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 HON. JAMES E. COOLEY, 
 
 IIEFORK THE 
 
 DEMOCRACY OF SYRACUSK, 
 
 *^ 
 
 IN MASS ^fEETING ASSE M BLED, 
 
 TrESDAY EVKNTNO, NOV. 1, ISuH. 
 
 NEW- YORK: 
 
 JUlIN J'. 'IKOW, rRINTKR, 49 ANN STliEET. 
 
 1853. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 I. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HON. JAMES E. COOLEY, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 DEMOCEACY OF SYEACUSE, IN MASS 
 MEETING ASSEMBLED. 
 
 TUESDAY EVENING, NOV. 1, 1853. 
 
 NEW-YOEK: ^ 
 JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 49 ANN STREET. 
 
 1853. 
 

THE ISSUES OF THE CAMPAIGN IN NEW-YORK. 
 
 PRESIDENTIAL INTERFERENCE BOLDLY 
 REBUKED AND DENOUNCED. 
 
 THE CANAL POLICY VINDICATED. 
 
 SPEECH of the Hon. JAMES E. 00 OLEY before the Democ- 
 racy of Syracuse^ in inass meeting assembled, on Tuesday 
 Evening, November 1, 1853. 
 
 Mr. COOLEY, being loudly called for, and warm- 
 ly cheered, addressed the immense assemblage as 
 follows : 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : — I thank you for this warm reception, 
 and for these flattering manifestations of your kind regard. 
 
 Since the commencement of the exciting canvass for local 
 officers, now going on in this State, I have not opened my 
 lips publicly, either in commendation of the regular demo- 
 cratic ticket, on which my humble name happens to appear, 
 nor in just condemnation of that nominated by the Barn- 
 burner cabal of Tammany Hall. Not that there would have 
 been any impropriety in mounting the stump, in imitation of 
 the high example, in favor of his own election, of the present 
 executive, Grovernor Seymour; but, however much I might 
 say respecting the acknowledged fitness for office, and the 
 
high accomplishments of the distinguished democratic nom- 
 inees with whom I have the honor to be associated, I feel so 
 much reluctance in seeming even to be the advocate of any- 
 supposed claims of my own, that I should not now venture 
 to come before this large and intelligent assemblage, but that 
 I desire to say a few words about our internal improvements ; 
 and, moreover, to repel a wanton personal attack made by 
 the President of the United States through his recognized 
 organ, the Washington Union, with a view to influence and 
 control the local elections of this State. 
 
 I remember passing over the site of your city more than 
 thirty years ago. Then it was mostly an uncomely and de- 
 solate scene, covered with stumps and trees, with decayed 
 wood, and mud and malaria. Then it had an insalubrious, 
 ungenial aspect, and, in close proximity to it, were vast tracts 
 of primitive forests, stretching off majestically beyond the eye's 
 comprehension, and almost illimitable in extent. Then there 
 was little attempt at cultivation in the immediate vicinity of 
 Syracuse, and only a few slightly built houses and shops scatter, 
 ed here and there, mostly along the banks of the newly exca- 
 vated canal. Then there were no school-houses nor churches 
 in the place; and, I believe, only one small public house, and 
 that was situated on the north or left bank of the canal- 
 There were a few shops, groceries and porter-houses, and some 
 stables for canal horses ; but I doubt whether stages began at 
 that time to run through Syracuse. The roads, only endur- 
 able in dry weather, were impassable during the rainy season, 
 in late autumn and early spring. In short, Syracuse had then 
 but j ust emerged out of the gloomy wilderness, the silence of 
 which had but recently been broken, and the forest cleared 
 away, in constructing the canal ; which v/as then so nearly 
 completed along the middle and eastern sections of it, as to 
 admit the passage of boats down to the Hudson. 
 
 What a wonderful change has been wrought here since 
 my first visit to Syracuse ! How has this great, populous, 
 thriving town sprung up here in the " wild woods of the West," 
 as this region was called less than forty years ago ! Where 
 the wilderness, in all its solitude, but so recently and so grand- 
 ly waved, and so securely sheltered the wild Indian and his 
 
favorite game, we now witness the most animating manifesta- 
 tions of civilization, wealtli and refinement. A lively and 
 lucrative commerce crowds your streets and your extensive 
 warehouses, and presses tbrougli your city by way of the ca- 
 nals, down to the sea. Your streets are ample, well paved, 
 and every where compactly built up with dwellings, stores and 
 work-shops, proudly indicating an industrious, enterprising 
 and prosperous population. 
 
 Your churches seen from afar, attest your devotion to the 
 Great Giver of every perfect gift ; and your numerous school- 
 houses and institutions of learning, promise a long and vigor- 
 ous perpetuity to the incomparable blessings of civil and re- 
 ligious liberty. Scarcely has one generation passed away, 
 when, from a scene of desolation, wildness and seclusion, has 
 sprung up here in the geographical centre of the Empire State, 
 a great, populous city, and abounding in wealth. On every 
 hand the seal of prosperity is stamped upon the enterprise and 
 industry of an intelligent people. The surrounding forests 
 have long since vanished •,. and a numerous yeomanry pursue 
 their peaceful occupations upon the mountain sides, and upon 
 the fertile plains, reaping a generous return for their good 
 husbandry and careful management. Here, in the city and in 
 the surrounding country is presented on every hand, the strong- 
 est evidence of contentment and of a high civilization, con- 
 trasting so strikingly with its former aspect, that one may justly 
 inquire into the primary causes of this astonishing change. 
 
 Yours is an inland town, situated upon no large navigable 
 river, nor is it very near to any, by which the redundant 
 products of a densely populated district might conveniently 
 be conducted to market. You are 300 miles from the nearest 
 seaport ; naturally shut out, as it were, by a long and expen- 
 sive transportation, from the commerce of the world. Why 
 is it that you have been enabled so completely to overcome 
 these natural disadvantages— and that you are now nearer in 
 point of time, to the great commercial emporium of this con- 
 tinent—the city of New- York— the best market in the world 
 —than you were, less than forty years ago, to the neighboring 
 cityofUtica? What has been done for you, or what have 
 you done for yourselves, to produce this wonderful change in 
 
the present prosperity and bright future prospects of your 
 large city and its fertile and extensive environs? What has 
 so soon converted a wilderness into a garden of civilization, 
 beauty and productiveness — that has raised the price of your 
 soil from a few cents, to fifty, seventy, and in some instances, 
 to hundreds of dollars per acre ? 
 
 The answer to these important inquiries — deeply important 
 to every patriotic citizen of this State — is, I doubt not, at this 
 moment, upon the lip of every intelligent man now within 
 the sound of my voice. You will say with one united voice 
 — with one great, earnest, harmonious tone — with a sound that 
 will echo to the utmost verge of the State, in all directions, in 
 all places, and at all times, that your prosperity has been, and 
 must continue to be, attributable to the great Erie Canal ! It 
 is, indeed, to be attributed to that Herculean enterprise. Had 
 not that canal been constructed, it is not, I venture to say, too 
 much to assert, that this city would never have existed ! Had 
 the enemies of the immortal Clinton succeeded in their fiend- 
 ish hostility to his enlightened and patriotic plans of internal 
 improvements, this spot, where we now stand — the surround- 
 ing country in all directions — the rich Genesee valley, and the 
 wheat growing plains of the central and western sections of 
 the State, now so populous, so highly cultivated, so rich, and 
 so prosperous, would have mostly remained to this day, like 
 the dense forests of the northern counties, in a state of primi- 
 tive grandeur and gloom ! Here, but for the construction of 
 that noble, State-enriching public work — that great civilizing 
 instrument — which has subdued the wild regions of the west 
 and filled them with populous towns — which has diffused a 
 healthful fragrance throughout the land and given unparalleled 
 vigor, animation and enterprise to our people, the untamed 
 Indian might yet bask him in the sullen majesty of impenetra- 
 ble seclusion — the monarch of a woody waste. Yes, my fellow- 
 citizens, strange as it may seem to some, and doubtful perhaps 
 to others, who have contested, and will contest against the in- 
 ternal improvements of this State, which have enriched and 
 benefited every department of trade, had Clinton, through 
 the wicked persecutions which he suffered for more than a 
 quarter of a century, from the enemies of internal improve- 
 
ments, failed of convincing the people of tlieir perfect prac- 
 ticability and advantage to the public interest, the Erie canal 
 might never have been achieved ; and this fertile section of 
 country, now the scene of so much commercial, manufacturing 
 and agricultural activity and opulence, might have continued 
 comparatively uninhabited, uncultivated, and unredeemed, for 
 many long years. The shores of the great inland seas of the 
 west, and the borders of the large navigable streams north and 
 south, much of which still remains unoccupied, would all have 
 been settled long ago. That part of the State bordering the 
 St. Lawrence, which is now but sparsely populated, would 
 have presented a more inviting prospect to the interests of the 
 farmer, the manufacturer, and the merchant, than this, had 
 the Erie canal not been constructed. The country bordering 
 the St. Lawrence naturally looks down that noble river to a 
 market — to an easy, cheap, and direct communication with 
 Montreal, Quebec, and with foreign countries, through the 
 connection of that stream, navigable for vessels of all sizes, 
 with the Atlantic Ocean. This fine river is the natural outlet 
 of the great and increasing commerce of the west, draining 
 vast productive territories in the north, as does the Mississippi 
 on the south. 
 
 But happily for the early development of the natural 
 resources of central and western New- York, for the great and 
 permanent interest of this and many of the western States ; 
 indeed, I may say for the Union itself, and for the sacred cause 
 of humanity, the bad counsels of Clinton's enemies did not 
 prevail; the Yan Burens, the Eoots, the Youngs, and the 
 bucktail Barnburners of Clinton's time, were scattered to the 
 winds, whenever he came before the people. When the 
 people, through the clear and vigorous intellectual powers of 
 Clinton, and Morris and Fulton, had become sufficiently well 
 informed upon the subject to understand its advantages, the 
 canal was a favorite theme with them, and the more the great 
 projector of that noble enterprise was persecuted, derided, and 
 hunted down by his opponents, the dearer did Clinton be- 
 come in the eyes of the people, and the more confidence was 
 inspired in the ultimate benefits to be derived from the com- 
 pletion of the canal. Clinton and Morris sought an easier, a 
 
8 
 
 more direct, a cheaper and a safer communication between the 
 western regions, which they foresaw must become densely 
 populated, and the Atlantic, by means of a canal, which 
 should divert western commerce from the St. Lawrence and 
 the Mississippi, and conduct it directly down through their 
 own State to the commercial metropolis, thereby enriching the 
 whole State, whose entire population was then less, by nearly 
 one hundred thousand, than that of the city of New- York at 
 the present time. Virginia, at the commencement of the 
 present century, when the project of a ship canal first began 
 to be publicly discussed, had a population larger, by nearly 
 three hundred thousand, than New- York, and a much greater 
 valuation of property. Pennsylvania had nearly one hundred 
 thousand more inhabitants, and North Carolina nearly equalled 
 it ; while Massachusetts had scarcely one hundred thousand 
 less, and an amount of available wealth far surpassing this 
 State. How wonderful the contrast now in favor of New- 
 York, which has outstripped in wealth, population, and pro- 
 gressive improvement, every other State in the Union, ever 
 since the construction of the Erie and Champlain canals, 
 which have conducted the trade of the west down through 
 our State ; and the city of New- York has presented a scene 
 of activity and growth, unparalleled in modern times. 
 
