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THE ISSUES INVOLVED I\ THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. WILLIAM L. YANCEY, 
 
 OF#A.LABAMA, .-, 
 
 
 DELIVERED AT MEMPHIS, TENN., AUGUST 11, 1860. 
 
 FRANKFORT, J£.^T . 
 
 PRINTED AND FOR SALE AT THE YEOMAN OFFICE. 
 1860- 
 
[From the Memphis Daily Avalanche, August 17th.] 
 
 The Iargefspace in our issue to-day, occupied by the great speech of the 
 Hon. Wm. lA Yancey, necessarily precludes the appearance of the usual 
 amount of wteresting miscellaneous and news matter. We are satisfied, 
 however, ih»our readers will commend the appearance of the speech to the 
 exclusion of jdmost everything else. NevejJ>ms so much interest manifested 
 •y^fdj^ms miffhtv produseiulHSfc. Ever 
 
 as ft •Kgfcd/r'tns mighty prodiB^ybsk. Even those who heai'd it, desire 
 
 'to reacj^/tand file,, t^yvay ils a gpeat document for future reference. 
 :e oszr pjj^ir^fo have it in full this^m^Tfftg, a large number of extra 
 
 copies containing it have been^derea, which will repay the enterprise and 
 
 expense we hav^heefr*avin having it reported and published. 
 
 ?r 
 
SPEECH 
 
 HON. WILLIAM L. YANCEY, 
 
 OF ALABAMA, 
 
 DELIVERED AT MEMPHIS, TF.N.V, AUGHTST 14, 1S60, ON il)K ISSUES INVOLVED 
 IN THE RESIDENTIAL CONTEST. 
 
 [Stenographic report of the Memphis Daily Avalanche.] 
 
 Fellow-Citize\'£ or Tennessee: 
 
 If you »vill give me your attention to-tight, I 
 will endeavor to address you as one honest man 
 ought to speak to another — frankly, truthfully, 
 fearlessly. I know where I stand and in whose 
 presence I am. I knew, too, what has been said 
 in relation to my humble self and my opinions, 
 in this State, by tin- press and by influential indi- 
 viduals. What 1 have to say to-night will be in 
 ■behalf of the Democracy, of the Constitution, 
 and of the Union under the Constitution. Of 
 those who have been opposed to me, possibly 
 whose minds have been prejudiced, whose ears 
 have been filled with unkind sayings, (to speak 
 of it in the most charitable terms,) I only ask a 
 patient hearing. Of the patriot, who wishes his 
 country well, and who would himself willingly or 
 willfully do nothing that would be injurious to 
 the interests of that country, I ask a like eacdid 
 hearing of all, to all, and about all. What I 
 say, as I said befor-e, I shall emle aver to say with 
 frankness, with truthfulness, and I trust with a 
 proper respect for them and for myself. 
 
 The country, my friends, has fur many years 
 •been in a state of excitement with reference as 
 to what shall lie its fate within this government. 
 This grave, dignified, and mighty issue has been 
 such that parties and statesmen have gone down 
 •before it, ami that no party has been aide to stand 
 it save the Democratic party. [A voice "Ihavo."] 
 Whether that party is yet to exist longer and be 
 a barrier against sectional and unconstitutional 
 aggression, is my theme to-night. It. is t subject 
 •of profound interest to every reflecting man, who 
 for a few years past has thought that that patty 
 "was the only barrier between the dissolution of 
 this government and the Constitution. The unity 
 of that great party, therefore, is a m itter o f na- 
 tional interest. That unity is interwoven wiih 
 
 the very safety of the Constitution it-elf, and 
 with the safely of your instititutions and your 
 rights. I speak it no! as a partisan, for, although 
 I speak in behalf of the Democratic party to- 
 night, I am not a Democratic partisan; I have 
 not been a Democratic partisan; 1 am not one of 
 those who hurrah for the Democracy without a 
 why or a wherefore, whether it be right or wrong. 
 If my humble history is known to you, as it 
 should be known by a people who hive beard so 
 much abuse of myself, it would slew to you that 
 in times past 1 have ventured to differ with my 
 party, the Democracy, on this great question, and 
 relying upon my own conviction of what i< right, 
 that 1 have ventured to oppose it- If now and 
 for some years past I have been found acting with 
 it cordially, it has only been, my countrymen, 
 because my convictions are that it is constitu- 
 tionally sound and right. [Applail-e.j 
 
 Tlie great question will rise before you that if 
 the unity of this party is a matter of national 
 interest, how is it that unity is now in danger? 
 What is, and who causes that danger? What 
 are the purposes that those have in view who 
 are endangering its unity | These are quet- 
 
 tions of great interest. I shall not discuss then 
 with the mere newspaper slam;, by declaring that 
 my party is right and all other parties are wrong, 
 and hurrah for the Hag th it floats over me with- 
 out reason; but, in order that I may commend 
 what I say to-night to your judgment and t i your 
 
 . and to your b< tier nature, I -I' ''i endeav- 
 or to go back to tin,' record and speak by the 
 record, and onlj tpeak that which i- in fact the 
 truth <,! history now. 
 
 There are now three parties in the South claim- 
 in- of tee i pie their su rhe Breckin- 
 ridge and Lane party, that I name firsl in order, 
 because J. believe it to be the true friend of the 
 
Constitution, and because I believe it has more 
 power and more ability, and as much will as any 
 other party to save the Constitution. Then there 
 is the Douglas Democracy, and lastly the Bell 
 party, that hopes to rise to power and success 
 simply by reason of the division of the Demo- 
 cratic party. 
 
 When Breckinridge and Lane present them- 
 selves before the people for their suffrages, as the 
 Democratic candidates, and as occupying the 
 Democratic platform that has been approved by 
 the country, they are met by the friends of Mr. 
 Douglas, who assert that Stephen A. Douglas and 
 Herschel V. Johnson are the regular nominees of 
 the Democratic party, and that Mr. Douglas 
 alone, of the Democratic candidates in the field, 
 represents the Democratic policy and Democratic 
 principles. While Mr. Bell and his friends assert 
 that the people should give Bell their confidence, 
 because he is in favor of "the Union, the Consti 
 tution, and the enforcement of the law," without 
 offering to the public any avowed remedy for the 
 evils which aie afflicting the government, or any 
 well digested means of saving the Union, [ap- 
 plause,] it is due to frankness to state that the 
 Douglas party does offer a platform which, with 
 the explanation given to it by Mr. Douglas, can 
 easily be understood; while the Breckinridge 
 party offers a platform clearly defined in itself, 
 aud that needs no explanation. I propose to con- 
 sider these three parties, with the positions which 
 their different heads occupy before the American 
 people. 
 
 I will first address myself to 'the Douglas 
 Democracy, because the unity of the Democracy 
 which the country has long desired, if it existed 
 at this hour, would prevent any other party at the 
 South offering itself for the suffrages of the 
 American people, for I believe Mr. Bell would 
 not have been in the field if it had not been 
 divided. I shall undertake to show to those 
 Democrats who rally under Mr. Douglas, that he 
 is not the regular nominee of the party, and that 
 the principles that he avows before the American 
 pecp'e are not the principles of the Democracy, 
 and never have been the principles of ihe Demo- 
 cracy. [Applause.] 
 
 Mr. Douglas, my friends, is a statesman of 
 great eminence and ability, a man of great power 
 individually, having many manly traits of char- 
 acter, with whom it has been my pleasure, ever 
 since I have known him, for some sixteen years, 
 to be upon terms of personal intimacy and re- 
 gard. But it is due to frankness and to the truth 
 of history to state that Mr. Douglas has had de- 
 signs upon the unity of the Democratic party ever 
 since the Northern people failed to obtain, under 
 the operation of the Kansas-Nebraska act, the 
 •dominaney in the Territory of Kansas, and that, 
 when it became apparent that the Southern men 
 had obtained advantages under that act, and that 
 Kar.sas, under these advantages, if fairly dealt 
 by, would be admitted into the Union as a slave 
 State, that he has determined to war against the 
 t.-ue principles of the Kansas-Nebraska bill to 
 keep K uisas out of the Union as a slave State, 
 and, if necessary, to dismember the Democratic 
 party, and to rely for support in that controversy 
 upon the anti-slavery sentiment of the Northern 
 .States. This I shall undertake to prove. 
 
 In the first place, I look to the Conventions 
 that have lately assembled ; and in the course of ' 
 my argument upon his platform I shall go back 
 many years in the history of the Democracy to 
 prove the truth of these assertions. When the 
 Convention of the Democracy met at Charleston, 
 Mr. Douglas was well aware that he could not 
 obtain the nomination under the two-thirds rule, 
 and his friends now throughout the country — and 
 I instance one of the most, eminent of his friends, 
 Hershel V. Johnson, of Georgia, candidate for 
 the Vice Presidency upon the Doughrs ticket — 
 his friends, I say, indorsed by Gov. Johnson, say 
 that had the eight cotton States remained in the 
 Charleston Convention, that there was no possi- 
 ble chance of nominating Mr. Douglas. They 
 admit that now, as then. Starting out with the 
 conviction that the Democratic rule of two thirds 
 stood between him and the object of his ambi- 
 tion, his designs were to dismember the Demo- 
 cratic party, and to do it in such a manner as, if 
 possible, to wool the eyes of the people, and 
 make them believe that others were responsible 
 for its dismemberment. 
 
 First, then, he avowed before that Convention 
 met that he would not accept of the nomination 
 at the hands of the Democracy, unless the Dem- 
 ocratic party indorsed his view in relation to the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill. Now, then, here stood 
 his incentive to his friends — " I want to be nom- 
 inated for the Presidency, and you wish to nomi- 
 nate me. I cannot obtain two thirds of that Con- 
 vention." Gov. Herschel V. Johnson now open- 
 ly proclaims that it could not have been done, 
 and others make the same statement; and I know 
 it, too. " I also proclaim that I will not accept 
 of the nomination on any other platform than my 
 own, and yet I am a candidate now for the nomi- 
 nation. 1 must have the platform to suit myself* 
 and I must get rid of this two-thirds rule. These 
 are my two points." 
 
 The Stat* of Alabama, as well as at er South- 
 ern States, fully recognized the importance of 
 the great issue before the American people; and 
 that issue was a vital issue, a constitutional prin- 
 ciple being involved, which could not be compro- 
 mised without yielding our constitutional posi- 
 tion of equali:y in the Union, and to that degree 
 taking from our breast the Constitution, which is N 
 our only shield and protection against Northern 
 majorities. [Applause.] We declared that we 
 must demand that our platform should be indors- 
 ed by the Convention. Here, then, were South- 
 ern States taking the position that the constitu- 
 tional rights of the South should be acknowl- 
 edged in the Democratic Convention, and Mr- 
 Douglas taking the position — " My platform must 
 be acknowledged or I will not accept the nomi- 
 nation." It is easy for one man to say that an- 
 other is wrong. It is not always so easy to prove 
 his error. It is common to say that Alabama 
 attempted to dictate. It is no dictation for me 
 to say that I claim all my constitutional rights, 
 and that others shall not trample upon them. He 
 who undertakes to tell me that I shall not have 
 my constitutional rights, does, however, dictate 
 to me. But when I hold up the compact which 
 my fathers made, and say, " give me this that it 
 was guaranteed I should have, and give me it 
 all." that is ho dictation. We weat into tfc* 
 
Convention opposed to each other. Alabama 
 but spoke for ber rights, and when Douglas said 
 I will have the nomination and the platform, \l 
 ■tbamasaid we will bave our constitutional rights 
 of protection acknowledged, or we will not re- 
 main iii a Convention thai denies us that consti- 
 tutional protection* [Applause.] / 
 
 Mr. Douglas had no right al Btake in that. Con- 
 vention save bis personal Ambition. The State 
 of Alabama and other Southern States had their 
 rights at stake, and they had aright to speak* 
 We said. " Don't aggress on us," while he said, 
 " If you are aggressed on, 1 proclaim in advance 
 that you shan't have the protection of your Gov- 
 ernment-' lie could yield, and yield no consti- 
 tutional position. We could not yield without 
 yielding our constitutional rights. [Cheers.] 
 
 Now then, When his friends got into the *'"ii 
 vention, the Erst object they had in view was to 
 Neat down the two-thirds rule if possible. Well, 
 how did they go about to do that. There were 
 in several States at the South a few men friendly 
 to Douglas. These were a minority in each of 
 such States. The majority of each of those del- 
 egations, if they cast the vote of their State as a 
 unit, would have suppressed all those minorities. 
 Douglas did not, wish that. There were also in 
 several of the Northern States minorities against 
 Douglas and majorities in his favor. The major- 
 ity vote in each of these States would suppress 
 all these minorities against him, and make these 
 votes that were really against him be for him. 
 Now, it was a remarkably smart man who could 
 bring in a rule to make all these votes count for 
 him. A double edged sword, ttiat cuts both sides, 
 it is supposed, cuts to the injury of the hands of 
 him who holds it; but he was able to make it 
 work on both sides against his enemies and for 
 himself. He, therefore, by his friends, concocted 
 a rule so cunningly devised that its etfect was not 
 observed until after it was passed. That rule 
 was, that the States not instructed by the Slate 
 Conventions to vote as a unit should vote each 
 man in the delegation for himself, but the States 
 that were instructed to vote as a unit should vote 
 according to those instructions. 
 
 What was the effect of that rule? It was to 
 give, in fact, to Mr. Douglas fifty-one votes that 
 lie otherwise would not have got. In the State 
 of Pennsylvania it gave him some ten votes that 
 were cist in his favor, which, if the rule had been 
 uniform throughout the Convention, would have 
 been suppressed, and given in favor of Breckin- 
 ridge or Guthrie. In Virginia it gave him one 
 vote; in North Carolina one; in Massachusetts 
 six; in Tennessee one; in Maryland three and a 
 half, and in New Jersey two and a half. The in- 
 dividual rule of voting gave him twenty-four and 
 a half votes which would have been suppressed 
 if the majority rule had prevailed, or if the rule 
 had been uniform, that the majority of each dele- 
 gation should cast the entire vote of each State. 
 Had the contrary rule been uniformly in force, 
 then he would have lost fifteen votes in New 
 York; in Ohio six; four and a half in Indiana, 
 and one half in Vermont, or twenty-six in all. 
 But by this ingenious device, by mingling two in- 
 consistent rules together, and using each as it 
 suited him, Mr. Douglas succeeded in gaining 
 upwards of fifty votes, where, by adopting either 
 
 to the exclusion of ike other, le would not have 
 received more than half thai number. That I'mi- 
 vention Bhould have adopted either the unit rule, 
 ih.it each and everj State should cast I 
 s ilid for or against some man, or it should have 
 adopted the separate rule, that each ami ever] 
 member of the Convention should be allowed to 
 CttSl his own vote* 
 
 By the operation of this rule he gained hugely, 
 >o as to make a difference in the result of fifty 
 
 votes. Mew York gave thirty-live votes to Doug- 
 las, whereas he was entitled to but twenty; Penn- 
 sylvania had given no instructions to her dele- 
 gates, and therefore the rule allow ed all the mem 
 bers in the minority to vote for Douglas; where- 
 as, by the unit rule, as applied to New York, her 
 twenty-seven votes would have been cast against 
 
 him. The practical operation of the rule vv as to 
 
 suppress the voice of the people with reference to 
 
 Mr. Douglas, and to suppress the voice of the 
 people with reference to his principle-. 
 
 That was his first design, and by its success he 
 made a practical difference in his favor of fifty- 
 one votes. That gave him a majority in the 
 Charleston Convention, and that majority was 
 worked for his individual purposes. [Cries of 
 "That's so."] 
 
