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EEVIEW 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL PIERCE. 
 
 ANTI-NEBRASKA, ANTI-ADMINISTRATION AND 
 ANTI-RUM PLATFORM 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. JAMES E. COOLEY, 
 
 AT A MEETING OF THE DEMOCRACY, ASSEMBLED ON SATURDAY, NOV. 4th, 1854 , 
 AT THE TILLAGE OF PATCHOGUE, IN SUFFOLK CO., L. I. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 49 ANN STREET. 
 
 1854. 
 

 By trar- :' r 
 H '06 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens: — I thank you for the highly flattering 
 and friendly manner in which you have been pleased to receive 
 me at this time ; and I avail myself of this, the first opportunity 
 I have ever had, to thank you publicly and in person, for the 
 generous support I have received when a candidate in this Dis- 
 trict for public office, from the noble-hearted Democracy of 
 Patchogue ; which, in proportion to population, was, at the last 
 election, greater than was given me by any other town in the 
 State. Be assured, fellow-citizens, that these impressive manifes- 
 tations of your kind regard, I can never forget. 
 
 When, scarcely one short year ago, while a candidate before 
 the people for an important State office, in vindicating my posi- 
 tion and the patriotic course of those who stood with me on the 
 important question of completing our unfinished public works ; 
 and in repelling a malignant and unjustifiable personal attack, 
 which appeared just on the eve of our State election, in the 
 Washington Union, the official organ of General Pierce, uttering, 
 as I had good reason to know, the unmanly sentiments, if not, 
 indeed, the reprehensible language of the Executive, I felt it to 
 be my duty, as it was my undoubted right, to criticise somewhat 
 severely, the insane policy of the Federal administration, and 
 condemned, as it deserved, the treacherous conduct of the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, an army of sycophantic expectants of 
 presidential pap and plunder, " bending the suppliant hinges of 
 the knee " in humiliating and degrading homage before the pitiful 
 circumstance of power which has so signally soiled and disgraced 
 
the highest office in the gift of the American people, screeched a 
 hideous howl from one end of the country to the other, giving to 
 my remarks at Syracuse, a celebrity, little less than that attained 
 for the star-spangled inaugural verbiage of the President ; which, 
 that feeble functionary, on taking possession of the White House, 
 so pompously pronounced from the steps of the Capitol. While 
 some of these empty -hearted, unprincipled minions of place and 
 public plunder, did not hesitate to abuse the irresponsible cabinet 
 of General Pierce, and were daily charging its members with 
 every conceivable corruption and meanness, they, nevertheless, 
 took the ground, contrary to the theory and practice of our pop- 
 ular system of government, that the President, though indebted 
 to the people for his exalted position, was, like the Pope of Rome 
 or the Czar of Russia, a kind of sacred person, raised so entirely 
 above the reach of those by whom he had been elected, that, of 
 his official acts, however flagrant and detrimental to the public 
 interest, no one could, without a violation of good taste and the 
 courtesy due to our " worthy chief magistrate," even express a 
 common criticism ! Thus these suppliant gastric juices of dema- 
 gogism sought to elevate the President so high in the scale of 
 power, as to be, in fact, accountable for his public conduct to no 
 one. They seemed inclined to make of him a sort of political 
 Alexander Selkirk monarch of all he surveyed ; or rather, a kind 
 of privileged animal, like Mrs. Winklebottom's monkey, who 
 might run riot and kick up a row whenever he should take a 
 fancy ; and could plunge us into all sorts of' difficulty at home 
 and abroad, arraying one section of the country against the 
 other, threatening even the dissolution of the Union itself, and 
 yet escape without censure or rebuke ! 
 
 Such was the wild and unwarrantable ground taken by the cor- 
 rupt and huckstering politicians among the "Ilards," who, while 
 pretending to be desperately mad with, and opposed to, the short- 
 boy, shoulder-hitting spoilsmen among the "Softs," discovered, 
 nevertheless, a common roosting-place with these worthies on the 
 public plunder. Hence they found no difficulty, on the meeting 
 of Congress, in concentrating their united strength on that most 
 adroit administrator of the spoils, Mr. Forney, whom they elected 
 to the clerkship of the House, as an accomplished instrument of 
 their nefarious schemes of corruption and their designs on the 
 public treasury. They united in a general denunciation of all who 
 
