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SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 CA.SSIUS m:. clj^y, 
 
 AT FRANKFORT, KY., 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 Capitol Steps, January lO, 1860. 
 
 Reported Exclusively for the Cincinnati Gazette. 
 
 Argcmentcm. — Gov. Magoffin in his message, 
 and Vice President Breckinridge, before tlie 
 Kentuck}' Legislature, had assailed the principles 
 and aims of the Republican party. Those Mr. 
 Clay aspired to defend. Following the event of 
 John Brown's raid and execution, the suppression 
 of the Free South Newspaper at Newport by 
 violence, the expulsion of John G. Foe and asso- 
 ciates from Madison county, Ky., and the design 
 on the part of the Slave Oligarchy to perpetuate 
 the reign of terror in all the South ; it was gen- 
 erally given out that Mr. Clay would be silenced. 
 The halter with which Brown was hung, the 
 bloody lance which he used in battle-^a present 
 from Gov. Wise to Gov. Magoffin — was freely 
 handed about and shown in Frankfort. Whilst 
 a central journal openly put it that if. Clay was 
 allowed to speak in the Capitol, Kentuckians 
 would be proven cowards. 
 
 Mr. Clay did not ask for the Representatives' 
 Hall ; but it was generally ceded that by tacit 
 consent he should occupy it, and the door keeper, 
 Mr. Grey, promised to have it open and lighted 
 up. But at the appointed hour the Hall was 
 closed and dark, the night was gloomy and a 
 storm threatening, the gaslights of the city were 
 darkened, and in the " very immense audience," 
 as described by tlie Reporter of the Louisville 
 Journal, none spoke above a whisper. As Mi-. 
 Clay rose to speak, innumerable lights were 
 brought and distributed by unknown hands 
 throughout the crowd, and for more than three 
 hours he was listened to amidst profound silence or 
 occasional applause. The difficulty of arranging 
 his references makes the report of the speech lose 
 much of its unity ; but truth is considered of 
 more importance than rhetorical arrangement. 
 
 Kentuckians ! — That most profound and phil- 
 osophical Historian, in my opinion, of all ages — 
 Gibbon, speaks of courage and sincerity or its 
 equivalent, truth, as the greatest of human vir- 
 tues. The brave man relying upon his courage, 
 never, questions that of another Those who 
 know me, know full well I am not in the habit of 
 speaking of my courage, nor have I indulged ia 
 
 that other— what I consider a bad habit of Ken- 
 tuckians in general, of speaking of their courage, 
 I will, however, transgress my ordinary rule, and 
 speak of it to-night. If I thought— if I had 
 thought that you, whose blood has illustrated 
 every battle-field from the beginning of our go 
 ernment to this day, were wanting in that virtv 
 and if I did not know that your illustrious ance 
 tors, beginning with Boone and Kenton, down 
 this day, possessed this virtue ; that I was in t 
 land of the McKees, the Marshalls, the Davissc j, 
 the Robinsons, the Clarkes, the Breckinridge 
 the Clays, the Crittendens, and a host of oth ■; 
 men that have made you illustrious among m( 
 then I might question your courage: but, it is 1 
 cause that I know that I am here, among such m 
 and in Kentucky, that I speak here to-night. T .- 
 brave are always generous— always ! and placi: .i 
 implicit confidence in this great fundameni; rV: 
 truth, I have never feared to go forth through iU 
 this broad and glorious land of ours, relying up ■ 
 the justice and magnanimity of Kentuckians. 
 never asked, I never cared whether they vrt 
 Democrats, Republicans, Americans or of a ^v 
 other party denomination. Thank God,.g£nt;2'- 
 men, this trust of mine has never been falsifi< ■ . 
 Whether I stand in your State House or whetl 
 I stand outside of your State House — whethei 
 am surrounded by light or covered by darkne .<;., 
 I feel equally safe while I am among Kentuc ri' 
 aus. 
 
 Gentlemen, there are some peculiar eircu i- 
 stances attending this, my address to-night, tl.at 
 call for allusions that I am not in tbe habit >^ 
 making. It has been said — I know not wha^ 
 the position and power and influence and tr.l 
 and integrity of the party from which it cam( 
 that if Cass. Clay was allowed to speak to-nij 
 in the city of Frankfort, that the world woi 
 believe the Kentuckians are cowards, and that 
 John Brown had intimidated, or " scared " to i 
 the word, Virginia, so it would go out that 1 1 
 intimidated the million of such men of Kentu( 
 as surround me to-night. Gentlemen, what m 
 ness, what folly is this. It is because you 
 brave — it is because your courage is unquestio; 4 
 
and unquestionable that there is a confidence 
 abroad not only amon^ men, but among women 
 and little children, that I will speak here to-night, 
 and be not only heard but respectfully treated. 
 Shame on such a sentiment as that. How would 
 it do for you, whose name has become synon- 
 ymous with the word courage, to hear it said that 
 you go ont to silence the voice of Cass. Clay in 
 death to prove that you are men. I will not 
 elaborate this idea. The very women share none 
 of this intimidation. I am proud to say, though 
 I do not often speak of these things, the wife of 
 Cass. Clay has written to him this day, not that 
 she hopes I may escape alive from a scene of 
 intimidating threats that have come from high 
 and potent sources — no ! she is a Kentucky born 
 woman, and such a thing never enters her 
 thoughts ; and, she "prays God that I may most 
 gloriously vindicate my principles to-night." 
 You men who hear mo to-night ; the very women 
 who hear this sentiment, will go away better men 
 and better women for the hearing. The time 
 will come when to those who shall succeed us, if 
 fortune shall sutler them, it will be a proud re- 
 flection that you thus vindicated your title to the 
 name of courageous men. 
 
 NO PERSONAL FEELINGS ENGAGED. 
 Some gentlemen have supposed that inasmuch 
 as the publication which 1 made, stated that I 
 would here, in this place and at this time, respond 
 to the message of Governor Magoffin, and the 
 late speech of your Senator elect, Mr. Breckin- 
 ridge, that I had some personal feelings against 
 those distinguished gentlemen, and that some 
 personal or private ends were to be subserved at 
 this time by attacking these gentlemen. Nothing 
 was further from my purpose. The only inaugu- 
 ration that ever I attended, and I am now forty- 
 nine years of age, was the inauguration of Gov. 
 Magoffin. I had learned to respect him from 
 what I heard of him and what I had seen of 
 him. I regard him as a brave and generous 
 man. So far as the distinguished Senator elect 
 from Kentucky is concerned, all men who know 
 me, know that amongst all the distinguished 
 families of which Kentucky boasts, that I have 
 always been proud of the Breckinridge name. 
 I have from earliest life looked to some portions 
 of them as the guides and pilots of my political 
 opinions. I have been personally associated 
 with them ; my family has been associated with 
 them. I would not have said these things did 
 not the occasion call for it, and did I not know 
 that these insinuations had been made, I would 
 say that of all the men whose names are now 
 presented to the American people by the Democ- 
 racy with regard to the next presidenc}-, that I 
 would not see any one attain that high position 
 sooner than John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. 
 
 EQUAL EIGHTS. 
 
 But, gentlemen, neither Governor Magoffin nor 
 Senator Breckinridge are infallible, and, here 
 to-night, humble as I may be, unhonored as I 
 am by having these doors closed upon me, a 
 native of Kentucky and a man that belongs to one 
 of the great parties of the United States, 1 moan 
 to be the peer of the gentlemen, and equal in 
 every respect so far as man is e qual to man. 
 God knows I do not detract from, nor do I envy 
 the honors of these distinguished gentlemen, for 
 whatever else can be said of them, it cannot be 
 denied that they wear their honors gracefully 
 and with becoming humility. 
 
 We must recollect that in this Commonwealth 
 
 \ ^ '•\ C^ R 1 
 
 we stand |on a broad basis of equality, and that 
 whatever other people may think, I have just as 
 much right to be heard here and now as other 
 men. Let my opinions be what they may, those 
 opinions ought to be fairly canvassed, and if 
 they are good, you should vindicate them by 
 carrying them into practice, and if they be bad, 
 then it is j'our duty to reject them and take those 
 that are better. 
 
 IS SINCERELY AN EMANCIPATIONIST. 
 
 As I said in the beginning. Gibbon says of the 
 two greatest virtues, sincerity is one. This, gen- 
 tlemen, whatever may be my short comings vdth 
 regard to courage, I believe my sincerity and 
 love of truth have not been questioned, and al- 
 though I am here alone, one among a million, 
 diffi3ring from you, it possibly may be, I know 
 that you will credit that I believe that which I 
 say I believe. I do not deny that, following the 
 faith of our fathers, I am an emancipationist, 
 How would I commend mj'self, then, to you, if 
 having made this avowal everywhere within the 
 limits of the Commonwealth, I should conceal or 
 deny my sentiments? He is not a dangerous 
 man that goes about openly and above board, 
 avowing what his sentiments are, but he is the 
 dangerous man, who, having sentiments, denies 
 them, and you all know and feel this truth, and 
 therefore it is because you believe I have been 
 true in my utterance, that I have been able to 
 stand comparatively alone in the State, telling 
 these things. I am, upon the subject of emanci- 
 pation, just where I always was. But I do not 
 now intend to discuss this subject. I do not now 
 propose to enter into a debate as to whether we 
 should, by gradual, and distant, and prospec- 
 tive means, get clear of Slavery. That I have 
 done, upon almost every stump and in every 
 county of this Commonwealth, again and again. 
 That is not the present issue. It cannot be de- 
 nied, and you all know it, that I have always 
 stood fairly and squarely upon the constitution 
 and the laws, that I have ever been obedient to 
 law, a law and order man. 
 
 THE MADISON COUNTY MOBS. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, for a few personal explana- 
 tions, before I enter upon the vindication of the 
 Republican party Allow me here to state what 
 has been and what yet is my position in my own 
 county. There are distinguished gentlemen 
 here, members of the Legislature and outside of 
 the Legislative body, of Madison, and they know 
 that that which I say is so, is truth. I allude to 
 the expulsion of the Rev. John G. Fee, of Ken- 
 tucky, and some nineteen otlier citizens of the 
 Commonwealth by birth and choice, from their 
 homes, and their departure into exile. 
 
 Some three years since, on the Fourth day of 
 July, when Mr. Fee returned again to the State 
 after a temporary absence, he took the ground of 
 what may be called the radical abolition party, 
 that as a citizen of the Commonwealth, he owed 
 no allegiance to the constitution and laws adop- 
 ted and enacted on the subject of slavery, and 
 that he planted himself on the higlier law of 
 natural right. Although I accorded tf) him, that 
 which I now believe and still assert, that he was 
 honest — that he was pure in his purpose, that he 
 was actuated by the highest love of Christian 
 charity, }'ot it was not the ground upon which I 
 stood, as I was a constitution and law loving 
 man, I argued to him that I could not and should 
 no longer stiind by him, that I owed it t» myself 
 and owed it to those laboring men of the country 
 
Ea- 
 
 W KCt i-* 
 
 who held no slaves, whose cause I pleaded, and 
 who confided in my leadership, to say to them 
 that his was an unsafe and untenable position, 
 and one which no man can hold; that it would 
 immediately bring them into conflict witli the 
 laws of the country, and that that position, no 
 matter by whom strenp:thened, could not be main- 
 tained. That is what 1 told him and them. Well 
 now I am no Don Qui.xote to go forward and fight 
 the battles of every man who may venture an 
 opinion upon the subject of slavery; and am I to 
 be accused as a seditious man and denounced bj' 
 others as a bully because I was willing to stand 
 by those men who took and maintained tlie ground 
 that I had taught them to stand upon? I put it 
 to every man that hears me if it would not have 
 been base in me, after I persuaded men compara- 
 tively ignorant to come out and take ground 
 against slaverv, if I had deserted them? Although 
 I love life as much as any niaii, and have 
 perhaps as much to live for as any man, I would 
 die ten thousand deaths before I would be guilty 
 of such base ingratitude. I say this, that where- 
 ever a man, planting himself on the broad consti- 
 tutional ground of our fatliers of 1770, follows 
 me, I will stand by and defend him to tiic best of 
 my ability, and give him such protection as I can 
 when tlie laws of the country refuse to give him 
 what the constitution guarantees to him as his 
 right. Therefore I could not stand by Fee and 
 his associates. I believe he is as pure a man as 
 ever I knew, yet I did not believe his position 
 was tenable, and I was not willing to take ground 
 with him. I not only proclaimed this on the 
 stump, but at a later day when I was asked by 
 men sympathizing with him, coming from other 
 portions of the United States, if I could not con- 
 scieutiousiy lend him my aid and countenance in 
 carr_ying on his work and enforcing his doctrines. 
 I declined by letter, announcing that I could not 
 stand upon the platform of Jlr. Fee; upon that 
 ground we must split. He was responsible for 
 his acts, and I for mine. That has been my 
 whole course in connection with these parties. 
 
 It is untrue — it is absolutely and entirely un- 
 true—on the other side, that I said that these men 
 ought to be expelled from the Commonwealth. 
 My position was one of strict neutrality. I said 
 that while I was willing to see these men remov- 
 ed by law, if they violated any law. I was the 
 sworn and eternal enemy of mobs, come they 
 from what source they might. As soon as I 
 heard that my name was connected with this tran- 
 saction in that^way, that I, who had fought against 
 some eight or ten mobs, had come and sanctioned 
 a mob, I immediately wrote to the editors of the 
 Richmond Messenger and the Cincinnati Gazette, 
 utterly denying it, and stating my views. What 
 was the result ? I was told eight .days after it 
 was done, and that with the influence of my name, 
 he of the Messenger received my letter. In eight 
 days he received my letter, at a distance of about 
 .an" hour's ride from my office. That was what 
 Judge Field told me the day before I left. I have 
 inquired with regard to the ottier letter to the 
 Cincinnati Gazette, and have learned that there 
 has been no such letter received in that quarter. 
 
 FEE AND JOHN BROWN. 
 
 What further ? Mr. Fee is stated here as sanc- 
 tioning the raid of Brown upon Virginia. [A 
 voice on the outskirt— "Hurra for Brown."] Let 
 lis be honest! Fee is an exile; he is a native 
 Kentuckian; he has, away from this, explained 
 himself, and I have received a report of the 
 speech at Brooklyn, and he there stated that 
 
 while he admired the self-consecration, or in 
 other words the devotion, of John Brown, he did 
 not approve of his course, nor of his way of 
 settleing the slavery question: in other words, he 
 was opposed to insurrectien. It was his view of 
 the matter that he should go to slave-holders, 
 and by argument induce them, and by the force 
 of divine teaching, persuade them to relinquish 
 their hold upon the slaves. 
 
 A SOKRY HOAX. 
 
 Well, genflemen, the report reaches us of boxes 
 of Sharpe's rifles having been transported tlu'ough 
 the ordinary channels of commerce to Berca. Af- 
 ter these men are removed, we are now told that 
 this was all a hoax. All I have to say about that 
 is that it was a very sorry hoax. A sorry hoax as 
 far as Fee is concerned, doing him great injustice, 
 imputing to him a criminal intent that lie did not 
 entertain and a purpose he did not design, and, so 
 far as the Commonwealth is concerned, certain!)' 
 it is a sorry hoax. 
 
 So much in connection with that subject. I ad- 
 mit that a great many very respectable gentlemen 
 in the county of Madison were in this affair — men 
 for whose character and lives I have a profound 
 respect personally, and good feeling and friend- 
 ship. All that I can say is that I regret on their 
 account, this transaction, but more especially do I 
 regret the influence this thing must have upon the 
 large class of the people of the county, who were 
 receiving the benefit of the education that these 
 men were bestowing. Mr. Fee has nothing to 
 lose — he will go where he will be paid as a time- 
 serving man, or as otjier preachers of the Gospel of 
 Christ ; but the number of the uneducated, con- 
 stituting two-thirds of every born child in the 
 mountains around that little colony, will be the 
 sufferers by his absence. 
 