 Next he said, " I must drive out these cotton 
 States that insist upon protection. These eight 
 States will vote against me for the nomination, I 
 know, and now I must destroy the votes of those 
 States." How was he to do that? His way was, 
 when the platform question came up, so to shape 
 that platform, so to deny the rights of those eight 
 States, that when they were denied, those States 
 could not consistently with true Democraiy re- 
 main in the Convention, and they would secede. 
 These rights were urged with moderation; in a 
 Spirit of conciliation and kindness-, and purely on 
 constitutional grounds, by arguments addressed 
 to the reason and judgment of that Convention; 
 and yet, when the vote was taken, by the working 
 of this unit rule, Mr. Douglas voted it down by a 
 vote of 165 to 138; thus denying to the Southern 
 States that equal protection to their lights in the 
 Territories that the South has always yielded to 
 every section in the Union. When protection. 
 was thus denied to the constitutional rights of 
 those eigiit .States, those eight States left the 
 Convention. [Applause and cheers ] 
 
 Why did they leave it? Because, as I will 
 show von before I close, the great Democratic 
 p inciple of the equality of the States, and of the 
 people of the States in the common Territories 
 
 of the Union, had been willfully violated bj Mr. 
 Don-las and his friends, and that was done with 
 the view that the States I refer to should be 
 driven out of that Convention. We did not u>k 
 the Convention to add any new plank to the 
 Democratic platform; but as Mr. Douglas had 
 construed the Cincinnati platform to mean no 
 protection to the constitutional rights of the 
 South; as he had thus violated that platform by 
 his construction of the Kansas art. a- since de- 
 termined in the Dred Scott decision: as he him- 
 self had violated the principle of the Kansas- 
 Nebraska act, which left the question to be de- 
 termined by the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, the South deemed it necessary, before 
 they could accept him as their candidate, that 
 
that Convention should tell the country what that 
 Cincinnati platform meant. The Baptist tells you 
 the Bible is his creed, and the Methodist tells you 
 that the same Bible is his creed, and both tell 
 you that they take that Bible as it is, without 
 alteration or amendment. But if you join the 
 Methodist church, its creed explains what you 
 understand by the Bible, and the same is true of 
 the Baptist. So with the Southern Democracy. As 
 there were different constructions put upon our 
 platform, as there are on the Bible, therefore, as 
 true and honest Democrats, that did not wish to 
 be deceived or to deceive others, we claimed the 
 right to explain what we understood by the Cin- 
 cinnati platform, and simply because we claim this 
 right, Mr. Douglas' friends forced us out of that 
 Convention by voting down that construction, 
 and putting their own construction upon it.— - 
 [Cries of "You were right to leave."] 
 
 The unit rule gave him then a difference of 
 fifty-one votes, and by driving out these cotton 
 States, he got rid of fifty and a half votes which 
 were against him for the nomination. 
 
 Now, then, having obtained this majority by 
 trickery, and then having divided out fifty and a 
 half votes that remained of the Southern Demo- 
 cracy — for every one of these States had given 
 Democratic votes, and the majority of them would 
 do so to-morrow if called upon, and will in No- 
 vember next — then came up the question of bal- 
 loting. 
 
 Before the balloting took place, however, Vir- 
 ginia said, " Before we can remain longer in a 
 'Convention that has been disrupted of eight 
 'Democratic States, we must claim that this rule 
 ;of the party — this two-thirds rule — shall be con- 
 istrued by the President, and that it shall be laid 
 .down, so that there shall be no mistake." There- 
 ifore, a resolution was offered directing the Presi- 
 dent to declare no man nominated for the office 
 }of President or Vice President unless he should 
 jhive received a number of votes equal to two 
 1 thirds of all the electoral college. The electoral 
 j college consists of 303 votes, and two thirds 
 s would be 202. Objection was at once made by 
 (the friends of Mr. Douglas that it was altering 
 the old rule of the party, they insisting that the 
 j old rule only called for two thirds of all the votes 
 i cast in the body. The President of the Conven- 
 tion said, " No, this is not altering the old rule; 
 5 it is not a new rule. It is but giving the decision 
 1 of this body as to what that rule is." He there- 
 jfore ruled the point of order against the Douglas 
 <nian that made it. The Douglas man took an 
 s appeal to the Convention, and the Convention 
 s sustained the decision of the chair by 144 votes 
 tto 108. The chair then decided, and was sus- 
 tained by the body, and it became the irrepealable 
 irule of that body, that the old rule of the party 
 Iwas, and it would be the rule of that body, that 
 J no man should be declared the nominee until he 
 Ireceived two thirds of the vote of all the elec- 
 toral college — 202 votes. 
 
 t The Charleston Convention adjourned to Balt- 
 imore. At Charleston was concocted this scheme, 
 ■.a which finally ended in the disruption of what re- 
 pmaincd of the Democracy in the Convention. 
 i' The Douglas men advised the men from the 
 .j-Sotuh — the few Douglas men — to go home and 
 feald Douglas Conventions, and send their dele- 
 
 gates to Baltimore, who should be admitted into 
 that body. They were not to go into the Con- 
 ventions with the Democracy generally of their 
 States, else they would be beaten by the regular 
 Democracy ; but they were to hold Conventions 
 of Douglas men alone, and then it made no dif- 
 ference how small a number of the Douglas men 
 there w r as in the State, if they could send Dong- 
 las men to Baltimore. I say this upon what has 
 crept out in the newspapers in my State, that this 
 plan was conceived at Charleston. By this plan 
 Douglas hoped to gain SO}^ votes more, which 
 would not be representative of the Democracy, 
 but representative of the Douglas minorities of 
 their various States. 
 
 I instance Alabama, my own State. In Ala- 
 bama the Democracy are nine tenths in favor of 
 Breckinridge and Lane and of the true Democra- 
 cy. [Applause } The Douglas leaders, Forsyth 
 and Seibel, editors of prominent papers, before 
 we went to Charleston , had proclaimed to the 
 world that we did not repre-ent the Democracy of 
 Alabama ; that when the Democracy had an op- 
 portunity of revising our actioti, that the world 
 would see that we were in a minority. Yet after 
 seceding we went back and called a Convention 
 of all the Democracy in the State, to consider 
 what was best to be done ; not to indorse our 
 action ; not to come to say that we had done right ; 
 not to come and decide so and so, as we should 
 set it down ; but we called friends and foes with- 
 in the Democracy to come and consider what was 
 best to be done. That was the language of the 
 call. If we had misrepresented the Democracy of 
 Alabama, there was a fair chance to come in and 
 vote us down ; but these men, knowing that they 
 were in a miserable minority, were afraid to meet 
 the Democracy in council. Their calls were to 
 that portion of the Democracy, to meet in another 
 Conven ion that agreed with them, with conserva- 
 tives, and all others. I suppose they meant Know- 
 Nothings by all others, for you know they claimed 
 everybody to be in their party at one time. They 
 knew if they went into that regular Convention 
 no Douglas man from Alabama would ever see 
 Baltimore ; therefore, they called an irregular 
 Convention, and sent some of those very men, 
 "conservatives and all others," to Baltimore, to 
 be representatives of the National Democracy. 
 Mr. Parsons, of Taladega, a gentleman of high 
 standing and of personal worth, whom 1 have ever 
 known to be an opponent of the Democracy ; to 
 be a member of an old Federal family, and to be 
 a Federalist himself— a Northern man, born in 
 New York, with Northern ideas in relation to us; 
 he who I have often crossed swords with ; who 
 voted for Harrison and Scott, Taylor and Fill- 
 more, never voting for even a Democratic consta- 
 ble in his life, went to that Convention : they sent 
 him to represent the true National Democracy in 
 the National Convention. [Laughter.] 
 
 Gentlemen, in some place in New Jersey, on 
 the 4th of July, when a Fourth of July orator 
 was addressing the people in eloquent strains 
 about the trials of the Revolution, upon the plat- 
 form were several old men — Revolutionary sol- 
 diers. The orator of the occasion turned to ad- 
 dress them, and he saw one old man there, feeble 
 and tottering with age, who was sitting with knit 
 brows, and compressed hands, and flashing eyes 
 
Bad this orator thought this oM man whs one of 
 the sternest of the stern upon the battle field, 
 who was evidently thinking of tin- time when he 
 trod overtlie fields of the State, liis tracks mark- 
 ed with bis blood, and of the days when be bud- 
 Bisted on a crust of bread, and he thought he was 
 the man to picfc out. and address, and he turned 
 
 to him and said : "Venerable old soldier ot the 
 Revolution— 'relic of the past — you lived in the 
 time that tried men's souls. You were at '1'ien 
 ton." The old man nodded his head. "You," 
 he continued, "were at Brandywine and JTori 
 town." The old man nodded his head again. 
 *' You were the companion of Washington, stand- 
 ing side by his side, shielding his manly breast 
 from the bayonetsof the enemy." " Nein! nein!" 
 
 Bftid the ('hi man. " .Vein Got, I Was mit the Hes- 
 
 sians on that day." [Much laughter.] 
 
 Now then, fellow Democrats of Tennessee— 
 you who are honestly in the Douglas ranks, and 
 you who are not— think of that. You honest and 
 fair-minded men of all parties in Tennessee, what 
 do you call that act that imposed that political 
 Hessian on. a National Democratic Convention as 
 a representative of the Democracy ? I use that 
 word in no orTcnsp. e sense to my friend Parsons, 
 who is a gentleman, in every sense of the term 
 but in a political sense. There he was, in a body 
 where none but Democrats should be, and he 
 never had given a vote for a Democrat in his life. 
 He was not the representative of the Democracy, 
 but he was the representative of Stephen A. 
 Douglas ; and let me say to you, he never was 
 more consistent in his life in striking blows at the 
 true Democracy, than when he was in that Con- 
 vention as the friend of Stephen A. Douglas. 
 (Applause.] 
 
 A voice back of the platform—" Hoorah for 
 Douglass ! " [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. Yaxcey— That, is all right. Only give me 
 a hearing now, and hurrah when you get out of 
 the woods [laughter] as much as you please. I 
 say it in all kindness and respect ; but give me 
 about two hours more, and then hurrah as much 
 as you please. 
 
 Now, then, when they re-assembled at Balti- 
 more, what did this Douglas majority do? In 
 accordance with that systematic plan which was 
 developed to deplete the Democracy— -to drive out 
 National Democratic States by denying National 
 Democratic principles—to obtain votes for him- 
 self which the people had sent against him — by 
 the operation of the unit rule he found out that 
 ^ he did not still have two thirds. In accordance 
 with his plan, these bogus Democrats from L misi- 
 ana and Alabama were admitted into the Con- 
 vention — fifteen votes—to represent States which 
 were, and are, against Mr. Douglas. 
 
 Why, gentlemen, the old Democratic State of 
 Virginia, that has never in her life split her ticket 
 or given an anti-Democratic vote — the Demo- 
 cracy of Jefferson and Madison and of Monroe — 
 a Democracy that never yet flinched in the hour 
 of trial, and who always bore the Democratic 
 banner to victory in every Presidential race that 
 has taken place in the history of our government 
 — the Democratic party of that old State, thus 
 finding that there was a fraction had got control 
 of the organization of the Democratic party or 
 Convention, and was using it not to advance the 
 
 interests of the Democratic | arty, bul to advanoe 
 the interests of an individual, and in doing that 
 was riding over all the principles of Democracy! 
 l-oth as to representation and as to principles — 
 
 that old State, together With .Maryland and the 
 
 o I old c ■ ervative, conciliatory, and union 
 
 loving State of North Carolina; the Jacl 
 Democracy of Tennessee, nine out of twelve 
 rotes; the tried and true Democracy of Kentucky) 
 
 seven and a half out of twelve vote-: part id' the 
 I ) in...'! :i v of Missouri ; the entire delegations of 
 
 California and of Oregon; seven and a half votes 
 
 from the Keystone of the Union — Pennsylvania; 
 •!'._, from old true blue \e\\ Jersey; ' s rotes from 
 
 the State of M as-achusel ts.; 1 from Minnesota; 
 
 }4 a vote from Vermont; 1% from Connecticut, 
 
 who had been left in that body when the COttOB 
 States seceded on principle, when they found it 
 was no longer a Democratic Convention, but was 
 a Douglas Convention, composed of men who 
 had been in the Democratic ranks, but who were 
 now denying the creed of their fathers; and when 
 they saw that Convention in part composed of 
 Whigs and Know-Nothings, who had never given 
 a Democratic vote— these Democratic States re- 
 tired from that body. Why.' Did Yancey lead 
 them? Did he pull the wool over their eyes? 
 Had he seduced them? If he had this intluence, 
 why did he not exercise this mighty power at 
 Charleston, where gladly he would have done it 
 had he been able? Why, gentlemen, it is child's 
 play to talk to sensible men in that way. These 
 old Democratic States, distinguished for their 
 caution and their prudence, were not to lie led 
 astray. These States left the National Demo- 
 cratic body (as it was called) there, alone because 
 its organization had fallen into the hands of men 
 who thought more of the fortunes of Mr. Doug- 
 las than they did of the Constitution of their 
 country or the Democracy. [Applause.] The-e 
 men and these States were driven outside. Yet 
 still Douglas could not get the necessary two 
 third vote, and counseling together they said : 
 "We have done all that is in the wit of man to 
 devise, now let us have a I allot." 
 
 What was the result on balloting. They had 
 two ballots for the Presidential candidate. I 
 now come in my statement in conflict with the 
 assertion of Mr. Douglas himself, and with the 
 recorded assertion of his National Committi e at 
 Washington — the committee of the National 
 Democratic party — as they call themselves— 
 [laughter] — the Executive Committee of the 
 Douglas party at Washington. Mr. Douglas, in 
 
 his letter of acceptance, say- that, on looking 
 into the record, he find- he was nominated in a 
 Convention con aining more than two thirds of 
 the electoral votes according to the usage of the 
 party. His committee sav in their address that 
 he was nominated in a C invention containing 
 
 i e than tWO-thirds Of all the electoral votes, 
 
 and that he was Dominated after the precedent of 
 the party. They state: 
 
 •'On motion of Mr. Clark, of Missouri, at the in- 
 stance of Mr. Boge, of Virginia, the question was 
 id,.,, p, poundi d bj the Chair, whether the nomina- 
 tion of Douglas should or should not be, without 
 further ceremony, the unanimoufl act of the Conven- 
 tion, ami of all the delegates present: the chairman 
 distinctly requesting that any delegate who r»bj ict- 
 ed, (whether or not having voted,) should signify h.s 
 
dissent. No delegate dissented, and that, at last, 
 twas Stephen A. Douglas unanimously nominated in 
 <a Convention representing more than two thirds of 
 .all the electoral vote, as the candidate of the Demo- 
 cratic party for the presidency of the United States." 
 
 Both Mr. Douglas-, the organ of the party and 
 | its Chief, and his National Committee, assert and 
 proclaim to the people that he was nominated by 
 ,over two thirds. Now, it is a grave matter at all 
 1 times to differ on a question of fact with gcntle- 
 )men of distinction, and gentlemen of character; 
 ,but I not only do differ with them, but I pro- 
 inounce the statement to be in every particular 
 ] incorrect. There is no one word of truth in it — 
 i either in the assertion of Mr. Douglas or in the 
 , address of his National Committee. This I shall 
 j proceed to prove; for I would not dare to make 
 (such an assertion without having the proof, 
 i I have the regularly reported proceedings of 
 I that body at Baltimore, where there were steno- 
 graphers who took down every word that was 
 uttered, every laugh that was heard, and every 
 applause that was made. Here it was as it ap- 
 peared, the next morning, in the Baltimore Ameri- 
 can, and they dare not deny it; in fact, no man 
 1 ever will deny it, and it will sustain me in what I 
 1 shall say here. 
 