had the independence to expose their villany and condemn the 
 treasonable conduct of the President, through whose weakness, 
 imbecility and faithlessness to the public interest, they hoped to 
 accomplish and carry out their stupendous plans of pillage and 
 fraud upon the people of the United States. They exerted all 
 their united influence and ability in advocating the adoption of 
 the Gadsden Treaty ; whereby ten millions of the people's money 
 was abstracted from the treasury and foolishly lavished on the 
 tyrant of Mexico and his mercenary tools, about the dramshops, 
 brothels and gambling hells of the Capitol. They raised all 
 but heaven and earth to induce Congress to place ten millions of 
 dollars more of the public treasure in the hands of General Pierce, 
 for fillibustering on Cuba and for other corrupt and unjustifiable 
 purposes. They sold out the foreign appointments and pocketed 
 the price which was paid by incompetent men, who now fill di- 
 plomatic positions abroad, to the injury of the public interest and 
 the disgrace of the Federal Government. They zealously advo- 
 cated and carried through Congress the wasteful appropriations 
 asked for by General Pierce, amounting in a single year to the 
 enormous sum of more than seventy millions of dollars ; an 
 amount unparalleled in the appropriations of any previous ad- 
 ministration, under whatever state of the country. Though pro- 
 fessedly opposed to General Pierce, they exerted themselves to 
 the full extent of their influence and power to insure the passage 
 of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and Nebraska swindle 
 bill ; the only public measure on which the President and his 
 broken- winded cabinet rely for support before the American peo- 
 ple. By intrigue, trick, chicanery, and fraud, they unwisely 
 sought to commit the National Democratic party in this State 
 to the same pernicious measure which has sunk General Pierce 
 and his paltry pettifogging cabinet to the bottomless pit of the 
 people's contempt, defeated Bronson's election, and broken down 
 the Hunker, hard-shell organization. They have set upon and 
 hunted down, by the most unmanly and wicked means, every 
 honest democratic delegate in Congress from this State, who 
 dared to act with any independence, and in opposition to the 
 reprehensible policy of President Pierce and his phalanx of pil- 
 laging marauders. By fraudulent misrepresentations, gross de- 
 ception, and mean, shuffling tricks, they have vainly tried to re- 
 pudiate the regular nominations of members for Congress and 
 
6 
 
 other important offices, which, had been fairly made by properly 
 constituted national democratic conventions ; and they have 
 raised as standard-bearers for those offices the names of their old, 
 broken-down party hacks, who never were nominated by the 
 people for any office, and whom the people have long since es- 
 chewed. To the extent of their feeble ability, they have sedu- 
 lously endeavored to convert the Democratic party into a corrupt 
 common carrier of duplicity, swindling, and fraud ; — making it 
 a dishonest vehicle of their astounding schemes for plundering 
 the State and national treasury. Under the garb of personal 
 friendship and political support, they have in a mean and 
 cowardly manner stabbed those in the dark whom they dared 
 not meet in open combat, while fighting manfully and effectually 
 the battles of the Democratic party, without the hope or expec- 
 tation of pay or reward. In fine, they have acted dishonorably 
 and dishonestly towards their own and all other political parties ; 
 and they are now floundering with their distinguished prototype 
 in treachery, General Pierce, in the common slough of the peo- 
 ple's scorn and contempt ! 
 
 Such, fellow-citizens, are the unkennelled pack of political 
 vermin, who howled last year over the public plunder so fero- 
 ciously, against me and all other national democrats, who had 
 the independence to expose and denounce their infamous con- 
 duct, and the stupendous perfidy of the President of the United 
 States. 
 
 " Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur cum illis.''' 
 
 The times have so changed since the exhaustion of the presi- 
 dential patronage ; and since the people, every where throughout 
 the land, have lifted up their voices at the polls in tens and 
 hundreds of thousands, so emphatically expressive of their entire 
 disapproval and utter repudiation of the wicked and pernicious 
 policy of the feeble administration of General Pierce, that, were 
 one so inclined, the opinion I expressed of the President and his 
 mercenary dependents, a year ago, might be re-uttered with inter- 
 est, and not a grovelling cur of all that inglorious, pillaging pack, 
 who growled and barked so loudly then, would now raise a single 
 yelp in defence of the President, or in palliation of his incon- 
 ceivable wickedness and folly ! 
 
 But, the true spoilsman wastes not his ammunition on crip- 
 
pled and indifferent game. Nor is it the part of enlightened 
 philanthropy to weep over a dead ass. 
 
 It so happens that I said, at a more opportune moment than 
 the present, about all that I care to say of General Pierce and 
 his broken-down, defeated, and nearly defunct administration ; 
 the members of which have been politically gibbeted and their 
 bones now rattle in the whirlwind of the people's wrath ! It 
 would therefore be an inexcusable intrusion to waste any more 
 time over the political remains of General Pierce ; who has con- 
 trived, by his unaccountable weakness, treachery and folly, to 
 reduce his political followers, by whom he was so triumphantly 
 borne into power, from an overwhelming host to a small squad of 
 dependent office- holding mercenaries, scarcely sufficient for pall- 
 bearers at the requisite solemnities on the termination of his official 
 career, and to wail a requiem over his inglorious political grave. 
 It is now my purpose to consider briefly a much more important 
 subject — to say a few words, by your patient indulgence, about 
 the ill-advised and mischievous measure of the President and his 
 reckless coadjutors, commonly called the "Kansas and Nebraska 
 swindle ;" a measure fraught with more danger to the stability 
 of the institutions of freedom — more threatening to the perma- 
 nency of the Federal Union — more destructive of the tranquillity 
 and well-being of the American people — more detrimental to the 
 public interest, and more calculated to encourage sectional feeling 
 and foster bad faith between the North and the South — than all 
 the other vicious legislation of Congress, or all the snobbish 
 statesmanship with which the country has hitherto been so 
 lamentably afflicted. 
 