 THE NEW GOD. 
 
 We are told also in that report that this man 
 imported a new god — that the slaveholders' god 
 was not good enough for him and his associates, 
 and this is attributed as a reproach. I knew the 
 community in and around Berea when I was a boy, 
 and I say that they were of the most vicious people 
 that ever I did know : a drunken, tobacco-chew- 
 ing, whisky-drinking people ; debauchery and 
 fighting could there be seen as plainly as the 
 noon day sun. But now, how is all this changed. 
 The price of land lias advanced as these gentle- 
 men themselves admit, and morality reigns where 
 disorder was predominant. Why, sir, they have 
 invaded the great State of Kentucky. How? 
 With Sharpe's rifles, pistols, and bowie knives? 
 No ! but with the New Testament, the school- 
 house, the church, and the saw-mill. It has even 
 been objected that they were erecting a saw-mill. 
 Where before the inhabitants dwelt in huts with- 
 out windows and with mud floors, these men have 
 introduced neat frame buildings. The children that 
 before were indulging in idleness and dissipation, 
 had been reformed and were going to one of the 
 best schools in Madison county, and in so saying, 
 I make no single exception. A certain degree of 
 self respect has been inspired in the people, and 
 I venture to say that now tliere is no better peo- 
 ple in the State than those who surround the col- 
 ony of Berea, in the county of Madison. This is 
 the new god they introduced. No, sir ! no new 
 god has been introduced. It is the same God 
 who before the long centuries created the heavens 
 and the earth, who based His Throne upon tlio 
 eternal principles of justice, and draped it in the 
 undying beauty of harmony, liberty and love. 
 
Well, gentlemen, with this personal explana- 
 tion, I proceed to the main argument ; and, for the 
 I)urpose of brevity, I shall group together the 
 allegations made by the Governor in las message, 
 and the allegations made by the Vice-President 
 in his published speech. The peculiar position 
 in which I am plivced will prevent me from going 
 into an elaborate argument, as I had intended, and 
 you will pardon me if I skip much, and perhaps 
 thereby weaken the strength of my discourse. ' 
 
 THE HIGHER LAW. 
 
 I understand the preliminary charge to be, in 
 the first place, against what the distinguished 
 Senator elect chooses to style the sentiment of a 
 leading Republican of the United States, none 
 other than Governor Seward, the present Sena- 
 tor of New York. Allow me to say, in the begin- 
 ning, that I am not now, and never have been, a 
 partizan of Senator Seward ; but, standing as he 
 does, one of the representatives of the Empire 
 State of New York, that great State in wliich 
 centers not only the commerce, but, I may say, 
 the political intelligence of this country; ad- 
 mitted on all hands to be as able a man, if not the 
 ablest man, in the Senate of the United States, I 
 say I would be doing injustice were I not to vindi- 
 cate him from all that which is unjustly imputed 
 to him here. At other times and in other places 
 that Senator is perfectly competent to vindicate 
 himself, but here in Kentucky, where that vindi- 
 cation, on account of the censorship of the press, 
 and in part, the refusal to allow the constitutional 
 freedom of speech, he will hardly else be vindi- 
 cated. I imagine I shall not be considered at all 
 intrusive if I answer one or two of those charges 
 made by those distinguished gentlemen : 
 
 The first denunciation that comes to us with 
 regard t<i Mr. Seward is that he is a higher law 
 man. Let us look at that for a moment — a higher 
 law man. I intend to be veiy distinctly under- 
 stood on this subject. In this time as great issues 
 — issues unparalleled in their consequence in the 
 world are dependent upon the principles advo- 
 cated b}' parties, you should not go away with 
 doubt upon your minds, and you will allow me to 
 go into details as to the true meaning of this 
 term. I understand, then, gentlemen, in the com- 
 mon sense in which this term is used, by a higher 
 law, an enactment that has the sacredness, the 
 weight, and the power that belongs to no human 
 law. Now are we a Christian people, and is 
 there any man that claims to be one of the com- 
 mon brotherhood of Christianity that will deny 
 that there is an overruling Providence who gov- 
 cras the universe by eternal and immutable laws 
 which will prevail", the vicious or sacraligious 
 attempts of man to the contrary notwitiistanding? 
 There is no man who will be so regardless of the 
 sentiment of Christian gocnlness as to utter any 
 such idea as that. Tliat then is the "higher 
 law" which he acknowledged; and, although I 
 do not quote him from the book, I will state his 
 position specifically : it was on the question of 
 admitting the Territory on the Pacific as a Free 
 State wlien he said that California ought not 
 only to be free, but a home for those driven 
 out from the Slave States by the competition of 
 unpaid labor, and for others driven from their 
 homes by the competition of capital in the Free 
 States ; "but there was a " higher law " even than 
 constitutions to which this new constitution should 
 be conformed. I put it to every Democrat who 
 hears me to-night if that is not the true doctrine, 
 ff that be not so how dares President Buchanan 
 
 to make his recommendations to Congress in th 
 name of the Almighty God ? 
 
 That, then, is the assertion. It is not an asser- 
 tion that brings anarchy upon a community, but 
 it is the only one principle of right and justice 
 upon which the permanent good of the com- 
 munity can rest. It is the only permanent se- 
 curity for goods, property, reputation, lives, and 
 (minion, and that was the sense in which Senator 
 Reward has uttered that sentiment, and he has 
 again and again said when constitutions were 
 made and laws enacted, not that we should cast 
 ignominy and reproach upon them, or disobey 
 them, but that we should acquiesce in them, obey- 
 ing them until they are changed by an intelligent 
 constituency, acting through the legislative de- 
 partment of the Government. That is what he 
 said and there I stand by him, here and else- 
 where, now and forever, and there is not a man 
 here to-night that does not stand by us, acknowl- 
 edge that principle, that higher law, that reliance 
 upon God, if he dare speak liis honest sentiments. 
 
 We had a great deal of it at least, in this same 
 Representatives' Hall from which we are excluded 
 to-night. The op])osite party found there was 
 a " higher law " and what was that Divine and 
 Omnipotent God? It was Slavery- 1 Slavery is 
 higher than heaven and earth, and all constitu- 
 tions and laws. It is found' in the Constitution, 
 we are told, or it is higher than that Constitu- 
 tion ; and since that time we have heard nothing 
 of the "higher law" of Senator Seward. That 
 thing is neutralized, as chemists say — done for, as 
 common men may urge. 
 
 THE IRKEPRESS'lBLE CONFLICT. 
 
 Another allegation is made against that Senator' 
 intended to affect the Republican organization. 
 It is now alleged that he has announced in his 
 Rochester speech, this much abused and cant 
 phrase of a conflict, that there is a conflict be- 
 tween slave labor and free labor all through this 
 Government, and the conflict has been going on 
 and will be going on until one or the other ut- 
 terly triumphs. Tliat is the assertion. We ac- 
 knowledge it — we own up. So let us examine 
 it. Why, gentlemen, I understand that to be the 
 dechirafrm of our fathers in 1776. I understood 
 that to be the openly avowed sentiment of Wash- 
 ington, Madison, and .lefferson. I understood that 
 to be the declaration of the resolution in Virginia, 
 for which your candidate for Speaker of the Dem- 
 ocratic party, Mr. Bocock, voted some years ago. I 
 understood, furthermore, that that was the decla- 
 ration of the late South Carolina Legislature, and 
 above all, I have it here, taken from the Louis- 
 ville Courier, the leading organ of the Democ- 
 racy in Kentucky, made more than ten years ago. 
 You would like to read it. Then you will have 
 the goodness to turn to the files of that journal, 
 and see if I lie or not. (Cries of "read it.") 
 
 [Speaker was interrupted by a heavy fall or 
 rain, which forced him to retire into the rotunda o. 
 of the State House.] 
 
 I will read the extract, which I cut with my 
 own scissors from the Louisville Courier, and 
 by referring to the files of that paper you will 
 find it in the words which I to-night quote : 
 
 " I presume that it will not be denied that free 
 lalwr and slave labor are incompatible. The 
 white man is unwilling to labor by the side of 
 the slave, and the slave is equally averse to la- 
 boring by the aide of the white man. There ex- 
 
ists a mutual repugnancy, and it follows, of 
 course, that the mass of the labor of Kentucky 
 must be wholly the labor of the white man, or 
 wholly the labor of the slave." 
 
 What think you of that, coming from this high 
 Democratic authority ? Mark the extent to which 
 this gentleman carries the idea. Not only that 
 there is a conflict, but he goes further. He says 
 not only does the white man refuse to labor with 
 the slave, but mark him well, he puts the slave 
 above the Democratic white laborer of the Com- 
 monwealth, and tells you the sentiment of tlie 
 slave. What then is his conclusion ? Why that 
 in the conflict the "nigger" is to have prece- 
 dence, so that slave labor becomes entirely pre- 
 dominant in the Commonwealth. What sort of 
 Democratic teaching is that? In the name of 
 God let us hear no more from the Democratic 
 party, from Governor Magoffin, or Vice-President 
 Breckinridge, of this thing about the higher law 
 or of this eternal conflict between free aud slave 
 labor. 
 
 THE IGNORED EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 But what did Governor Seward say? With 
 that characteristic injustice wliich pervades too 
 many of the Democratic journals, all the essen- 
 tial and philosophic qualifications of that ex- 
 pression have been withheld from the free white 
 laborers of the South. What says Governor Sew- 
 ard ? Governor Seward is a long-headed man. 
 It is not denied that, whatsoever he may be, he 
 knows what he is about. I heard one of the most 
 distinguished jurists of the Commonwealth of 
 Kentucky say that he had the clearest and most 
 philosophic head of any man in the Union ; and 
 what does this clear-headed man say ? Does he 
 leave it capable of perversion ? Does he say that 
 because slave labor and free labor are incompat- 
 ible that the Republican party are going to en- 
 slave the white men of the South, or to interfere 
 with the slavery now existing in tlie South ? No, 
 sir ! I deny that. I will state substantially what 
 he dojs say. He says, and this is the important 
 item which is left out by the Demorcatic press, 
 that although this philosophical conclusion is go- 
 ing on, whether it is the work of this century or 
 of the next, or of ten centuries, or of ten thou- 
 sand centuries, he does not undertake to deter- 
 mine, nor can any other man ; but he does say 
 that it will take" place ; not by violence, not by 
 John Brown raids, or conflicts and bloodshed, but 
 peaceably by the amendment of the constitutions 
 and laws of the several Southern States them- 
 S3lves. 
 
 Is there a Democrat here unwilling to indorse 
 that method of settling the conflict which Demo- 
 cratic papers assert exists ? Suppose the great 
 people ot the Commonwealth of Kentucky choose 
 to throw up the barbarian relic, whc shall object? 
 What says your Democratic authority? Have 
 you not the right to do it? Is not that the idea ? 
 If it is not, here, then is a "higher law "—the 
 law of Slavery, higher than that of all Demo- 
 cratic principles, that is, the same Divine right 
 against which we f< ught in the British king, by 
 which he claimed to rule over us without our con- 
 sent. Whatever it be, be it even the law of God, 
 that is certainly not Democracy : it is despotism ; 
 it is the same old Divine right of kings, and noth- 
 ing else, disguise it as you may. So said Gov- 
 ernor Seward. So say" I, and so says tie Demo- 
 cratic party. The R publican party in the States 
 of the Union say that it is none of their business — 
 that if South Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia 
 choose to own slaves by voluntary consent, by the 
 
 ascertained will of the majority of the people, let 
 them hold on to the institution to all eternity, but, 
 if the people of South Carolina, Georgia, or Ken- 
 tucky, in their omnipotent power, as the sovereigns 
 of their own country, choose to abolish it in a 
 way that seems to them good, it is none of our 
 business; in God's name, let them do it. That 
 is the doctrine I have always avowed in this 
 Commonwealth, that inasmuch as I was a free 
 born white citizen of Kentucky, for the freedom 
 of which mv fathers stood, my sentiments were 
 for the expulsion of this system from our Com- 
 monwealth : but further than that I did not claim 
 to go. If we choose to abolish or maintain slav- 
 ery, it is our business. If Virginia, South Caro- 
 olina, or Missouri chooses to abolish it, it is their 
 business, and it is an officious intermeddling that 
 tries to dictate to Kentucky, and say if I be al- 
 lowed to exercise my constitutional rights, these 
 people are cowards. " Inasmuch as I leave them 
 free to claim their State sr.vereignty and powers, 
 I claim to exercise my constitutional rights as a 
 citizen within the limits of my own jurisdiction. 
 
 That is the doctrine of the Repubican party. So 
 far as the southern members of that party are con- 
 cerned, they say that it is our business and none of 
 theirs ; but so "far as the National Government is 
 concerned it was established, as they believe, upon 
 the basis of equal rights, and they say tliat into the 
 free territories of the Union slavery shall not go. 
 That is the ground— the distinctive ground of the 
 Republican party ; the only ground at issue be- 
 tween the great parties of the United States. 
 
 But, as I said before, I do not stand here to 
 vindicate Governor Seward, especially ; onlyso 
 far as allegations have been made against him, 
 and through him have been intended to act upon 
 and against the Republican party, have I alluded 
 to this matter at all. 
 
 SEWARD AND JOHN BROWN. 
 
 While upon this subject let us notice the con- 
 nection attempted to be made between tlie Repub- 
 lican organization as concerned with the raid of 
 John Brown upon Virginia ; especially, perhaps, 
 as it applies to this distinguished Senator from 
 New York. Preliminary to this, aliow me to 
 state that upon the subject of slavery there are 
 three distinct parties in the United States. One 
 that calls itself par excellence the Abolition party. 
 That began under William Lloj'd Garrison, and it 
 is still kept up, partly by himself, and partly by a 
 greater than he, this great bug-a-boo, Wendell 
 Phillips. What are tlie doctrines of that party? 
 It is fairly and squarely acknowledged by tliera 
 that the Constitution is a slavery document, inas- 
 much as it binds all the millions of the free 
 States, in case of a servile insurrection in the 
 Southern States, to stand by and defend the rights 
 of the master against th"e slave. They come 
 squarely and frankly to the mark, and say that 
 inasmuch as from tlioir education and the teach- 
 ings of their consciences they are unwilling to 
 carry out that part of the compact, tliat they go 
 for a dissolution of the Union; let the slave 
 States goto themselves, and let us go to ourselves. 
 If the Southern Stiites choose to hold slaves let 
 them do it, but inasmuch as we choose not to 
 hold slaves we will not, and we will not bear the 
 responsibility of their acts. Let us depart in 
 peace, the one from the other. They are, how- 
 ever, non-resistants. But let me say, while 
 speaking of Phillips, he is the greatest man that 
 I ever listened to— I speak of his intellect. One- 
 idea'd as he has been called, there is a power and 
 versatility and universality in him that is pos- 
 
sessed by no orator livinn: or dead. That is his 
 opinion. He is a non-resistant. He stands re- 
 sponsible for his own opinions to man and to God. 
 It is not for me to defend him here. 
 
 THE RADICAL ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 Next comes the radical abolition party. They 
 say that the idea of dissolving the Union is too 
 far removed, they cannot wait for this moral in- 
 fluence to exert itself. By tlie way I should men- 
 tion that the Garrison and Phillips party does not 
 vote. They think if they vote under the Consti- 
 tution and hold office under it, they would be 
 bound to take the oath of allegiance, and inas- 
 much as they cannot do that, they do not vote or 
 hold office ; but not so with the radical abolition- 
 ists ; they hold that they have a right not only to 
 vote but to abolish Slavery in the States. They 
 too have a " higher law," and say that inasmuch 
 as slaveholders have proclaimed that Slavery is 
 a higher law they make issue, and say that liber- 
 ty is above all constitutions and laws, and that 
 the slave is allowed entirely the use of his own 
 discretion as to where and how he may liberate 
 himself, if liberation is within his reach. To 
 that party belonged John Brown. To that party 
 belonged Cook, and to that paity belonged every 
 man decidedly and ascertained ly implicated in 
 that raid. Not one belonged to the Republican 
 organization. No, Sire. After all attempts in 
 every quarter to make capital out of the affiiir 
 there has not been proved to be one single Repub- 
 lican standing in alliance with Seward and my- 
 self that they have been able to implicate re- 
 motely or directly in this raid of John Brown. 
 