 Yet, however great have been the advantages of your 
 canals to the State, however much they may have contributed 
 to its settlement, and developed its abundant resources, and 
 particularly those of the central and western sections of it, and 
 however much they have contributed to swell the population 
 and wealth of your cities, these great public achievements were 
 only urged through to completion by the patriotic Clinton, 
 after many patient years of ardent struggles against the insane 
 opposition of those who were really more benefited by these 
 improvements than himself; but who, nevertheless, ceased 
 not to persecute him to the day of his death. 
 
 The entire delegation in both houses of the Legislature, 
 from the city of New- York, and the extreme southern and 
 eastern counties of the State, voted against constructing the 
 Erie canal. Many patriotic citizens then, as now, looked up 
 to noisy partisan leaders — who clamorously told the people. 
 
9 
 
 that Clinton's project of a canal was impracticable, and would 
 involve the State in irretrievable bankruptcy and ruin ! They 
 represented him as a theorizing, visionary, ambitious political 
 aspirant ; seeking to ride into power by means of his project 
 — which they derisively denominated " Clinton's ditch." They 
 spared neither money nor time in their unremitted and wicked 
 efibrts, to obstruct the public improvements ; and they resort- 
 ed to the most despicable means for annoying Clinton. They 
 even stooped so low — (if such men, in doing a mean act, may 
 be said to stoop,) as to procure his removal, under the admin- 
 istration of Grovernor Yates, from the office of Canal Commis- 
 sioner ; an onerous position, which he had worthily filled, and 
 with great advantage to the public interests, without receiving 
 the slightest remuneration for his services. 
 
 Van Buren and his hireling clique of unscrupulous intriguers, 
 after failing in their design to defeat the re-election of Clinton 
 in 1820, by means of Federal votes — " those high-minded fed- 
 eralists," who declared, by a public proclamation, that "they had 
 no longer any grounds of principle to stand upon," — who came 
 out in a body and voted for Daniel D. Tompkins, then Vice- 
 President of the United States, who had been dragged out for 
 the occasion, as the only man in the State that could be nominat- 
 ed with any probability of defeating Clinton ; these unscrupu- 
 lous political intriguers against the honest fame of that great 
 man, after being beaten by him before the people, and driven in 
 disgrace from the field, with their federal allies and Bucktail 
 bullies — modernly denominated "short-boys," (a specimen of 
 whom, a few days since, made their impressive advent into 
 this quiet and well-ordered city,) sought to break down the 
 power of Clinton, and hurl him from office, by a revision of 
 the Constitution. 
 
 The Convention, which met for that purpose in 1821, made 
 many changes in the Constitution of 1777 without materially 
 improving it; and their illustrious successors, who had 
 it under review again in 1846, made the matter worse! 
 The appointing power, which, for forty-three years, had 
 been exercised by a council of appointment, was, in the 
 Constitution of 1821, vested in the Governor. It made many 
 offices elective, which were previously held by appointment ; 
 and on its adoption, it provided for the vacation of all offices 
 
10 
 
 held by virtue of tlie old Constitution ; and Clinton went out 
 of office with other incumbents, thus summarily, though con- 
 stitutionally, dismissed ! His Van Buren and Bucktail perse- 
 cutors, who had struck hands with their new federal allies, 
 one of whom, Kufus King, steadily supported by the federal 
 party from 1789 up to 1814, was re-elected to the Senate of 
 the United States by the coalition of the federal and Van 
 Buren Bucktail vote, now were in hopes that they had de- 
 stroyed the popularity of Clinton — that they had disposed of 
 their most powerful political opponent, and that they might 
 now rule the State with a high hand. 
 
 They elected Judge Yates governor, who, like the present 
 incumbent of that responsible position, did not recommend 
 specifically, in his first message to the Legislature, a single 
 measure, — He played the weak tool of his wirepulling friends; 
 made such appointments as the Van Buren men desired, and 
 aided in the persecutions of Clinton ; who, like Daniel S. Dick- 
 inson, and those who now sustain his patriotic course, was 
 then derided and held up to public reprobation by a band of 
 office-hunting bucktail marauders, not very dissimilar to the 
 Van Buren, Fowler and Cochrane short-boy slanderers of the 
 present day. 
 
 Yates, in the hands of these desperate men, was a con- 
 venient tool for a convenient season. Jesse Hoyt was elected 
 a member of the Assembly ; Wilham L. Marcy was appointed 
 Comptroller, and Van Buren was a Senator of the United 
 States, a position so ardently desired by his reckless son John, 
 who has much stronger claims to that distinction than the 
 father, and intends, eventually, to ride into it on the backs of 
 the short-boys, precisely as the elder Van Buren did, by 
 hanging on to the skirts of the bucktails. 
 
 Yates was a mild, weak, inefficient man, of no decision of 
 character, always placing more confidence in a treacherous 
 enemy than in his friends. He acted under the whip and 
 spur of those who effected his downfall, and sought more 
 assiduously to buy over his enemies by the rewards of office, 
 than to conciliate and satisfy his friends, by a clear recog- 
 nition of their just claims. An ambition to occupy high 
 positions in the public service, for which he was neither fitted 
 
11 
 
 by the endowments of nature nor the accomplishments of art, 
 was the fatal rock on which Mr. Yates finally foundered. He 
 was at length deserted by his political friends, who were, in 
 fact, secret enemies. They had contrived to dupe and use 
 him, to carry out their bad purposes ; and, after bringing to 
 the block the head of De Witt Clinton, as the present execu- 
 tive has been called under simijar circumstances, to execute 
 John C. Mather, he went out of office unregretted, if not 
 indeed despised. 
 
 De Witt Clinton lived to triumph over all his persecutors 
 and political enemies. 
 
 When the Bucktail bullies, at the close of Yates's adminis- 
 tration, removed Clinton from the office of Canal Commis- 
 sioner, without preferring any charges of mal-conduct against 
 him, a tone of indignation and rebuke rang throughout the 
 State. 
 
 On the last day of the session of the Legislature, a few 
 minutes before the time fixed for the adjournment of both 
 houses, Mr. Bowman, a senator from Monroe county, sub- 
 mitted a resolution for the removal of Clinton from the office 
 of Canal Commissioner ! The resolution was acted on without 
 a moment's delay, and all the senators, save three, voted in 
 the affirmative. The resolution was immediately sent to the 
 Assembly, where it was instantly passed by a large majority ; 
 showing very clearly that the plot for his sudden and unex- 
 pected removal had been deeply and securely laid, — that the 
 ground had been carefully canvassed, and the hangmen 
 hired; that on the day of execution, the gibbet-men, one of 
 whom is Kedfield, the new collector, were ready to seize their 
 victim and bind him for the slaughter. 
 
 The tyrannical leaders of the Albany regency of that day, 
 like the pitiful scapegraces of a later period, thought that "the 
 times demanded a victim or required an example I " And 
 what a victim ! They seized upon De Witt Clinton, the 
 earliest and most devoted friend of internal improvements, 
 whose life had been spent in the faithful discharge of respon- 
 sible duties in the public service — whose friendship and devo- 
 tion to the Erie and Champlain canals, only ceased when he 
 himself ceased to breathe I That was the " victim " whom the 
 
12 
 
 Bucktail bullies of 1824 "demanded" and seized; precisely 
 as the Short-boy bullies of 1853 fastened on Commissioner 
 John C. Mather, putting the State to a vast expense for his 
 trial, on trumped-up charges of impeachment, under the pre- 
 tence that " the times required an example and demanded a 
 victim ! " These Short-boy marauders are, forsooth, the pro- 
 fessed friends of the people— the political money-saving phi- 
 losophers of modern times ; that is, if you will take their oaths 
 and broken pledges for it. 
 
 The people, however, are beginning to find these unscru- 
 pulous Short-boy political philosophers out. They have been 
 so often cheated and betrayed by their false promises and spu- 
 rious tokens, they are not willing longer to trust them. They 
 are soon to be hurled from the high places of public trust, 
 which they have already too long disgraced. 
 
 The Bucktail outrage, perpetrated by the removal of De 
 Witt Clinton, operated like an electric shock upon the whole 
 community. Every one was taken by surprise. The people 
 of Albany, without distinction of parties, rushed to the Capi- 
 tol en masse. They organized a meeting, and passed resolu- 
 tions commendatory of the great services of Clinton, and 
 deeply condemning the conduct of his political persecutors. 
 
 Similar meetings were held in the city of New- York and 
 other parts of the State, reprobating this outrage of the Buck- 
 tail bullies and the Albany regency, which at this period be- 
 trtxn a reign of terror, that, with slight intervals, continued to 
 increase in severity, until the total wreck and overthrow of 
 Yan Buren in 1840. 
 
 The removal of Clinton failed to produce the effect intend- 
 ed ; for, from that moment, and not till then, his friends be- 
 gan to insist that he should be the next candidate for Gover- 
 
 nor. 
 
 Clinton was emphatically the man of the people — in whom 
 they had the fullest confidence. He was a strong man when- 
 ever he came before the people, though he could hardly have 
 been called a strong party man. He was never elected on 
 strictly party grounds, though, when in the field, he was the 
 terror to all political partisans, and generally broke down and 
 overrode party discipline and parties themselves, which had 
 the boldness to interpose their opposition to his popularity. 
 
13 
 
 The Van Burcn and Albany regency Bucktails nominated 
 as their candidate for Governor, in opposition to Clinton, Co- 
 lonel Young, a professed admirer and supporter of Henry 
 Clay for the Presidency of the United States ; though the re- 
 gency candidate for that office was Mr. Crawford, for whom 
 Van Buren expressed a decided preference. 
 
 Clinton was known to be in favor of General Jackson ; 
 and he was the first northern man of any distinction, who 
 openly declared himself in favor of the hero of the battle of 
 New Orleans for the Presidency. 
 
 Although the Bucktails and the Albany regency had ex- 
 pected an easy conquest over Clinton, when the election came 
 oflP, the result astounded men of all parties. It was a com- 
 plete political avalanche, sweeping all opposition to the winds. 
 Clinton's majority over Young was nearly seventeen thou- 
 sand ; and the new members of the Legislature were three to 
 one in favor of Clinton and the canals. Thus the Bucktails 
 and the Albany regency candidate for Governor, again had 
 their heels tripped up by opposing Clinton, who had on all 
 occasions proved himself to be entirely an over-match for 
 them whenever their strength was tried. 
 
 The canals were not yet completed ; and it was for the 
 public interest that their great friend and original projector, 
 who had on all occasions exhibited such unwearied zeal and 
 devotion to the prosecution of the work, should continue at 
 the head of the government until their final completion, which 
 was expected to take place in the year 1825, and was then ac- 
 complished. 
 
 On the second day of November, of that year, this inter- 
 esting event was celebrated by the discharge of cannon, com- 
 mencing at Buffalo, and continued along the line of the canal 
 from Lake Erie to the Hudson. An immense number of 
 people assembled at Albany ; and two canal boats, the " Sen- 
 eca Chief" and "Young Lion of the West," from Buffalo, in 
 which were the Governor and commissioners, State oflicers, 
 and distinguished citizens of Albany, and other parts of the 
 State, descended through the locks into the Albany basin, ac- 
 companied with the acclamations of a vast crowd of exulting 
 spectators. 
 
 Clinton, as Governor of the State, had on the 4th of July, 
 
14 
 
 1817, commenced the canals at the village of Eorae, with his 
 own hands, and lived to sec them completed and put in suc- 
 cessfal operation, while he was yet the Chief Magistrate ; and 
 at a time when he had reached the summit of his fame as a 
 man of genius, a statesman, and a patriot. What an enviable 
 position had this great public benefactor attained ! He had 
 immeasurably benefited and advanced the public interests of 
 his own State, by attracting to it an amount of commerce, 
 that has gone on increasing, and Avill continue to increase for 
 centuries to come. 
 