 The principles and provisions of this reprehensible measure, 
 conceived in an evil hour, and brought forth at an unpropitious 
 moment, by a political aspirant, under the bribe of prospective 
 elevation to the presidency, assail the very foundation and sub- 
 structure of the Constitution, and overturn the settled policy of 
 the Government, which has been confirmed and re-confirmed and 
 approved by the people every where — North, South, East and 
 West — for more than half a century ! 
 
 Previously to the cession to the old confederation, of the 
 Northwest Territory, in 1784, by Virginia and other States, the 
 idea of extending slavery beyond the limits of the slave States, 
 as they then existed, had not, probably, entered the brain of a single 
 
8 
 
 individual in either the northern or southern section of the Union. 
 And, as it had already been very clearly demonstrated, that slave 
 and free labor could not go on prosperously hand and hand in the 
 same State, the people at the North, early in the history of our go- 
 vernment, wisely resolved to elevate labor by the total abolition of 
 slavery in the States now free ; while the South, being different- 
 ly situated with respect to climate, soil and production, found its 
 interest best subserved, or thought so apparently, by a continu- 
 ance of the old system of slavery, first unfortunately introduced 
 by the mother country, while we were yet dependent colonies ; 
 and which was entailed upon us, after the close of our revolution- 
 ary struggles, as a curse to the happiness, and a blight to the 
 prosperity, of the people of the United States. However much 
 this determination of the people of the South to hold their fellow- 
 men in perpetual bondage, was deplored by the true friends of 
 freedom at the North, they nevertheless conceded at once the 
 right of the Southern States, to adopt the domestic policy of their 
 own choice and to regulate and govern their own State institu- 
 tions strictly in conformity with the wishes of their own people. 
 There has never been any departure from this commendable line 
 of conservative conduct among the true men and the masses at 
 the North ; nor is there likely to be any change in this policy 
 unless the aggressive principles of slavery be -unwisely insisted 
 on by the slaveholders of the South, so as to bring the two sec- 
 tions into hostile collision, on this exciting and highly interesting 
 point at issue now before the country. 
 
 Notwithstanding what has already been done and said in and 
 out of Congress — it is yet believed by men of great intelligence, 
 who are supposed to have the best means for acquiring and un- 
 derstanding the true state of public opinion at the South, that the 
 pervading sentiment among the great body of the people there, 
 is in favor of maintaining inviolate all the compromises of the 
 Constitution, and all the compacts entered into between the North 
 and the South, in good faith, and acquiesced in by the whole 
 body of the American people in all sections of the Union. I 
 trust this may be so ; but, before the most implicit confidence 
 can be accorded to this opinion, it will be necessary for our South- 
 ern fellow-citizens to show, by some decided act, a manifest disap- 
 proval of the iniquitous policy of the administration of General 
 Pierce, in wantonly opening up, at this time, the question of 
 
slavery extension, with all its accompanying difficulties and dan- 
 gers to the stability of the Union. The South should be made 
 to understand that, while the great body of the people in the free 
 States, (which are more than two to one of the white population 
 in the slave States,) concede all the rights and privileges claimed 
 for the " peculiar institution ;" and that they have no wish, what- 
 ever, to interfere with its actual existence in the respective slave 
 States ; yet, so far as the extension of slavery into new territory, 
 belonging alike to all sections of the United States is concerned, 
 they do not yield one iota of their clearly expressed constitutional 
 rights, to enter into a full and free discussion of the whole ques- 
 tion on its merits ; and to decide it as may be deemed most likely 
 to subserve best the public interest and the common cause of 
 humanity. To claim, as Southern politicians have hitherto 
 claimed, the right under the Constitution, to move into any part 
 of the free territory of the United States, with their slaves, and 
 hold them there in bondage, is to claim no less than the entire 
 and total exclusion of freedom and free labor from all such terri- 
 tory so occupied ; since the whole history of slavery, here in the 
 United States and elsewhere, very clearly shows the impractica- 
 bility of the prosperous subsistence of the two systems of freedom 
 and slavery in the same territory. 
 
 The framers of the Constitution and the sages of the Revolu- 
 tion, who devised and passed the ordinance of 1787, first sug- 
 gested by Thomas Jefferson, the great Apostle of Democracy, 
 understood this question perfectly. They knew well enough that 
 slave labor and free labor could not work equally well and pros- 
 perously together ; and hence, the exclusion of slavery from the 
 Northwest Territory, (which was then an uninhabited wilder- 
 ness,) with the important reservation to the slave owner, that, 
 "any person escaping into the same from whom labor or service 
 is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive 
 may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming 
 his or her labor or services as aforesaid." This was all that the 
 South then claimed for the interests of slavery, from a territory, 
 too, which had been ceded to the United States by Virginia, — 
 the most powerful and populous of all the slave States. And that 
 was, indeed, a great concession ; from that day, the people of the 
 free States became slave-catchers for the South ; and, as the same 
 principle, and almost the same language, became subsequently, 
 
10 
 
 a part of the Constitution, the hateful task has continued to be 
 imposed on us down to the present day ; and must be performed, 
 the South keeping their part of the Constitutional compacts, 
 until the Constitution itself shall have been essentially changed 
 or amended, in this particular provision of it, which is in the 
 following words : " no person held to service or labor in one 
 State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in con- 
 sequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from 
 such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the 
 party to whom such service or labor may be due." 
 