 I rejoice that those resolutions of investigation 
 have been passed in the Senate of the United 
 States, that they may call for me, that they may 
 call for Gov. Seward, that they may call on any 
 other Republican, North and South, and bring 
 them before the proper committee of the Senate of 
 the United States, and there make them fairly and 
 fully disclose all that they know upon the sub- 
 ject. I tell you, now, it will result in our vindi- 
 cation, and in the mortification of those who have 
 attempted to do Seward this signal injustice. 
 
 HANG-DOG TESTIMONY. 
 
 What is the testimony upon which your papers, 
 and the papers of Madison, have arraigned be- 
 fore the committee these men. Why, that a cer- 
 tain infamous English renegade, one Forbes — 
 who avowedly fought for pay in Kansas, and 
 whose pay ceased as the contest there ceased ; 
 who fought for money in that territory where your 
 children and my children met to seek homes, 
 when driven out bj- the strong competition of 
 unpaid wages — publishes and declares that he 
 intimated in a conversation with Mr. Seward that 
 sucli a raid was going on ; as he afterwards said 
 he did not understand it to be anything but a raid 
 to collect together and carry out slaves from the 
 slave States by a kind of stampede. What does 
 he say that Ciov. Seward said ? " Sir, I will 
 have nothing to do with any such project. You 
 have no business to talk U) me, a Senator of the 
 United States, upon any such subject." But 
 what does Mr. Seward say of all this when he 
 heard of it on his distant travel ? Said he, I saw 
 a man by the name of Forbes, but I utterly deny, 
 upon tlie honor of a man, that I ever had any 
 intimation directly or indirectly touching ujwn 
 any such raid. I put it to every honest man, to 
 Mr. Magoffin, to Mr. Breckinridge and all their 
 suppoi'ters, is there a single one of you, on such 
 testimony as this by an infamous renegade who 
 
 deserted his comrades in arms, who would put to 
 death the meanest sheep-killing dog ? I will 
 speak for you ! — I know you would not — not one 
 of you would. Yet this is to implicate Gov. 
 Seward, and through him to cast a slur upon the 
 great Republican party of these United States. 
 No, gentlemen, we may go down, but I tell you 
 here, now, 1 tell all these gentlemen we will never 
 go down upon such testimony as that. There- 
 fore I reiterate, we challenge you to the disclo- 
 sure. We boldly hurl back the imputation as 
 untrue, whatever ma_y be its intent and purpose, 
 and we defy you to the testimony, and appeal to 
 the country. That is what we do. 
 
 ABOUT INSURRECTION, 
 
 While upon this subject, allow me to say a 
 word upon the subject of insurrections. I believe 
 I have made more speeches in vindication of the 
 Republican party than any man in the United 
 States, north or south. I believe, from my cor- 
 respondence with individuals, associations, and 
 other combinations of that party, I am as inti- 
 mately acquainted with the purposes of that party 
 as any man in Amei'ica, and I will tell you what 
 I believe those purposes now to be, according to 
 my understanding, and their views with regard 
 to this whole subject of the liberation of slaves 
 by force, and servile insurrection. 
 
 We now and always have regarded the poor 
 African as of an inferior race, and altliough we 
 do not pretend to divine the inscrutable designs 
 of Deity, although we cannot say what may be 
 the design of the great "I am;" whether they 
 shall ascend in the scale of h\imanity, and we go 
 down, or they go up still higher, we leave these 
 questions entirely to the philosophical speculator, 
 saying that is not a subject of political action at 
 all ; but so far as practicability is concerned, we 
 hold that the black man is now of an inferior race, 
 and although the poet says " that the worm feels 
 a pang as great as when a giant dies," yet we 
 believe that is all poetry, and not truth. The life 
 of man and of woman is desirable as it is ele- 
 vated and removed from the condition of the beast 
 of the field that perisheth. Therefore it is, that 
 when Great Britain held her supremacy over the 
 immense millions of India, attempting by the 
 despotic power of force to rule it by no amalga- 
 mation of interests, taking it under a common 
 protection and into a common glory those untold 
 millions of Eastern men, but ruling by force ; 
 and when upon the abstract proposition, every 
 man was bound to confess that the right was on 
 the side of the Indians, yet my sympathies vi-ere 
 on the side of our common ancestors, and I im- 
 agine, that outside of a few fanatics, that there 
 were no men among these thirty millions of people 
 that did not symi)athize with the British. The 
 white race as against the red and colored races of 
 India, although, as I saj-, the right was on the 
 side of the East Indians. Why? Because there 
 was this development of our race, making them 
 little less than godlike and divine, and because 
 more especially these men had proved by bru- 
 tality, when a temporary success crowned their 
 efforts, that they were unfit for liberty. The man 
 who dares not to be generous, is not fit to rule or 
 to be free, and we all rejoiced when we under- 
 stood that the old British lion had risen triumph- 
 ant over the Juggernautish flags of the people. 
 
 But we come down a page lower in history and 
 sec Hungary when it struggled against a superior 
 power, for that independence wliich Austria at- 
 tempted to take away from them. When she 
 fought for her God-given and national rights of 
 
independence, all this was changed. Why ? Be- 
 cause, by the liberation of their slaves they 
 showed that they perceived a great principle, and 
 in this acknowledgment of a great principle, they 
 based themselves indissolubly upon the sympathy 
 of all the unbiased intellect of our wide world 
 humanity. We all wanted Hungary to triumph. 
 We all desired her independence. So, in regard 
 to the black race, I say here to-night that which 
 I have said as many as ten or twelve years ago, 
 that if that issue arose, which God forbid it 
 should come, when the African slave and the 
 superior race should take up arms to vindicate 
 their liberty, which can be in some States done 
 but by the abolishment of the white race, I am on 
 the side of my own race. The solution of this 
 problem is a fraternal one. These are the senti- 
 ments which I have always avowed, therefore I 
 cast back the infamous calumny that there is in 
 my breast any sentiment like that which would 
 sanction the making of a raid upon the South. 
 Further, I believe this to be the sentiment, so far 
 as I know them, of the members of the great Re- 
 publican party of the States. 
 
 THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 
 Well now, gentlemen, the great question is per- 
 tinently asked. Why did a large portion of the 
 Republican party sympathise with John Brown 
 upon his death ? I care not who the truth may 
 cut, whether it be friend or foe, I stand here 
 avowing, and if I know myself, as God is my 
 helper, I intend to speak candidly and frankly 
 and above board, and I tell you why, men of Ken- 
 tucky, there was this sympathy for John Brown. 
 Your resolutions here to-day, as emanating from 
 the Democratic State Convention tell us that the 
 Republican party is responsible for the John 
 Brown raid. These are the resolutions as they 
 will go out in this commonwealth, this is 
 the meaning of the resolutions as they will 
 go to the people of Kentucky, and as we 
 read to the same purport in the Message of Gov. 
 Magoffin, and in the speech of the Vice President. 
 They draw an inference, they have now abandon- 
 ed'; the charge direct, and now they have dra\yn 
 the inference that our principles led to that raid, 
 and therefore we are responsible. Well, now 
 gentlemen, if the responsibility rests upon prin- 
 ciple, it goes further back than Seward, Clay, or 
 any other Republican. Where does it go? To 
 the year 1776, when your fathers and my fathers 
 declared themselves free and independent of the 
 British crown, and when they further declared 
 that " all men are created free and equal, and are 
 endowed with certain inalienable rights, among 
 which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happpi- 
 ness." There rests the responsibility according 
 to your resolutions, not upon us, but upon that 
 bant of patriots. They were those who made 
 the avowals, and we are those that stand by the 
 faith once transmitted to the saints. When you 
 accuse me and all of us, you accuse them, and 
 until you are ready to accuse them, and are ready 
 to go with John C. Calhoun in the Senate of the 
 United States, and say that the Declaration of 
 Independence is all a lie. I demur to your alle- 
 gation. I say that you are estopped from alleg- 
 ing that against us. You ought not to strike at 
 the inferior while the superior workers for the 
 blessings of life and liberty remain untouched— 
 these glorious men who preceded us, and gave 
 us this Constiution. 
 
 TDE DE.MOCKATIC PABTY RESPONSIBLE. 
 
 Now I will tell you where the responsibility 
 came from. It came from this same Democratic 
 
 party. Now I make that allegation, but I am 
 not going to base it upon speculation. I am not 
 putting the charge upon inferences drawn by 
 Cass. Clay, that I make the charge direct; but if 
 I don't produce the evidence and prove that, I 
 say, if you give me the opportunity, let me here- 
 after stand infamous before men. 
 
 In the first place, what says the great Ameri- 
 can party of Kentucky, that party which, with 
 all its faults, still embodies so many great truths, 
 and which, amid all its short comings from the 
 higher standard that we have marked out for our- 
 selves, still has some regard for truth and justice ! 
 What does the representative of that party say, 
 your late President, and the candidate of that 
 party for the Presidency, what does he say ? the 
 man that you Americans voted for; the man that 
 you have been in the habit of holding upas a 
 true patriot and conservative man— what did he 
 say to the late Union meeting, what did Millard 
 Fillmore say upon that subject? Why said he: 
 Gentlemen, I am getting old, I have retired from 
 political life; my work is done, good or bad; I 
 regret that I was under the necessity of signing 
 the bill called the Fugitive Slave Law, but I felt 
 it to be my duty, and howevermuch 1 may regret 
 it, yet a firm regard to the Constitution and laws 
 of the country compelled me to sign that bill. 
 And all this trouble, says Mr. Fillmore, " the la- 
 mentable tragedy at Harper's Ferry is clearly 
 traceable to this unfortunate controversy about 
 slavery in Kansas." Where docs he say the 
 responsibility lies ? It lies upon that Democratic 
 measure that repealed the Missouri Compromise 
 of 1820. There is the cause of it. Still, are ^ve 
 going to take Mr. Fillmore's word for it? High 
 authority as he may be, we do not intend to take 
 it; but we will review for a very few moments the 
 history of the country in connection with that 
 matter, and see if it does not bring the responsi- 
 bility upon that party, as affirmed by Mr. Fill- 
 more, and seconded by myself and the Republican 
 party. 
 
 Well, now, gentlemen, there is a man lately 
 dead, a man whose name I have the honor to 
 bear, and with great humility I say it. I stand 
 here to-night to defend his principles. Henry Clay 
 is admitted to be the founder, and entitled to all the 
 honor of it, of that compromise of 1820. As I 
 passed down yesterday from my home and my 
 agricultural pursuits, by the city of Lexington, I 
 saw a huge pile of massive stone raised to the 
 memory of Henry Clay. Gentlemen, are you 
 going to re-enact the folly and madness that the 
 Savior denounced in the ancient Jews ? Are 
 you going to ornament and whitewash the out- 
 ward sepulcher, while inwardly there is nothing 
 but courruption ? Do you intend to build eternal 
 monuments of brass to the memory of Henry 
 Clay, while you trample under foot the men who 
 have the courage to stand up and defend his prin- 
 ciples ? Will you garnish the tomb, while the im- 
 m irtal spirit sliall be ignored in his representatives? 
 If yon intend to deny these principles, go and 
 level that monument" to the ground, return that 
 marble to the quarry, and then rush upon us and 
 hide them in our blood, but not till then. He is 
 the author of that compromise, and what is it? 
 That north of 3G degrees 30 minutes African 
 slavery shall never extend, leaving it entirely aa 
 a matter of inference whether south of that line 
 or net it shall extend. That is the Missouri Com- 
 promise. Now, while I admit that there is no 
 power in Congress to make strictly what may be 
 called a compromise, because it has an unlimited 
 and sovereign power bounded only by the Consti- 
 
tution itself, so that no one Congress shall say 
 what a succeeding Congress shall or shall not 
 do, yet the language has been used ; it was a com- 
 pact, and it was elevated and placed alongside 
 the Constitution itself. An honest registrar of 
 the event states that after it passed so great was 
 the sanctity of that measure that it became as a 
 part of the Constitution itself, the palladura of 
 our liberty, and he was afraid if ever it should 
 go down, the Constitution would go down with it. 
 It existed to the year 1 854. 
 
 ALLEGATIONS ANSWERED. 
 
 Gentlemen, I utterly deny the allegations that I 
 hear made in this Hall of Representatives, that 
 the compromise of 1820 was repealed, or in- 
 tended to be repealed, by the compromisesof 1850. 
 and upon this point I appeal to the country. No 
 wonder that it is dark to-night — no wonder that 
 they have put out the lights. Read the speeches 
 of that day. Why Mr. Clay was alive in 1850. 
 Mr. Clay was in the Congress of the United 
 States — he took part in tlie debates of 1850, and 
 I am at a loss to find where the statement was 
 made. In 1854 was the very first time wo were 
 told that it was at all claimed that there was an in- 
 tention immediate or remote, direct or reflective, to 
 affect that compromise of 1820 by that of 1850. 
 How will I prove that? I prove'it to you by the 
 admission of Stephen A. Douglass himself. Yes, 
 sirs, that man who is held up here in Kentucky, 
 that by a certain kind of hocus pocus is to be 
 foisted upon you and the Charleston Convention, 
 t<2lls us in his first Senate report before the 
 Kansas-Nebraska Bill was offered, that no ruth- 
 less hand shall dare to rise against that compro- 
 mise. Go to the Congressional Globe. I know it 
 is now on record. I defy the Democratic party or 
 anybody to deny that when they referred to the 
 compromise of 1820, that it was to be preserved 
 for years after. It is said it was to be repealed. 
 Are "you not ashamed of yourselves ? If you are 
 not you should be now to venture such an asser- 
 tion as that. 
 
 It is history, gentlemen. You may tear me 
 down from this stand ; you may consecrate the 
 principles which I here to-night defend, with my 
 blood , if you please ; but there will stand the 
 truth, and that truth says that your assertion is 
 untrue, and that every Democrat knows it to be 
 untrue, that the compromise of 1820 was repealed 
 by the compromise of 1850. It is not true 1 And 
 tliatit is not true has been avowed by the leading 
 man that brought in and carrried that bill, and 
 who based his claim for the Presidency upon his 
 devotion to the South. Thank God for pen, ink, 
 and paper, sometimes used in this Commonwealth 
 and others, although it is very anti -democratic 
 to use them, it seems. 
 
 THE GAME OF GRAB. 
 
 Let us get along a little further. "Why did 
 they want to repeal the Compromise of 1820? 
 What is the matter, you Democrats of the ITnited 
 States ? You have "had the power, you say, all 
 the time or almost all the time from the founda- 
 tion of the government to the present day. You 
 have had possession of the government since its 
 foundation, and where is the necessity now of re- 
 pealing this Compromise ? Why, although you 
 had the influence of the government, both in its 
 foreign and domestic policy, under pretence of 
 subserving the rights of the people, you have 
 used them to maintain the rights of slavery, and 
 after a race of nearly three-quarters of a century, 
 you are entirely beliiud. The North has growu 
 
 in population and material, and intellectual de 
 velopment far beyond your growth — " the sceptre 
 is about to depart from Judea ;" and what now ? 
 Why we must repeal the Missouri Compromise, 
 and take the start upon the progressive area of 
 freedom, and check this power of conflict that the 
 Louisville Courier and Gov. Seward speak of, 
 and thus we may maintain our supremacy. That 
 was it! Why, although you have divided the 
 territory between the North and the South, that 
 territory, j'ou say, was purchased by the common 
 blood and treasure, and therefore you have a right 
 to go into it and carry your slaves, when you do 
 not allow the man who goes there from Ohio to 
 carry them there. You have passed your laws 
 prohibiting the African slave trade ; you monop- 
 olize the carrying of slaves among yourselves. 
 
