to cover and sustain those who threaten disunion. I know the Democracy of the North. I know them now in tlieir waning strength. I do not know a possible disunion- Sst among them all. I believe they will be as faithful to the Union now as they were in the bygone days when their ranks were full, and their challenge to the combat was always the war-cry of victory. But, if it shall prove otherwise, then the world will all the sooner know that every party in this country must stand on Union g~ound ; that the American people will sustain no party that is not capa- ble of making a sacrifice of its ambition on tlie altar of the country ; that although a party may have never so much of prestige, and never such traditional merit, yet, if it be lack- ing in the one virtue of loyalty to the Union, all its advantages will be unavailing; and then obnoxious as, through long-cherished and obstinate prejudices, the Republican party i.s in the capital States, yet even there it will advance like an army with banners, winning tlie favor of the wiiole people, and it will be armed with the national confidence and sup- port, when it shall be found tlie only party that defends and maintains the integrity of the Union. Those who seek to awaken the terrors of disunion seem to me to have too hastily con- sidered the conditions under which they are to make their attempt. Who believes that a Republican administration and Congress could practice tyranny under a Constitution which interposes so many checks as ours ? Yet that tyranny must not only be practised, but must be intolerable, and there must be no remain- ing hope for constitutional relief, before forci- ble resistance can find ground to stand on anywhere. The people of the United States, acting in conformity with the Constitution, are the su- preme tribunal to try and determine all poli- tical issues. They are as comj)etent to decide the issues of to-day as they have been hereto- fore to decide tl>e iseoes of other days. They can reconsider hereafter, and reverse, if need be, the judgment they shall pronounce to-day, as they have more tlian once reconsidered and reversed their judgments in former times. It needs no revolution to correct any error, or prevent any danger, under any circunv stances. Nor is any new or special cause for revolu- tion likely to occur under a Republican ad- ministration. TVe are engaged in no new trahsaction, not even in a new drsj)ute. Our fathers undertook a great work for themselves, for us, and for our successors — to erect a free and Federal empire, whose arches shall span the North American continent, and reflect the rays of the eiin throughout his whole passage from the one to the other of the great oceana. They erected thirteen of its columns all at once. Tliese are rtanding now, tlie admiration of mankind. ITieir successors added twenty more ; even we who are here have shaped and elevated three of tliat twenty, and all these are as firm and steadfast as the first thirteen; and more will yet be necessary 13 when we shall have rested from our labors. Some among us prefer for these columns a composite material ; others, the pure white marble. Our fathers and our predecessors differed in the same way, and on the same point. "What execrations should we not all unite in pronouncing on any statesman who heretofore, from mere disappointment and dis- gust at being oyerruled in his choice of mate- rials for any new cohnnn then to be quarried, should have laid violent hands on the imper- fect structure and brought it down to the earth, there to remain a wreck, instead of a citadel of a world's best hopes ! I remain now in the opinion I have uni- formly expressed here and elsewhere, that these hasty threats of disunion are so unnatu- ral that they will find no hand to execute them. We are of one race, one language, liberty, and faith ; engaged, indeed, in varied industry ; but even that industry, so diversi- fied, brings us into more intimate relations with each other than any other people, how- ever homogeneous, and though living under a consolidated Government, ever maintained. "We languish throughout, if one joint of our Federal frame is smitten ; while it is certain that a part dissevered must perish. You may refine as you please about the structure of the Government, and say that it is a compact, and that a breach, by one of the States or by Con- gress, of any one article, absolves all the mem- bers from allegiance, and that the States may separate when they have, or fancy they have, cause for war. But once try to subvert it, and you will find that it is a Government of the whole people — as individuals, as well as a compact of States.; that every individual member of the body-politic is conscious of his interest and power in it, and knows that ho will be helpless, powerless, hope- less, when it shall have gone down. Man- kind have a natural right, a natural instinct, and a natural capacity for self-government; and when, as here, they are sufficiently ripened bj culture, they will and must have self-government, and no other. The framers of our Constitution, with a wisdom that sur- passed all previous understanding among men, adapted it to tliese inherent elements of hu- man nature. lie strangely, blindly misunder- stands the anatomy of the great system who thinks that its only bonds, or evea its strongest ligaments, are the written cor.pact or even the multiplied and thoroughly ramified roads and thoroughfares of trade, commerce, and social intercourse. These are strong indeed, but its chiefest instruments of cohesion — those which render it inseparable and indivisible — are the millions of fibres of millions of con- tented, happy human hearts, binding by their affections, their ambitions, and their best hopes equally the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the wise and unwise, the learned and the untutored, even the good and the bad, to a Government, the first, the last, and the only such one that has ever existed, which takes equal heed always of their wants, their