 But notwithstanding his patriotic devotion to the public 
 service, the vast sources of wealth his genius had opened up 
 to the enterprise of the citizens of New-York, and the unde- 
 viating uprightness and purity of his character, while he was 
 celebrating the great achievement of the canals, and confer- 
 ring honors and riches upon our population, his unscrupulous 
 opponents, the Bucktail bullies and Van Buren intriguers, his 
 deadly enemies and political maligners of twenty-five years 
 standing, were actively engaged among the people, urging them 
 to abandon his standard, and unite in supporting what was in 
 fact the Barnburner principles of the Bucktail party of 1825, 
 which the huckstering politicians denominated the " Kepubli- 
 can party," not unlike the spoil-hunters of our time, the Van 
 Burens, the Fowlers, the Cochranes, the Eedfields, and other 
 Short-boy politicians, who call their corrupt coalition of odds 
 and ends, of shreds and patches, of ring-streaked, speckled 
 and gray, of every shade of color and hue of political row- 
 dies, marauders, renegades and cut-throats, the " Eepublican 
 or Democratic party ! " When will this prostitution of a name 
 cease ? 
 
 Scarcely was this great State work completed, when the 
 accumulating business attracted to it, demonstrated that its 
 capacity, already too small, would, in after years, be entirely 
 inadequate for the convenient transportation that would press 
 for admission through its circumscribed channel. This was 
 early foreseen by Clinton himself 
 
 The enlightened and patriotic Gouverneur Morris, who was 
 an enthusiastic supporter of Governor Clinton's canal policy, 
 proposed to construct a ship canal of ample capacity, without 
 
15 
 
 locks, from Lake Erie to the navigable waters of the Hudson ; 
 so that ships might sail from the great inland waters of the 
 west, directly down to the Atlantic Ocean. This was a bold 
 project, at a period when the greatest part of the State was 
 unsettled, and its whole population scarcely reached that 
 now of the city of New-York ; when the whole valuation 
 of all the taxable property in the State but little exceeded 
 $200,000,000 ; when almost the entire States of Ohio, Indi- 
 ana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan were in a state of prim- 
 itive wildness, and inhabited by little else than savages and 
 beasts of prey ! Yet, Morris pressed this scheme to such a 
 degree as produced some disagreement between him and other 
 active friends of the canals, so that he subsequently withdrew, 
 in a measure, his support from the plan that was ultimately 
 adopted. 
 
 Had the scheme of Morris, or that of Clinton, on an en- 
 larged scale, been adopted in the commencement, it would 
 have added millions upon millions of dollars to the State ; and 
 the paltry political squabbles, waged by those opposed to the 
 enlargement of the Erie canal, during the last twenty years, 
 would have been obviated. 
 
 It is, however, possible that, at that period, when the op- 
 position to any canal was exceedingly violent, and our citi- 
 zens comparatively poor, and but little acquainted with the 
 utility of works of this kind, by attempting too much, the 
 whole scheme might have fallen through, and nothing been 
 accomplished. It is better, therefore, that the practical plan 
 of Clinton, for carrying forward the work to completion, was 
 adopted ; which, a1> an early day, and within the incredible 
 short space of eight years from the commencement of the ca- 
 nal, demonstrated in the most gratifying manner to this and 
 other States, not only the practicability of constructing canals, 
 but also, their great benefit to the public and private interests 
 of our people. 
 
 In the mean time, the business on our canals was rapidly 
 increasing; lands in the western part of the State, and in 
 other sections of it, which, previous to constructing the canals, 
 were considered of little or no account, at once rose from one 
 to five hundred per cent, in value. So was it, also, with re- 
 
16 
 
 spect to the price of wheat and all agricultural productions ; 
 while every thing that was required for consumption from 
 abroad, by the western farmers and the inhabitants of the in- 
 terior, along the line of canal, was reduced in price. The 
 western and middle sections of the State were at once reaping 
 a double advantage from the operations of our canals, while 
 New- York city and its environs were immeasurably enriched 
 by it. New towns sprung up along the banks of the canal, of 
 which Syracuse is a shining example — the very creatures of 
 the canal system, without which there would have been little 
 more need of a city here, like what we now see, bustling with 
 a busy population, and crowded with commerce, than exists 
 for a similar city in the depths of the Dismal Swamp ! Turn 
 from it your Erie canal, or "solidify it into solid rock," as 
 Michael HoflPman once desired might be done, and tear up 
 your railroad, (which is also a child of the canals — a thing 
 that would not, in all probability, hav/C been constructed for 
 fifty or a hundred years hence, had you not first constructed 
 the canals, which have been the means of settling and subdu- 
 ing this section of the State, and populating the western terri- 
 tories, by bringing them within convenient proximity to a 
 market,) and your fair city, like the gorgeous city of Venice, 
 into whose voluptuous lap once poured the golden commerce 
 of the East, would droop, crumble, and decay ! The busy 
 streets would no longer manifest the activity of a lucrative and 
 lively trade, would no longer ring with the happy voices of a 
 numerous surrounding yeomanry, attracted hither with their 
 products on the way to market, or as the most direct and con- 
 venient mode of communicating with other sections of the 
 Union. The enterprising, the young, and the active men of 
 business, would seek more congenial fields of labor, and in a 
 few years — in less time than has already been spent by un- 
 scrupulous and corrupt politicians, wrangling against the comple- 
 tion of the canals — there would be little to attract attention in 
 the way of business in Syracuse, or in any of the flourishing 
 towns that have sprung up along the line of the Erie canal. 
 
 But happily no such state of things is likely to occur. 
 Your flourishing city, and increasing towns and villages that 
 surround it, as well as the numerous cities, villages, and large 
 
17 
 
 establishments throughout the State, no less than the great 
 interests of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, must go 
 on increasing, so long as the paternal care of the State shall 
 be extended with a liberal spirit of enlightened policy over its 
 great internal improvements — the great system of canals, pro- 
 jected and carried forward to completion by the incomparable 
 genius and iron energy of De Witt Clinton, and which has 
 warmed and quickened the energies of a mighty people, and 
 thrown among them a degree of wealth, prosperity, and com- 
 mercial importance, unequalled by all the other States of the 
 Union. 
 
 The question of the enlargement of the Erie canal began 
 to present itself as a matter of necessity, even before the la- 
 mented death of Clinton, which occurred suddenly on the 11th 
 February, 1828 ; but nothing was definitely settled with re- 
 gard to it, until 1835; when, in conformity with the recom- 
 mendation of Gov. Marcy, a law was passed, authorizing the 
 Canal Board to construct a double set of lift locks, and im- 
 prove and enlarge the Erie canal. 
 
 At a meeting of the Canal Board, soon after the passage of 
 this law, it was unanimously resolved, that the " public inter- 
 est requires the enlargement and improvement of the Erie ca- 
 nal, and the construction of a double set of locks." The board 
 at once designated the dimensions of the enlarged canal, and 
 proceeded to let the contracts for doing the work. Every thing 
 went smoothly on with the enlargement, until the close of Gov- 
 ernor Marcy's administration, January 1, 1839 ; when, in conse 
 quenceof the mismanagement of Martin Van Buren, who broke 
 down the democratic party, and threw the reins of power into 
 the hands of the whigs, it was, for the first time, since the pro- 
 ject had been adopted, that certain old enemies of the canals 
 discovered that this enlargement scheme was all wrong — calcu- 
 lated to corrupt the people and ruin the State ! Though pre- 
 viously its advocates, they now began to clamor, and finally 
 took hostile grounds against it. This opposition, violent and 
 incessant at first, did not culminate in virulence, until Van 
 Buren was compelled to walk the plank, and quit the capitol 
 at "Washington, in 1840, broken down politically, and forever 
 disgraced. The opposition to enlargement went on accumalat- 
 2 
 
18 
 
 ing in bitterness and force, until the winter of 1842 ; when, 
 owing to the unparalleled embarrassments of the monetary af- 
 fairs of the commercial world, and, especially in this country, 
 so much difficulty had occurred in raising funds, and so hos- 
 tile and noisy were the Barnburner bullies, that the Legisla- 
 ture, in an ill advised and evil moment, foolishly passed an act, 
 suspending the enlargement entirely, and repudiating the con- 
 tracts that had been sacredly entered into on the part of the 
 State ! So successful were the industrious enemies of the 
 public works, and so clamorous, that they really made the 
 people believe that there was a necessity for the extraordinary 
 wickedness which they had perpetrated, and that a tax of a 
 mill and a half on the dollar, was needed to sustain the public 
 credit ! No such state of things, as was represented through 
 the lying Van Buren and Barnburner presses of that day, had 
 any existence with respect to the canals ; which never did, 
 and never can, impose any direct burden upon the exchequer 
 of the State, if a fair management of their revenues is insisted 
 on ; and provided, also, the tolls are not reduced unnecessarily 
 low. 
 
 On the 30th September, at the close of the fiscal year of 
 1841, just three months previously to the meeting of the Legis- 
 lature which unwisely put a stop to the prosecution of the 
 public works, there was, after paying all the interest due on 
 the public debt and all expenses of repairs and superintendence, 
 and $64,850 89 for extraordinary land damages, and $200,000 
 for the current expenses of the government, a surplus standing 
 to the credit of the net revenues of the canals, of $605,751 061 
 Had the canal debt at this time been $10,000,000 more than it 
 actually was, there was yet more than enough net revenue 
 remaining of the business operations of the canals of that year, 
 to have paid promptly the interest on it ; and the canal reve- 
 nues have been annually increasing ever since. 
 
 With this state of facts before them, it is, indeed, difficult 
 to see how men of intelligence and fair character, could be so 
 blinded to the true interests of the State, as to join in with the 
 clamorous and unscrupulous enemies of the canals and suspend 
 their prosecution. 
 
 This, however, was done ; and seriously mischievous have 
 been the consequences that have ensued. 
 
19 
 
 The battle was fought with various success between the 
 friends and the enemies of enlargement, up to the meeting of 
 the convention for revising the Constitution ; when, the Barn- 
 burner bullies having the ascendency there, or rather, there 
 being in the Convention more noisy managing Van Buren in- 
 triguers than friends of the public works, the whole canal sys- 
 tem was tied up in a manner, indicating very clearly, that the 
 adversary had determined to put a final stop to any further 
 progress in the enlargement or completion of the canals. 
 
 This was the condition of the canals until the meeting of 
 the Legislature of 1851 ; — the democratic party being in the 
 mean time, split all to pieces by the perfidious conduct of the 
 Van Buren bullies ; the whigs were in power, and undertook 
 to pass an act providing for the speedy enlargement and com- 
 pletion of the canals, by anticipating their surplus revenues, 
 and basing upon them a loan of $9,000,000 for that purpose. 
 To this proposition, of doubtful propriety, it would have been 
 sufficient for honest men to have interposed a firm and manly 
 opposition, and to have thrown the responsibility of the 
 measure on the whigs, who were largely in the majority in 
 both houses. The barnburner bullies and free-soil short-boys 
 must make a sensation ; they could not prevent the passage 
 of the act for the completion of the canals, and they concluded 
 to resign ! They did so en masse, and broke up the Legisla- 
 ture and had a new election ; and so far as any expression of 
 the people was indicated, with regard to approval or disap- 
 proval of the points at issue, it was decidedly against the revo- 
 lutionary senators. The free-soil short-boys came back into 
 the Senate, which was convened in extra session, with dimin- 
 ished strength. 
 