 Although you divide that territory ceded to 
 this government, and make out of it Louisiana, 
 Arkansas and Missouri — three slave States— and 
 when the North comes to take possession of her 
 portion of the bargain, consisting of all the terri- 
 tory north of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, 
 you say, " No, gentlemen ; that game is out, we 
 must have a new deal." [Laughter.] Well, now 
 my honest friend, what do you mean by a new 
 deal ? Are you going to put up stakes and begin 
 anew ? Are you going to put up Louisiana, 
 Arkansas and Missouri, and see in the struggle 
 whether freedom or slavery is the stronger? 
 " Oh, no ! nothing of that kind ; we hold all we 
 have got, and we intend to play the game of 
 snatch and get all we can," [Laughter.] 
 
 DOUGLAS' DREAM. 
 
 Come on again then ! Mr. Douglas, for the 
 purpose of gaining political power, to the loss of 
 his constituents and for the purpose of maintain- 
 ing the interests of slavery and slaveholders, 
 against the great voting population of the country 
 both North and South, and to make slavery pre- 
 dominant, tells us that the Missouri Compromise 
 of 1820 is unconstitutional. This man who a few 
 days before had come into the Senate of the 
 United States, admitting that this compromise 
 was sacred and must not be touched, some two or 
 three days after had a dream, and the result is 
 that he finds out he had been mistaken, that our 
 fathers were mistaken; that the action taken in 
 1788 was a mistake; that the action for the non-ex- 
 tension of slavery which was re-enacted under the 
 constitution in 1789, and carried out under every 
 President from Washington to Monroe, in having 
 declared that they had a right to restrain the 
 spread of slavery, was a mistake. He suddenly 
 found out that our fathers did not know anything 
 about the matter ; their action was unconstitu- 
 tional, it was unconstitutional to pass this great 
 measure, and, therefore, the Democratic party re- 
 pealed it, and Douglas helped them to do it. 
 
 Well, what did the Northern men do? What 
 did the Republican party do ? Why, they said, 
 gentlemen it is a lamentable thing that the decla- 
 ration of the Constitution itself, gives the power 
 expressly to Congress to regulate the Terri- 
 tories—that is the word, "to regulate " the Terri- 
 tories—making no limitation, but giving absolute 
 power, and yet you deny the constitutionality of 
 action under" it. " As I said before, the very first 
 action under the Constitution in 1789, was an ex- 
 ercise of that power to "make all needful rules 
 and regulations respecting the territory," and 
 following down as long as the Presidents that 
 were alive at the signing of the Constitution, 
 lived, and coming to our own times as late as 
 when Oregon was formed into a Territory, to a 
 
few days ago, this action has been deemed con- 
 stitutional, when all at once these measures were 
 found out to be based upon a fallacy, and it was 
 discovered that we had no power to carry them 
 out. What did we do? Because we loved the 
 Union ; because we, North and South, had fought 
 the common battles of the country, and joined in 
 the love of a common liberty, standing shoulder 
 to shoulder, we will try the thing once more ; we 
 believe free labor is competent to sustain itself : 
 we will go into the Territory, apply the test, and 
 see whether or not it shall be Free or Slave. 
 
 DEMOCRACY AS IT WAS. 
 
 Gentlemen, let me read a few Democratic 
 
 Flatforms to show how this thingwent along, 
 will read you the Democratic platform of 
 1853, two years before the passage of the Kan- 
 sas-Nebraska bill, so far as it touches upon the 
 subject of Slavery: 
 
 "That Congress has no power under the 
 Constitution, to interfere with or control the 
 domestic institutions of the several States, 
 and that such States arc the sole and proper 
 judges of everything appertaining to their own 
 affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; 
 that all efforts of the Abolitionists or others, 
 made to induce Congress to interfere with the 
 questions of Slavery, or to take incipient 
 steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead 
 to the most alarming and dangerous conse- 
 quences." 
 
 What say you to that, Democrats? Although 
 you declared in black and white that it was 
 dangerous to interfere with the subject of 
 slavery, what have you done? Did you not 
 say it was dangerous to interfere? Answer 
 me that, and let me go on! You are silent. You 
 are condemned out of your own mouths. I 
 proceed : 
 
 "And that all such efforts have an inevitable 
 tendency to diminish the happiness of the 
 people and endanger the stability and perma- 
 nency of the Union." 
 
 You condemn yourselves again. 
 
 "And ought not to be countenanced by any 
 friend of our political institutions." 
 
 "Kesolved, That the foregoing proposition 
 covers and was intended to embrace the 
 "WHOLE SUBJECT of slavery agitation in Con- 
 gress." 
 
 Mark that the words "the whole subject" 
 are in small cajjs in their reported resolutions. 
 
 "And therefore the Democratic party of the 
 Union, standing upon their national platform, 
 will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution 
 of the acts known as the compromise measures 
 settled by the last Congress — the act for re- 
 claiming of fugitives trom service or labor in- 
 cluded, which act being designed to carry out 
 the express provision of the Constitution can. 
 not be repealed or so changed as to dettroy or 
 impair its efficiency." 
 
 "Resolved, That' the Democratic party will 
 resist all attempts at renewing in Congress or 
 out of it, the agitation of the slavery question 
 under whatever shape or color the attempt 
 may be made." 
 
 These were the declarations and avowals of 
 the Democratic party in 18.52. Now what do 
 they do in 18.54? Why, they go under the 
 leadership of Stephen A'Douglas, when he had 
 made a report saying that the law of 1820 was 
 sacredly conceived in the Compromise of 1850, 
 and repeal the Missouri Compromise. Now, 
 I believe, they stand condemned by their owq 
 
 language and by their own acts, and I have 
 here accomplished what I proposed to do. 
 
 THE DEMOCKACT SELF-CONDEMNED. 
 
 What was the result of all this? The result 
 was that in obedience to the declaration that 
 the people were to be fairly left to choose for 
 themselves between liberty and slavery, they 
 adopted another platform. Let me come to 
 that. I will tell you what they did in 1856, in 
 that year the Cincinnati platiorm was adopt- 
 ed. 
 
 In consequence of the repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise, the northern people interceded 
 to get their own territory upon the avowal 
 made m the Kansas-Nebraska bill, that the 
 people were to "be left free to'form and regulate 
 their domestic institutions in their own way, 
 subject only to the Constitution of the United 
 States." But notwithstanding that avowal it 
 had made, they immediately, as the report of 
 the United States Congress showed you, be- 
 fore a single Free Soiler or Republican had set 
 his foot into the new territory, commenced on 
 the border of Missouri, the organization of the 
 "blue lodges," to invade Kansas, with the 
 avowed design — peaceably if you could, and 
 forcibly if you must— to have that land for a 
 slave State, and "damn the Abolitionists, they 
 would shoot them down as squirrels," as I 
 heard a leading Democrat express himself in 
 Lexington while that conflict was going on. 
 They passed these resolutions in 1856, and_ I 
 want you to pay a strict attention to these, in 
 comparison with the other avowals: 
 
 '■Resolved, That we reiterate with renewed 
 energy of purpose, the well considered decla- 
 rations of former Conventions upon the sec- 
 tional issue of Domestic Slavery, and concern- 
 ing the reserved rights of the States" — 
 
 That alludes to the former Democratic 'plat- 
 form of 1852, fouryears before. It goes on: 
 
 "1. That Congress has no power under the 
 Constitution, to interfere with or control the 
 domestic institutions of the several States, 
 and that all such States are the sole and proper 
 judges of everything appertaining to their 
 own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitu- 
 tion; that all eftorts of the abolitionists or 
 others, made to induce Congress to interfere 
 with questions of slavery, or take incipient 
 steps in relation thereto"— the very thing 
 they have been doing to-day, besides which 
 wc have heard them denouncing every man 
 that does not come up to their standard, and 
 calling eyeryman that stands on the "Squat- 
 ter Sovereignty" platform outside of the Dem- 
 ocratic party, — "are calculated to lead to the 
 most alarming and dangerous consequences; 
 and that all such efforts have an inevitable 
 tendency to diminish the happiness of the peo- 
 ple and endanger the stability and permanen- 
 cy of the Union, and ought not to be counte- 
 nanced by any friend of our political institu- 
 tions." 
 
 2. That the foregoing proposition covers, 
 and was intended to embrace, the whole sub- 
 ject of slavery agitation in Congress : and, 
 therefore, the Democratic party of the Union, 
 standing on this national platfoim, will abide 
 by and adhere to a faithful execution of the 
 acts known as the Compromise Measures, set- 
 tled by the Congress of 1850; "the act for re- 
 claiming fugitives from service or labor," in- 
 cluded, which act being designed to carry out 
 an express provision of the Constitution, can 
 
10 
 
 not with fidelity thereto be repealed, or so 
 chaiii^ed as to destroy or impair its efficiency. 
 
 3. That the Democratic party will resist all 
 attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of 
 it, the agitation of the slavery question, under 
 whatever shape or color the attempt may be 
 made." 
 
 Oh yes ! Will resist. That is the Democratic 
 doctrine in 1856 in Cincinnati — did you allude 
 to it to-day? Yes, you voted the doctrine 
 down, and yet here it is "that the Democratic 
 party will resist all attempts at renewing, in 
 Congress or out of it, the agitation of the 
 slavery question, under whatever shape or 
 color the attempt may be made." What do 
 you say to that? There is the Cincinnati plat- 
 form ivhich you eschewed to-day. You .de- 
 nounced as treasonable any attempt to renew 
 that agitation, under any shape whatever. Let 
 me, however, turn to another clause. 
 
 4. "That by the uniform application of this 
 Democratic principle to the organization of 
 Territories, and to the admisb-ion of new 
 States, with or without domestic slavery, as 
 they may elect; the equal rights of all the 
 Stales will be preserved intact; the original 
 compacts of the Cons itution maintained invio- 
 late; and the perpetuity and expansion of the 
 Union insured to its utmost capacity of em- 
 bracing, in peace and harmony, every future 
 American State that may be constituted or an- 
 nexed, with a republican form of govern- 
 ment." 
 
 But vou omit: 
 
 5. ''Resolved, That claim of fellowship with, 
 and desiiiug the co-operation of all who re- 
 gard the preservation of the Union under the 
 Constitution as the paramount issues, and re- 
 pudiating all sectional parties and platforms 
 concerning domestic Slavery, which seek to 
 embroil tiie States, and incite to treason and 
 armed resistance to law in the Territories, and 
 whose avowed purposes, if consummated, must 
 end in civil war and dissolution — the Ameri- 
 can Democracy recognize and adopt the prin- 
 ciples contained in the organic laws establish- 
 ing Kansas and Nebraslca Territories, as em- 
 bodying the only sound and safe solution of 
 the "Slavery question," upoM which the great 
 national idea of the people of this whole coun- 
 try can repose in its determined conservatism 
 of the Union — Non-intervention by Congress 
 in Sta e and Territory, or in the District of 
 Columl)ia." 
 
 Oh! Mr. Graves, where are your resolutions? 
 There, gentlemen, is your declaration, and to 
 it you would not even allude to-day, and under 
 the allectation of renewing the old Democratic 
 platform of 1856, you entirely overlooked and 
 ignore that clause which bound you not di- 
 rectly or indirectly to interfere wiili Slavery, 
 in State or Territorv. What have you declar- 
 ed to-day? That Mr. Douglas, if not willing 
 to go along with you, is outside the Demo- 
 cratic party; that he is guilty of treason. That 
 may be all right; they' say that a fool never 
 changes Ills opinion, and that a wise man does, 
 but you ought to tell it out when you make 
 Buch a charge as that. 
 
 THE UNMADE ISSUE. 
 
 Well, now, gentlemen, I am going to give 
 you a clause, that if they had adopted to-day, 
 it would have put the thing so plain, that it 
 you gave us Douglas, we would catch you, if 
 you gave us Toombs we would catch you, 
 and if you offered Breckinridge we would 
 
 catch you. You did not intend the Demo- 
 cratic party to know there was such a clause. 
 As a man up our way, a preacher, a man of 
 great good sense but little or no education, 
 would say, when reading the Bible. Well 
 brethren, that is one of— if you please this is 
 —this is a bad place and we will skip it. The 
 Democratic party to-day found it Avas a hard 
 place and skipped it [applause] so that it is no 
 wonder they did not want me to go into that 
 same hall and that the lights were out and it 
 was all dark. Here is what they did. The 
 Republican nor Abolition party, nor the old 
 Whig party; nor the American party, nor the 
 Deniocratic party have ever m de an issue up- 
 on the resolution passed to-day, and which 
 was in the platform of 1&56, it is simply as to 
 the power of a people when they become a 
 State. It Is a self-evident truth that they In- 
 tend you to go home with it, with the thought 
 that you bagired the game, but you will find 
 that the lion^has gone and you have put the 
 asses skin into your pouch. 
 
 "Resolved, That we recognize the right of 
 the people of the Territories", including Kan- 
 sas and Nebraska, acting. through the legally 
 and fairly-expressed will of a majority of ac- 
 tual residents, and whenever the number of 
 their inhabitants justifies it, to form a Consti- 
 tution, with or without domestic Slavery, and 
 be admitted into the Union upon terms of 
 perfect equality with the other States." 
 
 Lord how frank that is! "with or without 
 domestic Slavery, and be ad < itted into the 
 Union upon terms of perfect equality with the 
 other States." Whoever denied that? I chal- 
 lenge Mr. Silvertooth, I challenge Oscar Tur- 
 ner, or even Mr. Speaker Merriweather to 
 point me out a single resolution from the 
 foundation of our government to this day, in 
 any portion of the United States where such 
 has been denied. If there is such, my reading 
 has been of no account. 
 
 THE KANSAS NEBKASKA BILL. 
 
 Take the case now. I have read the plat- 
 forms and shown that they are inconsistent. 
 But let me tell you what was the clause in the 
 Kansas Nebraska bill which they affirmed 
 again and again. It states that the Democratic 
 party determined "neither to legislate slavery 
 into those Territories"— oh, no! of course not 
 —"nor to exclude it therefrom;"— what are you 
 to do, then?— "but to leave the people perfect- 
 ly free to form and regulate their domestic in- 
 stitutions in their owii way, suhjeet only to the 
 Constitution of the United States." Now, 
 what do you think of that? Did not intend to 
 legislate slavery into Kansas, nor to exclude 
 it; hut did intend to "leave the people perfect- 
 ly free to form and regulate their domestic 
 institutions iu their own way." Is that your 
 doctrine to-day? Editor of the Ycoiiiau, are 
 you going to publish it that way to-day, that 
 the object of the Nebraska bill was intended 
 to leave the people perfectly free to regulate 
 their own domestic institutions in their own 
 way? You say to-day in the resolutions you 
 have adopted, th t the people shall not do any 
 such thing, and if Douglas goes for any such 
 doctrine, we will see him damned if he re- 
 mains iu the Democratic party; and Mr. Silver- 
 tooth declares he Is already out of the pale of 
 the Democratic church. [A voice— "The 
 whole Democratic party is not responsible 
 for him."] Of course not! God forbid they 
 should be. [Laughter and applause.] The 
 
11 
 
 great mass of the Republican party is of the 
 Democratic party, but they are of the good 
 old American gold with the stamp of '76, not 
 the bogus Democratic stamp of 1854 and 1856. 
 They are with us now, and will be with us 
 hereafter, and therefore I stand here and the 
 lights are put out. The darkness will not keep 
 you, however, from knowinir that they are 
 incompetent to administer the government 
 that the whole party is responsible for. 
 
 THE SNAKE AND ITS SKIN. 
 