 Here is what the Constitution, in almost precisely the language 
 of the ordinance of 1787, guarantees to the slaveholders, with 
 respect to the recovery of their fugitive property, escaping into 
 free territory. It was in pursuance of this provision of the Con- 
 stitution that the Fugitive Slave Law, with the other great adjust- 
 ment measures of 1850, were so triumphantly carried through 
 Congress, by the patriotic exertions of Webster, Cass, Clay, 
 Dickinson, and other distinguished members of that body ; and 
 which have been faithfully observed and acquiesced in, by the 
 great mass of the people every where throughout the free States. 
 But, those great compromise measures of 1850, which so effectu- 
 ally allayed the fearful excitement and dangerous agitation among 
 the people, growing out of the free soil movements of 1848, were, 
 at the time of their becoming a law of the land, considered by 
 the people of the free States, and by them they have ever since 
 been regarded as a part only, of the great compromises entered 
 into, and to be observed in good faith by all the parties thereto ; 
 whereby the question of slavery extension was determined be- 
 tween the North and the South, and settled for ever. These meas- 
 ures were regarded as auxiliary to, and, in all respects, confirma- 
 tory of, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and the ordinance of 
 1787 ; and not (as was contended by the unfortunate senator, 
 who, unwisely for himself, and for the administration of General 
 Pierce, as well as for the country at large, introduced the Kansas 
 and Nebraska bill) to supersede or make void, what had been so 
 well and wisely done by Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Clay, 
 Dane, and other distinguished patriots, of a by-gone time. The 
 men who were most influential in achieving the great adjustment 
 acts of 1850, did not then, nor have they since, considered them- 
 selves so much wiser than their patriotic forefathers, the authors of 
 
11 
 
 the Revolution, the framers of the Constitution, and the founders 
 of the government and free institutions of the United States, as 
 to justify them in tearing up and throwing to the winds, the very 
 foundation on which the Constitution and the Federal Govern- 
 ment have ever stood, and are now sustained. 
 
 If Senator Douglas, who happened to be out of his seat on 
 the passage of the compromise measures of 1850, had suggested, 
 at that time, a repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he would have 
 found that the giant intellect of Young America would not have 
 sustained any such insane movement in that Senate. It required 
 four years more of intellectual and political culture of the 
 "giant;" and just such a pitiful executive spectacle, as is now 
 on public exhibition at Washington ; together with one of the 
 most inefficient, disorderly, and mercenary legislative bodies that 
 ever assembled in the Capitol, to perpetrate that political enor- 
 mity ; which will stand as a statutory tombstone over their public 
 remains long after its author and all its abettors shall have passed 
 away. 
 
 Why was this mischievous deed done ? What necessity was 
 there for repealing an act to which the circumstances under 
 which it had been passed gave all the moral force and validity 
 of a positive provision of the Constitution ? 
 
 The Southern advocates of the Nebraska act pretend that it 
 was a boon offered to the slaveholding interests by the North, 
 which, although not asked for, they could not refuse ! 
 
 This Missouri Compromise was a Southern measure, suggested 
 by the South, and passed by a majority of Southern members 
 of Congress — against the voice of the free States ; which they, 
 however, acquiesced in, and regarded as a sacred compact, which 
 the South ought to stand by and deprecate all attempts of schem- 
 ing demagogues, North or South, for its repeal. 
 
 This, however, was not done. While petitions poured in to 
 Congress by thousands, from all parts of the free States, against 
 the repeal, scarcely a voice was raised in the slave States in oppo- 
 sition to it ; and the delegates from the South, in both Houses of 
 Congress, without distinction of party, voted for that act with an 
 unanimity which filled the minds of patriotic and reflecting men, 
 every where at the North, with amazement and concern. They 
 saw in this unjustifiable act of bad faith on the part of the South, 
 a determination to augment slavery influence every where, to the 
 extent of slaveholding ability ; and with that view Southern 
 
12 
 
 Senators seem to have confirmed the acts and strengthened the 
 now almost powerless hands of the Federal Executive, in his base 
 attempts last year, by the removal of Bronson and other conser- 
 vative democrats from office, to " crush out," (as a Northern 
 member of the cabinet said,) and break down their tried and un- 
 flinching friends in the free States ; men who have stood by the 
 South in the firm support of all their just rights under the Con- 
 stitutional guarantees and compromises of the government, in 
 perilous and troublesome times. Conservative Democrats in the 
 free States, who perilled their all and suffered so much in the 
 struggles of 1848, breasting the storm of free soil, raised under the 
 waning banner of Van Buren, against the institutions of the 
 South, do not look with indifference nor with satisfaction on the 
 ill attention and worse support they have received in the day of 
 their desertion by a treacherous Executive, from the hands of the 
 South, whence they had a right to expect so much, but have, 
 indeed, received no aid at all. 
 