 The extra session in July, 1851, passed the act for complet- 
 ing the canals, by a large majority. I never approved of 
 this measure, myself, believing it unconstitutional and injudi- 
 cious in some of its provisions, especially, its financial provi- 
 sions ; which proposed to use the credit of the State in pro- 
 curing a loan to carry on the work, in such manner as not to 
 realize its market value. Nevertheless it was a law of the 
 land. It provided for the speedy enlargement of the Erie 
 and completion of the lateral canals, and all parties began to 
 
20 
 
 think that we had, at last, reached the long dela3'ed period 
 ■when something would be done towards finishing the public 
 works. Opposition, on the part of the barnburner faction, 
 seemed to have died away. It had become the settled policy of 
 the dominant party, and all seemed finally inclined to acqui- 
 esce in it. 
 
 In the mean time, the fall elections of 1851, were soon to 
 come off' ; and the free-soilers, who were, by the coalition be- 
 tween them and the spoil-hunters of the party, on the demo- 
 cratic ticket, being anxious for an election and fearful that the 
 people distrusted their honesty, came out voluntarily with a 
 pledge, got up at the Atlas office in Albany, that, if elected, 
 they would carry out, in good faith, all the provisions of the 
 canal law, which, just at that time, they professed heartily to 
 approve of. They had, however, no sooner got warm in their 
 offices, than they began to cast round for means to upset the 
 law and prevent the completion of the canals ! Their pledges 
 to the people, they cared nothing about. They regarded those 
 pledges to execute the law for the completion of the canals, 
 just as they do the Baltimore platform and President Pierce's 
 inaugural — as shadows to spit on. They never intended to 
 execute the law ; they meant from first to last, and the whole 
 barnburner faction and Van Buren bullies mean still, to defeat 
 all measures for finishing the public works. 
 
 Thus the question stood till the fall election of 1852 ; when 
 Mr. Seymour, being in the field as the coalition candidate for 
 governor, took the stump, declaring his friendship for the 
 public works. But when his message was sent into the Legis- 
 lature, all his friends favorable to the completion of the canals, 
 were much surprised and perplexed at the vague and unsatis- 
 factory manner in which he alluded to the subject of complet- 
 ing the canals. He can hardly be said to have recommended 
 any plan whatever, for carrying out the enlargement, unless 
 his suggestions, humorously denominated the scratching and 
 tickling plan, be such ; which, really, if adopted, would not be 
 likely to redound very much to the credit of the Governor nor 
 prove of any great advantage to the revenues of the canals or 
 the convenience of commerce. 
 
 Under these embarrassing circumstances, with a view of 
 
21 
 
 disposing satisfiictorily of this exciting question, which had so 
 often been pronounced upon by the people, and with an 
 honest intention of sustaining, so far as it could possibly be 
 done, the position taken by the Governor, a resolution was, 
 on the second day of the last session, introduced in the Senate, 
 and passed that body almost unanimously, referring so much 
 of the Governor's message as related to the subject of the 
 canals, to ajoint select committee of the two houses, with in- 
 structions to report by bill, providing for the speedy enlarge- 
 ment of the Erie, and the early completion of the lateral 
 canals. 
 
 From the large majority in favor of this resolution in the 
 Senate, it was hoped by the friends of the canals, as well as 
 those who desired the union of the democratic party, that it 
 might meet with equal favor before the Assembly ; and that 
 some feasible plan for completing the canals would be adopted, 
 and that question be withdrawn from the arena of party poli- 
 tics, where it had so long been scuffled over by demagogues 
 and political hucksters, much to the detriment of the public 
 interest, and seriously injurious to the commercial convenience 
 of our citizens. Unhappily, however, these reasonable hopes 
 were not realized. A settled determination to defeat the 
 measure at all hazards, was most palpably manifest on the 
 part of nearly all the Barnburner bullies, who were set on and 
 headed by the Speaker of the House, although he had pro- 
 mised the mover of the resolution and other Senators and 
 friends of the canals, that he would support the proposition 
 for a final disposition of this question. 
 
 At first, so strong was the sentiment in favor of the canals, 
 in and out of the Legislature, it was supposed that the resolu- 
 tion would pass the Assembly, notwithstanding the bitter 
 hostility manifested on the part of the implacable adversaries; 
 who, in discussing the question before the House, not only 
 inveighed bitterly against the resolution, but ungenerously 
 attacked the mover of it, and unjustly maligned his motives. 
 
 The debate went on for weeks, increasing in virulence, 
 unfairness, and abuse, until the barnburner bullies and free- 
 soil foes to the completion of the canals became ferocious. 
 Their press-gang scavengers, and camp-followers of party, 
 
22 
 
 were loudly invoked for aid. These, with the Governor and 
 the State officers, entered the lobby against the resolution, 
 which was defeated, after a severe struggle, by the casting 
 vote of the Speaker ! 
 
 When this result was known in the Senate, Judge Van- 
 derbilt introduced a resolution proposing an amendment of 
 the Constitution, for the purpose of completing the canals out 
 of their surplus revenues, and without imposing onerous 
 taxes on the people for that purpose. This reasonable project 
 met with scarcely so much favor from the barnburner bullies 
 as that which had just been lost by their opposition to it in 
 the Assembly. Senator Vanderbilt, and his plan for com- 
 pleting the unfinished canals, at once became the target of 
 attack from the enemies of the public works in the Legisla- 
 ture, no less than from all the unscrupulous barnburner 
 presses throughout the State. For months, these unprincipled 
 Short-boy adversaries to the internal improvement system of 
 Clinton, which has so largely enriched the State, and conferred 
 such lasting honor upon the memory of its projector, fought 
 Avith the virulence and desperation of fiends against the plan 
 proposed by Mr. Yanderbilt; contending inch by inch against 
 every step that was taken with a view to amend the Constitu- 
 tion, which they declared should remain in statu quo 
 through all coming time as a sacred monument, reared by the 
 Convention of 1846, to the memory of Michael Hoffman! 
 But, however strenuously the amendment, proposed by Mr. 
 Vanderbilt, was contested by the barnburner desperadoes in 
 the Senate, it passed that body by a large majority, and was 
 sent down to the Assembly, where, as all the friends of the 
 measure feared, it was thrown out and lost, through the in- 
 flexible opposition to it on the part of the sworn enemies of 
 canals. 
 
 Notwithstanding these circumstances, when the free-soil 
 members returned from their constituents, after the recess, to 
 resume their seats in the extra session of the Legislature, so 
 strong did they find the canal sentiment pervading all classes 
 of community, that they found it necessary to change, in 
 appearance at least, the ground they had previously occupied 
 in opposition to the public works. 
 
23 
 
 They now pretended to be in favor of amending the Con- 
 stitution; went strongly for the " Vanderbilt plan "for fin- 
 ishing the canals, and wound up by claiming that plan as a 
 very wise and commendable scheme of their oivn ! 
 
 These, in brief, are the circumstances that you have to 
 contemplate, as connected with a great public interest, in 
 which you, as a community and as individuals, have as large 
 a stake as any equal number of our fellow citizens in the 
 State. And now I ask you, in conclusion of this branch of 
 my remarks, whether it is possible or safe for you to trust 
 these unscrupulous, swindling Barnburner bullies and plun- 
 derers any further with the management of your affairs, after 
 their so often repeated and flagrant betrayal of the confidence 
 that has been placed in them ? 
 
 These men, or their party tools, are now before you, ask- 
 ing again for your suffrages that they may still cling to the 
 patronage and spoils of office ; and that they may consum- 
 mate their wicked schemes of plunder and disruption of the 
 Union ! You must decide this question for yourselves ; it is 
 a sovereign right with which no power on earth can interfere. 
 But, while this right to decide for himself, as to whom he will 
 give his suffrage, is a conceded, absolute right, belonging to 
 every American citizen, he should not be unmindful that it 
 carries along with it responsibilities of a high character, with 
 respect to the manner in which he shall exercise that sacred 
 right. He may not, with impunity and without injustice to 
 those who may come after him, nor without doing violence to 
 a common sentiment, become instrumental in the elevation of 
 reckless, unprincipled men, aiming, in every act of their lives, 
 to overreach their fellow citizens, to plunder the State and 
 overthrow the government. It becomes, therefore, a matter 
 of no incurious or unimportant inquiry, to investigate the 
 claims of the Short-boy nominees — to look these Barnburner 
 bullies, "free men and witnesses," full in the face, and de- 
 mand wherefore they come before the people, with their lips 
 blistered with lies, their hearts black with deception, and 
 their every feature smothered with treachery, asking, nay, 
 claiming and even fighting for the places of honor and trust 
 that can never be safely confided to them ? The question is 
 
24 
 
 not so much whether this or that party sliall assume the reins 
 of power ; whether this or that sentiment shall have the as- 
 cendency, nor whether this or that ism shall attract to its in- 
 culcators the most attention ; nor, indeed, is it confined to the 
 simple consideration of whether or not our system of internal 
 improvements shall be sustained, and our canals be complet- 
 ed or go to decay. It is one of much more vital consequence 
 to every American citizen ; to every father who has a son or 
 a daughter to educate ; to every mother who regards her off- 
 spring with a mother's tenderness and love; to every child 
 who has a parent to adore and obey. It is whether this 
 country shall hereafter be governed by a system of laws, af- 
 fording equal protection to all its citizens, as hitherto, in the 
 better days of the republic, or whether it is hereafter to be 
 ruled by violence and brute force ; by ruffians, bullies and 
 pugilistic marauders ; by bandits and desperadoes ; such 
 wretches as were transported here a few days since from the 
 city of New- York, by Cochrane, Eowler, Van Buren and 
 Redfield, and backed by the Governor and the State officers, 
 as " free men and witnesses," for the purpose of overawing 
 and controlling the proceedings of the State Convention; and, 
 if necessary, in order to effect that object, to assassinate the 
 peaceable and respectable delegates sent here by an unbiased 
 and confiding people ! That, fellow citizens, is the great and 
 important question which you have, in fact, to settle at the 
 polls by the suffrages that you shall give at the coming elec- 
 tion. This question you must meet full in the face. You 
 cannot avoid it if you would. Its all pervading necessity im- 
 pels itself upon you in every relation of life ; in your families 
 and in your fields; in your counting-houses and in your 
 courts of justice ; in your shops and in your manufactories ; 
 every where it meets you and presses home to every man's 
 business and bosom, demanding, with the impressive voice of 
 patriotism, an immediate and satisfactory solution. Will you 
 sii rink from it? Dare you shrink from its encounter fairly 
 and fully at this crisis in the affairs of your country? 
 
 The " union and harmony " rowdies, with their Short-boy 
 adjuncts, with Redfield, Cochrane, and Fowler at their head, 
 and Van Buren, Cassidy, Wright, and Seymour at their tail. 
 
25 
 
 make their advent here in your quiet and well ordered city 
 for the purpose, as they pretend, of meeting in convention 
 the delegates regularly chosen by the people to nominate 
 State officers. None of these Short-boy or ofTice-holding 
 " free men and witnesses," as they are called, had the shadow 
 of a title to a seat in the convention. Then why were they 
 here ? For what purpose did they rush into the hall like a 
 pack of wolves, howling and hooting at the top of their 
 voices, and carrying confusion and disorder wherever they 
 polluted the atmosphere with their profanity and the fumes of 
 bestial dissipation ? 
 