 Let us trace the consequences; like the snake 
 yearly they shed their skin, but they never go 
 back into the old one; beautiful it is at first, 
 but it immediatelj' returns to dust and ashes. 
 Let us look at the consequences. Here was 
 the formation of the " blue lodges " in Mo., 
 according to the Congressional report (remem- 
 ber I don't iutend to give any statement upon 
 my own say so; I appeal to history to substan- 
 tiate all I say). You march under your Mis- 
 souri hordes so formed into the territory of 
 Ransas, and although it is well known, and as 
 history has proven,"that the Republican party 
 was in a clear majority, by force of arms you 
 took down the judges'of election that were ap- 
 pointed legally. They were taken by force, 
 the Missouri forces going out with banners 
 flying and with colors displayed, and the ques- 
 tion was asked not "are you a judge according 
 to the Constitution and the laws ?" Not " are 
 you a judge of the election carrying out the 
 declaration of the Cincinnati platforms of 1852 
 and 1856, that the people should determine 
 upon their domestic institutions in their own 
 way?" But, "are you sound on the goose?" 
 That was what they asked them, in other 
 words, "are you for Slavery?" Not " are you 
 for the constitution and the laws, and for 
 the support of Republican institutions and 
 principles as our fothers handed them down to 
 us?" No! but "are you right on the goose?" 
 and if a man did not answer that way that 
 pleased them, thej- caught him by the collar 
 and ejected him; and many who upheld the 
 Constitutional right of election were com- 
 pelled to fly for "their lives, and many were 
 wounded and killed. Where then stood the 
 Democratic press of the United States? Aid- 
 ing and abetting all this treason. The free- 
 soil citizen from the State of Kentucky, as well 
 as he from the free States, who had seen by ac- 
 tual experiment the glorious benefits of free in- 
 stitutions, and others who had seen the woe of 
 slavery, and who found that the pledges of the 
 Democratic party had been kept to the word 
 and violated in fact, late in the day sent to 
 their homes both in Kentucky, the slave and 
 the free States, and took up arms, and upon 
 every field, and by the whole power that God 
 and nature had bestowed upon them they re 
 sisted this attempt to enslave them. What 
 then did the President of these United States? 
 All the time he by the forces of the United 
 States disarmed the Republican party, and 
 left them at the mercy of those invaders of 
 their rights. 
 
 JOHN BROWN AND HIS RAID. 
 
 Then sprang up this John Brown. I say he 
 is the legitimate son of the acts and avowals 
 of the Democratic party that they intended to 
 take possession of Kansas b}' force of arms, 
 "peaceably if they could, but forceably if they 
 must," and it was only when these decendants 
 of revolutionary fathers took up arms in their 
 
 own defence, and I thank God there were Ken- 
 tuekians as well as Yankees fighting there in 
 that battle for freedom, and they drove back 
 the invaders, and now a great and overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the people of Kansas say that 
 it shall be free notwithstanding James Bu- 
 chanan lifts up his impious hands, and perhaps 
 praying that it may be so, says that "Kansas 
 is as much a slave territory as South Carolina." 
 Is that democracy? In the name of that God 
 to whom he so impiously appeals, is it so — is 
 it a slave State? Not at all. History tells us 
 that just there began John Brown. How it is 
 I will state, as it comes to me authenticated. 
 To the best of my knowledge and belief, be- 
 fore he shed the blood of a single man, one of 
 his sons was chopped to pieces in cold blood; 
 and another son was dragged in chains by a 
 vehicle, until from the heat, the exposure, the 
 ignominy, and the torture of the moving chains, 
 his brain was crazed, and he went mad; and his 
 sister looking upon all these sad calamnitiea 
 and scenes of horror, was also crazed. 
 
 Then this man took up the knife, and made 
 a war of extermination upon the slavehold- 
 ers and the invaders of the soil. There is the 
 ^ecret of the whole matter, so help me God, 
 as I believe I am Cassius Clay, as I stand here 
 to-night, I say the beginning of this raid on 
 Virginia. John Brown felt that there was no 
 protection for him in the Democratic party, 
 that the laws of Missouri and Kansas gave 
 no protection to him, and that he had once 
 more to appeal to the God of Hosts for de- 
 fense, and he carried that war on in Kansas, 
 and in Missouri, and Virginia. The whole 
 story is told; it was nothing but the raid of a 
 man injured by aggressions made upon him, 
 and these proved to have been began and com- 
 pleted by the Democratic party themselves, 
 rherefore I hurl back the imputation, and 
 history will stand by the record, and will re- 
 cord this unwelcmie truth. That is all of it. 
 It was no servile insurrection at all. I see be- 
 fore me this night a man who committed 
 John Brown in Virginia, and I hear from 
 other sources, as Senator Mason, that there 
 was not a slave rose in insurrection. It was 
 a raid; the fruit of Democratic action and in- 
 justice; and if it is the thing it is said to be, 
 that will yet threaten the peculiar institution 
 of the South along the whole border, they, 
 the Democrats, are responsible for it by rea- 
 son of their avowals and their acts; but the 
 Republicans are not. I repudiate the charge, 
 and appeal to the country for a verdict. 
 
 THE VICE president's ALLEGATIONS. 
 
 Gentlemen, having said so much prelimi- 
 nary and in explanation, I come to the decla- 
 ration of the Vice President of the United 
 States, as formally put forth by him, sent me 
 under his own hand, but whicli speech I am 
 told is very distinctly dilTerent from that he 
 made in this State House. 
 
 You will pardon me for the length of this 
 argument, if it may be so called, embarrassed 
 as I am by the difficulty of my position here. 
 It is rather more desultory than I had intend- 
 ed it should be, but the importance of the 
 question to be discussed will, I think, plead 
 my justification. 
 
 The Vice President of the United States 
 makes against the Republican party ten for- 
 mal allegations. He says: 
 
 "I charge that the present and ulterior pur- 
 poses of the Republican party are: 
 
12 
 
 "To introduce the doctrine of negro equal- 
 ity into American politics, and to make it tlie 
 ground of positive legislation hostile to the 
 Southern States; 
 
 "To exclude the slave property of the South 
 from all territory now in the Union, or which 
 may hereafter be acquired; 
 
 "To prevent the admission, in any latitude, 
 of another slaveholding State; 
 
 "To repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, and prac- 
 tically refuse to obey the Constitution on that 
 subject; 
 
 "To refuse to prevent or punish, by State 
 action, the spoliation of Slave property, but 
 on the contrary to make it a criminal offense 
 in their citizens to obey the laws of the Union, 
 in so far as they protect property in African 
 slaves; 
 
 "To abolish Slavery in the District of Col- 
 nmbia; 
 
 "To abolish it in the Forts, Arsenals, Dock 
 Yards and other places in the South where 
 Congress has exclusive jurisdiction; 
 
 "lo abolish the international and coastwise 
 trade; 
 
 "To limit, harass and frown upon the iasti- 
 tution in every mode of political action, and 
 by every form of public opinion; 
 
 "And finally, by the Executive, by Con- 
 gress, by the postal service, the press, and in 
 all other accessible modes, to agitate without 
 ceasing, until the Southern States, without 
 sympathy or brotherhood iuthe Union — worn 
 down by the unequal struggle; shall be com- 
 pelled to surrender ignomiuously, and emau- 
 cipate their Slaves," 
 
 Now, gentlemen, these are allegations for- 
 mally put forth. It is not for me to question 
 the motives of the man who makes them, but 
 I take the allegations as I find them, and I 
 shall attempt to answer them in detail. First 
 of all; I appeal to the country and history; 
 standing here upon our recorded action, and 
 the integrity of our previous character, I plead 
 not guilty of the charges; not guilty on every 
 count except one; and to that I plead guilty. 
 
 NEGRO EQUALITY SET AT REST. 
 
 First, we are not guilty of the purpose " to 
 introduce the doctrine of negro equality into 
 American politics, and to make it the ground 
 of positive legislation, hostile to tlie Southern 
 States." Mark, the crime is here, that we 
 have been guilty of " introducing." Now, it 
 is well known, so far as common rumor goes, 
 — we cannot always judge of the motives of 
 men, — that the Dred Scott case was gotten up 
 by agreement, in advance of legislation, but 
 subsequent to the declaration of the power of 
 the Democratic party, to take possession of 
 Kansas. Wc did not want any such subject 
 introduced into politics. Why y Because 
 there was already odium enough attached to 
 lis as being the defenders of the rights of the 
 negro against the white man. We were called 
 already "negro lovers," and it was not to our 
 interest to get up an issue of this kind, even if 
 we desired so to do. But an agreed ease was 
 made, as was reported in Howard's reports. 
 The case came up to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States from the U. S. District Court of 
 Missouri, and although I am a follower of the 
 plow, and although he has perl)aps studied 
 law all Ills life, I declare that Beriah MaL'olfin 
 does not know anytliing about the case. There 
 is not a y.iung county court lawyer that is not 
 better posted up in this matter. Gov. Magollin 
 does not profess to know anything about it — 
 
 that honorable and high-toned gentleman has 
 never made it his study — any man can see that 
 who reads his inaugural address. John C. 
 Breckinridge does not understand it, or he is 
 a great hypocrite. He is ignorant of the ques- 
 tion at issue, or he is a hypocrite, and intended 
 determmedly to deceive the people of the 
 United States; but of course, in consequence 
 of the respect I have for him, I believe that 
 he is utterly ignorant of the questions at is- 
 sue in the case. I think I can present them 
 so that a man of the commonest understand- 
 ing can comprehend the case. I think I can 
 present them so that a man of the commonest 
 understanding can comprehend the ease. 
 
 I will state the substance of the thing. It 
 was a suit brought by a man of color, called 
 Dred Scott, first, I believe in the State Courts 
 of Missouri, where it was decided that Scott 
 was free, then going up, I think, to the Su- 
 preme Court of Missouri, wliere the decision 
 was reversed and sent back. It was taken to 
 the Circuit Court; the pleadings were made to 
 this extent, that a plea of abatement was made 
 — Dred Scott bringing an action declaring that 
 vi et armis^ one Sa'ndford had assaulted him, as 
 also Harriet Scott his wife, and children. To 
 this, Sandford who is also upon the record and 
 admitted to be, I know not if in reality, a cit- 
 izen of New York, pleaded in abatement, that 
 Dred Scott and his wife and children were his 
 slaves, and that being slaves, or rather to use 
 the language as used in the pleadings, that he 
 was the descendant of African slaves, a man of 
 color, a negro, and therefore he could not be 
 a citizen of the United States; and Sandford 
 called upon the Courts to throw the case out 
 of Court, that they had no jurisdiction, and 
 that he, (Sandford) should hold as master, 
 Dred Scott. 
 
 So far as the Dred Scott decision became a 
 law of the United States, it is simply thus that 
 after the case was twice argued in the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, a majority stand- 
 ing seven to two of the Justices, decided that 
 a man of African blood, descended from 
 parents once slaves, could not be a citizen of 
 the United States, and therefore could not sue 
 in the Courts of the United States, and tliere- 
 fore the Court having no jurisdiction, it was 
 returned, with instructions to sustain the Cir- 
 cuit Court. That is what they decided. Now 
 I desire to state, that, in my humble judgment, 
 Dred Scott was not the slave of Sandlord, and 
 being a free man and a man of color, accord- 
 ing to the Constitution of the United States 
 when it was made, he had a right to sue and 
 had a right to be relieved from this existence 
 of vi et'armis, and that was the opinion of 
 Justices McLean and Curtis, and every lawyer 
 that has read the decision of the Court in 
 Howard's Reports, that I have spoken to upon 
 the subject, has invariably said to me that the 
 opinion of Justice Curtis is the most conclu- 
 sive piece of judicial logic ever presented in 
 all the books of judicial decisions. I have it 
 at home, and I declare that in my judgment 
 there is no proposition in Euclid more clearly 
 demonstrated than that. Not that Dred Scott 
 had a right to citizenship, to hold othce and 
 vote, rights which many white persons, as for 
 instance women, have not, but that he had a 
 right to the protecticm atibrded by law; that 
 being a free man, by being carried first into 
 a free State, and then to the Territory ceded to 
 the United States by France, he had a right to 
 sue and to be sued. He never declared that 
 
13 
 
 Scott was entitled to all the privileges of a 
 citizen, but the Constitution says: 
 
 "The citizens of each State shall be entitled 
 to all privileges and immunities of citizens in 
 the several States." 
 
 And if Kentucky determines that the black 
 man cannot hold office in the Commonwealth, 
 a black man coming from Massachusetts can- 
 not hold office; he is but entitled to the pro- 
 tection of the laws given for the protection of 
 his own race and condition. 
 
 The Dred Scott decision was gotten up en- 
 tirely by the Democratic party, and it was 
 made in 1856, after the election of President 
 Buchanan, and intended to sustain the Kansas- 
 Nebraska Bill. 
 
 In passing, allow me to say that we make no 
 issue with the Supreme Court on that subject. 
 We acknowledge the Supreme Court decision 
 to be the supreme law of the land, nnd deny 
 the allegation that we intend illegally and fac- 
 tious]}* to resist the decision of that Court, and 
 force a kind of citizenship upon the country 
 with which we have nothing to do. So far 
 then for the Dred Scott decision. 
 
 OBITER DICTA. 
 
 Gentlemen, time passes quickly, and of 
 course I cannot go elaborately into the argu- 
 ment upon the other part of that which is 
 claimed to be the decision of the Dred Scott 
 case, that is, that the law of 1787 first passed 
 by the Confederation of States, and re-enacted 
 by the House of Representatives at its very 
 first session under the Constitution in 1789, 
 was uuconstitutional. That is the dicta of 
 these five Judges. Well, now, gentlemen, just 
 let me state one or two strong points that 
 every man of common sense can understand. 
 It is the practice of all courts — courts of com- 
 mon law and courts of equity of the United 
 States, and of all courts of reasonable justice 
 and common sense on God's earth, from the 
 earliest time to the latest day, that when ques- 
 tions come up for decision, they decide the 
 main question, and that obiter dicta, that is, 
 ■words spoken incidentally, and not to the 
 main question, is not law. There are Demo- 
 cratic lawyers that hear me to-night, and they 
 ■will hear me out in this statement, and it is 
 right. The.e are just reasons for it, because 
 the attention of the judges being bound to the 
 main issue, they must not be held responsible 
 for the incidental questions of the case. Now, 
 that is what Justices McLean and Curtis tells 
 us, and they are, in my opinion, the ablest 
 judges upon the bench. I think Justice 
 Curtis the ablest Judge I ever read after, and 
 he tells us that when the Supreme Court 
 decided in the case that it had no jurisdiction 
 there, their whole power ceased. That is 
 what this judge tells us, that is what the Re- 
 publicans say, that is what every honest man, 
 unbiased by political associations and^ consid- 
 erations, must say. I say it, gentlemen, that, 
 in my humble judgment, the rest of the opin- 
 ion is not law, and in this I am supported by 
 some of the very ablest judicial minds of the 
 United States. Not only so, but Justice Cur- 
 tis shows that the Supreme Court has decided 
 again and again that obiter dicta is not law, 
 and is not so to be considered. There are de- 
 cisions in that report quoted, absolutely made 
 to the effect that these incidental decisions 
 that come in are not part of the law of the 
 land. Therefore, we say in denial of what the 
 Democratic party has said to-day, that it is 
 
 not the law of the land. Therefore, ■we go up- 
 on that subject for not changing, rather we 
 deny that it is law, and we appeal to the coun- 
 try to decide between us. We owe no allegi- 
 ance to it as a law of the United Slates, but it 
 is yet open for free discussion by the people 
 of the United States, that they may deter- 
 mine it under the Constitution of the United 
 States. To so much we plead guilty. 
 
 THE WORD REGULATE. 
 