 Conservative Democrats of the free States will not, however, 
 act inconsistently with their well-known and well-established 
 principles; but they will firmly require the South to abide by, 
 in good faith, all the compromises of the government, with re- 
 spect to the question of slavery extension, which now, owing 
 mainly to the ill-advised conduct of Southern delegates in 
 Congress, and the venality and inexcusable villainy of political 
 huckters at the North, fills the minds of the true friends of the 
 Union and of freedom, with serious apprehension and alarm. 
 They believe that the common territory of the United States, 
 under the Constitution, has no absolute political rights ; that the 
 Congress have the power to govern such territory, which cannot 
 constitutionally be transferred to any other authority ; nor has 
 any attempt ever been made by any legislation of the country to 
 transfer that power from the hands where it was constitutional- 
 ly lodged, until that intended by the passage of the Nebraska 
 bill. The language of the Constitution is clear and distinct on 
 this point ; and no one who reads it attentively can be mistaken 
 with respect to the full force and meaning of it. It says : " The 
 Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful 
 rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property 
 belonging to the United States." That is all there is in the Con- 
 stitution about the territory of the United States, and it is enough; 
 
13 
 
 it is comprehensive, definitive, absolute and -conclusive; clearly 
 placing the power to govern the territory, where the framers of 
 that great instrument evidently intended it should be placed, in 
 Congress ; and no power on earth, except a revolution, can trans- 
 fer it to other hands, or absolve Congress from the duty which 
 the Constitution imperatively imposes upon that body, to "make 
 all needful rules and regulations in the territory of the United 
 States," and to govern it. This is the well-settled opinion of all 
 intelligent and properly demeaned men throughout the country. 
 The policy of the government ever since the first clay of its estab- 
 lishment, under the Constitution, has been in strict accordance 
 with, and has sanctioned in all respects, this sound and incontro- 
 vertible doctrine. Hence, Congress from time to time has estab- 
 lished governments for the new territory of the United States ; 
 and in all cases, Congress has made the necessary appropriations 
 from the common funds of the United States for the support of 
 such government. It is true, that the Nebraska and Kansas act 
 authorizes the squatters resident in those territories, to elect the 
 members of their own local assemblies. But, what does that 
 amount to ? ' They cannot, even, with the full approval and sanc- 
 tion of their Governor, (who is an appointee of the President, and 
 has an unlimited veto power,) pass an act of any kind, not even 
 for establishing common schools, the maintenance of the poor, 
 or for laying out and repairing highways, which may not be con- 
 stitutionally annulled by the Congress, to which these very mem- 
 bers of territorial assemblies, so elected by the squatters thereof, 
 must look for their per diem compensation ! If this be true, and 
 I challenge its refutation, where is the boasted " popular sov- 
 ereignty," so much talked of, which the friends of the Kansas bill 
 contend is sought to be conferred by that bad act upon the people 
 of the territories ? The Kansas and Nebraska act, so recently 
 designed, by a corrupt clique of huckstering politicians, derisively 
 denominated "Patent-right Hard Shells," to be made the only test 
 of true democracy in this State, confers no popular rights or 
 sovereignty upon the people of the territories ; except that it 
 authorizes, by an unjust repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the 
 legalization, by territorial enactments, of slavery, where it had been 
 prohibited, by a decree of the French Government before it be- 
 came the territory of the United States, and, subsequently, by a 
 solemn act of Congress, for a period of more than sixty years ! 
 
14 
 
 This is all there is in that bad act that even squints at " popular 
 sovereignty ;" and this is just all that the authors of that act in- 
 tended it should embrace, of that character. 
 
 This administration measure, the Nebraska act, among other 
 misnomers, is called by some of its peculiar friends a "Non- 
 intervention Act ; " which, they absurdly contend, takes out of 
 Congress, for ever, the vexed question of slavery extension, and 
 leaves the whole adjustment of that matter in the hands of the 
 inhabitants of the territories. This, if true, would be a very im- 
 portant point to attain, and well worth the serious consideration 
 and attention of every patriotic friend of freedom in the United 
 States. But it is merely a preposterous pretension, asserted, with 
 other falsehoods, to deceive the people. The provisions of the 
 act intervene, and interpose obstructions at once, in the way of 
 freedom, by a repeal of laws, both of France and of the United 
 States, whereby this territory was declared free to all intents and 
 purposes. And yet this act of abominations is called a " non- 
 intervention act," calculated to allay excitement and discussion 
 on the slavery question, and exclude it from Congress for ever ! 
 