 Why did Eedfield, Cochrane, and Fowler, leave the duties 
 of their responsible offices to attend the State convention ? 
 For what purpose were Governor Seymour, John C, Wright, 
 Levi S. Chatfield, and other officers of the State and 
 national administrations, here on that memorable occa- 
 sion ? They were not delegates ; why were they here ? 
 Cochrane, an officer of General Pierce, says they were here 
 as "freemen and witnesses," to promote "union and harmo- 
 ny" in the democratic party, and to "speak by authority ! " 
 "Speak by authority!" An officer of the general govern- 
 ment speaking by authority in a convention of the citizens 
 of the State of New -York ! 
 
 What authority has the President of the United States to 
 speak by his minions, or even in person, in a convention of 
 this or any other State, convened for the nomination of its 
 local officers? Who ever heard of this assumption of au- 
 thority on the part of a President of the Union before? We 
 utterly repudiate and contemn all such authority on the part 
 of the officers of the general government; whether it be 
 General Pierce himself, or his low sutlers, scavengers, and 
 camp-followers, on whom he has so unwisely lavished nearly 
 the whole patronage of his administration. We care not a 
 rush for General Pierce or any other ephemeral emblem of 
 power, belonging to the State or national administration, no 
 longer than such typical incumbent of a temporary position 
 shall manifest sufficient respect for his own official standing 
 to show a decent regard for the feelings and rights of those 
 to whom he is mostly indebted for the exalted station which 
 he so signallv fails to adorn. 
 
26 
 
 I care not whether this be declared from the house-top, or 
 the steps of the capitol at Washington, so lately the pedestal 
 where General Pierce harangued a multitude, in a noisy, pom- 
 pous stump speech, denominated the " President's Inaugural." 
 If General Pierce demeans himself as a sensible, sober man, 
 occupying the distinguished station to which he has been 
 raised, he will be entitled to, and will receive, the respect and 
 consideration, from the people who have placed him in of&ce, 
 that is due to the President of the United States. If, howev- 
 er, he chooses to sink the high dignity of his exalted position 
 down to the low level of blackguards, short-boys, rowdies, 
 pugilists, gamblers, drunkards, and political hucksters, on 
 whom he has already bestowed too large a share of govern- 
 ment patronage, and attempts to exercise an unwarrantable 
 authority, through such detestable creatures, in our local af- 
 fairs, he must expect to be looked upon, himself, as on a level 
 with the companions he chooses for his associates, and be con- 
 tent to receive the same meed of disapprobation with which 
 they are, every where, by all good citizens, justly regarded. 
 The office of President of the United States, nor any office 
 in the gift of the President, cannot, of itself, make a man re- 
 spectable who chooses to cling to, and. associate with rowdies, 
 disorganizcrs, bandits, and partisan pugilists. Nor can it 
 make an honest man of one who is naturally, and of his own 
 volition, a blackhearted, ungrateful traitor. General Pierce 
 has yet, I doubt not, sense enough remaining, to comprehend 
 the full force and truth of this assertion. No one, I venture 
 to say, whether he be a political opponent, or partisan sup- 
 porter of the President, was inclined to find fault with Gen- 
 eral Pierce. On the contrary, all were disposed to regard the 
 incoming administration with a spirit of liberality, so far as 
 its policy and its acts entitled it to approval. His inaugural, 
 as a declaration of the principles laid down by General Pierce, 
 for the guidance of his administration, was generally well re- 
 ceived. No part of the American people appeared to be par- 
 ticularly dissatisfied with the principles it embraced, or the 
 manner in which they were declared, except the Van Buren 
 factionists, and the Barnburner bullies, who recently came 
 here with their Short-boy companions, and, as they declared. 
 
27 
 
 " by authority from Washington," broke up the Democratic 
 Convention, and converted the quiet town of Syracuse into a 
 disgraceful arena of pugilism and slung-shot dexterity. 
 
 These desperadoes, who, in 1848, defeated Gen. Cass by 
 uniting their strength, such as it was, with the abolitionists 
 (whom they subsequently betrayed), and the renegade whigs 
 who joined that nefarious coalition, manifested at the time of 
 its appearance, a good deal of uneasiness and dissatisfaction 
 with the inaugural of General Pierce. Entertaining the dis- 
 organizing and detestable sentiments they do, they had some 
 reason for apprehension, for those of their ilk, not then in the 
 secret of the programme of the President, believed, with the 
 democrats who had always stood by the compromise measures 
 and the Constitution, that the sounding declarations of General 
 Pierce, as put forth in his stump speech inaugural, really 
 meant something. They thought at first, as did the true 
 friends of the President, that his political antecedents were 
 such as to entitle him to belief as a man of truth and veracity. 
 They had not the remotest idea then, that General Pierce in- 
 tended so soon to repudiate, by his own suicidal acts, the 
 principles he laid down in his inaugural. They never dreamed 
 of such a foolish absurdity on the part of the President of the 
 United States; for the reason that they were not then ap- 
 prised of the President's policy, which was not in any degree 
 developed in the inaugural. With the exception of this sin- 
 gular clique of malcontents, who have subsequently been so 
 much warmed into executive favor, people generally were 
 satisfied with the new President, and wished well to his ad- 
 ministration. It appeared to be the settled opinion of con- 
 servative, well demeaned men of all political parties, that the 
 country had made a fortunate escape from the mischievous 
 designs of the opponents of General Pierce, whose candidate 
 for the Presidency, though a highly honorable veteran soldier, 
 who had fought gloriously in the cause of freedom, was sup- 
 posed to be so much under the control and dictation of certain 
 whig free-soilers, as, in case of his election, to endanger, by the 
 policy his subtle advisers might induce him to adopt, the sta- 
 bility of the Union, and possibly upset the government. 
 
 How little did men of this opinion foresee that, by the 
 
28 
 
 election of General Pierce, this country was likely to fall into 
 the same difficulty, which they so assiduously endeavored to 
 avoid by the rejection of General Scott ! 
 
 When the famous inaugural came from Washington, a set 
 of resolutions indorsing it were introduced into the Assembly 
 by Hon. Daniel B. Taylor ; but the Speaker being a rowdy, 
 unscrupulous Short-boy, who had no regard for the rules of 
 the House, and accustomed to rule with palpable injustice 
 towards all the members whom he failed to corrupt and in- 
 veigle into his deceptive political meshes, interposed such 
 obstacles to the efforts of Mr. Taylor, that it was a long time 
 before he could get his inaugural-indorsement resolutions up 
 for consideration. When he at last succeeded and brought 
 the question of their adoption or rejection to a vote, the Short- 
 boy Speaker left the chair with all his Barnburner bullies, 
 and fled from the House with as much precipitation as people 
 living in tropical climates, sometimes quit their dwellings at 
 the sound of an earthquake ! They would not vote upon 
 them at all. They regarded them as directly in conflict with 
 their political faith, the articles of which were to be found in 
 the Buffalo platform ; but no part of them could they, at that 
 time, discover in the inaugural of General Pierce. The reso- 
 lutions of Mr. Taylor, indorsing the inaugural, were, never- 
 theless, passed in the Assembly by a handsome majority, 
 many of the whigs voting in the affirmative, as well they 
 might, for no sane man could discover much that was objec- 
 tionable in them, or the document they sanctioned. The 
 stampeders, however, thought they discovered " a negro in 
 the fence," so they " cut stick, and ran ! " 
 
 Mr. John Yan Buren, a few days since, at a Barnburner Free- 
 Soil fizzle, called a ratification meeting of the "softs," got up by 
 some of his bowie-knife and slung-shot "freemen and witnesses," 
 at the Capitol in Albany, in repeating his famous empty- barrel- 
 head itinerant speech of the memorable free-soil campaign of 
 1848, with some modifications^ paid what he called "his re- 
 spects" to me, and undertook to define my position, to desig- 
 nate my political relations and affinities, to place me on the 
 whig platform, as this great Edile of the Buffalo and other 
 platform constructions has recently undertaken to transfer 
 
29 
 
 the abolition and free-soil whig coalition of 18-48 from tlie 
 celebrated platform of tliat day to that of Baltimore, some- 
 what after the manner the automaton chess-player moves the 
 various pieces on the board to win the " spoils." 
 
 In his fabulous fanfaronade of flummery and falsehood, 
 spewed out in the vestibule of the Capitol, (which, from a 
 report of it in that loathsome sewer of short-boy fdth, called 
 the "Albany Evening Atlas," was evidently intended to be, 
 on paper, a funny thing, it being at almost every other line 
 interlarded with — " laughter," "applause," "great laughter," 
 "renewed laughter," "roars of laughter," "laughter," "great 
 applause," "laughter," "laughter and applause," "renewed 
 applause and laughter," and finally closing the melancholy 
 diatribe with " great applause," but which, I understand, was 
 rather a gloomy affjxir,) John says : 
 
 " The course of Mr. Cooley, who, during the last session, 
 voted steadily with the whigs, must show you that he never 
 intended to act with the democrats," 
 
 Again, John remarks, in connection with his vulgar fabri- 
 cations, while coarsely commenting on the free-soil impeach- 
 ment trial of John C. Mather : " I shall probably have occasion 
 at some other time to speak of the Judge, who is on the 
 same ticket, and who voted this gentleman innocent — Mr. 
 Cooley, and of the counsel, Mr. Brady, who defended him, 
 and is now on the same ticket with him ; but, for the present, 
 it is sufficient to call your attention to these gentlemen just to 
 show you what kind of people they use for breaking up the 
 democratic party, how far they are steeped in corruption, and 
 what the contest is that you have to meet." 
 
 Thus, this short-boy vagrant, after assuming the character 
 of every conceivable shade, stripe, and hue of all political 
 parties; after uniting his fortunes with every imaginable 
 waif, shred, and patch of political cabals, squads, and factions, 
 as he and his father did, in 18-i8, in order to break down the 
 democratic party, and defeat General Cass, the democratic 
 nominee for the presidency ; after appearing in every charac- 
 ter, and under every despicable phase of party; after attempt- 
 ing to be " every thing by turns," but, in effect, accomplishing 
 nothing but mischief, this profligate politician, in his fulsome 
 
30 
 
 falsehoods, of which he reHeved himself in the Capitol, has 
 the brazen-faced impudence to call me, who have never failed 
 nor faltered in the cause of democracy ; and have always 
 been with the party through evil and through good report, 
 "no democrat!" — to accuse me with "having voted steadily 
 with the whigs ! " 
 
 When did I ever vote on political questions with any 
 other than the democratic party ? " Voted steadily with the 
 whigs ! " says this common slanderer ! I recollect very well 
 that the whigs " voted very steadily" with me, on my motions 
 to defeat certain short-boy nominations of Governor Sey- 
 mour, who were, I am told, the slung-shot companions of 
 John Van Buren; among whom was one Briggs, who was 
 nominated, if I remember correctly, for Salt Inspector — an 
 office of some little responsibility and importance in this 
 county. I recollect the circumstance quite distinctly ; and, to 
 say nothing of the effect of his defeat on the nominee him- 
 self, I understand that it annoyed Governor Seymour and the 
 eloquent floodgate of slung-shot falsehoods, John Van Buren, 
 most prodigiously. But the nominee having been represented 
 in the Senate as a public delinquent, I felt it to be my duty, 
 however it might affect the gentleman himself, and his pugi- 
 listic friend, John Van Buren, and the Governor, to defeat his 
 nomination ; and the whigs did me the favor to vote with me 
 for the accomplishment of that desirable object. 
 
 I am told that the gentleman has since threatened to meet 
 me at "Philippi." And, should I ever take it into my head 
 to go to " Philippi," I suppose I shall have the pleasure to 
 meet the gentleman there ; though I am sorry to say that I 
 hardly think I shall be able to make a journey to that noted 
 place expressly for that purpose. 
 
 John, moreover, charges me, in the Short-boy performance, 
 which I have had occasion to allude to and quote from, with 
 being "steeped in corruption!" 
 