 Now, as that is an important question, let 
 us dwell yet a while upon it. In the first 
 place, let us see what were the terms of the 
 old Confederation in connection with it. They 
 declared, gentlemen, before they ceded these 
 lands to the United States, that these Terri- 
 tories should belong to the United States, and 
 that the United States should have complete 
 control, both political and practical over them, 
 that is to say that they yielded the entire^ ju- 
 risdiction of the territory, and the United 
 States under the act yielding these territories 
 to the United States, achieved as they were by 
 the common blood and treasure, it was the de- 
 termination of all the States themselves to 
 yield up the entire control of them, and there- 
 fore when the Supreme Court undertook to 
 say that that clause of the Constitution which 
 says, "The Congress shall have power to dis- 
 pose of and make needful rules and regula- 
 tions respecting the territory or other prop- 
 erty of the United States," does not mean 
 what it says, they are forced to the absurd 
 conclusion, notwithstanding the object had in 
 view in making the cession, that when the land 
 was given, the States giving did not mean 
 what they said: look to what a forced con- 
 struction they are driven. They deny this pos- 
 itive grant of power to pass laws by Congress 
 to prohibit Slavery in the Territories, and the 
 assertion that the word "regulation" is not a 
 common terra used by legal men when they 
 intend to confer a power. That is the argu- 
 ment of the Supreme Court. 
 
 Let us look at that. Four times is the word 
 '•regulation" used in the Constitution with re- 
 gard to grants of power, and thus, so far from 
 being an unusual term, it was a usual one in 
 the disposition of power in the United States. 
 Anotlier clause says that Congress shall have 
 power to "regulate commerce." Does any 
 Democrat deny that that is a legislative power? 
 What, under it, have they done? They not 
 only "regulate commerce" under it, between 
 foreign countries and this, regulating foreign 
 and domestic trade, but they passed the em- 
 bargo. Wliy? Because they had the power 
 to make all needful rules and regulations ap- 
 pertaining thereto. In the Territories they 
 have similar power delegated in somewhat the 
 same words. Not only had they the power to 
 cherish commerce, but they had a right to 
 prohibit and destroy commerce itself. Cer- 
 tainly that was a legislative power; and it was 
 exercised under this very term "regulate;" 
 therefore it is absolutely absurd when the Su- 
 preme Court and the Democratic party under- 
 take to say that when it was enacted that Con- 
 gress should have the power to make all need- 
 ful rules and regulations for the Territory, did 
 not delegate legislative power. So that the 
 very language that they claim would debar a 
 grant of power, is shown, by four clauses of 
 the Constitution, to carry with it that very 
 legislative power, it even extending to the 
 taking of life, liberty and property itself. 
 
14 
 
 Don't they say in the Constitution that they 
 shall have the power ':* Such was the under- 
 standing of the old framers of the Federal 
 Constitution — of the old confederatiou of the 
 framers of the act of '87, and although the 
 Supreme Court are bound to acknowledge 
 that all the territory acquired previous to the 
 formation of the Constitution, were subject 
 to the control of Congress, they come to the 
 conclusion that the Constitution did not 
 intend to confer the power at all, but that 
 its very exercise was prohibited by the Consti- 
 tution. 
 
 Gentlemen, there was a portion of these 
 lands, when the Constitution was formed, in- 
 tended to be ceded, and it was known by the 
 framers of the Constitution that it was to be 
 ceded. Georgia and North Carolina afterwards 
 ceded their territory for the same reason that 
 Virginia ceded Illinois and Indiana, and there- 
 fore, how absurd it is to say that the framers 
 of the Constitution, when they allowed Con- 
 gress to exclude slavery from the territory 
 which now is formed into the States of Illinois 
 and Indiana, did not give them the power to 
 exclude slavery from the whole. It is absurd 
 to say that the power existed in one case, but 
 did not in another. 
 
 What was the intent and design of the Con- 
 Btitution ? What did it do to carry out that 
 design? The two most prominent eouclusions 
 on earth, that we can have as to what it was 
 intended to do, is by what they said was to be 
 done and intended to be done, and by what 
 they practically did. Eight and six, or four- 
 teen times did this Congress carry out the 
 power asserting that Congress had all the pow- 
 er to make "all needful rules and regulations 
 for the Territories," even to the prohibition or 
 enactment of Slavery. 
 
 HOW HE CHANGED AN OPINION. 
 
 I am going to own up myself. I confess that 
 I always believed, until I read the opinion of 
 Justice Curtis, I have always believed with the 
 old Free Soil party, that under the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, you could not es- 
 tablish Slavery in any Territory. I do now 
 confess, that after reading the decision of Jus- 
 tice Curtis, that it was so clear, and the argu- 
 ment so irresistible that they could practice 
 legislation in either way, tliat I was bound to 
 acknowledge that the power to prohibit also 
 carried with it the power to establish, and the 
 converse that the power to establish Slavery 
 also gave the power to prohibit it. I therefore 
 yielded up my old opinion, (I know not 
 what others may do,) because in this dicta of 
 Justice Curtis, if Congress has power simply 
 because there is no limit put upon it, that it 
 has power on either side; that is, it has omnip- 
 otent sovereign power, althou»h this is a gov- 
 ernment in general of limited powers, inas- 
 much as the Constitution does not limit Con- 
 fress from establishing or abolishing Slavery. 
 he power is not denied by the Constitution, 
 therefore it has it. There I am bound to 
 change my opinion upon that subject, and now 
 I agree that Congress has the power to estab- 
 lisli or prohibit Slavery, because, as I said, the 
 acknowledgment of the one power compels us 
 to acknowledge the possession of the reverse. 
 
 Well, now, it is at last brought to this: Con- 
 gress has the right to establish Slavery or to 
 abolish Slavery in tlie Territories. It is then 
 a matter upon which we appeal to the country 
 for decision. Will you go for Slavery or Free- 
 
 dom? I believe that to be the doctrine of the 
 Republican party, and that is the whole sum 
 and substance of the controversy between us. 
 We say with Washington, Jefferson, Madison 
 and Henry and Lee, and all the distinguished 
 fathers of the Republic, not that Slavery is a 
 blessing and a Divine institution and all that, 
 but we admit it to be an evil, morall}', socially 
 and politically, and a weakness in the com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 SLAVERY A WEAK INSTITUTION. 
 
 Well now, gentlemen, it has gone forth in this 
 commonwealth that I should not be able to 
 
 peak in Frankfort. Why is that T Why is it 
 that John Brown spread such consternation 
 through all Virginia ? Are we to believe that 
 
 the Virginians are all cowards? No! There 
 is ia Virginia just as gallant blood as flows in 
 the world; it was simply because Slavery was 
 a weak institution from the beginning to this 
 time; that it was what James Madison told 
 South Carolina and Georgia; it is because 
 Slaverv is what Mr. Randolph told Mr. Ever- 
 ett. We tell you that it is a source of weak- 
 ness in the State, and therefore as patriots and 
 lovers of our country we say, to the several 
 States enjoy your institution as long as vou 
 choose, but so far as we are responsible we go 
 against it all the time. There is the wliole 
 front of our oflciiding. Is it not right ? 
 
 THE ADMISSION OF SLAVE STATES. 
 
 Another charge made is, that we purpose 
 "to prevent the admission in any latitude, of 
 another slaveholding State." I deny that tliat 
 is the platform of'the Republican party as 
 made up in 1856, or as it is to be made up in 
 1860, and if you will allow me I will refer to 
 the record. I cannot read all of the platform, 
 but I give you my word there is no such 
 clause .u it. I will read one clause liowever: 
 "Resolved, That with our Republican fath- 
 ers we hold it to be a self-evident truth that 
 all men are endowed Avitii the inalienable right 
 to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hajjpiness, 
 and that the primary object and ulterior de- 
 sign of our Federal Government was to secure 
 these rights to all persons under its exclusive 
 jurisdiction;" — [Mark me, now, that does not 
 apply to States.] — "that our Republican fath- 
 ers, when they had abolished slavery in all 
 our National Territory, ordained that no per- 
 son should be deprived of life, liberty, or 
 property, without due process of law, it be- 
 comes our duty to maintain this provision of 
 the Constitution against all attempts to violate 
 it for the purpose of establishing Slavery in 
 any Territory of the United States, while the 
 present Constitution shall be maintained." 
 
 In that part of the platform I have said, I 
 believe we were in error. For that reason, in 
 the call of the present Convention we leave 
 out all that which has reference to the last 
 sentence which I read. I will read that call 
 to you : 
 
 " A National Republican Convention will 
 meet at Chicago, on Wednesday, the 13tli day 
 of June next, at 12 o'clock noon, for the nom- 
 ination of candidates to be supported for 
 President and Vice President at the next elec- 
 tion. 
 
 " The Republican electors of the several 
 States, the members of the People's party of 
 Pennsylvania, and of the Opposition party of 
 New Jersey, and all others who are willing tp 
 co-operate with them in support of the caudi- 
 
15 
 
 dates which shall there be nominated, and who 
 are opposed to the policy of the present Ad- 
 ministration, to federal corruption and usur- 
 pation, to the extension of Slavery into the 
 Territories, to the new and dangerous politiea. 
 doctrine that the Constitution, of its owi 
 force, carries Slavery into all the Territories 
 of the United States, to the opening of the Af- 
 rican Slave Trade, to any inequality of rights 
 among citizens; and who are in favor of 
 the immediate admission of Kansas into 
 the Union, under the constitution recently 
 adopted by its people, of restoring: the federal 
 administration to a system oi rigid economy, 
 and to the principles of Washington and Jef- 
 ferson, and of maintaining inviolate the rights 
 of the States, and def nding the soil of every 
 State and Territory from lawless invasion, 
 and of preserving the integrity of this Union 
 and the supremacy of the constitution and 
 laws passed in pursuance thereof, against the 
 conspiracy of the leaders of a sectional party, 
 to resist the majoritj' principle as established 
 in this government, even at the expense of its 
 exiotence, are invited to send from each State 
 two delegates from every Congressional Dis- 
 trict, and four delegates at large to the Con- 
 vention." 
 
 To prevent the extension of slavery into the 
 Territories. There is the matter at issue. 
 
 Gentlemen, neither in the platform of 1856, 
 nor in the call of Convention for 1860, is there 
 any such clause as that the Vice President al- 
 ledges, that no more slave States shall be ad- 
 mitied into the Union — there is nothing of it. 
 It is not a true allegation, and I appeal to the 
 record. I appeal from the inferences and alle- 
 gation of the Vice President of the United 
 States to the country, upon that subject. 
 
 THE SLAVE CODE CONSIDERED. 
 
 Before I pass over this I will say a few words 
 with regard to the power that the slaveholders 
 claim for the protection of slave property un- 
 der the Constitution of the United States, be- 
 cause that is a vital question. Gentlemen, 
 with all the inconsistency of the Democratic 
 party in 1852 and 1856, they never thought of 
 this thing: that slavery went under the Con- 
 stitution, and by virtue thereof into every 
 Territory per se. Never was such an expres- 
 sion made use of, but they all admitted that 
 no such power existed in or under the Consti- 
 tution. Hence, of course, it was proper to 
 enact that the people of a Territory were free 
 to legislate slavery in or out of the Territory. 
 Now, gentlemen, the Democratic party is 
 placed in this attitude, that they then knew 
 that under the Constitution, and according to 
 what they now claim to be the decision of the 
 Supreme Court, that every slaveholder has a 
 right to go into the Territory with his proper- 
 ty, or deceived the people, to the detriment 
 of the slaveholder, when they left the matter 
 to be decided upon by the non-slaveholders. 
 What right had the Democratic party to say 
 that they should confiscate the property of all 
 the slaveholders of a Territory, and leave their 
 property to the tender mercies of the squat- 
 ters, who make their way from Germany, Ire- 
 land, China, Massachusetts and Kentucky? 
 Mr. Breckinridge, or some of your friends, 
 answer me, yes or no, did you intend, when 
 you stood in favor of "Popular Sovereignty," 
 or "Squatter Sovereignty," to confiscate all 
 the property of the slaveholders of the United 
 States? No sir. You did not think that you 
 
 had the right to carry slavery into the Terri- 
 tories. That is the truth of the matter. In 
 my opinion, that is what every Democrat be- 
 lieved. We say that the belief was right. 
 Why? Because all the dicta of all the jurists 
 from time immemorial, from Grotius to Mans- 
 field, all jurists known to civilization and 
 fauie, from the earliest days to this, declared 
 that slaves were a peculiar property, unlike 
 other property known to men. What does 
 the best English reports tell us? Before 1760 
 this Avas declared, and by the highest courts 
 of the crown — outside of the House of 
 Lords. This was declared by Lord Mansfield, 
 with this dicta, which I shall read to you, that 
 I may be understood, in that case when Cur- 
 ran grew so eloquent, when he declared that 
 whenever a man stood upon British soil his 
 chains fell from him : 
 
 "The state of slavery is of such a nature that 
 it is incapable of being introduced on any rea- 
 sons, moral or political, but only by positive 
 law, which preserves its force long after the 
 reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence 
 it was created, is erased from the memory; it 
 is of a nature that nothing can be suflered to 
 support it but positive law." 
 
 That decision has never been questioned in 
 this country, until the new light of the Demo- 
 cratic party fell upon it in the decision of the 
 Dred Scott case, in 1856. I say all the jurists, 
 all men at home and abroad, who profess the 
 christian religion, and obey the equally imper- 
 ative mandate of progressive humanity, con- 
 cur in the belief that slavery is so contrary to 
 natural law that nothing but positive law can 
 support it. Under our Constitution, we adopt- 
 ed the common law of England, and that was 
 the law of this State, and of others, and it was 
 decided again and again in the c urts of Lou- 
 siana, and of Kentucky, of Virginia and of 
 Tennessee, and in the other States of the LTn- 
 ion, I believe, without exception, that slavery 
 was local and could only exist by virtue 
 of positive law, and, when a citi- 
 zen of Lousiana took his slave to 
 France, a despotic government, and brought 
 her back, her application to be declared free 
 was carried to the Supreme Court of Louisi- 
 ana, and it was decided that inasmuch as she 
 had been carried into free territory, she was 
 free, according to all the dicta upon the subject, 
 "once free and always free." It has always 
 been held that slavery was an instituiton of 
 municipal law, and the moment it was carried 
 beyond the pall of that law, that moment the 
 rights of humanity, and the great reason to 
 which all law appeals, stepped in and gave 
 freedom; all have determined in the same way, 
 every decision has been in the same direction. 
 
 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE CLAUSE. 
 
 I cannot dwell upon this matter to go all 
 through the able argument of Justice Curtis, 
 but there is no argument which he does not 
 produce, to support the position I have laid 
 down as being correct, save one. That one is 
 this much talked of and much vaunted fugitive 
 slave clause. Let me ask j-ou if,under the Con- 
 stitution, slavery goes into the territory of the 
 United States, what do you want with a fugi- 
 tive slave clause? Answer me that. Why would 
 you not be protected in your slave property 
 as much in any State of the Union if it is pro- 
 perty there, and yet you stood in Convention 
 week after week, and month after month, and 
 I might say, year after year, contending for the 
 
IC 
 
 j-rnn>r-i^'i\r,n of the rights of the slaveholding 
 community to recover fugitive slaves. It was 
 all absurdity to quarrel about a power which 
 you assert is in the Constitution. You cannot 
 prove that the Constitution gives the power. 
 It cannot be done. It is in vain that you strug- 
 gle agaiuBt the whole authority and common 
 sense of ages. 
 
 You now talk of legislative intervention by 
 Congress to protect slavery in the territories. 
 What do you want with it if the > constitution 
 does not give it? What right have you to it? 
 I therefore deny, on the part of the Republi- 
 can party, that there is any such power under 
 the Constitution per se, to carry slavery into 
 the territories of the United States. That was 
 not the doctrine of the Democratic party of 
 1853 or 1856, and only after the enunciation of 
 the Cincinnati platform, and the election of 
 James Buchanan, did the Supreme Court 
 screw themselves up to the point that they 
 could say that it was law. Two of the ablest 
 and most distinguished jurists declaring that 
 it was obiter dicta, and was no law. God grant 
 for our freedom, every man's, white and black, 
 that you should say in your legislative assem- 
 blies" and nationarconventions, that it is no 
 law. As I live, it is not the law ! 
 