wishes, and their opinions; and appeals to them all, individually, once in a year, or in two years, or at least in four years, for their expressed consent and renewal, without which it must cease. No, go where you will, and to what class you may, with commissions for your fatal service in one hand, and your bounty counted by the hundred or the thousand pieces of silver in the other, a thousand re- sisters will rise up for every recruit you can engage. On the banks equally of the St. Law- rence and of the Rio Grande, on the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts, on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and in the dells of tlie Rocky Mountains, among the fishermen on the banks of Newfoundland, the weavers and spinners of Massachusetts, the stevedores of New York, the miners of Pennsylvania, Pike's Peak, and California, the wheat-growers of Indiana, tho cotton and the sugar planters on the Missis- sippi, among the voluntary citizens from every other land, not less than the native born, the Christian and the Jew, among the Indians on the prairies, the contumacious Mormons in Deseret, the Africans free, the Africans in bondage, the inmates of hospitals and alms- houses, and even the criminals in the pe- nitentiaries, rehearse tho story of yonr wrongs and their own, never so eloquently and never so mournfully, and appeal to them to rise. They will ask you, "Is tliis all ?" "Are you more just than Washington, wiser than Hamilton, more humane than Jefferson ?" " What new form of government or of union have you the power to establish, or even the cunning to devise, that will be more just, more safe, more free, more gentle, more beneficent, or more glorious than this ?" And by these simple interrogatories you will be silenced and confounded. 14 Mr. President, we are perpetually forgetting this subtle and complex, yet obvious and na- tural mechanism of our Constitution ; and be- cause we do forget it, we are continually won- dering how it is that a confederacy of thirty and more States, covering regions so vast, and regulating interests so various of so many mil- lions of men, constituted and conditioned so diversely, works right on. We are continual- ly looking to see it stop and stand still, or fall suddenly into pieces. But, in truth, it will not stop ; it cannot stop ; it was made not to etop, but to keep in motion — in motion al- ways, and without force. For my own part, as tljis wonderful machine, vphen it had newly come from the hands of its almost divine in- ventors, was the admiration of my earlier years, although it was then but imperfectly known abroad, so now, when it forms the cen- tral figure in the economy of the world's civi- lization, and the best sympathies of mankind favor its continuance, I expect that it will stand and work right on until men shall fear its failure no more than wc now apprehend that the sun will cease to hold his eternal place in tlie heavens. Nevertheless, I do not expect to see this purely popular though majestic system always working on unattended by the presence and exhibition of human temper and human pas- sions. That would be to expect to enjoy re- wards, benefits, and blessings, without labor, care, and watchfulness — an expectation con- trary to divine appointment. These are the discipline of the American citizen, and he must inure himself to it. When, as now, a great policy, fastened upon the country through its doubts and fears, confirmed by its habits, and strengthened by personal interests and ambitions, is to be relaxed and changed, in order that tbe nation may have its just and natural, and free developments, then, indeed, all the winds of controversy are let loose upon us from all points of the political compass, we see objects and men only througli mazes, mists, and doubtful and lurid liglits. The earth seems to be heaving under our feet, and the pillars of the noble fabric that protects us to be trembling before our eyes. But the ap- pointed end of all this agitation comes at last, and always seasonably; the tumults of tlie people subside ; the country becomes calm once more ; and then we find that only onr senses have been disturbed, and that they have betrayed us. The earth is firm as al- ways before, and the wonderful structure, for whose safety we have feared so anxiously, now more firmly fixed than ever, still stands unmoved, enduring and immovable. THE TRIBUNE ALMANAC FOR 1860. SIXTH EDITIOiT KOW BEADY. COISTTEjSTTS. OCCULTATIOXS. APPROPRIATIONS BY CONGRESS. CAIUNKT OF THE UNIXKD STATES. CALENDARS FOR ISCO. CHRONOLOGICAL CYCLES. CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. DAY AND NIGHT, LENGTH OF. ECLIPSES FOR ISGO. EQUINOXES AND SOLSTICES FOR 1860. EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES, GOVERNORS OF THE STATES AND TERRITORIES. GOVEIINMENTS OF EUROPE. nOUSU OF REPRESENTATIVES OP THE U. S. ITALIAN AVAR, SKETCHES OF THE. KANSAS IN 1S59. LAND FOR THE LANDLESa LEAP-YEAR. 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THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. It contains the famous speech of Mr. Seward at Rochester, in which he pointed out the fact of the Irrepressible Con- flict ; the equally famous speech of Mr. O'Conor at the Academy of Music, contendinR that Negro jflavery is not unjust ; Mr. O'Connor's recent Letter to certain New York merchants on the same subject ; and a brief collection of the oplniona of eminent men with regard to Slavery. No. 2. DEMOCRATIC LEADERS FOR DISUNION. The recent powerful speech of Senator Wilson of Massachusetts, in which the fact ia demonstrated tliat the Disunion Movement, be?an thirty years ago by Mr. Calhoun, has at last obtained the control of all tlie most influenlial leaders of the so-called Democratic I'arty. This is proved by quotations from their own declarations, given in their own language, and forming an array of testimony wtiich cannot be disputed. No. 3. THE ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 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