 How is this question to be taken out of Congress by the act 
 for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ? Or how allay agi- 
 tation and excitement on the question of slavery extension in the 
 territories ? It will produce no such desirable results ; but, on 
 the contrary, it will increase, and has already increased a thou- 
 sand fold the agitation and excitement of the people on this ques- 
 tion, both in and out of Congress. And the next Congress will 
 be very likely to repeal this miscalled "non-intervention act," re- 
 storing the latitude line of the slavery restriction act of 1820 ; and 
 I should not be very much surprised if the Fugitive Slave Law 
 went by the board along with it. It would have been better in 
 all respects, had the authors of that bad scheme had the common 
 fairness to have stated in the outset that] their intention was, 
 through the perfidious treachery of the President of the United 
 States, (who went into power pledged to put down all agitation 
 on the slavery question,) and by means of bribery and other cor- 
 rupt devices, to pass an act which should effectually and per- 
 manently convert a part of the free territory of the United Stales 
 into a land of bondage. That would have been an open, per- 
 haps I should say, manly course of procedure; most certainly it 
 would, contrasted with that which has been selected to deceive 
 
15 
 
 and mislead the great body of the people with respect to the real 
 meaning and true intent of the act. 
 
 The people, however, have proved themselves to be far too 
 well informed, and every way too intelligent to have been so 
 easily duped by the deception and fraud of the authors and 
 abettors of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; as is very 
 clearly manifested, by the overwhelming defeat at the polls 
 every where in the free States that have recently held elections, 
 of the administration and the friends of the Nebraska Bill. The 
 friends of freedom have, however, gained one important con- 
 cession in the passage of that bill, on the part of its advocates, 
 who have hitherto contended that Congress had no right to legis- 
 late with respect to the question of slavery in the territories ; for 
 the bill itself manifestly presupposes such a right, and sanctions 
 such legislative interference by Congress, which has undoubtedly 
 the power, under the Constitution, to legislate for and govern the 
 territories of the United States in regard to slavery and all other 
 matters relating thereto. This point once conceded on the part 
 of the South, as it has been most undoubtedly by all the members 
 of Congress from the slave States who voted for the Nebraska 
 act, it can no longer be contended that the people of the free 
 States, by taking part in the legislation of the country, for the 
 exclusion of slavery from free territory, seek to assail the insti- 
 tutions of the South, as they constitutionally exist in the slave 
 States. Whenever the question of slavery restriction from free 
 territory has hitherto been before Congress in any way, or pub- 
 licly discussed in the free States, a hue-and-cry has been raised 
 by an unprincipled, office-seeking, spoil-hunting, trading squad 
 of political gamblers at the North, and the taskmasters and venal 
 presses at the South, about fanatics at the North and an intended 
 assault by the friends of freedom, on the "peculiar institutions" 
 of the slave States. This is no fair way to meet and dispose of a 
 great question of State policy which concerns the people of all 
 parts of the Union, — those of the free States no less deeply than 
 the slaveholders of the South. I am no friend of fanatics, nor 
 advocate of fanaticism, North or South. I am in favor of fair 
 dealing, and of keeping in good faith the binding compromises 
 of the Constitution and the sacred compacts of the government, 
 inviolate, believing, as I most sincerely do, that the stability and 
 prosperity of the Union can in no other way be sustained. 
 
16 
 
 The question of slavery restriction in the Nebraska and Kan- 
 sas territory is certainly one in which the friends of freedom 
 ought to be heard without becoming in any way obnoxious to 
 the charge of fanaticism. They have a legitimate and good 
 ground of complaint, and they do earnestly complain of the un- 
 fairness of those in the slave interest, and the office-hunting mer- 
 cenaries in the free States, beeause of the unjust repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise ; with a view, as is most manifest, to the 
 immediate introduction and legalization of slavery north of 36° 
 30' ; where they had, under the act admitting the State of Mis- 
 souri into the Union, a right to expect the institutions of freedom 
 and free labor would be respected and allowed to exist undis- 
 turbed. The South agreed to relinquish to the cause of free- 
 dom and the sacred rights of humanity the territory acquired 
 from France in 1803, north of 36° 30', at the time it was con- 
 ceded to them to hold slaves south of that line of latitude ; and 
 they clearly thought, on the passage of the Missouri Compromise 
 act, that they had out-legislated the friends of freedom, and got 
 the better of the non-slaveholding States, as was no doubt the 
 case. 
 
 Mr. Pinckney, a distinguished member of Congress at that 
 time from South Carolina, wrote, under date of March 2d, 1820 : 
 " We have carried the question to admit Missouri and all Louisi- 
 ana, south of 36° 30', free of the restriction of slavery, and give 
 the South, in a short time, an addition of six, and perhaps eight 
 members to the Senate of the United States. It is considered 
 here, by the slaveholding States, as a great triumph. To the 
 north of 36° 30' there is to be, by the present law, restrictions, 
 which, you will see, by the votes, I voted against. But it is at 
 present of no account ; it is a vast tract, uninhabited, only by 
 savages and wild beasts, in which not a foot of Indian claim to 
 the soil is extinguished, and in which, according to the ideas 
 prevalent, no land office will be open for a great length of time." 
 Such was the opinion prevalent at the time respecting the ad- 
 vantage obtained by the slaveholding interest over the friends of 
 freedom ; and the admission since, of three slave States, out of 
 Louisiana Territory, south of 36° 30', has, as Mr. Pinckney indi- 
 cated, given the South an addition of six members in the Senate 
 of the Uuited States; while the free States, under that arrange- 
 ment, have only added two members to the Senate, by the ad- 
 