 CONSEQUENCES OF THE DEMOCRATIC CLAIM 
 
 See where it leads. Suppose they have, un- 
 der the Constitution, the right to carry slavery 
 into the Territories, have you not the right 
 to carry those same slaves into Ohio?— 
 You have the right to carry a cow or a horse, 
 a coat or a watch into Ohio, and if under the 
 Constitution slavery is just as sacred and in- 
 violate as this species of property, how dare 
 Gov. Chase say you shall not bring your slaves 
 and take possession of the hotels of Columbus 
 and the farms now occupied by honest free- 
 men? I tell you why you cannot ; it is because 
 the right you assume does not exist. The 
 Consti'lution says : , ^ , 
 
 "This Constitution, and the laws oi the 
 United States which shall be made in pursu- 
 ance thereof, and all treaties made, or which 
 shall be made, under the authority of the Uni- 
 ted States, shall be the supreme law of the 
 land," &c. 
 
 There is the whole substance of the matter. 
 If the Dred Scott decision is right, then there 
 is not one single foot of any but slave territo- 
 ry from the Gulf of Mexico to the hills of 
 Maine. If that be true, then indeed there is 
 no conflict going on, in the langviage oi Sew- 
 ard and the Democratic party, between free- 
 dom and despotism; but the conflict is ended, 
 and you and I, and all of us, are subject to a 
 despotic power which is higher than the great 
 dicta of all the learned jurists that have pre- 
 ceded us ; higher than the Constitutions of the 
 States and the sovereignty of conventions ; 
 and last, if not least, higher than the Consti- 
 tution of the United States— the palladium of 
 liberty to us. If it be so, the conflict is end- 
 ed, and we are all slaves ; we are subject to a 
 despotic power over which we have no con- 
 trol—none on God's earth. There is no ap- 
 peal to popular sovereignty or States' rights; 
 there is but one appeal, and that is to revolu- 
 tion : an apjieal to arms and the God ot Hosts 
 —which God forbid ! Therefore, I deny that 
 we are fuctiously purposing to prevent the 
 admission of any more slaveholding Stales. 
 
 The fourth cliarL^e is that we propose "to re 
 peal the Fugitive Slave Law, and practically 
 
 refuse to obey the Constitution on that sub- 
 ject." I do not deny that in some of the 
 States there has been an effort made of that 
 kind, but I do utterly deny that there is any 
 such clause in the platform of 1856 or the call 
 1860. Without dwelling further upon that, I 
 pass it by, saying that I do not care to avow 
 that I stand on that subject with Daniel Web- 
 ster, the man whom of all others in this coun- 
 try, we have styled the expounder of the Con- 
 stitution — certainly upon constitutional law 
 the highest authority this country or any other 
 has ever seen. Mr. Webster, although he was 
 over-persuaded, flattered with the idea that he 
 would get Southern support by yielding his 
 true born opinion, said what, in his speech of 
 7th March ? He said "that this was a power 
 that belonged not to Congress, but to the sev- 
 eral States." That is my belief, but the Re- 
 publican party, desirous of harmony, yielded 
 it, and struck it out of our platform in 1856, 
 and do not propose to incorporate it in the 
 platform of 1860. 
 
 OTHER CHARGES REFERRED TO. 
 
 Fifth, "To refuse to prevent or punish by 
 State action, the spoliation of slave property, 
 but on the contrary to make it a criminal of- 
 fense in their citizens to obey the laws of the 
 Union, in so far as they protect property iu 
 African slaves." Gentlemen, don't we tell 
 you in our call that we go for protecting the 
 rio-hts of all the States, and so far from hin- 
 dering you in the return of your property, 
 that we pledge ourselves as a party to defend 
 you against your State or my State, and every 
 State, or against foreign invasion in the Ter- 
 ritories. Of course if we are honest in one 
 purpose, we are honest in the other, and we 
 cannot be honest in that avowal if we are dis- 
 honest in the first imputation. 
 
 Sixth. "To abolish Slavery in the District of 
 Columbia." I need not read our platform 
 again, but I defy any man to find any such a 
 clause in it. 
 
 Seventh. "To abolish it in the forts, arse- 
 nals, dock-yards and other places in the South 
 where Congress has exclusive jurisdiction." 
 There is no such clause as that in the platform 
 of 1856, or the call of 1860. 
 
 Ei'dith. "To abolish the internal and coast- 
 wise*trade." There is no such clause as that 
 in either. 
 
 Ninth. "To limit, harass and frown upon 
 the institution in every mode of political ac- 
 tion, and by every form of public opinion." 
 We make a directly opposite avowal. So far 
 from that, we not only are compelled by the 
 necessity of the case, but we propose in carry- 
 ino- out in good faith this associated brother- 
 ho'od of confederated States, not to take 
 Emancipationists alone upon our platform, 
 not simply to appoint them to office, but we 
 propose and invite slaveholders to act in con- 
 junction with us, and to assist us in 
 carrving out the Government, which 
 wc shall iu all probability so soon con- 
 trol. How can this be true? How 
 can we then intend to harass the institution 
 by every mode of political action? Why, 
 gentlemen, the thing is impossible in the na- 
 ture of things, and unless you have proof that 
 we are dishonest, there is no believing that we 
 can or desire to monopolize all the offices in 
 the country. This allegation cannot he 
 against Hs, therefore it falls still-born at our 
 
 While I have been projecting these notes to- 
 
17 
 
 day, I received a copy of the Cinciuuati Ga- 
 zette, one of the leading Republican papers in 
 the Union, and probably tlie foremost paper 
 in the West, and -whicli probably has the 
 largest aggregate circulation— and I find it 
 says that we are willing to go Crittenden, 
 Botts, Bell, or any other slaveholder, for Pres- 
 ident, if he be the choice of the Convention. 
 Does that look like excluding you from the 
 Presidency, or any other office? Old John J. 
 Crittenden, a man that I have always loved and 
 admired, a man who, if he ha.l been left unbiased 
 to his own noble inspirations, would have stood 
 where I stand, where we of the Republican 
 p irty stand— by the old Henry Clay Whig 
 ground, against the extension of slavery. Let 
 me here read what Henry Clay says upon that 
 subject, a sentiment which Crittenden no 
 doubt has endorsed through a long life. 
 The Democrats have got wonderfully in love 
 with Henry Clay of late. The old man they 
 abused and slandered all his life, but now they 
 come to us and say we will defend old Henry 
 from your assaults. The man who was perse- 
 cuted for a lifetime, the man who went to his 
 grave in sorrow under the imputations made 
 against him by these same Democrats, is now 
 taken up, and they call upon old line AVhigs, 
 old Clay Whigs, to come out and crush out the 
 Republicans -who stand by the doctrine of 
 that same Clay, in favor of the non-extension 
 of slaverj-. Henry Clay said in the last year 
 of his life, in his last term of public service, 
 in his gray-haired old age: 
 
 "Coming as I do from a Slave State, it is 
 my solemn, deliberate and well matured de- 
 termination that no power, no earthly power, 
 shall compel me to vote for the positive in- 
 troduction of Slavery either North or South 
 of that Une." 
 
 Oh, for shame. Democrats, to claim to be 
 the protectors of the fixme and glory of Henry 
 Clay and of his principles, when there, by the 
 last will and testament that he publicly made 
 before the nation, he plants himself ftxirly and 
 squarely upon the Republican platform. That 
 sentiment I stand here to-ni<,^ht to vindicate, 
 and the followers of Mr. CYittenden would 
 stand up to defend it if they had full bent for 
 their honest inclinations. God grant that he 
 himself may stand up to it, and that they may 
 change, for as God is, I would not sooner vote 
 for any other man than John J. Crittenden, 
 for every word that comes from his mouth is 
 John J. Crittenden himself, the man that says 
 the ground that is good to stand on is good to 
 fall on. Yet we are accused of all these 
 purposes. 
 
 _ I am pretty nearly through, gentlemen. It 
 IS not very often that I get a chance to speak 
 to you, and when I do, I want to say as much 
 as I can. I can't get even to talk to you 
 through the press. I establish a press here 
 and there, and when old Cass. Clay gets away, 
 they jump upon my followers and put it down, 
 and I cjin't speak through the post office, for 
 a letter of mine is eiglit days on an hour's 
 journey, or it never reaches its destination. 
 _ The tenth charge or allegation is substan- 
 tially embraced in the ninth, and it is not ne- 
 cessary that I should comment upon it. 
 
 ACCUSATIONS WITH ISTEKEST. 
 
 Now " what is sauce for the goose is sauce 
 for the gander." [Laughter.] My distin- 
 guished friend, John C. Breckinridge, has all 
 tas allegations answered by the record— not 
 Cassius Clay says so. But he ha? indulged in 
 
 speculation and inference, and I intend to turn 
 the tables on him a little in that way. [Laugh- 
 ter.] That is so! It is so very late, however, 
 that I cannot possibly comment upon these 
 various clauses; I will therefore omit discus- 
 sion. 
 
 In turn, I accuse Gov. Magoffin, Vice Presi- 
 dent Breckinridge,and the Democratic party,on 
 the following counts, seveijteen of them, that 
 IS prmciple with interest at about the rate of 
 seventy per cent. 
 
 1. Of obtaining and iising power under 
 false pretences. Read their last platforms. 
 
 2. Of filse pretences, as a Democratic 
 party claiming to be the special guardians and 
 conservators ot the liberty of the people, and 
 yet Ignoring those rights of the people and 
 cancelling them by the overthrow of the great 
 common law guards of freemen, which secure 
 them from the illegal search of the persons, 
 papers and homes. Witness, gentlemen, all 
 the reported cases of outrage made through 
 all the Slave States from th'e begining of the 
 government, the formation of the Constitu- 
 tion, and ending in the year 1860. Look to the 
 records of all the Slave States of the Union 
 where outrages of this kind are not only per- 
 petrated, but are attempted to be vindicated 
 by the press, outrages against which there is 
 no redress, and none cv'qu affected to be at- 
 tempted to be enforced. 
 
 3. As false in the nullification of the laws 
 of constitutional comity. See the case of 
 Hoar and others. See the article of the Con- 
 stitution which authorizes citizens of the sev- 
 eral States to sue in the Federal Courts of 
 the United States. You all know how that 
 was. 
 
 4. Of violation of the treaty with Mexico. 
 There was a war made with Mexico while she 
 was at peace with us, where we are told in the 
 report that our Gen. Taylor marched amidst 
 men, women and children flying from their 
 hearthstones in consequence of the invasion 
 of the United States forces. [A voice— "Who 
 made the war ?"] The Democrats ! They did 
 It as they said, "to extend the area of free- 
 dom," and the way they now extend the area 
 of freedom, I will tell you. I find a Senator 
 of Texas was driveft out of the community, 
 (or an ex-Senator,) because he said he did not 
 believe that it was extending the area of free- 
 dom to strike all these rights down: where he 
 could not have his own portfolio free from 
 search by Judge Lynch. 
 
 5. Of the practice of the Slave trade. Yes, 
 gentlemen, distinguished persons in the South 
 have boasted openly, not only that they in- 
 tend to violate the laws prohibiting the Slave 
 trade, but that they have proceeded to carry 
 their purposes into execution, and had landed 
 upon the Southern coasts what have been no- 
 toriously acknowledged to be slaves fresh from 
 the coasts of Africa, and we have yet to learn 
 of the first punishment for this violation of 
 law. 
 
 ADVICE GRATIS. 
 
 Here I remember to speak of those North- 
 ern allies that to-day you are afraid to trust. 
 You are right. I tell you now, you are right, 
 and I am going to give you a little extra ad- 
 vice. Some of you were wanting to know 
 how long they will stand by you. They will 
 stand by you just so long as you pay them, 
 and no longer, and the moment you cease to 
 pay them, the moment you cease to have pos 
 session of the Government, so soon they Avi! 
 
18 
 
 leave you. That is the kind of .ui^a yuu have 
 for your Northern allies. Gentlemen, I take 
 it you are all men of sense, and I put it to you 
 here to-night, if I was to get up here and say 
 that I believed slavery was a divine iu.?titu- 
 tion, and that all my previous declarations 
 were false, that I was convinced that I had 
 been wrong, and that it was preferable to lib- 
 erty, and a religious institution fivored of 
 God, as Governor Magoffin has said, M'ould 
 not every one of you put your hand upon your 
 purse for fear 1 would steal your money? 
 Ton would at once say, "Tliat man thinks to- 
 day as he always did, and in addition to all the 
 rascalities we have charged upon him, he is an 
 infernal hj'pocrite; we will not trust him." 
 It is because I come out and tell you what I 
 believe, that you to-day trust me to go among 
 your negroes. 
 
 Move the scene over the line, and it is just 
 the same. The man who his ever seen the 
 sanctity of the hearthstone preserved inviolate 
 and who has gone into some common school 
 to receive his education, and who has watched 
 the unparalleled developments of the free 
 States, who reads his primer or his English 
 reader and studies the Bible, and rises from 
 the reading and tells you that from his obser- 
 vation the condition of slavery is the true 
 condition of humanity, will some day teach 
 you that at last the unjust thing shall not 
 prosper, and a lie shall not live forever. He 
 who has seen all these things, and turns round 
 and tells you in the South, '"^'I have lived under 
 all these institutions, and I believe slavery to 
 be a good thing, a divine institution, the best 
 state ot society, don't you know enough to 
 say that that man is not tit to be trusted '! 
 Some of your orators said to-day, state the 
 truth and make them tell the trvith, survive 
 or perish. Tliat is the true sentiment. You 
 ought not to trust them. 
 
 I will tell you whom you ought to trust. I 
 trust the man who says : " Gentlemen, I don't 
 believe that slavery is a divine institution, that 
 it is any source of political, social and moral 
 good, but I believe you had better try all the 
 chemical power of Ileaven and in the winds, 
 the steam power and the power of the waters, 
 than to hold the African in bondage, because 
 after all it is a blunder in an economical point 
 of view; and alth mgh we are determined to 
 stand by your institutions, don't ask us to 
 deny the life which we live out in living let- 
 ters, so that all the nations of earth can read. 
 We not only believe liberty is preferable, but 
 we believe that slavery is a curse to white and 
 black." Tliat is the man for you to trust. 
 
 I am here to-day and gone to-morrow, but I 
 tell you if ever the time does come when the 
 slaveholders need aid to protect them from the 
 violence of slaves rising for freedom, that aid 
 will come from the men that are opposed to 
 the Northern Democracy, and not from the 
 Democracy of the North themselves, because 
 there is not a logical argument on God's earth 
 that can bring them to the conclusion which 
 they pretend to draw. Therefore it was that 
 Stephen A. Douglas was ready to beat you in 
 1857-8, when you were attempting to force 
 slavery upon Kansas. He has backed down 
 beyond doubt to-day, but if you had not elect- 
 ed him Senator, he "would have been in the 
 Kepublicau ranks. You arc right when you 
 say you can't trust these. (A voice — " We 
 didn't say so!") You did say so. I appeal to 
 the reports of the convention to bear mo out. 
 This was said : "if they would not uaarch up 
 
 to that line sot down, let thein go." Why let 
 them go? Because you don't trust them, of 
 course. If you trust them you will want them 
 to stand by you ; if they are your friends you 
 want them all. Mr. Silvertooth said that Ste- 
 phen A. Douglas was outside of the Demo- 
 cratic party already. Why? Because he stands 
 ujjon the Democratic platform of 1856. 
 
 A voice in the crowd. — Did the Convention 
 coincide with that view? 
 