 Two ballots were taken; on the first ballot 
 1D01.2 votes only were cast, lacking 11)^ of being 
 'two thirds. Mr. Douglas received on that ballot 
 173^2 votes, lacking 2S}4 of two thirds. After 
 this attempt, therefore, to nominate him by a two 
 third vote — after they had got in these bogus 
 j delegations, and after other delegations had cast 
 spurious votes, votes that were not in the Con- 
 vention nor in the other, he still lacked that num- 
 'ber. When that appeared Mr. Church, of New 
 ' York, got up and moved a resolution, which was 
 that Stephen A. Douglas, having received two 
 ' thirds of the votes given in this Convention, is 
 ' hereby declared the nominee of the Democratic 
 party, and so on. Mr. Church did not pretend 
 that there were two thirds of the electoral college 
 in that Convention; he did not pretend that Doug- 
 las had received a two third vote. The very 
 resolution that he proposed declares that he only 
 received two thirds of the votes given; but Doug- 
 las says, and his committee say, that he received 
 two thirds of all the electoral college. Mr. 
 Church said that his resolution was to alter the 
 construction given of the rule at Charleston. 
 Mind you, my friends, that construction was the 
 old rule of the party; it had been voted upon and 
 had been sustained by the party. That construc- 
 tion was not repealed; but he proposed to make 
 the nomination in spite of it — against it — and 
 why? Because two thirds were not in the body. 
 After he had offered the resolution, Mr. Davis, of 
 Virginia, one of the Douglas voters that were 
 there, got up and made some remarks in relation 
 to it. What did he say? I read from the debate 
 in the Convention on that resolution showing how 
 they adopted it, and showing that they acknowl- 
 edged and conceded that they did not have the 
 two thirds. If I do that, I put on this document 
 and on Mr. Douglas' letter of acceptance a great 
 responsibility. Mr. Davis, of Va., said: 
 
 "On the ballot taken to-day, as I understand the 
 announcement from the Chair, some 1110 votes were 
 cast in this Covention. Now, how in the name of 
 
 common sense do you expect to get two thirds of the - 
 votes of the electoral college?" * * * 
 
 " We are called upon now to do what we ought to" 
 have done at Charleston." — 
 
 But mind you, my friends, which was not 
 done.— 
 
 "Otherwise we stay here and ballot, and ballot, 
 and ballot, without ever nominating. If we had 
 adopted this resolution at Charleston^ as we ought 
 to have done, we would have concluded long since." 
 
 What did Mr. Gittings, of Maryland, sayT 
 He got up and said: 
 
 "I rise to enter a protest on the part of the con- 
 stituency I represent, and a large portion, almost the 
 entire majority of the Democratic voters of the 
 State of Maryland, against this resolution. The 
 rule was laid down at Charleston that two thirds of 
 the electoral college— 2li2 votes— should be required 
 to nominate. But that rule is one of the cardinal 
 principles for the government of Democratic Con- 
 ventions, and better not make a nomination at all 
 than rescind a rule for the purpose of making any 
 one man a candidate." 
 
 And Mr. Gittings, mind you, voted for Mr- 
 Douglas all the time. 
 
 What said the Chairman? The Chairman of 
 the Convention said; 
 
 "The present occupant of the Chair will not feol 
 at liberty, under that direction, to declare any one 
 nominated until he gets 202 votes, unless the Con- 
 vention shall otherwise instruct him." 
 
 "Church's resolution was to instruct him to do- 
 otherwise. 
 
 Again, what was said by Mr. Gittings: 
 
 "I cannot for my life view the matter in that light, 
 I believe the rule was laid down at Cincinnati, and 
 when the instructions were given to the President of 
 this Convention at Charleston, to construe that rule 
 to mean two thirds of the vote of the electoral col- 
 lege, that instruction became the rule. I hope we 
 will adhere to the rule. I have voted fifty times for 
 Mr. Douglas, and will yote fifty times more for him 
 if that will secure his nomination. I hope he will 
 be nominated." 
 
 Then what said another gentleman, Mr. Hoge r 
 of Virginia? He says: 
 
 "If gentlemen in this bndy decline to vote, I wilt 
 treat them as out of the Convention;, and if there is 
 not enough votes then given to make up a two third 
 vote of the electoral college, I will myself move to 
 declare the nomination unanimous." 
 
 He asks them not to adopt the rule then, but 
 to take another ballot, and very likely gentlemen 
 would vote; and if not, he would then treat them 
 as out of the Convention, and he would move to 
 declare the nomination unanimous. 
 
 What did Flournoy say? You have heard him, 
 and I want you to hear what sort of a man he is 
 for a Democrat. He said that he " now consid- 
 ered himself absolved from the instructions of his 
 State Convention, and had great pleasure in cast- 
 ing the vote of Arkansas for Stephen A. Doug- 
 las." / 
 
 What absolved him from the instructions of his 
 State Convention? The wants of Douglas. He 
 wanted a two third vote, and he could not get it. 
 The blanket had to be stretched a little more, 
 and he says: "I consider, under the circumstances, 
 that Douglas is mighty poor, and wants votes. I 
 will not obey my instructions any more, but will 
 vote for Douglas." They now took a vote. They 
 would not press the resolution to a vote, but they 
 proceeded to a second ballot, and they stretched 
 the vote up to 194)^, all cast, and 181}^ cast for 
 
Douglas; the balance for Breckinridge and Guth- 
 rie, 1 believe it was, Douglas lacking -!•'._.. 
 
 The moment it was found that they could not get 
 two thirds — the moment it was ascertained mat 
 they were not there, and thai they need DOt Bit 
 longer in hopes of getting them, they then, mi 
 motion of Mr. Clark, passed Church's resolution, 
 ns follows: 
 
 "Resolved unanimously, That Stephen A. Dong- 
 las, of the State of Illinois having now received 
 two thirds of all the votes given in this Convention, 
 is hereby declared, in accordance with the uniform 
 customs and rules of former Democratic National 
 Conventions, the regular nominee of the Democratic 
 (arty of the United States, tor the office of Presi- 
 dent of the United States." 
 
 Now, here is an open confession in the records 
 of their own body that they did not have two 
 thirds in their Convention, and that they might 
 ballot and ballot till doomsday and not succeed 
 in making a nomination, and that they would 
 nominate him any way by two thirds of the body 
 present. Therefore it is, I say, when Mr. Doug- 
 las says he was nominated by a two thirds vote, 
 and when his committee say so, they both assert 
 that which is not so in fact. The records of the 
 Convention prove it on them, and the debates in 
 that Convention show that this thing was entirely 
 an after-thought; for at the time the resolution 
 was passed, it was passed on the avowal that they 
 did nut have two thirds. 
 
 If you take out the spurious votes from that 
 body, you will find he did not get what even ap- 
 pears on the record. Massachusetts had but 13 
 votes in all — 26 delegates — each having half a 
 vote. Sixteen seceded and went into the Conven- 
 tion that nominated Breckinridge and Lane, and 
 10 delegates were left in the Douglas Convention. 
 But Massachusetts, like Flournoy, disobeyed the 
 rules of the party and of honesty. Each man 
 cast a whole vote when he had but half a one to 
 give ; in other words, Massachusetts had 10 dele- 
 gates, who cast ten votes. Two votes from New 
 York were in our Convention, and yet those left 
 cast the whole vote of New York for Douglas. 
 One half vote from Vermont was in our Conven- 
 tion. That made no difference to the Douglas 
 men. They cast the whole of the vote of that 
 State for Douglas. One from Minnesota was in 
 our Convention, and two were absent from both, 
 and yet the whole vote was cast for Douglas. 
 Thus you find that these votes, making nine spu- 
 rious votes added to the fifteen from Louisiana 
 and Alabama, not representing the Democracy of 
 those States, but which were bogus, make some- 
 thing like twenty-four, all of which were cast for 
 Douglas — you take that number from one hun- 
 dred and eighty one and one half, and there are 
 left but one hundred and fifty-seven and one half 
 Votes, which were all, in reality, that were cast 
 for him in his own Convention — or, in other words, 
 he was forty-six votes short of two thirds. 
 
 These are the figures — these are the records of 
 the party ; and these figures and records show 
 you that these Douglas documents being circula- 
 ted among you are to be received with a great 
 deal of caution. • 
 
 Now, I do not contend that Breckinridge and 
 Lane are the nominees of the Democratic i arty, 
 according to its usages, because they did not get 
 two thirds of the Electoral College. But 1 main- 
 
 tain that Mr. Douglas stands on tin- -ame looting 
 
 as Mr. Breckinridge in that particular, lie did 
 nut receive two thirds. The Oust that he got a 
 majority is nothing, became numbers do not al 
 
 ways count in our gu\ eminent. For instance, the 
 
 Democracy may have a hundred thousand votes in 
 
 New York, and yet they oan'l cast a single elec- 
 toral vote for the Democratic candidati — while 
 
 there are in the State of Alabama, perhaps 50,000, 
 
 only half of the number in New York- Bat the 
 50,000 in Alabama cast nine rotes for the Presii 
 
 dency, Or 50,000 VOteS in Alabama are constitu- 
 tionally greater than 100,000 in New York.—) 
 Therefore, although Mr. Douglas may have re- 
 ceived more than a majority in numbers, vet it 
 was not the constitutional majority required by 
 the party — which is two bundled and two votes 
 out of three hundred and three. It not being a 
 
 constitutional majority, he has no more right to 
 be called the nominee of the Democratic partt 
 than if he had received but one vote. [Applause.] 
 
 But how is it as to Mr. Herschel V. Johnson 
 How many votes did he receive? Not one ! 
 [Much laughter.] He was not even nominated in 
 the Convention. He was a candidate for admis- 
 sion as a delegate to that body, but he was so poor 
 a Democrat — he was so bad a Douglas man — that 
 they would not let him in. He belonged to a 
 minority of forty of two hundred and eighty 
 members of the State Convention of Georgia. 
 Forty fellows were for Douglas, and two hundred 
 and forty for Breckinridge — for the seceders and 
 the Democratic platform. And when they were 
 voted down, these Douglas men, that have such a 
 perfect horror of seceders — that have such a hor- 
 ror of bolters — these Douglas men, that think a 
 seceder coming in the shape of Yancey, comes in 
 the shape of the devil ! — these fellows thought 
 then that bolting was a pretty good thing, and 
 the forty men held a convention of their own, and 
 they sent Johnson to Baltimore to be a delegate. 
 Douglas could not stomach that, however. Said 
 lie, " You are a seceder. Now, if you had done 
 as I told you— if you had held a little convention 
 of your own, and not mixed up with those fellows, 
 we could have admitted you — we could have 
 violated the will of the majority; but we are just 
 now giving these seceders blazes, [laughter.] and 
 we shall be estopped." Johnson was only a sece- 
 der, and he had so little merit in him then as a 
 Douglas Democrat, that the Douglas Democracy, 
 bad as it was, could not stomach him. They re- 
 fused him admittance 
 
 Now, after Gov. Fit/.patrick had declined the 
 nomination, saying 1 cannot accept the nomination 
 of a party that has denied all the Democratic prin- 
 ciples — a party that has driven out the Democratic 
 States. Virginia, North Carolina] and Tennessee 
 a party that did not have two thirds in it, and had 
 no right to make a nomination at all ; tiny went 
 into the bar-room of the National Hotel at Wash 
 ington, and they found Johnson para-Hug around 
 right mad that the Douglas men had nOt owned 
 him, and they patted him on the shoulder and 
 said to him, " to be sure you are pretty much of 
 a fire-eater. You used to eat hot coals with 
 Yancey, but still we are pretty hard poshed tor 
 a Vice President] and we will run you " The 
 Convention had all gone home — it had adjourned 
 sine die, but that is no odds, M we will make you 
 
10 
 
 'Vice President," and they made him, and he says, 
 J" oh, yes, 1 will accept." And now they claim 
 .} that he was nominate! by two thirds, and he never 
 <got a vote in any Convention. [Applause ] 
 
 Now, I want to know what any good honest 
 
 '{Democrat, who says " I am not much of a scholar 
 
 -.and not over learned, and whenever my party acts 
 
 -according to rule, I am going to take their 
 
 ^judgment — I believe it is better than my own." 
 
 t jl want to know what a good, honest, hard-fisted 
 
 ] Democrat like that is going to say to such a ticket? 
 
 jjl want to know what he will say when the head 
 
 lUnau on the ticket says he got a two third vote, 
 
 ( "when the men in the Convention said that he did 
 
 .not get it? What do you think of that, gentlemen? 
 
 .The party that has to sustain itself by misrepresent 
 
 stations of that character — -the party that has so 
 
 little Democracy in it — the party that has so little 
 
 , claim upon the Democracy of the country, that 
 
 ' it needs to be bolstered up by assertions of that 
 
 'kind, which the records of the party show are not 
 
 true — is that a party entitled to the confidence of 
 
 .'the country — of you, the life-long Democrats of 
 
 'Tennessee? [No ! No ! No ! No !] 
 
 l' But, they say, although we are not the regular 
 
 /nominees, we are as good as you. They must, 
 
 'however, take down Herschel V. Johnson. They 
 
 themselves declared he was bogus in their Con- 
 
 ' vention. He has no right anywhere. He had no 
 
 right in that Convention, and he was never voted 
 
 i for for Vice President by anybody but George E. 
 
 Pugh, of Ohio, and Rust, of Arkansas, and a tew 
 
 like them. 
 
 | But, they say, "we stand on better principles 
 than you do." There is the great question after 
 all. These questions of nomination are only evi- 
 , dences to the people of who is the choice of the 
 ' Democracy. The party has required that the 
 man should have a vote equal to two thirds of 
 ' the Electoral College. What for? Simply be- 
 t cause, when a man receives that vote, it is evi- 
 dence to the Democracy that that man is the 
 choice of the Democracy of the country. You 
 want to get at the man who is the choice of the 
 party, and you take that vote as the record to tell 
 vou that man. But when no one gets it, what 
 have you to do? Then you have to do as other 
 men do in the ordinary affairs of life. See who 
 the men are — examine into their lives — see what 
 principles they profess — who supports them — do 
 they represent, in a true degree, the feelings, sen- 
 timents, and wishes of the Democratic masses — 
 and the man that comes nearest to representing 
 the principles, sentiments, and wishes of the 
 Democratic masses, that man you will take as 
 die choice of the Democracy. 
 
 In the Convention that nominated Douglas 
 there did not remain a majority from a single 
 Democratic State in the Union. There are sev- 
 snteen of them at this day. Fifteen Southern 
 States and California and Oregon are seventeen 
 Democratic States, all giving Democratic major- 
 ties. The other States are now controlled, I 
 jelieve every one of them, by Black Republican 
 lovernora and Black Republican Legislatures. 
 ~)t' all these Democratic States, Mr. Douglas re- 
 .eived hill" the vote from the State of Missouri 
 mly. The majority of every other Democratic 
 -^tate was against him, and he received only a 
 minority. For instance, of the one hundred and 
 
 twenty Southern votes he received only eighteen 
 votes. Of the seven Democratic votes of the 
 North (and that is all that we have at present) 
 he did not receive one, where he pretended he is 
 so strong. Then if he did not receive a majority 
 of these States, he is not the choice of the Dem- 
 ocratic States in the Union. The only State that 
 he received half the vote of is doubtful whether 
 he or the other gets the other half as the choice 
 of a maj irity. That is to be left in doubt. He 
 did receive votes, however, from all the Black 
 Republican States — from New England, Ohio, 
 Indiana, New York, Illinois, Maine, and Iowa, 
 and other Black Republican States. Mr. Breck- 
 inridge received nearly the entire vote of the 
 Democratic masses and the Democratic States. 
 