 Having been in the free-soil teapot of Barnburner villany, 
 " steeping in corruption/' almost from the cradle up to the 
 moment of exuding his late calumnies at the Capitol, against 
 Daniel S. Dickinson, Mr. Brady, Judge Vanderbilt, and al- 
 most every respectable Democrat in the State, I have no sort 
 
81 
 
 of doubt, whatever, of his thorough acquaintance with corrup- 
 tion of the most corrupt and rotten description ; if not, I can 
 only say, that thirty or forty years " steeping " him in it, and 
 testing its quahty in its various stages, have been lavished on 
 him in that line, to very little purpose. 
 
 So much for John Van Buren, "Prince John," as he is 
 sometimes derisively called ; much such a kind of prince, I 
 suppose, as is the ruler of the pit — " the prince of devils," the 
 " prince of humbugs," and the " prince of liars," He is now, 
 I am told, perambulating the State, boasting that he has got 
 " Bronson's head in a basket ! " reminding one forcibly of an- 
 other profligate prostitute of ancient times, who was seen with 
 a very good man's "head in a charger," which, to gratify a 
 base passion, had been severed by order of a drunken Gover- 
 nor of Judea, at a bacchanalian banquet, given at the " White 
 House," or bestial mansion of that wicked prince, near Jeru- 
 salem, The parallel between the characters of both the pos- 
 sessors of the head of John the Baptist and Bronson the Col- 
 lector, no less than of the two deluded rulers, wdio unwisely 
 ordered the unoifending victims to the block, is too manifestly 
 striking not to impress upon the mind of every one the mel- 
 ancholy truth, that "when the wicked rule, the people 
 mourn," 
 
 " Bronson's head in a basket ! " says this itinerant polluted 
 speech filter of Short-boy obscenity as he swings his listless length 
 from one Barnburner squad to another, jeering and scoffing at 
 the stern virtues, patriotism, and the unwavering political 
 principles of the man, who, to appease the urgent demands 
 of John and his mean associates in political profligacy, was 
 victimized and martyred by the unhallowed hands of treachery 
 and imbecility ! 
 
 " Bronson's head in a basket ! ' ' And why has Bronson been 
 singled out, of all the nominees of the President, for the sacri- 
 fice — for the victim to give hilarity and mirth to the reckless 
 band of filibusteros, who now, and always have, enjoyed more 
 of General Pierce's confidence than all the members of the 
 National democratic party put together? What reason do 
 the high functionaries at Washington, who are evidently giddy 
 with the reins of power, temporarily placed in their hands by 
 
32 
 
 a confiding people, give for summarily "demanding the head 
 of Bronson!" for ejecting that highly accomplished, pure- 
 minded, patriotic man, from the office of Collector of the port 
 of New- York — an office which he never sought, and only con- 
 sented to accejjt to oblige the President, and relieve him from 
 an unpleasant embarrassment ; and which he has filled with 
 so much satisfaction to the country, and so much honor to 
 himself! Why was this done? What great political prin- 
 ciple is to be favorably affected by it, or what important ques- 
 tion of public policy is to be advanced by it ? What is the 
 secret of this high-handed outrage of President Pierce, accom- 
 panied by the vituperative and shameless missive of insult, 
 vulgarity, and coarseness, hurled from the office of the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury, at the unoffending head of the Collector, 
 as it fell into the Judas-Iscariot basket, or bag, of John Van 
 Buren, by command of a fifth-rate country court, pettifogger 
 of New Hampshire, who, by accident simply, happened to 
 reach an exalted position, only to abuse its power. Why, 
 again, I ask, was the head of the victim called for, and the 
 slaughter demanded ? 
 
 It was simply because Judge Bronson had the independent 
 manliness to indicate to the unscrupulous cabal of Tammany 
 Hall, who had insultingly and with characteristic effrontery, 
 undertaken to use his great name as a decoy in furtherance of 
 their intrigues against the democratic party, that he should 
 exercise an inalienable right, of which no power on earth, but 
 that of a revolution, can deprive him or any other citizen of 
 this State — the right of suffrage, in support of the regularly no- 
 minated democratic ticket, instead of the short-boy nomina- 
 tions, which he utterly repudiated and entirely disapproved 
 of. That is the true reason ; that is the whole amount of the 
 collector's offending, from beginning to end ; for which he 
 has been so unhandsomely used by the President, and so base- 
 ly traduced and jeered at by the minions of power and John 
 Van Buren, who scoffingly itinerates through the rural dis- 
 tricts, diffusing his falsehoods, and boasts that he has " Bron- 
 son's head in a basket ! " That is the true reason ; and that 
 is the only reason. If any man doubts it, he will have abun- 
 dant evidence to relieve his mind from anv further doubt 
 
33 
 
 on this subject, by reading from the Washington Union of 
 October 23, 1853, the recognized official organ of General 
 Pierce, an editorial article, headed "THE PRESIDENT'S 
 POLICY VINDICATED— OFFICIAL INSUBORDINA- 
 TION DISCOUNTEiNTANCED— FACTIOUS DISORGA- 
 NIZATION REBUKED ! " from which I beg leave to quote 
 a few striking extracts, which will not fail to make the truth 
 of my assertion very clearly manifest. 
 
 " It will be remembered that the first act of Collector 
 Bronson which attracted public attention to his position, was 
 his letter to the Tammany committee, in which he avowed 
 his determination to support the ticket on which were the 
 names of James E. Cooley, for Comptrollor, and James T. 
 Brady, for Attorney General. Before the assembling of the 
 convention which nominated these gentlemen, they had as- 
 sumed an attitude of hostility to the administration ^which 
 placed them as clearly in the opposition as if they had openly 
 assumed the name of whigs. To show the real import of the 
 action of the convention in nominating these gentlemen, and 
 of the support given to them by Mr. Bronson, we will turn 
 for a moment to some of their antecedents. 
 
 " On the 2d June, 1853, Mr. Cooley delivered an elaborate 
 speech in the New- York Senate, in which he denounced, in 
 unmeasured terms, that portion of the democratic party which 
 had supported Mr. Van Buren in 1848, and charged that their 
 recognition as national democrats by President Pierce was a 
 violation of the sentiments declared by him in his letter to 
 Major Lally, and in his Inaugural Address. 
 
 " Mr. Cooley said that President Pierce had been faithless 
 to all his professions concerning the compromise measures ! 
 He had called around him the men who had sought to destroy 
 the Union. He had deserted all his principles, and he (Mr. 
 C.) denounced him as having forsaken the doctrines of his 
 former votes, and all the declarations upon which the demo- 
 cratic party had elected him. He has disappointed the coun- 
 try — disappointed all his friends— by calling around him men 
 who, in 1848, had attempted to overturn the Union. The 
 very nullifiers and disorganizers were astonished at the length 
 to which he had gone." 
 3 
 
34 
 
 " Mr. Brady had acted as the presiding officer of a demo- 
 cratic club in the city of New- York ; but before the meeting 
 of the Syracuse convention he resigned his position, and as- 
 signed his reasons in a letter from which the following is an 
 extract : 
 
 " ' It is obviously one of the designs of the club to support, 
 with its characteristic zeal, the present national and State adminis- 
 trations. — Perceiving, as I do, how my feelings and opinions 
 may render it necessary for me to look beyond, and perhaps 
 operate against the individuals ivho may sway these administrations, 
 that the integrity of the true democratic party may be pre- 
 served — •! am compelled to withdraw from a station in which 
 the conflict of obligation to my associates and duty to my con- 
 science might expose me to unpleasant trials. ' " 
 
 " Foreseeing that the club would support the administra- 
 tion with its characteristic zeal, Mr. Brady chose to resign, 
 because \i\& feelings and opinions might render it necessary for 
 him to operate against the individuals swaying the administra- 
 tion. What Mr. Brady meant by this letter was more fully 
 and distinctly avowed in his speech recently made before the 
 Young Men's Democratic Club. We quote from it the follow- 
 ing : 
 
 " * Whenever any public man, false to the duties of the 
 station he occupies, seeks to convert his office into a mere in- 
 strument for promoting the selfish schemes of his followers or 
 himself, be it our desire and effort to discomfit and disgrace 
 him. And when a man high in position, who is supposed to 
 partake in some degree of the large and noble sentiments 
 which sway our people, stoops from the eminence he should 
 aim at adorning, to wield his influence in gratifying the re- 
 venge of disappointed ambition, or to appease the clamors of 
 mercenary politicians, we will expose and denounce him as 
 an object of hatred and of scorn. — [Great applause.] Some 
 individuals at Washington now invested with authority, which 
 the people gave, and which the people can take away, suppose 
 that a President and his cabinet may dictate to the democratic 
 party in this State how they should exercise their political 
 power. We will teach them a lesson, as we have already 
 taught one to Yan Buren.— [Applause.] We will wait pa- 
 
35 
 
 tiently, but witli stern resolution, for the time to instruct those 
 usurpers that offices and honors belong not to the incumbents, 
 but to the people, and that we wage a war of extermination 
 against all politicians, in or out of office, who would exercise 
 the power of government to intimidate the humblest citizen 
 in the exercise of his rights. Franklin Pierce and Mr. Guthrie 
 have no unsatisfied claims on this country. — [Applause.] The 
 existence of the talents of neither is essential to our progress or 
 prosperity. We could fill their places to-morrow with abler 
 and better men ; and we here warn them, that if they continue 
 to be led by the wily and corrupt Marcy, we will assign them, 
 and all who unite with them in their despicable political 
 treachery, to the impoteucy they will so richly deserve. ' " 
 
 " With sentiments of hostility to the administration like 
 those openly avowed by these two gentlemen, they were se- 
 lected by the inconsiderable fraction of the convention which 
 met in the Globe Hotel as two of their most prominent standard- 
 bearers. If it were legitimate to doubt whether the nomina- 
 tion of Messrs. Cooley and Brady was an indorsement of their 
 opposition to the administration, that doubt would vanish in 
 view of the fact, that the convention studiously avoided the 
 adoption of any resolution approving its policy. This was 
 not an accidental omission, but a premeditated act of hostility, 
 rendered the more significant from the fact that the design of 
 thus assailing the administration had been previously charged 
 upon the leading men of the "convention. We shall not dis- 
 cuss the questions as to the organization of the two conven- 
 tions at Syracuse. It is enough to know that those who nom- 
 inated Messrs. Brady and Cooley were distinctly notified that 
 the other convention was prepared to adopt the most satisfac- 
 tory platform, and to appiwe the policy of the administration. 
 With this notification the friends of Messrs. Cooley and Brady 
 declined to act in concert with them, but chose to adopt a 
 platform in which the approval of the policy of the administra- 
 tion was omitted. The facts are conclusive to the point that 
 this portion of the convention assembled with the fixed pur- 
 pose of making a separate organization, and the basis of that 
 organization was opposition to the administration. This was 
 shown not only by the fact that there is no difference in the 
 
36 
 
 two platforms, except as to an indorsement of the policy of 
 tlie administration, and by the fact that the friends of Messrs. 
 Cooley and Brady knew beforehand that this would be the 
 only point of difference ; it is shown by the fact that, with the 
 knowledge that Messrs. Cooley and Brady were openly and 
 bitterly hostile to the administration, they were selected as the 
 nominees of that portion of the convention. 
 