 Mr. Clay.— Mr. Graves' resolutions were 
 voted down, which I understood to coincide 
 with Douglas' view. 
 
 A voice— Was he named? 
 
 Mr. Claj' — If you vote down the doctrine 
 and the man that m.akes a speech, you don't 
 leave much of the man. (Laughter). I tell 
 you Douglas stands no chance. You have al- 
 ready degraded him from the Chairmanship of 
 the Committee on Territories in the U. _S. 
 Senate, are you going to take him up again? 
 Your own Senators won't trust him, can you 
 believe in a man whose masters are continual- 
 ly watching him, pistol and bowie-knife in 
 hand. Beckinridge is the boy I believe. 
 Guthrie is an honest man, as honest a man as 
 the Democratic party has built up for a num- 
 ber of years, and that is not saying much. 
 
 FILLISrSTERINO. 
 
 fi. I charge the Democratic party with fillibus- 
 tering. Youallknow what that means. Going 
 out with armed bands of men from the United 
 States, "extending the area of freedom," per- 
 forming John Brown raids, entering upon gen- 
 eral invasions to set humanity right, when the 
 gallant old tar, Commodore Paulding received 
 instructions, if he caught Walker" to bring 
 him home. The old fellow thought the Pres- 
 ident of the United States meant what he said, 
 and he went out, ordered his marines out, and 
 brought home the individual, and what did the 
 President say? Why, said he, "I have a great 
 notion to dismiss you from the service. You 
 
 are a d d old fool!" [Laughter.] "Did I 
 
 not tell you. Commodore, at Ostend, before I 
 became a candidate of the Southern Democ- 
 racy, that we wanted Cuba, and we would buy 
 it if we could, and if Spain would not sell it 
 we would take it in any way, and do you sup- 
 pose that when we say we don't mean to have 
 Nicaraugua we don't want to have it? You 
 are an old fool." Therefore, I say, as these 
 men are not punished, but as Walker goes to 
 visit the President of the United States, that 
 you are guilty of fiUibustering. If he had 
 been taken at sea by any government of suffi- 
 cient power abroad' that dare execute the law 
 contrary to your sympathy, he would have 
 been hung until he was dead, dead, dead, and 
 there would have been the last of Billy— the 
 blue-eyed man of destiny. 
 
 7. You have established a censorship of the 
 press, by a Post-Offiee usuri)ation. 
 
 8. Of a violation of the Constitution, whlcJi 
 provides that the citizens of each State shall 
 be entitled to all privileges and immunities of 
 citizens in the several States. 
 
 i>. Of sympathizing with foreign despots, 
 as Russia and Austria against Hungary. 
 
 10. Of violating the compromise measures 
 of 1850. 
 
 11. Of violating the compromises of 1S30. 
 1:3. Of the usurpation by tlie Supreme Court 
 
 of political power, in the Drcd Scott case, 
 where they undertake to overthrow the decis- 
 ions of all the State Courts, and tlie acts of ail 
 the Prcsid'-'Jts who lived in the days of the 
 
19 
 
 revolutiou, and in the assumption by wliatthe 
 ■Courts say is obiter dicta, of powers belong- 
 ing to the legislative department, political 
 powers, not judicial. 
 
 13. Of raising a civil war in Kansas, and 
 prosecuting John Brown raids, as I have 
 shown. 
 
 14. Of introducing a sham "Popular Sover- 
 eignty." 
 
 15. Of an attempt to legislate slavery into 
 the Territory of Kansas, by this latter day Le- 
 compton movement. 
 
 16. Of denying naturalized citizens equal 
 protection with natives. 
 
 17. Of attempting to throw the Republic 
 into a condition of colonial vassalage, under 
 the rule of European power. 
 
 Let us loolc at that. That is the last count 
 I find. Mr. Breckinridge, the papers tell us, 
 has said — yes, sir, John has said that there is 
 trouble brewing. What is the matter, John? 
 You and the Democratic party have had pos- 
 session of the Government for nearly three- 
 quarters of a century; you have put up and you 
 have put down; you have had control of the 
 domestic and foreign policy of the country; you 
 have been omnipotent in States and in "the 
 Union, in the Senate and in Congress; j'ou 
 have had the executive and the judicial depart- 
 ments of the government, and the country is 
 sick, is it? Why, what is the matter? Who 
 has been doctoring it? Who has caused this 
 breaking up of bonds of union of which we 
 have heard this day? I am sad, you are sad, 
 we are all sad. It is indeed a sorry sight,, to 
 see a people in time of peace and prosperity 
 dragged to the verge of dissolution, and the 
 curious part of it is,''and the cruel part is, that 
 if one of you had a wife or daughter that you 
 tenderly love, as you ought, you would not act 
 as you now do with this Union, that you boast 
 of so much. 
 
 God knows, as bad a man as I am thought to 
 be, and as Kentuckiaus are thought to be in 
 general, I love my wife above all women, she 
 is in health and she goes and comes, she smiles 
 and cries, works and plays, and does all those 
 things that nature designed her to tlo, and if I 
 call in some doctor upon some imaginary or 
 real affliction of the great internal course of 
 health, and the doctor brings her to bed, the 
 rose fades from her cheek, the bright eye be- 
 comes dull, the full and round form becomes 
 emaciated and I say, "Why Doctor, the wo- 
 man is dying, in the name of God what are 
 you going to do ?" "Well," says he, "the 
 woman is dying: I am sorry, but I am going to 
 vindicate myself in history." Great God, are 
 we American people, the free people of the na- 
 tion to die, and if the Union is dissolved, he 
 Intends to vindicate the Democratic party in 
 history. 
 
 I tell you, good sense calls for a change of 
 Doctors. Tlie Democratic party has brought 
 you on the road to the devil. Change your pi- 
 lot — your rulers. Turn them out a"ud put 
 other men at the helm. 
 
 A Voice — Who do you propose ? 
 
 Mr. Clay — I am willing to take for instance 
 this much calumniated man Seward, Chase, or 
 McLean, Lincoln, Bates, Bell, Botts, or old 
 Kentucky's favorite son, Crittenden (applause), 
 jf we could have him fairly and squarely upon 
 the platform. Any body except the old Doc- 
 tor. I have got a sad distate for him. (Laugh- 
 ter.) 
 
 DISSOLtmON. 
 
 Let us look a little at that tJiing of dia.wlu- 
 
 tion. A body would suppose with Canada far 
 removed, that when it has become dangerous 
 for me to speak where there are millions of 
 white men to a few hundred thousand 
 slaves, that slave property had be- 
 come unsafe. Dissolve the Union and 
 move the line to the north of the 
 Ohio, and would you have additional security * 
 Does any man suppose — is any man mad 
 enough to suppose that if tliese people, once 
 bound together by a common brotherhood of 
 suffering, by association in churches, by a com- 
 mon Christianity, by the ties of education, 
 cannot remain in peace in the;LTnion, that they 
 would remain in peace out of it ? Does Mr. 
 Breckinridge or Gov. Magoffin suppose such a 
 case as that ? 
 
 You have j'our answer when you see Gov. 
 Wise, who in the last Presidential race, talked 
 of seizing upon the arsenal and marching to 
 Washington to take possession of the archives, 
 and preventing the inauguration of a Repub- 
 lican President, saying, now if there is any 
 fighting to be done it is to be done in the Un- 
 ion, and not out of it; when you see your 
 Democratic orators talking round and becom- 
 ing the defenders of the Union. Don't you 
 all begin to see the folly of this thing? Don't 
 you all see, what all men of common sense 
 must see, that outside of the Union there lies 
 less security for slave property? Certainly 
 you do ! No body supposes that there would 
 be anything other than the way Mr. Caldwell 
 said to-day. Do you suppose you would have 
 peace ? No, sir, it would be war to the knife 
 — and the knife to the hilt. That is what 
 would be the result. Where is your security 
 for your slave property then ? Would you 
 eight millions of white men enter upon a con- 
 test with twenty millions and ho.d your 
 slaves at home". It is not to be heard 
 of. More safety ! No ! The fixct is you 
 would have to sacrifice your negroes, like 
 France and Hungary did their slave property, 
 at once, at the beginning of the war. Then 
 what would jou gain so far as you are slave- 
 holders? What are the non-slaveholders to 
 gain? Why it reminds me of a history, that a 
 friend of mine, an ingenuous man, used to tell 
 of a white man and an Indian. They got into 
 a fight, and after a while the Indian proving 
 too hard, the white man took to his heels, 
 and while outrunning the Indian, the latter 
 cried out, "stop, white man, stop!" and the 
 white man halloaed out, "step ! I'll be damn- 
 ed if I do." Why, gentlemen, you ask all of 
 us non-slaveholders of the Union who have 
 borne all the oppression, to sacrifice all the 
 liberty we have, to return to those rules and 
 regulations of despotism, against which we 
 rose up in arms in 1776. 
 
 What do you propose to give us in lieu of 
 this great Union as a protection? Why, the 
 Charleston Mercury and the Richmond En- 
 quirer say, "We will send to Louis Napoleon, 
 and we will ask him to lend us some troops to 
 defend us!" Oh, shame! shamej! Are you 
 going to bring us to this? Is this the reward 
 that you offer us, that you will call 6n Louis 
 Napoleon, the despot "of France, and his. 
 troops, and they will defend us against these 
 Northern traitors and fanatics. Are you rea- 
 dy for that. Democrats? We have been led 
 long by Democratic leaders. Is this the feast 
 to which you have invited us,, that after you 
 can no longer be preserved, that they wiU get 
 Louis Napoleon, (they can't trust Victoria, 
 she ha-s too many notions of freedom about 
 
20 
 
 ber,) to preserve us? What does it mean? 
 It means going absolutely back into French 
 despotism. Are you ready for that? 
 
 The Vice President is unfortunate in his al- 
 lusion to the great Athenian orator. It is we 
 M'ho defend the liberties of the people, and 
 they who propose to call in Philip of Macedon 
 — Louis Napoleon, is it not? The battles in 
 Kansas, M'hich were fought for the common 
 liberty, is the reproach of Eschinos ! Not 
 only these, but all the ^oryof the illustrious 
 dead is in vain, if the Dernocratic party con- 
 summate the subjecting us to a foreign and 
 alien despotism ! I would that I could evoke 
 the genius of the illustrious defender of Gre- 
 cian liberty, that my voice, like his could 
 touch the hearts of my countrymen with the 
 diyine fire of my own aspirations, till they 
 they would be again ready to cry out with one 
 voice, "Let us march against Philip ! " 
 
 No, gentlemen. That is the reason I come 
 here to-night, because I heard this thing is 
 talked of— because it is threatened. I come 
 to tell you as I live, as we all live, there is not 
 a single true Republican but that will shed 
 his last drop of blood before he will submit 
 to this; they will fight you for a thousand 
 years ere they will submit; they will not re- 
 lapse into French servitude. 
 
 We preach no new doctrine, we invoke no 
 new God, but standing by the old doctrine of 
 '76, upon which our fathers fought and died, 
 we say, with Crittenden, that 'that which is 
 good to stand upon is good ground to fall up- 
 on." We invoke the people of the North and 
 South to stand by the Constitution of the 
 United States, and vindicate it beyond the 
 possibility of a doiibt. AVho are the men that 
 have avowed the intention to dissolve the 
 Union? Look at all our record. Not a single 
 county meeting, nor district convention, nor 
 State assemblj-, nor national convention of 
 the Republican party has ever declared 
 that, in any emergency, will they dissolve 
 the Union. No, sirs, we say all the time that 
 we submit to Democratic rule while you 
 slaveholders rule us, and we submit because 
 we know of no other policy, no other altei'- 
 native except it be force, and when that is 
 used all law is silent, and the Government be- 
 comes a despotism; whenever you resort to 
 violence, you have an anarchy as has Mexico, 
 which is continually at war because it does 
 not stand by any Constitution or law. All 
 our pledges and our antecedents prove that 
 we are bound to be loyal to the union of these 
 States; and therefore, I say we can safely 
 claim your suffrages, not taking us by our 
 avowals, but taking us by our aces. If we 
 have submitted for eighty years, we are wil- 
 ling to submit for eighty years more, unless 
 we can persuade you to take hold of those 
 glorious privileges which we feel to be right 
 
 helper's crisis. 
 
 There is a man in Carolina whose father 
 was born, it is said, upon North Carolina soil, 
 and we know not how many centuries before 
 his ancestors lived there, and it so happened 
 that he belonged to that large class of North 
 Carolina that may be called the working class, 
 :Le non-slaveholders. lie saw the influence 
 'i slavery upon the interests of that class of 
 ...en, and he broke away from the trammels of 
 •Lat party, and published a book, and he tells 
 
 us that however good a thing slave labor is- 
 for the slaveholder, free labor is better for the 
 non-slaveholders. He takes up the census of 
 the United States-, and he compiles it all un- 
 questioned, and shoAvs how the institution of 
 the South affects the mass. He appeals to 
 ■ these masses, and asks them to see for them- 
 selves, and act upon their knowledge thus ob- 
 ' tained, if this thing is not according to the 
 ; doctrine of Jefferson, this which I believe was 
 i pretty good Democracy once ? 
 : Now about this book I am going to be 
 { frank. I did recommend this book. I say I 
 ! have read this boo ' carefully, and there is not 
 : a single incendiarj- doctrine in it — there is not 
 ! a single appeal to the slave. If it be insur- 
 i rection among a people professing to be free 
 j to appeal to the legal white voters of the coun- 
 try, for whose protection the Constitution 
 professes to be made, to rise from a serfdom 
 I to the same power and control of the govem- 
 ! ment that the free laborers and free people of 
 I the North have done, it is insurrectionary. 
 ' Let me go one step further, and say, that 
 there were some places in that book publish- 
 ed by him, that we did not regard as just; and 
 inasmuch as we conceived that the slavehold- 
 ers held their property on the tenure that the 
 British held it, we thought it was a political 
 question— we thought that the slaveholders 
 should not be taxed. I wrote to him that 
 that was a foolish thing, but it was under- 
 stood that all these objectionable things should 
 be expunged, as 3Ir. Blair, of Missouri, has 
 said. He says ifwas imderstood that these parts 
 were to be stricken ont, not that they were 
 incendiary, but that it was a blunder not to 
 be urged. 
 
 I tell you, gentlemen, I stand on Helper's 
 pamphlet, and you may make the most of 
 what I say. 
 
 (Cries of "Go on," and "We will stand by 
 jou all night") 
 
 I have stood by you all the long days of my 
 youth and manhood, extinguished all the as- 
 piration of ambition, suffered ignominy and 
 contempt, been denounced, spurned and avoi- 
 ded by the men whose interests I was arguing, 
 by the white man, and wronged by the black 
 man; but still holding myself true to one jmr- 
 pose, I stand there sliill. What to me now are 
 the rosy tints of life, with my hair silvered over, 
 with my sinews stiffened with age ; in the 
 course of human events, I have but little time 
 to remain here. I say, Kentuckians, come war, 
 come peace, I trust in God I may have the 
 fortune to stay there during the rest of my 
 days, and that although the millions may de- 
 part from me, there will be in Kentucky one 
 standby true to the last, whose aspirations may 
 be, however visionarj', however theoretical, 
 true to the banner which I would have float 
 over us. The same old banner of 1789— each 
 stripe with the progress of the ages paling into 
 a brighter galaxy of stars ! In the language 
 of Webster,' its motto no such miserable in- 
 terrogatory, as what is all this worth ? Nor 
 those other words of delusion and folly, "Sla- 
 very and Union,"— far less "Slavery first and 
 Union afterM'ards,"and yet more "S'lavcry with 
 or Aviihout Union !" But his own glorious 
 sentiments— for the whieli and with the which 
 — with filial piety I walk backwards and cover 
 his late political nakedness! "Lieertt and 
 Union, kow avd Forever, one and Inseper- 
 
 54 W 
 
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