17 
 
 mission of Iowa, the only State that has yet been created out of 
 that territory, north of 36° 30'. In the mean time, Florida and 
 Texas, embracing a territory of 296,589 square miles, have been 
 annexed to the Union ; which, with that part of Louisiana terri- 
 tory south of 36° 30', now embraced in the States of Arkansas, 
 Louisiana and Missouri, enlarge the area of slavery to the extent 
 of 462,598 square miles ; while the territory of Nebraska and 
 Kansas, where the restriction to slavery has been removed, by 
 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, does not exceed 188,000 
 square miles ; and much of that is a barren, uninhabitable region. 
 Should it so happen that Nebraska and Kansas be eventually 
 admitted into the Union as slave States, it will be perceived that 
 the South will have added to their strength against the cause of 
 freedom, no less than five large slave States out of the territory of 
 Louisiana; which, at the time of its acquisition by this govern- 
 ment, was all free ; while only one single State will have been add- 
 ed to the Union out of it, excluding slavery. Is this right ; is it 
 just ; is it acting in conformity with the acknowledged principles 
 of common honesty and fair dealing ? Will the people of the 
 free States, numbering some 15,000,000, or more, while the white 
 population of the slave States scarcely exceeds 6,000,000, quietly 
 submit to this flagrant outrage and inexcusable wrong? No, 
 never. 
 
 In all the free States, where elections have taken place, since 
 the passage of this unwise and unjustifiable act, by the dema- 
 gogues of the South, and the mercenary, doughfaced-political trick- 
 sters and huckstering spoilsmen of the North, sanctioned by the 
 treasonable conduct of the President of the United States, which 
 has removed the restriction to slavery north of 36° 30', the most 
 marked and determined opposition to it has been impressively 
 manifested by the people ; who, by their votes at the polls, have 
 overwhelmed the administration and its friends, with irretriev- 
 able disaster and defeat. A more signal and richly-deserved 
 rebuke to treachery, faithlessness, duplicity and fraud, never was 
 administered, by an independent, injured and indignant nation, 
 than that now being inflicted by the American people on the 
 deplorable and foolish administration of General Pierce. 
 
 This topic might be profitably dwelt upon at much greater 
 length, did time permit ; but enough has already been said, I 
 trust, to show the wretched policy and wickedness of the admin- 
 
18 
 
 istration and its -unprincipled coadjutors, in the adoption of a 
 measure, (on which, it would seem, they mainly rely for support,) 
 fraught with so much mischief and danger to the federal Union, 
 and so obnoxious and every way so objectionable, to the great 
 body of the people in the free States. And yet, foolish and reck- 
 less as the administration and its peculiar adherents have shown 
 themselves to be, in urging through Congress an act of such in- 
 justice and iniquity, the real patent-right, skull and cross-bone 
 democrats of this State, headed by Edwin Croswell and Augus- 
 tus Schell, who stabbed me in the back last fall, while a candi- 
 date for comptroller, and undertook officiously, at the same time, 
 the leadership of the national Democratic party, which they have 
 since completely run aground, have shown themselves still more 
 weak and unwise, by clutching hold of this firebrand, as if deter- 
 mined to snatch it from the hands of the President, (whose fingers 
 have been prodigiously burnt by it,) and make it, (the Nebraska 
 Bill,) a new test of democracy in the State ! 
 
 On this broken stool with one leg, they have succeeded in 
 mounting the accomplished, pure-minded, patriotic, and estimable 
 Greene 0. Bronson, as a candidate for Governor ; who, had he 
 turned his back indignantly on those patent-right, skull and cross- 
 bone hucksters, and their Nebraska swindle, and taken the stump 
 simply on his widely-extended reputation as a man of distin- 
 guished ability and acquirement, of untarnished purity of char- 
 acter and unquestioned competency for the office, could have 
 easily been carried into the gubernatorial chair by the votes of 
 conservative men of all parties ; who, but for his indorsement of 
 the Nebraska bill, would have gladly concentrated their votes on 
 Judge Bronson, and rejoiced in his success. The sanction given 
 by Judge Bronson to this bad, though principal measure of the 
 administration, has, I regret to say, wonderfully weakened the 
 strong hopes entertained by his many warm friends previous to 
 the meeting of the Syracuse convention on the 12th of July, of 
 his triumphant election. This lamentable result, however much 
 to be regretted, is no more than was clearly foreseen and predicted, 
 immediately on the publication of Judge Bronson's letter, in con- 
 nection with the proceedings of the convention that nominated 
 him ; and which, also, foolishly gave its sanction, by express reso- 
 lutions, to the pernicious repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; 
 which has been thus far overwhelmingly disastrous to all who 
 
19 
 
 have in any way been instrumental in the infliction of its num- 
 berless evils on the country. I trust, however, that not a single 
 vote of the National Democracy Avill be withheld from the sup- 
 port of Judge Bronson on account of his frankly-expressed views 
 with respect to the passage of the act repealing the Missouri Com- 
 promise; for, while I protest against the futile attempts on the part 
 of a few uninfluential political pretenders, who have officiously 
 obtruded themselves conspicuously before the public, to make 
 such a preposterous test of democracy, as is the Nebraska fraud, 
 we may, on personal grounds alone, without reference to his 
 views on political subjects, safely and cheerfully cast our votes 
 for Judge Bronson for the high office to which he has been so 
 unanimously nominated by the Syracuse convention. 
 