 Let us go further. Every Democratic candi- 
 date that you have ever had for the Presidency 
 that is living, and therefore, men presumed to 
 have represented the wishes of the party of the 
 day, is now for Breckinridge and opposed to 
 Douglas. [Applause.] Gen, Cass is for Breck- 
 inridge and opposed to Mr. Douglas. Gen. Wil- 
 liam O. Butler, of Kentucky, a candidate for the 
 Vice Presidency with Mr. Cass, is for Mr. Breck- 
 inridge and agiinst Mr. Douglas. Gen. Pierce, 
 thought to be one of the best Presidents we ever 
 had, is for Breckinridge and against Douglas. 
 Mr Buchanan, the head of your party now, is for 
 Breckinridge and against Douglas. The whole 
 Cabinet of Mr. Buchanan — Cobb, Thompson, 
 Toucey, and Black, and Holt, and Cass — all 
 of them are for Breckiinidge, and against Mr. 
 Douglas. Eijiht out of ten Senators of the 
 Northern States — Democratic Senators- — are for 
 Mr. Breckinridge, and against Mr. Douglas. We 
 are apt to think that these eminent men were put 
 there because they were leading Democrats, and 
 sound and influential men, who have done some 
 service to their party. Eight tenths of the North- 
 ern Democratic Senators are for Breckinridge, 
 and against Douglas. The Senator from Ore- 
 gon, Gwin and Latham from California, Rice 
 from Minnesota. Bright, and his colleague, Fitch, 
 of Indiana, and Biglcr of Pennsylvania. Four 
 fifths of the Democracy, as repre-ented in the 
 Senate of the United States from the North, are 
 for our candidate, and against Douglas, and yet 
 they tell you tint Mr. Douglas is mighty strong 
 at the North— weak here, but strong the e — and 
 when you get there, they will tell you he is most 
 strong in Tennessee and Alabama, although weak 
 there. Go to the House of Representatives, and 
 four fifths of the Democratic Representatives 
 North and South, are for Breckinridge and Line, 
 and against Douglas and Johnson. Look at Fitz- 
 patrick, the man they thought worthy to be sec- 
 ond on their ticket, and he repudiaies Douglas 
 and is for Breckinridge. Every Democratic 
 member of Congress from this State is for Breck- 
 inridge. Every Democratic member of Congress 
 from my State, with the exception of Houston, is 
 for Breckinridge, and against Douglas. Every 
 Representative of a Southern State in the Senate, 
 is for Breckinridge and against Douglas; and all 
 the men whose names are valued and held in 
 honor by our party, are for Breckinridge and 
 against Douglas. Look at Hallett, of Massa- 
 chusetts, the great platform-maker of the Dem- 
 ocracy, and Cushing. They are for Breckinridge, 
 
11 
 
 mid against Douglas Go to New York and look 
 nt the noblest Roman of them all, Daniel S. Dick- 
 inson. [Much applause.] He is for Breckiurid] e, 
 and against Douglas. 
 
 Now, what arc urn to say' Will you put up 
 llhose broken-down politicians, Soule, Forsythe, 
 Clemens, and your Footes, against this mighty 
 array of genius. When did ever John '-'• Breck- 
 inridge war on a Democrat? [VoiceSi "Never." 
 Applause] Winn did Joe Lane? [Voices, 
 ">. \ er." Applause.] All the wars lie has been 
 engaged in have been against the enemies of 
 your country and the enemies of your Constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 1, loking, thereforej to all these outside tests — 
 looking to association — looking at the men — 
 looking at the wars of the party — Looking at the 
 men who have done your service, and whom you 
 love and honor, and will honor and lore as long 
 a** life remains — you find the masses of them in 
 favor of the Democratic candidates, and the 
 Democratic ticket. Therefore, pause, my coun- 
 trymen who are for Douglas— pause and see if 
 you are not in the wrong crowd. 
 
 But where has been Mr. Douglas for two years 
 past ! Warring on the Democracy that he now 
 
 and the i eo >on « a that Kansas had a pro Blaverj 
 Constitution! 
 
 Vei he says thai the South has caused this 
 issue to lie reopened unneces at ily. Hi 
 thai Alabama threw this firebrand before the 
 country unnecessarily. He says, and you Dou 
 las men and your papers say that 1 — a priva i 
 individual, occupying no position in thecountrj — 
 that 1 have thrown this firebrand upon the coun- 
 try. 1 prove by the records and history of the 
 country that before this Alabama platform was 
 written — when 1 was not yet heard of at all — he 
 was interfering and making an issue against the 
 Constitution, against the Kansas bill, against 
 \our rights, and sending that Constitution back 
 to Kansas, and the result was it n as overwhelmed 
 before the free-soil tide, and finally a free-soil 
 Constitution was sent to Congress. What then I 
 But three northern Democrats were found to vote 
 against its admission, although the census had 
 not been taken, and although she had not 70,000 
 people required by the English bill. No census 
 
 had as yet been taken, and yet Mr. Douglas and 
 
 his friends could admit Kans is in violation of the 
 English bill, because it presented a free Boil C< n- 
 stitution. But when she came according to bis 
 own Kansas bill, with her own Constitution, 
 
 Is to be the best, exponent of. No sooner made and adopted in her own way, and CongT 3 
 
 (tad the South procured an advantage under the 
 K 'i aas Nebraska bill, an 1 sent the Territory of 
 Kansas to the dour of Congress with a slave 
 Constitution, thin he commenced a war upon the 
 Democracy. Why, it would seem that his own 
 darling idei that the people there were fit to act 
 in their own way, subject only to the limitations 
 of the Constitution, would have prevented this. 
 One at leist would have supposed it would have 
 prevented his voice from warrins against the 
 
 was pledged it' site did so to admit her, Mr. 
 Douglas was the first man, two \i.ir- ago, to set 
 the example of intervention, and by the aid of the 
 abolition party lie succeeded in defeating that 
 Constitution and sending it back to Kansas. Yet 
 he has the hardihood, and his friends have got 
 the nerve to look honest Southern men in the 
 face and say "you fellows here are creating a 
 
 disturbance in the Democratic party by making 
 this issue unnecessarily " This, too, when the 
 
 Democracy when Kansas came to Congress with ; whole country is filled by the bo!:' r n-js — the ri - 
 the Lecompton Constitution; and your President, suit of Douglas' making war on the Kansas bill , 
 lead of vour party, in accordance with his and then saying "not only do 1 make war on the 
 
 duty, as a statesman and Democrat, roe oninended 
 
 to Congress to admit Kansas under that Consti- 
 tution. But no sooner had the voice of the Clerk 
 ceased reading the message, than Mr. Douglas 
 bounced to his feet — commenced a war on the 
 Democracy — in the principles of the Kansas bill 
 — on the Constitution — on the Democratic Presi- 
 dent, and on his brother Senators. He thru 
 threw down the glove and the gauntlet. He vio- 
 lated his own loved doctrine of •'non-interven- 
 
 Democratic party here in Congress, but I will 
 not take the nomination of the party unless it 
 indorses the principle upon which I made that 
 war on the part*." [ \pplae i 
 
 li.ii' las says "I am abetter Democrat than 
 Breckinridge, although I have warred on Democ- 
 racy tor two y< irs— although every Democratic 
 Senator, except Mr. Pugh, of 0. i >, is against 
 me." Strange, indeed, is it that a man of genius 
 nd power SO great should bo in the Senate of the 
 
 tion;" and although the people of Kansas had United Siates so many years fighting forDemoc- 
 
 adopted i heir own Constitution, and had submit- racy, and yet not a solitary Dcmoi at be found by 
 
 ted the slavery clause to the masses, and theyhad his side save hisdarling Pugh. | Vpplause.] Ev- 
 
 aBnrOved it— and come to Congress and said this erv Democratic Southern Senator is against htm, 
 
 is my way of m iking a Constitution — .Mr. Doug 
 las rises in his place and wars on his own favorite 
 doctrine, and called up >n Congress to intervene 
 and to -end b ick that Constitution to an Ab ili- 
 tion majority — a packed jury, who h id just taken 
 a vote and shown that theyhad ten men to our 
 five. If his principle was right, that 'he people 
 of a territory Bhould form and regulate their own 
 domestic institutions in their own way, Bubjeet 
 
 and four fifths of the Democratic Si natort of the 
 North, and he is alone able to defeat the Democ- 
 racy bv the aid of Seward and the IMack Repub- 
 lican hosts coming to and voting with him. 
 Mr. Douglas says in his last speech in tl 
 ate of the United States, where he undertakes to 
 assail the State of Alabama and your humble 
 
 speaker, that the South has forced a new i~-ne 
 upon the country of this kind— that she is forcing 
 
 only to the Constitution of the United State — I slavery on a people who do not desire it. He 
 
 want to know if he was not wrong when be said, Bays that the Northern people wish to force 
 
 "You have not mule this Constitution in my slavery from a people who wish to retain it, and 
 
 way, and I will send it back." The first man to the South is endeavoring to force slavery upon a 
 
 Fet' the example of violating his own ere 'pie who do not desire it. Don t every mm in 
 
 "non-intervention" was Stephen A. Douglas; this vast assembly know that this is ulse? ffllat 
 
12 
 
 (\ platform of the Democratic party has ever pro- 
 ,1 , claimed the principle that the government should 
 'Jj force slavery anywhere where it is not wanted? 
 ',, What speaker of the Democratic party has ever 
 E advocated such a doctine? What organs of the 
 ..j Democracy have ever enunciated such a doctrine? 
 ;'., What individual has ever got up and proclaimed 
 T that that was a principle of the South? I defy 
 ■js his friends, whether in the editorial corps or on 
 1 "l the stump, to tell the people, the first opportunity 
 'jl they get, where is the man, or when and where 
 1'tany body of the Democracy made the proposi- 
 '!j tion. It becomes the gentleman who makes a 
 l¥ statement of that kind to give the proof. I know 
 >'j of no such body. Because a Southern man goes 
 "V to Kansas with his slave and demands that it 
 'l t shall not be taken away from him, is that forcing 
 ,! ] slavery on the people? Does it interfere at all 
 ! f with the principle of self-government if you shall 
 I j leave your neighbor alone? I want to know how 
 jj, it interferes with the people of Kansas governing 
 , themselves to require them to leave their neigh- 
 : t bors alone with their slaves? How does it inter- 
 im fere with the Abolitionist and his wooden nut- 
 ■ megs, his clocks and his mulr, that I should be 
 1 T allowed to go and settle on my farm with my ne- 
 J|j groes? Is it the privilege of self-government to 
 ' t destroy your neighbor's property? I don't know 
 % of any such privilege anywhere. You have no 
 ' r such privilege in the State of Tennessee. What 
 ' f privilege has any citizen in the State of Teunes- 
 j see to take the property belonging to his neigh- 
 j bor? It may be a penitentiary privilege. [Laugh- 
 ter.] What right have you got in the Legisla- 
 t ture to pass a law to say that your neighbor shall 
 , not own a negro? I know of no such right in 
 , Tennessee. There is none such in Alabama. 
 j There can't be here. It is against the Constitu- 
 j tion of the country. Your right to govern your- 
 t self consists in taking care of yourself— but in 
 ( taking care of yourself it involves no privilege to 
 . take from me any right that I have. [Applause.] 
 J But Douglas says that it does, and if you do 
 i undertake to go to the Territory and take a negro 
 » the government shall not protect you in holding 
 ^ that slave, and otherwise it is forcing slavery on 
 I a people that do not desire it. I do not reco"- 
 r nize the reasoning. 
 
 t We do say that the Constitution cannot intro- 
 j. duce slavery anywhere, but we also say that it 
 , cannot take it from us in the territories, but that 
 , wherever you go and whatever your property con- 
 sists of or may be, the Constitution shall protect 
 t you in the enjoyment of it. The Constitution 
 I does not make property, neither does it destroy 
 I property. But it is the object of all governments 
 to protect you in three things — -in your life, liber- 
 .■ ty and property. If vou have got property, you 
 I are entitled to protection. If you have not °-ot 
 , it, you don't need protection. Therefore, while 
 i we deny the right of the Government to prohibit, 
 i we also deny the right of the Government to 
 I establish slavery, but at the same time we say 
 i that this is all consistent with the idea of my 
 having the choice to establish slavery by my 
 - going into the territories and that I am entitled 
 to protection. The Constitution is there before 
 , I go there, and it protects me with my property as 
 ^ much as it protects the Abolitionist with his. 
 ~ Yet Mr. Douglas tries to make you believe 
 
 that the two sections of the country are warring 
 unconstitutionally upon each other— the North 
 demanding the abolition of slavery wherever it 
 exists, and the South seeking by law and by the 
 Government to force slavery upon an unwilling 
 people. It is not so. I demand the proof from 
 any gentleman when he has the opportunity of 
 giving it. 
 
 The next point that he made was that the doc- 
 trine of non-intervention by Congress either to 
 establish or prohibit slavery was indorsed by the 
 Democratic party in the Compromise measures of 
 1850 and by the Kansas act in 1854, and in the 
 Cincinnati platform of 1856. 1 deny every soli- 
 tary assertion. There is not a word of truth in 
 the whole of it. But, on the contrary, it is true 
 that the Southern doctrine was indorsed by the 
 Compromise measures of 1850, and that doctrine 
 was, and is, non intervention to prohibit or estab- 
 lish, but protection against unconstitutional legisla- 
 tion. 
 
 I shall prove that. I should like to have Mr. 
 Douglas prove his own assertions, but in his 
 absence I shall undertake to disprove them. I 
 have here the Compromise measures of 1850. In 
 the second Territorial bill you will find at its 
 close the doctrine of non-intervention as contend- 
 ed for by Mr. Breckinridge and Lane, and as con- 
 tended for by myself and all other intelligent 
 friends of the Democracy. Here it is: 
 
 "And provided further, That whfcn admitted as a 
 State, the said Territory, or any portion o ' the same, 
 shall be received into ihe Lnion with or without 
 slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe at the 
 time of their admission." 
 
 There is the doctrine of non-intervention. It 
 is that Congress cannot establish slavery when it 
 makes an organic law for a Territory, neither can 
 it prohibit it. You cannot establish it by the 
 organic law. You can't prohibit it by law, and 
 it goes on to say that the States shall be received 
 into the Union with or without slavery, as their 
 Constitutions shall prescribe 
 
 Douglas has gone farther than that, and said that 
 that construction is erroneous. I want to do him 
 no injustice. He tells you in his serenade speech, 
 and in his letter of acceptance, and in his great 
 speech, that his doctrine of non-intervention was 
 incorporated into the act of 1850. He tells you 
 it was the essential living principle of the Com- 
 promise of 1850, and it was introduced by the 
 country into the Kansas-Nebraska act and into 
 the Cincinnati platform, and, therefore, his con- 
 struction of the platform is the true one. I deny 
 it. I have shown you how far non-intervention is 
 in that act. The balance, as he gives it, is not 
 there Return to the seventh section of the aet, 
 and you will see I am right. 
 
 He says in his Harper article: 
 "This exposition of the history of these measures 
 shows, conclusively, that the authors of the Compro- 
 mise measures of 1850, and of the Kansas-Nebraska 
 aet of J834, as well as the members of the Continent- 
 al Congress of 17*4. and the founders of our system 
 of government subsequent to the Revolution, re- 
 garded the people of the Territories and Colonies as 
 political communities which were entitled to a free 
 and exclusive power of legislation in their Provin- 
 cial Legislatures, where their representation could 
 alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and 
 internal polity. This right pertains to the people 
 collectively as a law-abiding and peaceful com- 
 munity, and not to the isolated individuals who 
 
13 
 
 may wander apon the public domain in \ iolation of 
 taw." 
 
 He contended that Kansas lias now an exclu 
 Bive power of legislation, and that this exclusive 
 power of legislation was indorsed by the great 
 Compromise measures of l-;Vi, and, Bays Be, it' 
 von under td ke to destroy that principle, "where 
 will von Bud another Clay or another Webster to 
 rise up and calm the agitated waters?" 
 
 1 Bhowyou the doctrine that I contend for, and 
 that Breckinridge and Lane contend for, is that 
 Congress shall not interfere to prevent the admis- 
 sion of a Territory when she may come with a 
 Constitution allowing slavery; but I say that Con- 
 gress can interfere when the Legislature passes 
 an unconstitutional aet. So say the South. 80 
 said .the Compromise measures in the seventh 
 section that I have read. But, alter giving the 
 power of legislation subject to the constitution, it 
 goes on to say: 
 
 "Skc. 10. And all laws passed by the Legislative 
 Assembly and Governor shall be submitted to the; 
 Congress of the United Srn t<-s, and, if disapproved, 
 shall be null and id' no effect." 
 