 ******* 
 
 "With all these facts before him. Collector Bronson en- 
 tered the field as an active and zealous advocate of that organ- 
 ization which stands stamped, in its origin, and in every step 
 of its progress, with hostility to the administration. By his 
 letter to the Tammany committee he threw all the weight of 
 his high judicial as well as his high official character and 
 station in opposition to the administration ; and when rebuked 
 for his disregard of the known policy of the President, he 
 comes forward in a spirit of arrogant defiance, and rebels 
 against the authority of his superiors in office. This letter of 
 Mr. Bronson completes the chain of evidence, and presents 
 him before the country in the same attitude of open hostility 
 which had been previously assumed by Messrs. Cooley and 
 Brady. 
 
 " We do not suppose that it has ever occurred to any sen- 
 sible man that the President could for a moment tolerate such 
 insubordination as Mr. Bronson exhibits in his letter to Mr. 
 Guthrie. We cannot suppose for an instant that Mr. Bronson 
 could have calculated on retaining his office after such an act 
 of insubordination. He has evidently sought the sympathy 
 which always attaches to the fate of the martyr; but he 
 should have remembered that sympathy in the manly bosom 
 is alone reserved for those who make sacrifices for their coun- 
 try or for principle, not for men who are animated by selfish 
 objects and bow to the demands of passion and prejudice." 
 
 Here is the proof, strong as holy writ, that the delirious 
 occupant of the " White House," and his inflated Cabinet at 
 Washington, have undertaken the rather difficult task, I ap- 
 prehend, of controlling the local elections of this State! 
 
 Secretary Guthrie's letter, transmitting to Judge Bronson 
 the notice of his removal, indicates only the pretext for that 
 
3T 
 
 injudicious and unjustifiable act, while the editor of the Union, 
 in apologetically laying the whole subject before the public, 
 letters and all, gives, beyond every peradventure, the real 
 motive which instigated the perpetration of the deed. 
 
 And, fellow-citizens, what a pitiful spectacle does this 
 paltry meddling, on the part of the President of the United 
 States, with our local State politics, present for the contem- 
 plation of a great, intelligent, free and independent nation ! 
 Its President stooping down from the height of his exalted 
 station, and so far forgetting the dignity of that position, no 
 less than what is due to his own character as an honorable 
 man, while occupying it, as to mix up with the party State 
 squabbles of the day, and attempt to control the feuds which 
 now unhappily agitate and disturb the once harmonious ranks 
 of the democracy of this commonwealth ! How are the Presi- 
 dent and his cabinet belittled and lowered in the estimation of 
 all honorable men, if any thing now could have that effect, by 
 such reprehensible, undignified, unmanly, and despicable con- 
 duct! Every where in and out of this State, throughout the 
 whole length and breadth of the land, except with the Short- 
 boy bullies and slung-shot incendiaries, the cut-throats, ban- 
 dits and filibusteros of Tammany Hall, and their pressgang 
 adherents, the unjustifiable removal of Judge Bronson is con- 
 demned as a flagrant outrage on the spotless purity of that 
 gentleman's character, and a violation of public trust injurious 
 to the interests of the Union, and an act of ingratitude and 
 injustice, revolting to the moral sense of every high-minded 
 and honorable man. The President and his cabinet, however, 
 have taken upon themselves the responsibility of the high- 
 handed measure of dictating, to all the subordinate function- 
 aries of the federal government, the political affinities of men 
 for whom they may or may not be allowed to cast their votes, 
 and yet retain office under the administration of General 
 Pierce, who, so recently, in his stump speech, delivered from 
 the steps of the Capitol, pompously declared to the American 
 people, that: 
 
 "K the Federal Government will confine itself to the ex- 
 ercise of powers clearly granted by the Constitution, it can 
 hardly happen that its action upon any question should en- 
 
38 
 
 danger the institutions of the States, or interfere with their 
 right to manage matters strictly domestic according to the will 
 of their own people." 
 
 This, however, like the rest of the sounding verbiage in 
 that political fulmination of the President, was intended, as 
 his subsequent conduct has very clearly indicated, merely for 
 parade and stage effect ; a sort of star-spangled banner per- 
 formance, just to amuse the multitude who had gathered around 
 the General on that occasion, out of sheer curiosity to see 
 what kind of a lion had at last got into the presidency, and 
 taken possession of the White House. 
 
 Should this bad measure of the present administration be 
 successfully carried out by General Pierce and his free-soil 
 firiends, its baneful, demoralizing effects cannot fail to be pain- 
 fully apparent to every reflecting man who has given the 
 slightest attention to the subject. A great centralized power, 
 such as that evidently aimed at by the Cabinet at "Washing- 
 ton, reaching out on every hand, and penetrating the utmost 
 verge and the most secluded corners of every part of the Ee- 
 public, through the instrumentality of myriads of its depend- 
 ent agents, moulded and formed to anticipate, in their official 
 and social relations with the people, the extreme views of the 
 government, must of necessity break down eventually all the 
 advantages likely to result from the free suffrages of a people^ 
 and, finally, sap the foundations of civil and religious freedom. 
 When such men as Judge Bronson are proscribed by the Pre- 
 sident of the United States, and turned out of office with a 
 scurrilous and rebukeful missive hurled after them from a 
 subordinate department of the government, simply on account 
 of having expressed a prefereu' e for one set of men over an- 
 other, to fill local offices, it is high time for those who have 
 contributed to the elevation of men to positions of power, 
 capable of such flagrant and glaring outrages, to pause and 
 contemplate the pernicious consequences that are likely to re- 
 sult to our institutions and our rights as citizens, looking up 
 for protection to a system of equitable laws, which should be 
 administered in a spirit of justice and enlightened patriotism. 
 
 If the President supposed that this act of violence and ma- 
 levolent ingratitude, done, not only to Judge Bronson himself. 
 
39 
 
 but intended, also, as it was, to outrage and insult the just 
 sentiment of all liis numerous friends, wlio, with Judge Bron- 
 son, contributed so largely and cordially towards the elevation 
 of General Pierce, was to pass unrebuked, and without meet- 
 ing the unqualified condemnation of an incensed and injured 
 community, he has already discovered more than enough, in 
 the journals of the day, which teem with expressions of indig- 
 nation at this unwise act, to arouse him from the slumbers of 
 a fatal delusion. This removal of Judge Bronson, confessedly 
 without any pretence of official misconduct, from an ojOfice 
 which he only accepted to oblige General Pierce, and the base 
 attempt, through the pampered minions of executive favor, 
 to blacken his unsullied and spotless character, presents a de- 
 gree of moral turpitude, malevolence, and revenge, unparal- 
 leled in the political history of this country. 
 
 This foolish and unjust act of General Pierce, without one 
 palliating circumstance to redeem the perfidious motive that 
 prompted its perpetration, stamps the administration of the 
 President with the black seal of public reprobation, to which 
 it will be henceforth glaringly exposed. 
 
 Let not a President of the United States, even, though 
 exalted be the station, become so giddy and deluded, as to 
 suppose he may not be reached and exposed for flagrant acts 
 of injustice towards those whom he has cheated and betrayed. 
 General Pierce went into the Presidency on the popular sen- 
 timent pervading all classes of our people, contained in the 
 compromise measures, which recemented the north and the 
 south, and healed up the lacerated wounds inflicted by rabid 
 secessionists and fanatic free-soilers, sealing with the indelible 
 impress of infamy, those disorganizing, unprincipled despera- 
 does, whom, to the dishonor and disturbance of the country, 
 and to the lasting disgrace of the President, he has treacher- 
 ously raised up from the tomb of political pollution, and taken 
 to his bosom as his confidential counsellors and advisers. 
 These, and their minions, every where placed in positions of 
 power throughout the land, revelling in oflicial rewards, like 
 poisonous and deleterious exhalations rising from a slough of 
 stagnant putrefaction and death, stroll through the country, 
 from one end of it to the other, armed with slung-shot, bowie- 
 
40 
 
 knives, brickbats, and bludgeons, attempt to overawe and con- 
 trol the political conventions of the people, and infamize the 
 community, and bring down the morals of our citizens to the 
 low dead level of profanity and drunkenness, requisite now to 
 conform to the fashionable standard in vogue with those 
 known to be in high favor at the White House. 
 
 General Pierce charges through his official organ, the 
 Washington Union, in an article from which I have already 
 quoted, that Mr. Brady and myself have taken an attitude of 
 hostility towards his administration, which places us as clearly 
 in opposition, as if we had openly assumed the name of whigs. 
 Hence he argues that, inasmuch as our democratic fellow-citi- 
 zens have seen fit to put us in nomination for State officers, 
 and as Judge Bronson, when goaded by the impertinence and 
 effrontery of the abolitionizing cabal of Tammany Hall, had 
 the manly courage and defiant firmness to declare his prefe- 
 rence for the ticket having our names on it, to that nominated 
 by the short-boy delegation from the stews and Five Points 
 of the city of New- York; Bronson, himself, is therefore al- 
 leged to be in an attitude of opposition to the administration ; 
 and turned out of office. 
 
 When and how was it that Mr. Brady and myself were 
 found in an attitude of hostility to the administration, such as 
 it is, of General Pierce ? What brought us, or, rather, drove 
 us into an attitude of disapproval of the course of General 
 Pierce's administration? Was it a matter of our own choice? 
 Or were we not pressed into positions by the free-soil favorites 
 of General Pierce, which rendered it incumbent upon us as 
 honest men, not only to characterize his abolitionizing satel- 
 lites as they deserved, but to express, also, our disappraval 
 of the mistake he had made, in preferring the Van Buren 
 traitors of 1848, over the better claims to executive attention 
 and distinction, of unwavering true-hearted democrats, who 
 had never deserted the constitutional guaranties of the gov- 
 ernment — who had always stood by the compromise measures, 
 and who had contributed a hundred-fold more to elevate Gen- 
 eral Pierce to the presidency, than those unworthy bolters and 
 renegades from the democratic party, on whom he appeared 
 inclined to lavish nearly all the public patronage of the Gov- 
 ernment ? 
 
41 
 
 Sucli was manifestly the fact with respect to the conduct 
 of General Pierce ; and such, also, was the position of Mr. 
 Brady and myself, as regards the attitude of defence we were 
 compelled to assume towards those unworthy and corrupt cor- 
 morants for political plunder, whom he had warmed into the 
 malignant activity of vipers and asps, by foolishly attempting 
 to smother their cupidity and secure their friendship, by means 
 of government place and patronage. This unfortunate state 
 of things. General Pierce, himself, had brought about. Neither 
 Mr. Brady nor myself had the slightest agency in producing 
 it ; and it was in sorrow, rather than in a spirit of enmity or 
 ill-will towards General Pierce, or any member of his cabinet, 
 that we found ourselves in positions that required a fearless 
 expression of opinion with respect to the impropriety and in- 
 justice of the President's conduct in nominating so many short- 
 boy bullies to places of honor and trust, to the exclusion and 
 culpable neglect of competent and worthy democrats, who were 
 ' not only warm friends of General Pierce, but they are active, 
 liberal and influential members of the party, and have the full 
 confidence of all who know them. Conduct of this kind, which, 
 carried to the extent practised by General Pierce, amounts to 
 downright treachery, we think, formed not only a subject 
 for severe criticism, but deserved the just condemnation which 
 we stamped upon it at the time ; and which, for one, I have 
 had no cause to regret ; and, similarly placed, in like circum- 
 stances, I should do again ; though I do regret exceedingly, 
 that betrayal of the confidence and dependence placed in the 
 character of General Pierce — which was inferred from his 
 course in Congress and his native State, and so emphatically 
 pronounced in his grandiloquent inaugural, with respect to 
 his disfavor towards free-soil factionists, should have occurred, 
 so as to have rendered it imperative on me, in conformity with 
 a sense of duty, to utter my disapprobation of such apparent 
 inconsistency and folly. 
 