 Therefore, you see, I have disproved Mr. Doug- 
 las' assertion, and proven that this doctrine of his 
 finds no root in the Compromise of 1S5U. Well, 
 if it does not find root there — if, on the contrary, 
 the Southern Breckinridge doctrine, now contend- 
 ed for and sustained by the Supreme Court, is 
 there — is it true that the Kansas-Nebraska aet 
 lias that measure of Squatter Sovereignty in it 
 which he claims? I deny it. The South con- 
 tended for this principle of the Compromise of 
 1850, that Congress should neither establish nor 
 prohibit slavery, nor prohibit the admission of a 
 slave State. Mr. Douglas had taken up the 
 Squatter Sovereignty notions of Gen. Cass, of 
 that day, and declared that the Territories had 
 the exclusive power of legislation, and that Con- 
 gress had no power to interfere, but that it must 
 lie left to the courts of the country. But Doug- 
 las and the South agreed upon that bill. How? 
 I will show you they agreed to disagree. I will 
 not read you other authority on that question. 
 In the Senate of the United States he undertook 
 to show you that they agreed to disagree — that 
 the South did not maintain its doctrine of pro- 
 tection, and he did not maintain his doctrine of 
 Squatter Sovereignty, but they agreed to leave it 
 to the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
 he undertook to say that Mr. Hunter expressed 
 what he meant by the bill better than he could, 
 and he read, or asked Mr. Pugh to read, what 
 Mr. Hunter had said. 
 Mr. Douglas said: 
 
 " Mr. President, the record is so full, so explicit on 
 this matter, that there i- no room for misconstruc- 
 tion, 'flic only point on which any body differed. 
 so far as I know, was the simple one of the extent of 
 the limitation imposed by the constitution on the 
 Territorial Legislature. That was the point referred 
 to the courts. * * * I will trouble the Senate 
 only with one authority on that point, and 1 quote 
 him simply because of his eminent character, and 
 the respect this body and tin- country have for him. 
 1 m -an Mr. Hunter, of Virginia. 
 
 " Mr. Pugh read the following extract from Mr. 
 Hunter's speech of February 24, 1854: 
 
 "• The hill provides that the Legislatures of these 
 Territories -hall have power to legislate over all 
 rightful subjects of legislation consistently with the 
 Constitution. And if they should assume pavers 
 
 which are thought to be inconsistent with the Con- 
 
 stitution, the Courts win dooide the qnestii n wher- 
 ever it may be raised. There is a difference "i ■ pin- 
 ion among the friends i f this tn< osuro a- i.. tb< 
 tenl of the limit- which the Cunstitutu u imp 
 upon the Territorial Legislatures. The bill pro- 
 !,, loave these differenoi - to the dccisii n • i the 
 Courts. To thai tribunal I am willing to leave this 
 deoision, as it was once before propu by 
 
 the oelobratod < lompromiseof i bo Senator from Del- 
 aware (Mr. Clayton) - ,i measure, which, aeeo 
 ti. my understanding, was the b nise 
 
 which was offered upon this Bubject of slavery, i 
 say, then, that I am willing to leave this point, upon 
 which the friend- of the bill are at difference, to the 
 decision of the Courts ' 
 
 "There." says Mr. Douglas, "Mr. Hunter states 
 the object of the loll as explicitly and a- clearly as 
 ii i- possible for any man holding my opinions to 
 
 sta le it." 
 
 Here is Mr. Douglas' own confession. Herfl 
 
 is his indorsement id' the opinion of Mr. Hunter, 
 that the Kansas-Nebraska bill did not contain 
 the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty — and did 
 
 j not contain the doctrine that the Territories had 
 the exclusive power of legislation— and that Con- 
 gress could not interfere there. Hut. say.- he. that 
 is a question left for tin' courts to decide, by the 
 bill. They agreed to disagree, ami the opinion 
 of the Court, when delivered, should become the 
 j law of the land. That is what he agreed to. 
 
 Now, then, it is not true that the principle of 
 I the Compromise measures of lP50is the Squatter 
 | Sovereignty principle. It is equally untrue that 
 i it is the principle of the act of lfc'54, the Kansas- 
 Nebraska act, as. stated by Douglas; because he 
 has admitted, and the record- of the country 
 show, that the bill was adopted, the entertainers 
 I of contrary opinions agreeing to disagree; and 
 they left the whole question to be decided by the 
 Courts. 
 
 But he goes on and states, that in the Cincin- 
 nati platform his principle was adopted. 1 deny 
 that again. I say that the Cincinnati platform' 
 adopted simply the agreement that the party had 
 made when they passed the Kansas- Nebraska. 
 bill. Here is what they say on that question: 
 
 "And that we may more distinctly meet the issue. 
 on which a sectional party, subsisting exclusively 
 on slavery agitation, now relies to test the fidelity 
 of the people, North and South, to the Constitution 
 
 and the Uni j 
 
 " ' h'< noloed, That claiming fellowship with, and 
 desiring the oo-operati f all who regard the pre- 
 servation of the Union under the Constitution as 
 the paramount issue, and repudiating all, Bectional 
 parties and platforms concerning domestic Blavery 
 which seek to embroil the Stales and incite 
 son and armed resistanoeto lawinthe Territories, 
 and whose avowed purposes, if consummated, mustl 
 end in civil war and disunion, the American Demo- 
 cracy recognize and adopt the principles contained] 
 in the organic laws establishing the Territories of 
 Kansas and Nebraska, as embodying the only sound 
 and safe solution of the slavery question, upon 
 whieh the great national idea of the people oi tins 
 whole country can repose in its determined conser- 
 vatism of the Onion— non-interfen ace by Congress 
 with slavery in State or Territory, or in the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia. . 
 
 " ' Reiolved, That we recognise the right oi tno 
 people of all the Territories, including Kansas and 
 Nebraska. acting through the legally and fairly ex- 
 pressed will of a majority of actual residents, and 
 whenever the number oi their inhabitants justifies 
 
 it , to form a Con-tit ut inn, with or without di lie -tie 
 
 slavery, and be admitted into the 1 nion nppn tern 
 of perfect equality with the other States."' 
 
 I have shown you that the Compromise meas- 
 ure- "f 1850 did not indorse Squatti r Sovereign- 
 ty. 1 have shown that the Kansas-Nebraska bill 
 
14 
 
 did not indorse it, but that it was an agreement 
 for both parties to disagree, and leave it to the 
 courts. The courts had not decided it when the 
 Cincinnati platform was adopted. The Cincin- 
 nati platform then but adopted and indorsed the 
 agreement to disagree, and to leave it to the 
 courts to decide, and would adopt the decision of 
 the court whenever it was made. 
 
 Now, then, as far as the Cincinnati platform 
 speaks, it speaks on our side. If the Cincinnati 
 platform meant to recognize the right of the peo- 
 ple of the Territories to legislate on the subject 
 of slavery without interference on the part of 
 Congress, why did it not say so? Why was it that 
 it skipped that right and said, "we recognize the 
 right of the people of all the Territories, acting 
 through the legally and fairly expressed will of 
 the majority, to form a constitution?" It says 
 nothing of the people of the Territory having the 
 exclusive power to legislate. The right that is 
 expressed was recognized in the legislation of 
 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska bill recognized 
 that right,, and, therefore, the party indorsed it. 
 But the Kansas-Nebraska bill did not recognize 
 the right of exclusive legislation in the Territo- 
 ries, and, therefore, the Cincinnati platform did 
 not say a word on the subject. The Cincinnati 
 platform took the Kansas-Nebraska act with the 
 agreement to disagree, and to take the decision 
 of the Supreme Court whenever it was rendered. 
 I then say his principle was not in the legislation 
 of 1*54, nor in the Cincinnati platform of lb56. 
 
 But in 1857 the Supreme Court rendered the 
 decision. Was that indorsed? Ah! gentlemen, 
 there is the rub. It is useless for irie to read from 
 that decision. It was in relation to Dred Scott, 
 who claimed to be free because he had once lived 
 in a Territory where slavery had been abolished 
 by act of Congress. Dred Scott was at Fort 
 Snelling, in the Territory of Minnesota. A local 
 law also existed, declaring that slavery should 
 not exist in the Territory, as well as the law of 
 Congress, but that did not come up in the case. 
 The question was. whether there was power any- 
 where to take from the owner of Dred Scott his 
 right of property because he chose to take that 
 slave there. Seven of nine of the judges decided 
 that Congress had no power to enact a law of the 
 kind, and they went on to say: 
 
 " The powers over person and property of which 
 we speak — 
 
 That is, the power of confiscating the slaves of 
 the citizens of the slave-holding States, if they 
 go into the Territories — 
 
 —"Are not only not granted to Congress, but are in 
 express terms denied, and they are forbidden to ex- 
 ercise them. And this prohibition is not confined 
 to thi' btates, Imt (lie words arc general, ami extend 
 to the whole Territory over which the Constitution 
 gives if power to legislate, including those portions 
 "l il remainjng under Territorial Government, as 
 well „s that covered by States. It is a total absence 
 01 power everywhere within the dominion of the 
 I oited States, ami places tlie citizens of a Territory, 
 solar as these rights are concerned, on the same 
 tootingwith the citizens of the States, and guards 
 them as finals and plainly against any inroads 
 whwli Ihe general government might at tempt under 
 the plea ot implied or incidental powers: ami if Con- 
 gress itself cannot do this— if it is beyond the pow- 
 ers conferred on the Federal Government— it will ho 
 admit! -!. wepresume, that it could not authorize a 
 territorial Government I,, exercise them. Il could 
 Confei no power on any local government establish- 
 
 ed by its authority to violate the provisions of the 
 Constitution." 
 
 "And if thf Constitution recognizes the right of 
 property of tin- master in a, slave, and maKes no dis- 
 tinction between that description of properly and 
 other property owned by a citizen, no tribunal, act- 
 ing under the authority of the United States — 
 
 And surely the Territorial Legislature, when 
 organized, are acting under the authority of the 
 United States — 
 
 — "No tribunal, acting under the authority of the 
 
 United States, whether it be Legislative, Execu- 
 tive, or Judicial, has a right to draw such a distinc- 
 tion, or deny to it the benefis of the provisions and 
 guarantees which have been provided for the protec- 
 tion of private property against the encroachments 
 of the Government." 
 
 The Supreme Court then decided that a Ter- 
 ritorial Legislature, created by Congress, could 
 not have the power to make a slave free when 
 Congress did not have the power, and when all 
 the power that Congress had in the language of 
 the Constitution was " the power coupled with the 
 duty to protect tie owner in his rights." 
 
 There is the decision of the Supreme Court. 
 It indorses the doctrine as contended for by 
 Breckinridge and Lane, and the Democracy that 
 support them. It indorses the doctrine that your 
 constitutional rights, whatever they are, are as 
 much entitled to protection as are the constitution- 
 al rights of the Abolitionist or the Free-Soiler. It 
 indorses the doctrine that one man is on a level 
 with his brethren. 
 
 The next time the question came up was when 
 the Lecompton Constitution came before Con- 
 gress. Then it was that Douglas had to take a 
 position, and what did he say? I beg to call your 
 attention to what he said as to submitting to the 
 decision of the Supreme Court in this matter. 
 Here is what he said in his debate with Lincoln 
 when he was running in Illinois for the Senate. 
 
 "It matters not what way the Supreme Court 
 may hereafter decide as to the abstract question, 
 whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory 
 under the Constittrtio'n. The people have the law- 
 ful means to introduce it, or exclude it as they 
 please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a 
 day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by 
 local police regulations. Those police regulations 
 can only be established by the local Legislature, 
 and if the people are opposed to slavery, i hey will 
 elect representatives to that body, who will, by un- 
 friendly legislation effectually prevent the introduc- 
 tion of it into their midst, if, on the contrary, they 
 are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. 
 Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme 
 Court may be on that abstract question, still, the 
 right of the people to make a slave Territory or a 
 free Territory is perfect and complete under the 
 Nebraska bill." 
 
 Here, then, is Mr. Douglas' denial that a de- 
 cision of the Supreme Court would do the South 
 any good under his construction of the Nebraska 
 bill, and that, although he did make the South 
 believe that by leaving it to the Courts, a final 
 decision would be reached by which all parties 
 would be governed — yet, he says, after the law 
 is passed — talking to Northern people, trying to 
 be elected over an Abolitionist — that under the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill, no matter what may the 
 decision of the Supreme Court, under that bill, 
 the people can make the Territory free — cm, by 
 legislation, take away the constitutional rights of 
 the slaveholder there, and Congress cannot pro- 
 tect or interfere to protect. 
 
 Now, there is Mr. Douglas' doctrine, and when 
 
15 
 
 the Supreme Court came in :i i»> l made a decision 
 against him, what then? He becomes reckless 
 and desperate; and when Kansas (-'nine forward 
 with the Lecpmpton Constitution, then it was 
 tint he armed himself with all his weapons, 
 offensh e and defensh e — allied himself with Sew- 
 ard and tlic Black Republicans in Congress, and 
 voted with them, and had the Constitution referred 
 bark to the Abolition majority on the plains of 
 Kansas. The South was willing to submit when 
 Bver that majority spoke in Convention, but 
 would nut submit thai thai Abolition majority 
 should exclude her from going there even if it 
 was a barren and abstract right, as he says. So 
 it was our right, and it was officiously denied us 
 lb strengthen an Abolition party. It became the 
 South to stand up and see that the truth was 
 vindicated <>n every occasion. 
 
 Now I have shown you that the assertion of 
 Douglas and his committee, thai this is Demo- 
 cratic doctrine, is wrong, I have shown you that 
 in 1850 we had the advantage. In 1854 we lost 
 
 it somewhat, but I have shown you that finally — 
 when the Supreme Court made its decision — we 
 again had the advantage, and having the advant- 
 age when we went to Charleston — he having said 
 that he would have his platform or none at all — 
 we felt when this question came up we would be 
 less tli in nun if we did not take up the issue, for 
 fear of disturbing the harmony of the party — for 
 we claimed nothing but that equality that the 
 Democracy has always given us. 
 
 Douglas says in his letter of acceptance, that 
 thi- Bection seeks to force slavery upon an un- 
 willing people. That is talse as regards the South. 
 The South has never attempted to aggrandize 
 itself at the expense of the North. No Southern 
 state-man that 1 have heard of has proclaimed a 
 doctrine that would aggrandize the South at the 
 expense of the North. All that we have asked, 
 and all that I have asked, is, that we shall be 
 equal with the North — all that we ask of the 
 North is, aggrandize yourselves by your energy 
 atnl industry, and tact, as much as you please, 
 but do not trench upon our right. If, by the ex- 
 ercise of equal rights, you can gain some advan- 
 tage over the South, you are entitled to that advan- 
 tage, and we will protect you in it; but you shall 
 not aggrandize yourselves upon our rights. [A 
 voice — " Hurrah for Yancey," and cheers.] 
 
 Well now, gentlemen, I have shown you how 
 tlit'-i' two parties stand — I have shown you that 
 while neither obtained a regular nomination of 
 the party, under its rules, yet there is a vast dis- 
 tinction between the two men. They come before 
 a Democratic assemblage, and I ask who ia the 
 choice of the Democracy! I have shown you, by 
 showing the position of the leaders of the Democ- 
 racy, North and South. I have shown you that 
 there is no comparison in the standing of the two 
 men. I have shown you that Breckinridge and 
 Lane are the representatives of the Democracy. 
 [Applause.] I have gone back and shown you, as 
 principle is concerned, that Douglas 1 prin- 
 ciple of Squatter Sovereignty, denounced univer- 
 sally, is far more dangerous and infamous than 
 the Wilmot Proviso, and that it was never in- 
 dorsed by the Democratic party of the country, 
 but on the contrary, the Supreme Court has dc- 
 clared it null, wrong, and unconstitutional — and 
 
 th.it Douglas makes war m, the Democratic 
 
 Administration, the Cabinet, Senate, House of 
 Representath <■-, and all the Stat< a of 'he South, 
 
 in order to cany forward his doctrine, that our 
 
 rights shall not in the Territories receh 6 the pro 
 tectl f our common Go^ ei ami at. 
 
 I -how you farther, that Jul I Douglas cares 
 
 nothing about the I democracy, and that his aim is 
 
 simply to pull down the DemOOTaCJ — that lie 
 knows he has no chance of an election, and there- 
 fore has opposed all sorts oi' fusion between the 
 two wings of the Democracy, that now he nuv 
 run in several States and destroy that majority, 
 and let in the old opponent of tlie part] running 
 under the lead of Hell. In thisState what chance 
 has Douglas to carry the electoral vote' What 
 
 sane man believes tor a single moment that he 
 has the least chance of carrying the State of 
 Tennessee? 'What man among them will dare 
 
 announce on the stump or in a newspaper — on his 
 honor as a man — that he can carry Tennessee ' 
 They know, too, in the State of Alabama, that 
 by running their ticket single or by any fusion, 
 that they have no chance of coming within twen- 
 ty thousand votes of the invincible Democracy. 
 [(Jreat applause.] He is in the same fix in North 
 Carolina, in Georgia, and in Mississippi. He is 
 running his ticket. What is the result ? There 
 may enough (lake off from the true Democracy to 
 enable Bell to slip in and carry the State, and 
 thus perchance the South will be split up and 
 divided so that Lincoln will carry the day against 
 a divided majority. 
 
 Why is it he runs thus wildly'' He does not 
 hope to carry Tennessee. He hopes to gain no 
 advantage under it, but it is the last, desperate 
 throw of a vindictive and desperate state-man, 
 who feels that he has been caught, and if he dies 
 or sinks in the struggle, he will willingly go 
 down, it he can carry the Democracy with him. 
 Vengeance, ami vengeance alone, <iu<jlit to l« irrit- 
 linax the motto tin every Douglas banner thati 
 Jloqte to the breeze. [Much applause.] They fen-, 
 that division will not avail Bell in many States, , 
 ami they are proposing fusions everywhere. They 
 are the keenest fellows in the world, and Doug- 
 las is willing to fuse with any body in order to 
 give him a position to beat down the otherwise 
 triumphant masses in the Democratic States. 
 
 I don't assert this without reason. I ask your 
 attention to what several prominent men have 
 said on that que.-tion. 1 invite you now to listen! 
 to what John Forsyth says on this question. He, 
 says: 
 " Tin' only compromise we can make with them is, 
 
 that they lay down their arm.-, confess then 
 upon the stool of repentance, and vote for Stephen 
 A.. Douglas. It' we d npromise, we cannot com- 
 promise with the Breckinridge taction pr th 
 Republican party: but there is a I oi«n party we) 
 oan compromise with, and that is the Bell and Ev- 
 erett party. They have the same objeet in view we 
 have— to preserve this government ami not allow it 
 to tie saerifioed to the passions and ambition of mis- 
 guided lllell." 
 
 Oh, how he WOOS them J How teaderlj he 
 
 whispers them in the eai -! 
 
 What does Judge Henderson, of the Second 
 I district id' Missouri, saj I He was i 
 
 the Democratic Convention at Charleston and at 
 
 Baltimore, and he voted forDougla.- all the time* 
 what does he 
 
Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, said : "You may beat 
 mo and send me home, and thereby confer a favor on 
 me; but you had better elect me just once and send 
 me to Washington, because I am an expurgator. I 
 come not before you for the purpose of deceiving, 
 disrupting or breaking up the American or any other 
 organization; I say stand to your colors, and if you 
 won't elect Douglas then fight for Bell and Everett. 
 They are good men, 1 have not forgotten the time 
 when the cry rang through this district, that Bell 
 was an Abolitionist, a Prea-Soiler, because of his 
 vote on the Leoompton Constitution. I went through 
 the district and defended Bell and Crittenden, and 
 Douglas against this charge. All know it. And yet 
 the people want to know if 1 belong to the north 
 wing of the Democratic party." 
 
 What did Ed. Marshall say at one of their 
 squatter meetings in Philadelphia? 
 
 "But I say that Kentucky is going to do one of 
 two things" — a wise man! They surely were not 
 going to do three things — "either she is going lor 
 Bell and Everett, or for Stephen A. Douglas." 
 
 Let us hear a little more from some other lead- 
 ers of this Douglas party. Did you ever hear of 
 one J. J. Seibels, editor of the Confederation, 
 published at Montgomery, in the State of Ala- 
 bama? He is a leading Douglas man in the State 
 of Alabama. 
 
 "It is with cheering hope that we announce the 
 very great probability — the almost certainty— that 
 all conservative men in New York, whether Demo- 
 crats or Americans, will unite upon perfectly equal, 
 fair, and honorable terms, upon one — the Douglas 
 ticket — and that there will be but two tickets, Doug- 
 las and Lincoln, in that State. Such is our informa- 
 tion from various private letters, and also sufficient- 
 ly shadowed forth in several leading journals." 
 ******* 
 
 "And we have no hesitation in advising, that if 
 the Americans who are in the minority in New 
 \ ork, shall patriotically come to the support of the 
 Douglas ticket, for the purpose of saving the coun- 
 try, that the Douglas men should in every State 
 where they are in a hopeless minority, go to the aid 
 of the Americans to defeat Breckinridge." 
 
 Think of it, you Irish adopted citizens! Mark 
 it well, you Germans! Remember it you men who 
 have thought that the American party were not 
 for equal rights. Think of your being transfer- 
 red like sheep and a"be!l" put on you! [Laughter 
 and applause.] Just think of it, you who are 
 straying about in the Whig camp — in the Ameri- 
 can camp Think of it, when the fight is over, 
 these Douglas men will whistle up these fellows 
 that they have marked and branded and put a 
 "bell" on that they might know them. [A by- 
 stander — "Hit 'em again."] 
 
 Just listen again! Here is something more. 
 Fushion has taken place, my countrymen. Here 
 is a letter from Leslie Combs. They had an 
 election in Kentucky. The Whigs ran their 
 man, Leslie Combs. The Douglas men ran their 
 candidate, a man named Boiling. Before the 
 election took place the Douglas papers had by 
 their editorials called upon their followers to vote 
 for any man rather than the Breckinridge candi- 
 date. Why not recommend them to vote for 
 their own man and elect him? When the elec- 
 ; tion was over it was found that they had voted 
 for Combs. He "let the cat out of the bag." 
 He is an honest man. He had no secrets. He 
 ■ had got into power by it, and he wrote a letter as 
 ) follows: 
 
 ' "Profoundly grateful as lam to Providence and 
 j the people for making me the instrument of politi- 
 cal redemption, 1 ask leave to say a single word to 
 < you. The patriotic national union Democracy have 
 
 co-operated with us most manfully, and we must 
 hereafter consider them as brethren. 
 
 "We can all stand on the platform of 1852, recog- 
 nizing the Compromise of 1850." 
 
 Oh, yes! we can all stand on that if you fellows 
 will do the work and give the others the wine, 
 desert, and lager beer. [Applause.] Listen to 
 his advice to these Democratic brethren. [Laugh- 
 ter.] 
 
 "Hereafter go for the Union, the Constitution, and 
 the enforcement of the laws." 
 
 What does that mean? What is the Union? 
 Vote for a Whig! [Laughter.] What is the 
 Constitution? Put the American party in power. 
 [Applause.] What is the enforcement of the 
 laws? Give the Whigs all the offices. This is 
 it. [Renewed laughter.] 
 
 "There need be no question for criticism as to the 
 past." 
 
 There must not be any criticism as to the past. 
 Combs did not want to criticise the past. He did 
 not want the past looked into by the Irish or Ger- 
 man adopted citizens, or what was left of them. 
 
 "But perfect harmony in combatting the common 
 enemy hereafter, i. e. both sectional parties. I hope 
 the press on both sides will take this ground. The 
 Yancey-Breckinridge disunionists have received 
 their first rebuke— mild and gentle compared to the 
 future. They are doomed." 
 
 I feel that, gentlemen, pretty strongly. [Ap- 
 plause.] I don't wonder Leslie Combs asks the 
 Irishmen not to criticise the past too much. I do "Ot 
 much wonder when we think of that bloody and 
 awful August, when fire and faggot, bayonet and 
 ball, poured out their blood in the streets of Louis- 
 ville, amid the shrieks of their women and child- 
 ren. [Immense applause.] I don't wonder after 
 Know-Nothingism had shown its horrid vengeance 
 against these poor foreigners there, that Combs 
 should now say, don't let us criticise the past 
 much. It is my province to bring it to your re- 
 collection. It is my province to say to the for- 
 eign population, if you forget the hour when the 
 bones of your wives and children crackled in the 
 flames of Know-Nothingism, you deserve to be 
 forgotten of your God. [Tremendous applause-] 
 Yet these Douglas leaders have sold you to that 
 faction in Kentucky, and have given them 25.000 
 majority for anybody but an old-fashioned Demo- 
 crat, all of whose sin is that he dares stand up 
 for the constitutional right of his own section and 
 vote against Douglas. Are you ready for that? 
 Are you, the old line Democracy, ready for that 
 fusion in which you are to be transferred by the 
 leaders over to the Know- Nothing, American, 
 and Whig parties when November comes, and 
 you own electoral ticket to be deserted — the con- 
 sequence being that old Democrats with the ban- 
 ner of the equal rights of the people and the 
 equal rights of the States, aggression on nobody, 
 will be beaten down — that old-fashioned, honest, 
 equal rights Democrats shall go down, and Whig 
 principles shall triumph in the person of your old 
 enemy? Are you ready for that? [Several voices, 
 "No."] I believe not! I believe there are hun- 
 dreds and thousands of men yet in these Doug- 
 las ranks who, before November next, will find 
 out where floats the Democratic standard, and 
 where stand the Democratic leaders, and when 
 the bugle blast of the Democracy rings forth 
 upon the field of battle, that these men will rush 
 
to that standard and carry it onward to vi 
 over the Americans, Whiga and Donglaa men 
 combined. [Much applause*] 
 A voice—Go on, Yancey. 
 
 Mr. Yancey— Ho patient— I require your pa- 
 >, for I have not come here to make a di 
 of oratory before you, but to speak calmly, delib- 
 erately, and truthfully on these matters — 1 ki 
 where I stand— I know the hostile criticism to 
 which 1 shall be subjected— 1 know that if I can 
 be caught tripping how some would rejoice; but, 
 io help me God, if any man bites the dust, it 
 will be some other man than Yancey. [Great ap- 
 plau-e.] 
 
 I have done with these Douglas men for awhile; 
 I think 1 have given them "a Roland for the 
 Oliver" that they sent to me over to Alabama. 
 
 1 come now to the Hell men, for 1 am not one 
 of those Democrats who think that a Democratic 
 fight can go on and speak soft words to the Bell 
 ■ten, men who say it is all right, we will be with 
 you in a few days. I was at a meeting a few 
 days Bince — at a Douglas meeting. Iliad spoken; 
 then came the Douglas elector, and the Bell 
 elector was to follow'. lie patted him on the 
 face aiftl called him a handsome man, and he 
 said: " I have no word to say against you in this 
 fight, hut 1 will cajole you." He was a Scotch- 
 man; but 1 believe he had been taken to Ireland 
 in his Noun- days, and nude to lick "the blarney 
 stone." lie actually made them believe 1 was 
 an ugly fellow,and that was about as much truth 
 illy tell, [laughter and applause,] 
 and then he went on and pitched into me, and 
 declared he was a regular national Democrat, and 
 he cajoled and Battered the Bell man all the while. 
 The Bell man was a gallant fellow, and he did 
 not like the position of things; he was going to 
 stand up for his own side, ami he pitched into 
 the I : a a little. I refer to Mr. Wood, 
 
 of Lauderdale. 
 
 I ask whether Southern men have properly con- 
 sidered what is the effect of this canvass, and of 
 the vote they are going to give for Mr. Bell? 
 Suppose I was to call Mr. Bell a free-soiler, you 
 would call it Democratic abuse. Yet, 1 have 
 American condemnation of Mr. Bell. The 
 American parry of Georgia are considered to be 
 pretty sound on the goose [laughter] and protec- 
 tion.' They met in Mr Hill's district, the elo- 
 quent and able leader of the American party in 
 Georgia, and the Lagrange Reporter has the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 "Resolutions of the Ncwnan (Oa.) Opposition 
 Convention, of the 29th of June, L859, of which Con- 
 vention the editor of the Reporter was one of the 
 taries: 
 "' That the South has nothins to hope for from 
 the Ropuhliean and lJoinoeratie partes, and a true 
 devotion to the welfare of our own section requires 
 us to oppose b 'ih: and this Convention will neither 
 indorse, sympathize, or affiliate with the Squat- 
 ter Sovereignly policy of Stephen A. Douglas, or 
 the free-soil affinities of Bell, Crittenden, and Hous- 
 ton, who opposed the admission of Kansas under 
 the Lecompton Constitution.' " [Applause ] 
 
 These are American comments on John Bell — 
 American Whigs of Georgia. 
 
 Now, then, what did the American Convention 
 ef Georgia do in 18507 They met and declared 
 that the Kansas-Nebraska bill was a true South- 
 ern measure, and that every man who voted 
 
 against that bill was no true American patriot 
 John Bell was io party 
 
 has denounci I no true American or pat- 
 
 riot. That is not my tangu i 
 Bui I h '-.■■ as to John Belli 
 
 and I will say it I. 
 
 \ merioan part] in Alabama, al 
 1 
 in favor of protection] and declared that they 
 
 would vote for no in in that dill not avow this 
 Have I been correetly informed that 
 John Bell, in a public spee-h in this place, has 
 declared against this docl veral voices, 
 
 "Yes."] nave 1 been correctly informed that a 
 Bell paper in this oity has declared thai tfa 
 trine of protection to the rights of the -l ■ 
 era in the Territories they Bcorn? 1 have bi en bo 
 informed. If 1 am correctly informed, then, the 
 Opposition Whig party of Alabama is supporting 
 Mr. Bell on the principle of protection, and the 
 Opposition party in Tennessee are supporting him 
 because he is opposed to the principle of protec- 
 tion, and both parties have floating at their mast- 
 head " the Union, the Constitution, and the en- 
 forcement of the laws." One party supports him, 
 saying the Constitution protects us in our proper- 
 ty in the Territories, and the other denies it. If 
 John Bell should be elected, pray tell me what is 
 he going to do? Who is he to repudiate? I- he 
 to repudiate the Bell party of Georgia and Ala- 
 bama, or is he to give protection and elicit the 
 Bell party of Tennessee? One or the other he is 
 bound to do. One or the other he is b »und to 
 deceive. Why don't he speak out, and li 
 men know where he stands? An eminent citizen, 
 Mr. Wall -.of A li ham i. writes and asks hi, views. 
 He answered, and said "it would D »t be consis- 
 tent with the views of those who nominated me 
 if I were to answer your question?." W tat are 
 tin' views of those who nominated him? i d 
 
 Everett \-> written to, and he h in Is ove his letter 
 to one Leverett Salstonstall, and he writes and 
 says Everett was nominated with the unde 
 ing that he was to answer no letters, out they 
 
 were to be handed to us as a kind of c 
 
 He has a padlock on his mouth. [Lau 
 There ought to be a padlock on every burner 
 they parade. I saw, a day or two since, a crowd 
 going t) Huntsville, and every time we I 
 
 at a station, these young gentlemen got out and 
 pulled a little bell from their picket-, and they 
 would go "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle." What does 
 that tell the country about the remedies for right- 
 ing the wrongs of the South? What doe- that 
 tell about righting the Union, that is now about 
 
 overturning under the pie-sure of these Abolition 
 streams! What information does all this give to 
 the aggrieved and thinking patriot who wants to-' 
 
 .he way to sue his country' TtnUe, 
 tinkle, tinkle! You write to Everett, and von get 
 his committee. Tinkle! You write to B 
 the clapper of the hell goes tinkle, tinkle, iinklei 
 It' this a »r( of p ii riotism and facti mism is to p s» 
 vail in our happy land, you will tinkle, tinl u 
 
 dead marches to the grave of your country. 
 
 Bell said in 1 -;">", when he defended Gen. Tay- 
 lor for his silence in reference to the Wi'mot 
 Proviso — If any mau desires to hear it read, 1 
 have it. 
 
18 
 
 [Voices — "Read it." "We believe you; we 
 don't want you to read," &c] 
 
 I read from the Appendix to the Congressional 
 Globe: 
 
 "In the late canvass I knew not, nor sought to 
 know, the views of General Taylor upon the ques- 
 tion of the Wiluaot Proviso, nor whether he had 
 formed any opinion or determination as to what his 
 course would be, should he be called upon to give or 
 withhold his sanction to a Territorial bill for Cali- 
 fornia or New Mexico; but in answer to all the spec- 
 ulations and conjectures upon that subject, whether 
 emanating from the North or the South, I took the 
 ground that neither prudence, wisdom, nor patriot- 
 ism, required that any candidate for the Presi- 
 dency should predetermine his course, or declare 
 his purpose, in regard to a question upon the de- 
 cision of which hung not only the peace of the 
 country, but the safety of the Union itself . ltqok 
 the ground that no man who had any j ust pretension 
 to the suffrages of his countrymen for the Presiden- 
 cy, would dare to take such a course; and that if 
 General Taylor should declare his intention either 
 to sanction or veto the Wilmot Proviso, in advance, 
 I should regard it as an act of the most egregious 
 folly, and affording the h ighest evidence of h i* total 
 Unfitness for the high station to ichich his friends 
 sought to elevate him. 
 