 Had General Pierce sustained himself, and his own ad- 
 ministration ; and had he administered the government in 
 accordance with his star-spangled inaugural, he would not 
 now have to complain, that those who contributed to the 
 extent of their ability, as I claim to have done myself, to 
 
42 
 
 place him in the high position which he so imperfectly adorns, 
 have assumed an attitude of open hostility to his administra- 
 tion. His administration then would have sustained itself, as 
 General Jackson's did ; and millions of intelligent American 
 citizens, who now look upon his administration with loathing 
 and contempt, would have rallied around his standard and 
 sustained him gloriously through every emergency, and re- 
 joiced at his success. But, after his manifested treachery 
 towards the national democracy throughout the Union, and 
 his persistent though futile attempts to abolitionize the demo- 
 cratic party, and conform its action to the principles laid 
 down in the Buffalo platform ; while professing, himself, to 
 stand on that of Baltimore, which his free-soil friends and 
 short-boy " witnesses" have spit upon ; both General Pierce 
 and his administration are likely to go down to posterity 
 under the just contempt and scorn of all who entertain a 
 decent regard for common honesty and fair dealing. 
 
 If General Pierce finds Judge Bronson, or Mr. Brady, or 
 myself, and other national democrats, occupying an attitude 
 hostile to him, and to the policy developed by his administra- 
 tion, it is not because we have changed or wavered one jot or 
 tittle from the position we occupied at the time of his election ; 
 but it is because he himself, who at that time was supposed to 
 be with us, has caved in and gone over to the barnburner 
 bullies and short-boy pugilists, whom we have strenuously 
 contended against for years, and with whose nefarious princi- 
 ples, w^hich General Pierce himself seems fully to have 
 adopted, we have waged an uncompromising warfare. Had 
 the President remained true to the democratic faith ; had he 
 not softened and yielded at the seductive contact with the 
 spoils of his political elevation, he would have had no just 
 provocation to accuse Judge Bronson, nor Mr. Brad}^, nor 
 myself, of standing as "clearly in opposition to him, as if we 
 had assumed the name of whigs." 
 
 Whigs were always opposed to free soil filibusteros and 
 barnburner bullies, and so were the national democrats ; hence 
 it is, that General Pierce having sold out, caved in, and 
 turned free-soiler, now of necessity, owing to his change of 
 principles and position, finds both whigs and democrats in 
 
43 
 
 direct antagonism, and in open hostility to the new political 
 attitude and character he has unfortunately assumed. How- 
 ever unpleasant this new attitude of hostility to the demo- 
 cracy, which General Pierce has assumed towards it, since 
 his election to the Presidency, may be to his feelings, the 
 seductive height of his position will hardly afford sufficient 
 attraction to carry the national democratic party over to him 
 and his free-soil friends ; therefore, should he desire to change 
 the posture of affairs, so as to bring his administration out of 
 a hostile attitude towards those who are now, and always 
 have been in full communion with the national democracy, 
 his course is perfectly clear before him ; he has only to come 
 out from the free-soil party, and penitently return to that 
 from which he has deserted, and proved himself recreant to 
 its time-honored principles, by embracing those of political 
 infidels and bowie-knife assassins. There has been no deser- 
 tion on the part of the national democracy, of the principles 
 on which General Pierce declared his administration to be 
 founded, on taking charge of the government. The only 
 deserter in the camp is the General himself, who, instead of 
 being the honored and acknowledged leader of a great pa- 
 triotic and powerful party, is now only the nominal head of a 
 Cabal — a sort of Punch and Judy conductor of the free-soil 
 performances, with a wire in his back, by which he is twitched 
 backwards and forwards, and made to kick up his heels here 
 and dance there, to just such kind of music as the organ- 
 grinders of his cabinet take a fancy to sing in his deluded 
 ears! 
 
 If this position is uncomfortable and disagreeable to Gene- 
 ral Pierce, he cannot say that it is not one of his own choice ; 
 nor that he assumed it without being impressively warned of 
 its difficulties, and the mischievous consequences to him, and 
 the success of his administration, that must inevitably result 
 from so insane and ill-devised a procedure. 
 
 General Pierce opened the performance of his presidency 
 on the Baltimore platform ; but, having a previous engage- 
 ment with the free-soil managers, the curtain fell on pronounc- 
 ing his inaugural prologue there, and he has ever since been 
 miserably playing to thin houses of ill-fame on the Buffalo 
 stage. 
 
44 
 
 It is at any time a dangerous experiment to desert friends 
 and undertake to buy one's enemies ; but, at General Pierce's 
 time of life, it cannot prove otherwise than every way disas- 
 trous and flital to him. 
 
 This calamity to General Pierce and his administration 
 was early foreseen to be the inevitable result of his insane 
 conduct, and he was abundantly admonished of his danger ; 
 but he has chosen of his own free-will and volition, to take 
 live coals into his bosom and handle pitch, and he must ex- 
 pect to get burned and soiled by the experiment. 
 
 "While the true friends of General Pierce look with sorrow 
 on his downward course, and present position, they have for 
 themselves, their families, and their country, high responsibi- 
 lities and important duties to perform, which preclude the pos- 
 sibility of their indulging the slightest sympathy with his re- 
 prehensible conduct, or with that of the free soil companions 
 w^hom he has chosen to accompany him along his inglorious 
 presidential career. 
 
 If in occasional lucid moments, should such happen to 
 occur. General Pierce returns to the lofty summit of his 
 country's regard, which, by his stupendous treachery, he has 
 so justly forfeited, and looks down into the "lower deep" of 
 degradation and contempt, to which he has foolishly descend- 
 ed, no one will envy him the wretchedness of the contempla- 
 tion ; and in commiseration of his misery, one might almost 
 in mercy pray for the return of his delirium, to deliver him 
 from the horrors of a conscience-smitten conviction of the per- 
 nicious evils his madness is likely to inflict upon the institu- 
 tions of the Union ! 
 
 What a monstrous doctrine does General Pierce attempt to 
 inculcate, and how directly calculated is it to subvert inalienable 
 rights, and injuriously affect domestic relations of independent 
 and sovereign States, when he assumes a control over the 
 suffrages of American citizens in order to mould our State 
 elections to suit the complexion of his cabinet at Washington. 
 
 We have here, in this State, great questions of public 
 policy, connected with our internal improvements and other 
 important subjects, with which General Pierce cannot be 
 otherwise than imperfectly acquainted, and which are to be 
 
45 
 
 seriously aifected for weal or woe, by the result of the ap- 
 proaching election. If the ticket prevails, for which he has 
 so significantly expressed his preference, over that upon 
 which he has been pleased to pronounce the fiat of executive 
 condemnation, the conservative national democracy of New- 
 York have abundant and most manifest reasons to believe 
 that those great interests will be completely abandoned and 
 sacrificed to the cupidity and plundering propensities of the 
 adjuncts of the Tammany Hall cabal, whom General Pierce 
 has unwisely lent the great patronage of his high office, to 
 erect into a supremacy of authority in the Empire State. 
 
 The free people of New- York will never concede the 
 right, to a President of the United States, nor to any other 
 functionary of the general government, however high may be 
 his official position, or exalted his abilities, to interfere thus 
 audaciously, as has been attempted on the part of General 
 Pierce and his Cabinet, with the local elections and other 
 questions, strictly of a domestic character in this State. This 
 daring effrontery on the part of the President and the men of 
 moderate ability, whom he has called into his Cabinet, much 
 to the regret of all classes of American citizens ; and, as is 
 believed, much to the detriment of the public interests, with 
 the domestic concerns of this State ; while it manifestly meets 
 the decided disapproval of all good citizens every where 
 throughout the country, so far as expression has been given 
 to the all-pervading sentiment, is here, where the mischief is 
 calculated to work the most effectual canker and poison to the 
 interests, dear to every conservative national man, indelibly 
 stamped with defiant disapprobation and scorn. We, of the 
 north, after fighting gloriously, under the lead of the gallant 
 and intrepid Dickinson, the great battle of the constitutional 
 compromises, on which rests the stability of the Union, in 
 favor of the State rights of the south and their peculiar do- 
 mestic institutions, will not now supinely sit down and bow 
 our heads ignominiously to the block, when our very hearth- 
 stones and households are assailed, however potent may be the 
 aggressive force with which we may be called to contend, or 
 however far the men of the south may come short of the high 
 standard of support, we feel that we had reason to expect. 
 
46 
 
 If the hand of executive power, which we have so largely 
 contributed to elevate, and for which, on its advent to the 
 Presidency, we had such high hopes of being able to support, 
 believing as we did, in the integrity of its principles and in- 
 tended future course ; now that it has seen fit to change its 
 direction and abandon the high aims indicated in the inaugu- 
 ral of General Pierce, is to be turned ungraciously and with 
 ingratitude against us, it will be fearlessly resisted and gal- 
 lantly combated, until that power itself, and the treacherous 
 hand that so tyrannically wields it, are both ignominiously 
 trampled beneath our feet. Let not the President of the 
 United States, nor the pitiful minions of his power suppose, 
 by turning out of office the only men who could, by possi- 
 bility, lend dignity to his administration, and give it the 
 slightest claim to respect, and insure its success, under pre- 
 tence of "vindicating his policy " and "rebuking insubordina- 
 tion," but, substantially, with a view to influence and control 
 the local elections of New-York, that such an unwarrantable 
 and high-handed procedure, will for a single moment be si- 
 lently submitted to, or acquiesced in by the people of this 
 State. 
 
 The men of the south, in whose noble strife for their just 
 rights, the gallant son of New-York, and his patriotic com- 
 panions of the north, participated so largely in their extremity, 
 may now, when their aid is so much needed to sustain the 
 principles of that war-worn chief, and of those who stand in 
 battle array around him, turn a deaf ear to our necessities; 
 may, perhaps, go to the assistance of the enemy, and confirm, 
 possibly, in the Senate of the United States, the free-soil and 
 soft-shell appointments of General Pierce, made to replace 
 such able, pure-minded, patriotic men as Bronson, and in 
 favor of unscrupulous individuals, who are sworn and pledged 
 to demolish and exterminate every vestige of nationalism, and 
 disgrace every man not identified with the free-soil faction, 
 headed by John Van Buren, Cochrane, Fowler, Eedfield, and 
 the Short-boy bullies of Tammany Hall ; but we shall, never- 
 theless, contend, single-handed if need be, undismayed and 
 unconquered, so long as God shall give us breath to continue 
 the conflict. 
 
47 
 
 We, national democrats of the north, do not, we cannot, 
 we will not believe that the chivalric and noble-hearted men 
 of the south, the national democrats of the genial south, with 
 whom and us, hitherto, there has existed so much sympathy, 
 and so much cordiality of co-operation, will now turn with 
 coldness and indifference to our just cause, when a delirious 
 and misguided executive officer of the government, threatens 
 to lay his treacherous hands on our dearest rights, and bring 
 the whole force of his power and patronage to crush us be- 
 neath his tread. 
 
 They, the generous, intelligent, and patriotic men of the 
 south, will not fail to appreciate the justice of our cause, and 
 the fearless boldness with which we have, thus far, foiled the 
 murderous assaults of the common foe. God fails not to help 
 and provide means of resistance for honest men struggling in 
 a righteous cause, and who endeavor to help themselves. 
 
 Confiding in the purity of our purposes, in the intelligence, 
 patriotism, firmness, and determined will of our fellow-citizens, 
 to resist to the last the unhallowed aggressions of tyranny, 
 let them come from whatever quarter they may, and appealing 
 to the whole world for the justice of our cause, we " will 
 never surrender ! " 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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