 " Upon such a question I contended, as I still con- 
 tend, that the highest dictate of duty, wisdom, and 
 patriotism, required that a President should reserve 
 to himself the privilege of deliberation and reflec- 
 tion, of weighing tendencies and consequences until 
 the last moment of time allowed him by the Con- 
 stitution, before he comes to a conclusion so preg- 
 nant of momentous results." 
 
 Here, then, is the opinion of John Bell, that no 
 candidate for the Presidency ought to let you 
 know if he is an Abolitionist or a Southern man. 
 Here is his opinion, that it would be egregious 
 folly to answer any man on the great vexed ques- 
 tion of Abolition — if he would sanction or veto 
 an Abolition measure. Here is John Bell, telling 
 that he voted for Taylor, and he did not know if 
 he would veto any measure. He did not know 
 that, and he would not ask it — and that was right . 
 Here is Mr. Bell. My friend, Mr. Watts, asks 
 him, "are you in favor of the protection of the 
 constitutional rights of the citizen, and do you 
 believe in the right to go witli our property into 
 the common Territory:?" and he writes back that 
 it would not be consistent with the principles of 
 those who nominated him to answer, and begging 
 Mr. Watts to take his past life as a sufficient 
 guarantee. Mr. Watts says, "I deduce from his 
 record that he is in favor of protection;" yet you 
 understand him to disown it. What is his record 
 worth, honest men of Tennessee? The nominat- 
 ing Convention won't declare his opinions, and 
 he himself that is nominated won't declare his 
 opinions — but he merely says, "I am for the 
 Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of 
 the laws." What is that? All creeds and sects 
 differ in their interpretation of the Bible. You 
 want to know what interpretation he gives to the 
 Constitution on these great points, and he won't 
 tell you. What does he mean by the Union? 
 Does he mean to maintain the Union and the 
 Government if the Constitution is overthrown? 
 Does he mean to maintain the Union if our rights 
 are trampled under loot by an Abolition majority? 
 ; Shall we stick by the Union when its spirit is 
 ' dead — its letter violated — when the Constitution 
 ' has been disrupted, and the Government our 
 , lathers framed has been overturned, and when in 
 lieu of it Black Republicanism is put in its place? 
 
 Is that your meaning, Mr. Bell? He won't tell 
 us. He says it will be egregious folly to tell us. 
 What do you mean by the enforcement of the 
 law? Do you mean as the Douglas men say? 
 He says it would be folly to tell you. And here, 
 in this crisis in our country's destiny, when we 
 don't know what lies beyond the cloud that low- 
 ers over us in the North — when we want light to 
 guide and instruct us — John Bell and Edward 
 Everett come before you with a padlock on their 
 mouths and on their banner! 
 
 Are these the men that the true patriot of Ten- 
 nessee, the enlightened man, is going to vote 
 for? 
 
 Let us look a little further into his record. I 
 will read it, inasmuch as reading seems to be so 
 pleasing to the crowd. 
 
 A Voice — "You've got them down now. They 
 are all leaving you." 
 
 Mr. Yancey — Oh, stay a little while longer. 
 You abuse me three hundred and sixty-four days 
 in the year! Give me one hour's chance — just 
 one hour. 
 
 I am afraid I can't find it. I have lost the 
 place. I will tell you what it is. When the bill 
 to abolish the slave trade in the District of Co- 
 lumbia was before the same Congress, Bell made 
 a speech upon it. He said that he had no doubt 
 of the power and duty of Congress to abolish sla- 
 very in the District of Columbia. 
 
 Oh! here it is! I will read it from the book 
 itself. It is a little more tedious to read, but I 
 wish to be governed by the book. I don't wish 
 one word of mine shall make a shade of differ- 
 ence in the language of Mr. Bell. Here it is : 
 
 " With regard to the constitutional power of Con- 
 gress over this subject, 1 would say, that the only 
 doubt I have of the existence of the power either to 
 suppress the slave trade or to abolish slavery in this 
 District, is inspired by the respect I have for the 
 opinions of so many distinguished and eminent men, 
 both in and out of Congress, who hold that Congress 
 has no such power. Reading the Constitution for 
 myself, I believe that Congress has all the power 
 over the subject in this district which the States 
 have within their respective jurisdictions. 
 
 * * * * % * * * 
 
 "But however great my respect may be for the 
 opinions of others on the question of power, there 
 are some considerations of such high account as, in 
 my judgment, to make it desirable, that unless by 
 common consent, iho project of abolition shall be 
 wholly given up and abandoned, the remnant of sla- 
 very existing in this district should be abolished at 
 once. At the present moment, however, the excited 
 state ofpublic sentiment in the South, growing out 
 of the Territorial questions, seems to forbidsuch 
 a course. For myself, if the sentiment of the South 
 were less inflamed, I would prefer that course to be 
 kept an open question" * 
 
 Now, gentlemen, our fathers accepted thia 
 District of Columbia as a present from the slave 
 States of Virginia and Maryland. It was made 
 the common ground of the Confederation to meet 
 in with their representatives, to enact laws for 
 all, and here Mr. Bell says, that alth >ugh this 
 Government is a pro-slavery Government, made 
 for the protection of slave propeity, yet he be- 
 lieves Congress has the power, and ought to exer- 
 cise the power, and abolish slavery — destroy the 
 right of the slave holder in his property. Would 
 any one submit to that? The only object, he says, 
 that prevented him from voting, was the infl imed 
 state of the public mind. He continues: 
 
19 
 
 "Iaone aspeot of thesubjeot I mn aol sure thai 
 it would not be a great conservative measure, both 
 : i- reaards tin- Union and tin- intercuts of the South. 
 
 " Willi regard to the prop isitions to Buppreas the 
 
 rade in the District as already Btated, I have 
 
 made up my mind that it ought to bo done on several 
 
 Is. " 
 
 P « * * * »*•* * 
 
 "Still, suoh :i proceeding us this, in these dis- 
 tracted times, might be misunderstood, and 1 would 
 not think it expedient to pass this bill in any shape 
 at this time, but for the connection in which ii i- 
 found with other measures, particularly with the 
 Fugitive Slave bill. It was this connection, and 
 in too hope that all the questions relating to this 
 subject, which have so long distraoted the public 
 miud. might be harmoniously adjusted, that [gave 
 my assent to the prinoiple of this bill as reported 
 bom the eommittee." 
 
 If it would not produce disunion — if you would 
 not break up the Union, lie says that Congress has 
 tin- power, and it would he a great conservative 
 measure to destroy the institution in the District 
 Of Columbia. Now if Congress has the power 
 and should exercise it in one case, what is to pre- 
 vent it from being used as a precedent in another 
 case? Are not the rights of your brother slave- 
 holder in the District of Columbia as clear and 
 as saned as the rights of the citizen of Tennes- 
 see? In my opinion the Government has no more 
 power over the rights of slaveholders in the Dis- 
 rrict of Columbia than in the State of Tennessee. 
 Your right of property is guaranteed to you by 
 the Constitution of the United States, which pro- 
 hibits any encroachment up m it. But here is a 
 mm — a Southern mm — that says that Coiuress 
 can destroy the slaveholder's right to hold his 
 proper y in Territory where it has jurisdiction. 
 
 N ,t only that, he tells you that he did not care 
 whether Gen. Taylor was foi or against the Wil- 
 ni 'i Proviso. I am willing to abolish slavery in 
 the D strict of Columbia, says he. And now, in 
 this trying hour, when we are trying every verge 
 of the Constitution to shelter us — when we want 
 no precedent of Abolitionism when we want to 
 keep its foot from grazing on Southern soil — here 
 are Son hem men doing their best to elect a man 
 who 11 the District of Columbia is a free-soiler, 
 and who, in Georgia, has been proclaimed an 
 Ab ilitionist. 
 
 I don't believe John Bell would be for the abo- 
 lit oa of slavery in Tennessee; but he tells me he 
 believes the abolition of slavery in the District of 
 Coluinoia would be a conservative and proper 
 nie isure. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Whig party, refresh your 
 memories — refer back to the short, time since, 
 when your hearts were bitter against the Jackson 
 Democracy of Tennessee, because they supported 
 a in id who had this sentiment: " From the light 
 now belore me I am not prepared to say," &<•. 
 Martin Van Buren you damued forever, because 
 he doubted on the question — John Hell you hug 
 to sour bosoms, because he has no doubt. 
 
 1 beg now to read you an extract from a paper 
 — from the Pittsburgh Gazette. 1 don't know how 
 true it is, but I think the Democrats and Bell men 
 of Tennessee ought to demand an explanation of 
 it. It shows that the Bell men of Indiana arc 
 not ipiite 90 pure as they are here. The Pitts- 
 burgh Gazdte of the yih of August, says a Terra 
 Haute correspondent of the Newark Advertiser, 
 
 rivea the following Important information i 
 
 ing the COntl -t in Indiana: 
 
 "In regard to the Bell and Everett movement Ifl 
 the State, nothing positive can yet be known as to 
 thoir running an electoral ticket in Indiana, lion. 
 Richard W. Thompson, the acknowledged leader ox 
 the party, ha ■ expressed hi deti rminatfon to luppoig 
 both the Republican State and eleotoral tioket, ana 
 it is understood that be will discourage th< 
 ■ation of the pan., in opposition to the sup 
 Linooln and Bamb.n. The Hon. b. Bthenuge, of 
 
 ee, on his return from rVasbingt 
 
 guest oi Col. Thompson for a few days, and when in 
 the city was serenaded by bis political friends, when 
 be made a speeoh a nd exhorted them to oa 
 all ideas of supporting a Boll ticket In Indiana, and 
 give their united support to Line., in. Be advised 
 them that nil the effort* of the united Opposition 
 should be directed to the overthrow of the Demo* 
 orotic pariy, which could only be done by defeating 
 their candidates in as many States as possible. Ho 
 said if he lived in Indiana ne would vote for Lincoln, 
 but as he lived in a State where hi j own tioket had 
 a chance, he would vote for Bell. This advice froni 
 a man of the position held by Mr. Btheridge in his 
 party has great weight with the mulubcrs of that 
 part} in Indiana." 
 
 A Tennessecan in a Freesoil State advising his 
 friends and political associates to vote for the 
 Black Republican candidate because they cannot 
 elect the Bell ticket, and saving if he lived there 
 he would vote for Lincoln! I hope this will be 
 explained. I hope for the honor of the South 
 that no Southern man who occupies so distin- 
 guished a position as Mr. Ethe idge will be found 
 to have uttered these words of treason to his own 
 section. A Southern man vote for Lincoln in 
 preference to voting for Breckinridge! A South- 
 ern man voting for Lincoln in preference to 
 1) mglas, which I cons'der as being but a slight 
 difference! But there is a difference, and that 
 difference my country has the right to the bene- 
 fit of; but a man's heart must be embittered in 
 deed, against his fellow- Democrats of the South, 
 if he is willing to see the Black Republican party 
 put in power — risking every thing with that party 
 rather tha.i see the Democrats carrying on the 
 Government. The Democracy has nowhere done 
 any very great wrong to your rights. I admit 
 that the Democracy has not always stood as man- 
 fully and squarely up to the maintenance of yon 
 constitutional rights as might have b< en, but nc 
 other party lias ever done more, or come so neat 
 to it. Tlie South demands a party to injure nc 
 other party, but she wants her own rights to b< 
 protected. 
 
 I have read enough to you to show that then 
 is much need for an avowal of the opinion 01 
 Mr. Bell. I have read to you to show that In 
 ought to avow himself But Hell tells you he ii 
 ['••y the Union! Union is the cry. Disunion. 
 Breckinridge is supported by Yancey, the Bel 
 men tell you, and the Douglas men tell you tin 
 same. No matter what may be the spots on on; 
 candidate, there is nothing compared to that gma 
 spot, dark enough to eclipse every thing in Hreck 
 inridge — the body of this other man, Yancey 
 stands before him. [Laughter and applause. 
 I can't take up a Bell paper in which mv nam. 
 docs not appear half a dozen times in each cil 
 umn. It is the same of the Douglas journal.' 
 They send their papers to me from Minnesota; 
 from Florida — from Maine to Texas. I gel thee 
 papers — and if anything is said very bad, I ar 
 certain to get it. All over the country, it is llti 
 
20 
 
 man Yancey. It is the Yancey-Breckinridge 
 part) 1 , not even the Breckinridge-Yancey party; 
 1 and the Louisville Journal prints the Democratic 
 ticket, having in great big letters, "WILLIAM 
 ' L. YANCEY," and then in small letters, "and 
 , his friend, John C. Breckinridge." [Laughter.] 
 Well, now, then, as during this whole canvass, 
 I a great deal of paper has been worn out, a great 
 i deal of ink expended, and a great deal of brain- 
 | work has been put together to the end of abus- 
 : ing this man Yancey, and as I never expect to 
 appear before you, citizens of Memphis, again, 
 i will you allow me half an hour in explaining my 
 own position, and then let the Bell and Douglas 
 papers loose as far as they will go. I hope these 
 papers will bear in mind that when my back is 
 • turned that I have not had fair dealings, at the 
 best. They get at me behind my back — excuse 
 me. I lead this morning some very handsome 
 and generous pieces in relation to my arrival in 
 Memphis. That was- kind, manly, and well- 
 meant. I have no doubt these gentlemen are 
 such in all their relations, except when they take 
 up a pen to write about "this man Yancey," 
 when they seem to become insane. They know 
 not what they do, or else they would not publish 
 a hundredth part of what they do. 
 
 Now, I took up a paper this day which pub- 
 lished two short columns about Yancey and his 
 antecedents. I have that paper, and I have 
 marked it round with red lines, and in those two 
 ■ 6hort columns are nineteen manufactured lies. 
 The editor starts out with denying me the privi- 
 lege of being born in the South, and says I was 
 born at a place called Fungus, in New Ymk. 
 There are nineteen of just such manufactured 
 lies. That is a specimen of a great many things 
 that are said of me. I have no doubt many of 
 them do not know what they do. They pick 
 these things up from those Alabama fellows, and 
 they take them for truth. But they will allow 
 me, in a spirit of fairness and manliness — as that 
 grand old Democratic maxim says "fiir play is a 
 jewel'' — LJiave no doubt, they will allow me to 
 tell you exactly where I stand I trust they will 
 give me the privilege that is given to the poorest 
 villain that ever stood in the criminal's dock, and 
 that is the right to be heard for myself. All I ask 
 are the ordinary rules by which you try your 
 criminals — prove the thing. If I put a denial on 
 record, let that be to try me before the country. 
 They say I am a disunionist. They say that I 
 disrupted the Democratic party, or that I desire 
 to do it in order to break up the Union. They 
 not only tell you of my acts, but they dive within 
 my bosom — a province, I thought, which only be- 
 longed to the Deity — and they divine my motives 
 and my secret thoughts. Well, I don't believe 
 there is a supporter of Bell or Douglas that has 
 much divinity about, him. I think men have a 
 ri^ht to inter motives from acts. I give them 
 the benelit of that, and let them make the most 
 of it. It is said that I wrote a letter to James S. 
 Slaughter, and that that letter is a disunion let- 
 ter. I deny it. There is not a word in that letter 
 tl.at I take back to-night. There is not a senti- 
 ment in it I disavow. I utterly amazed a Doug- 
 las editor when I referred to it the other day. 
 I'e lid supposed it would set me back to have 
 this letter brought to my attention, when I made 
 
 a speech in his vicinity; and he wrote saying: 
 "we would like Mr. Yancey to give an explana- 
 tion of the Slaughter letter." I did not see it 
 until after I had spoken; but it so happened I did 
 speak of it, as also of the League, which was 
 another object of his inquiries. He nearly burst- 
 ed his eyes. He thought I had acknowledged I 
 was a traitor. / 
 
 But, gentlemen, to the letter. Consider what 
 it is. In the first place, there are few men that 
 would like all they say in privacy to be published 
 to the world; not that they have told a lie in 
 what they have said in private, but because it is a 
 thing the public had nothing to do with, and 
 probably they may use language carelessly, which 
 unexplained, might mislead. Sometimes what a 
 nun says needs no explanation to any but the one 
 to whom it is written. Here w T as a little short 
 letter — a little private letter written to a man who 
 desired me to help him to break up the Demo- 
 ciatic party. He called the party the Augean 
 stables, and he wanted me to join him and build 
 up a Southern party to clean out the Augean sta- 
 bles. Poor fellow, he is dead now! He killed 
 himself last week — poisoned himself while labor- 
 ing under depression of spirits He published 
 that letter wrongfully. He published it not de- 
 nouncing me for disunionism, like some of you 
 feel — but he did not like it because I would not 
 he'p him break up the Democratic party. I wrote 
 him, saying I would not join him, and quit the 
 Democracy. That is the only thing I am charg- 
 ed with. I have been in the Democratic party 
 allmy life Sometimes it has been wrong; but I 
 have never given a vote against it. Mark you, I 
 have not always voted with it or for it — I have 
 sometimes stood by — for I can't vote against my 
 conscience. 1 am answerable to God tor tint. I 
 wrote to him that I would not do it; and I said, 
 you cannot clean out the Augean stables in that 
 way; and then knowing that lie had quit the De- 
 mocracy, I suggested to him this, or in the nature 
 of this— - J, I believe the next aggression will be 
 committed on the South, and I do not believe any 
 party can save the South." They say I am for 
 a sectional party — why I refused to aid in getting 
 up one. They say I am against the Democra- 
 cy — I refused to leave it. Then in my letter I 
 said — if we could do as our fathers did, organize 
 committees of safety all over the cotton States, 
 we shall fire the Southern heart — instruct the 
 Southern mind — give courage to each other, and 
 at the proper moment, by one organized, concert- 
 ed action, we can precipitate the cotton States 
 into a revolution. I believed the North will be 
 so encouraged — there are so many submissionist3, 
 and so many Union shriekers in our midst, that 
 they are killing off our Southern patriotism — and 
 therefore I wrote to this man what I say to you, 
 take this Sou hern league, which had recently 
 been advocated in the Alabama Advertiser. If 
 you won't join the Democratic parry, instead of 
 making it your business to pull down the party — 
 go to work and try to elevate the public mind of 
 the people in favor of Southern rights. Then 
 you can precipitate the cotton States into a revo- 
 lution at the proper moment; for I have no faith 
 that any N rthern State will stand up to the 
 rights of the South. 
 
 Well, that letter is nothing but the Georgia 
 
21 
 
 platform — the Georgia union platform made by 
 it in 1851, when the Btate wai 
 restless about Che abolition of the Blave trade 
 between the States and the District of Columbia. 
 The people of Georgia met in Convention and 
 passed an ordinance which is now a part of the 
 Constitution of Georgia. It is as colli 
 
 part: 
 
 1. That wo hold the American Union secondary 
 in importance only to the rights and principles ii 
 was destined to perpetuate; that past associations, 
 I fruition and future prospects will bind us to 
 it si i long as it oontinuesto be the safeguard of those 
 rights and principles. 
 
 ^'. That ir the i birteen original parties to the con- 
 tract , bordering the Atlantic in a narrow belt, whilst 
 the ir separate interests were in embryo; their pecu- 
 liar tenaei ■ ely developed; their revolution- 
 ary traits and triumphs still green in memory; found 
 union impossible without compromise, the thirty- 
 pne of this day will yield somewhat in the conflict of 
 opinion and policy to presen e that Union w bich has 
 extended the sway of Republican Government over 
 a vast wilderness to another ocean, and proportion- 
 i i heir eft ilization ami national great- 
 
 Ui'-'. 
 
 r '.i. That in this spirit we have maturely considered 
 the action of Congress, embracing a series of meas- 
 im 9 for the admission of California into the Onion; 
 the organization of Territorial Governments for 
 1 i thandNcw Mexico; the establishment of a bound- 
 ary between the latter and the State of Texas; the 
 suppression of the slave trade in the District of 
 Col imbia, and the extradition of fugitive slaves, 
 and connected with them, the rejection of the pro- 
 position? to es ilude slavery from the Mexican Terri- 
 tories, and to abolish it in the District of Columbia. 
 and while we do not wholly approve, will abide by 
 it as a permanent adjustment of this sectional con- 
 troversy. 
 
 4. That Georgia in our judgmeut, will and ought 
 to resist, even (is a last resor ) to a, disruption of 
 every tie which binds her to the Union, any action 
 of Congr --s up o) the subject of slavery in the Dis- 
 ■ t Columbia, or in placessuhject to the juris- 
 diction of Congress, incompatible with the safety, 
 domestic tranquility, the rights and honor of the 
 slaveh' 1 Jiug States, or in any act suppressing the 
 Blave trad the slaveholding States, or in 
 
 any refusal to admit as a State any territory here- 
 after applying because of the existence of slavery 
 therein, or in anj act prohibiting the introduction of 
 slaves int iries of Utah and N sw .Mexico, 
 
 or in any act repealing or materially modifying the 
 laws, now in force for the recovery of fugitive slaves. 
 
 And it was made a part of the Constitution of 
 Georgia, which no law can repeil, that when the 
 next agression c imea on the South, the Govern 
 or of Ge irgia is bound at once to call the peo- 
 ple together to take measures to po out of the 
 Union. That was the Union platform in 1851, 
 adopted by the Union party in the State of Ten- 
 nessee, and adopted throughout the South gener- 
 ally. This Slaughter letter therefore was this — 
 
 go to work m ii 1 prepare, that when the time c eg 
 
 the Southern people will be ready to enforce the 
 Union, not the disunion platform — resistance to 
 the next aggression upon your constitutional 
 rights. 
 
 Is there any man here who claims to be a 
 Southern m in, who is willing to stand up before 
 a Ten I?-- -e audience and say, "I am not will- 
 ing to s.v that the South shall not resist any 
 aggression upon her constitutional rights?" Is 
 there any s»uch man here, be he Douglas or Bell 
 man? [C:-ies of No.] If there is, I should like 
 to look at him, and to know his name — audi 
 should like his neighbors and the people gener- 
 ally to know him. I want to see the m:in that is 
 
 ready to knuckle and bow and submit to the 
 Northern people under a higher law. That man 
 bt to condemn me for writing the Slaugh- 
 ter biter. No other man has 8 right tO 
 
 No Union man of 1851 has. No Bell man of 
 I860 has. 
 
 I want to read to (he B( 1! m< mse I 
 
 am inclined to think that what I shall read will 
 
 be authority even for them, and I hope they will 
 tinkle their bell over it until the next time they 
 
 speak of me as a disunion! -t. Here is what .Mr. 
 Bell says. I read you from the official record: 
 
 "Sir, no man who loves his country, no man who 
 has any just pride in the reflection that I 
 
 n citizen, hut must d< iira that these dimen- 
 sions should cease, for, sir, it i-' not a mere question 
 whether we shall preserve the Union; for that may 
 he, and yet prove no great boon either to ourselves 
 or to posterity." 
 
 The Union no great boon. Doesn't that sound 
 like Yancey > 
 
 "The question is not whether thi so States shall 
 continue tube united according to the letter of the 
 covenant by which tiny are hound together; it. is 
 whether they shall continue to be united in heart — 
 whether they shall continue to be practically and 
 efficiently carrying out the great end of the associa- 
 tion. * * This is the question, and when you 
 present that issueto me, lsaj al once, give me sep- 
 aration, give me disunion, give me any thing in pref- 
 erence to a Union sustained only by p 
 stitutional and legal ties — without confidence. If 
 our future career is to be one of eternal discoid and 
 of angry crimination and recrimination, give me 
 rather separation with all its consequences. 
 
 Well, now, there is no aggression here, mind 
 you, simply the constant scene of quarreling, 
 threatening, and discord. When you present 
 that issue to him, he says at once, "give me sep- 
 aration — give me disunion,'" says John Bell, 
 "Give me anything in prefer* nee to a Union sus- 
 tained only by [tower, by const tutional and legal 
 ties without confidence. Ah! lie says he is 
 against, the Union sustained by constitutional and 
 legal ties, if you don't have confidence between 
 each other. If your sentiments don't agree — 
 although the ties are constitutional and legal — 
 he says, give me disunion rather. 
 
 That is John Bell. John Bell then lias t« 
 you what? Why, gentlemen, did I go as far 
 
 that when I said in my Slaughter letter, "we will 
 precipitate the cotton States into a revolution the 
 next aggression — at the proper moment on the 
 next aggression?" Did I go as far as John Bell, 
 who said he did not want to wait for the next 
 aggression, but says if this constant warfare ia to 
 be continued, give mesepara ion. H«>w dare any 
 Bell man to call me a disunionist I How dare he 
 stand up and repeat that as to me and not de- 
 nounce Hell as a disunionist ? Sir, i,' you do that, 
 I Bay to your face you are apolitical hyp crite, 
 unworthy of the conf iple. A 
 
 disunionist, when all the charge that i- mole 
 against me is, that i am ready to s'rike a blow 
 for our constitutional rights, against one. institu- 
 tional aggression? And yet you due support 
 Hell who says, give me disunion rath ir than the 
 Union with a want of confidence. How em the 
 people have confidence in you, gentlemen — how 
 
 can the Union loving ] pie oi lie- C n trj — 
 
 those who only know the Union thtoiigh the Con- 
 stitution when having such a Union — when you, 
 having promulgated that I am a traitor, ao 
 
22 
 
 Bell stands a head and shoulders above me in the 
 ranks, you support John Bell? 
 
 The Douglas men, what do they do ? Ah ! they 
 say he is a disunionist — Yancey is an agitator — 
 he disrupted the Democratic party — he got up 
 the Alabama platform to divide the Democratic 
 p ar ty — and yet it so happens that history tells 
 you that the Alabama platform simply asked for 
 our constitutional rights, and did not say that we 
 would go out of the Union, but out of the Dem- 
 ocratic party. We went out, did we not? Eight 
 of the Democratic States went out, and I should 
 call that a pretty wide breach — so wide, indeed, 
 that no Douglas "man can ever get to Heaven, if 
 it is between him and hell. [Laughter.] And yet 
 it so happens when I went back to the Democra- 
 cy of Alabama, it fell to my fortune to lead off 
 in the cause of conciliation and moderation, and 
 in endeavoring to heal the breach that had occur- 
 red at Charleston, to give the Democracy time to 
 repent. To reconsider, I took occasion to lead 
 off in asking that Convention to send us to Bal- 
 timore. Had it been my object to break up the 
 Union by that disruption, I had already broken 
 up the party, and had the Union at my feet, and 
 yet you find me in the Convention at Montgom- 
 ery saying, "let us go back with the olive branch 
 although they have insulted us — although they 
 have done usa wrong — let us go back and unite 
 the gallant Democracy once more in gallant and 
 glorious support of the Constitution and the 
 rights of the South." 
 
 But they say "the league!" Oh, that is a se- 
 cret thing ! Bring it out; maybe it has a cloven 
 foot, and a tail hidden under its c institution. 
 They tell us it is a secret thing. They tell us 
 that I am forming it through the country, and if 
 yon don't look out I will have a league formed 
 in the city of Memphis. Some man writes to the 
 Stntrs, a Douglas paper published at Washing- 
 ton, that I am forming a league with ten oaths, 
 and all that. Now all of that is a manufactured 
 lie. 
 gj v In 1858 I did form a league in Montgomery. 
 yjU existed three months. The people frowned it 
 tfial'wn, and the Democracy frowned it down — I 
 thought it a good rhing, but the citizens did not. 
 I wish to G >d every man in lhe South was a 
 mem >er of a Southern league. I wish every 
 man at the North was. If it were so, the objects 
 of the league would be promoted, and the con- 
 stitutional rights of the South would be pro- 
 tec ed. 
 
 But they tell us that is not the object. I have 
 it stated here in the Mem; his weekly Appeal. 
 Now 1 will sa\ in the first place, the league never 
 was a secrel association. It was extinguished 
 within three months after it was initiated — the 
 members never met without public notice being 
 given in tie papers or by hand-bills — its meet- 
 ings were held with open doors, and its proceed- 
 in:- were always published on the following day 
 in the newspapers. There was no test oath about 
 1 it. IJii lice is an article that I am told has 
 i been di i lently prepared. It is taken from the 
 1 Na-ii\i e Patriot. Is that a Douglas or a Bell 
 p '•,-, Bell! Bell!] He says of tiie 
 
 1 le;. . i intense applause.] 
 
 " The members of this organization shall be known 
 as the 'Leaguers of the South,' and our motto shall 
 be, a Southern republic is our only safety." 
 
 * * * * * * * * 
 
 And then it goes on, and has twelve articles, 
 which it is unnecessary to read. Now, what do 
 you say, when I pronounce that this instrument 
 here — so carefully got up as a campaign paper to 
 be used among the people, and put forth under 
 the auspices of the Nashville Patriot, an repub- 
 lished in the Memphis Appeal as an authentic 
 document — what do you say when I pronounce it 
 abase, infamous, political forgery! [Great ap- 
 plause.] I don't say these gentlemen forged it. 
 I know nothing of them. I don't know where 
 they got it. They may possibly have got it from 
 some miserable lying sheet in Alabama, and tak- 
 ing it for granted to be true, republished it. I 
 state this to you. The Constitution of the Uni- 
 ted Leagues of the South, the only one adopted 
 that I ever heard of, was published the next morn- 
 ing after it was adopted in public meeting. A 
 large number were struck off and circulated; and 
 afterwards seeing a document put forth purport- 
 ing to be the Constitution, I wrote a letter cor- 
 recting the misapprehension. I have given the 
 Constitution, at length, everywhere I have spo- 
 ken I have, at each place, met the same docu- 
 ment, and have reiterated the same truth; and 
 yet the Douglas orators in my State still carry it 
 about and promulgate it. Are they so utterly 
 destitute of merit that they cannot do a fair and 
 manly piece of justice and courtesy? Have I not 
 a right t<> demand of these^gentlemen the ordina- 
 ry rules of fair play? That they should at least 
 put me on trial before their readers, and way Mr. 
 Yancey has denied it? Perchance it has been, 
 done. " I have endeavored to find out that it has, 
 but I cannot so learn. But, on the contrary, I find 
 myself attacked again and again. 
 
 I love the favorable verdict of my kind as much 
 as any other man. 1 have endeavored to live a 
 life of self-denial, of justice — to pursue the ways 
 of truthfulness towards my fellow-men, and in 
 all my relations 1 have endeavored, with all the 
 infirmities of human nature upon me, to do justice 
 to all. Truth, justice, and the Constitution has 
 been my motto, in private as well as in public 
 life. Ii" any of these gentlemen will point to the 
 d<y or the hour when I have uttered a word or 
 sentence, or did an act that was untrue to any 
 constitutional right of any section, I will come 
 down from this platform and never utter another 
 word to the people. [Applause.] 
 
 What is the leigue? Here it is. Listen to 
 what I recommend to every slaveholder. See, , 
 each of you, ii there is a word or a line that you 
 disapprove. When I get through I shall chal- 
 lenge any one to rise in his place and say that it 
 is treasonable: 
 
 " CONSTITUTION OP THE MONTGOMERY LEAGUE OV 
 UNITED SOUTHERNERS. 
 
 '•Believing that the South is in need of some effi- 
 cient and organized mode of concentrating publifl 
 opinion upon public men and measures, and of infiu- 
 euoing ami guiding political parties, with a view to 
 the advancement aud protectkn of her constitution- 
 al rights, and that the want of this has enabled all 
 politteal parties to sacrifice those rights to their own 
 
 "'And believing further that it is the duty of His 
 South to use all proper means to maintain her rigl ta 
 within the Umou, with a view to being justified oe- 
 
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