 With respect to the other national democratic nominees for 
 State officers, I am happy in being able to say that I believe them 
 all good men and true; every way competent and worthy to re- 
 ceive the unbought suffrages of a free and independent people. 
 If elected to the respective offices for which they have been 
 nominated, they will not fail to adorn their high and important 
 public positions by an able and faithful discharge of their duty 
 to a generous and enlightened people. While I cannot fail 
 to regret that the present member of Congress, from this district, 
 Hon. James Maurice, was not re-nominated, as a deserved mani- 
 festation of public approval of his patriotic conduct in relation to 
 the Nebraska bill, no less than of his faithful attention at all 
 times to the highly responsible duties that devolved on him 
 during his residence in Washington, I have to say that Mr. D. B. 
 Allen, of Eichmond, the nominee now before the people, is my 
 personal friend ; and was, during my residence in that county, 
 my highly esteemed and obliging neighbor. He is a gentleman 
 of ability and of unblemished character ; and, if elected, as I 
 trust he may be, he will, I doubt not, by his sound good sense 
 and wise discretion ; by his acquaintance with business and his 
 general knowledge of men and of the world ; and moreover, 
 by his courtesy and gentlemany deportment, as well as by his 
 accomplishments and fitness for the honorable position to which 
 you design to elevate him, reflect upon the district, and upon the 
 highly responsible station he may be called to occupy, an honor 
 and distinction, of which his constituency may well be proud, 
 and will scarcely fail to commend and long admire. 
 
20 
 
 Here I might, very properly perhaps, close my remarks. I 
 cannot do so, however, without paying my respects to the 
 present amiable and accomplished, though, politically, deluded, 
 gentleman, who now fills the gubernatorial seat of this State ; 
 and who is at this time paraded before you on a drunken horse, 
 as the Tap-room candidate, asking your support of him for another 
 term ! It would have been an easy thing to re-elect Governor 
 Seymour for the high station he now occupies, and to which he 
 was borne, two years ago, by a vast majority of the legal voters 
 of this State. Indeed, it would have been no very difficult mat- 
 ter for him to have attained to almost any official position in the 
 gift of the American people, had he, in all respects, been true to 
 the established faith of the Democratic party ; true to his old 
 friends ; true to the great principles and plans of public policy 
 for the improvement and advancement of the interests of this 
 State ; of which, at one time, they had no more able or ardent 
 advocate than himself. But, Governor Seymour appears to have 
 changed his views of public policy, since his election ; and now 
 he is presented before you for renewed support on entirely new 
 grounds, his veto of Mr. Clark's Bill, passed at the last session of 
 the Legislature, for suppressing the deplorable vice of intempe- 
 rance ! 
 
 This, like the broken political plank on which unfortunately a 
 few officious and obtrusive "Hardshell" hucksters have succeed- 
 ed in exhibiting Judge Bronson for the same important office, is 
 an untenable and obnoxious platform : which cannot long stand 
 in' a community like this, depending, as it must, for its support 
 mostly upon the vicious dregs and outcasts of society ; while it 
 must be deprecated, detested and condemned by all good men. 
 
 When a candidate for a highly honorable and "responsible 
 public position, founds and urges his claims to it on grounds cal- 
 culated, if sustained, to break down the morals, deterioate, cor- 
 rupt, degrade, impoverish, and brutalize vast masses of our people; 
 to fill our almshouses with paupers, and our jails and State pris- 
 ons with criminals ; to augment crime of every conceivable de- 
 scription, and depress virtue ; to break up the good order and 
 safety of society and fill the land with desolation and distress, it 
 becomes the imperative duty of every intelligent, well-demeaned 
 citizen, as he values all there is in society worth living for ; the 
 peace and virtue of our families, the prosperity and advancement 
 
21 
 
 of our people, and the incomparable blessings of freedom, to take 
 an active, efficient, and uncompromising stand, in opposition to 
 such candidate, and all claims that may be urged in his favor on 
 grounds so preposterous and detrimental to the good order and 
 well-being of our people, and of mankind at large. While, on 
 personal grounds, I have nothing whatever to say in opposition 
 to Governor Seymour's re-election, I do not hesitate to declare 
 that, in my opinion, no man in this State, if, indeed, in any other, 
 has ever presented himself as a candidate for office on grounds 
 so utterly objectionable and in all respects so pernicious to the 
 best interests of the community, as those on which Governor 
 Seymour and his political friends mainly rely for his election. 
 It is simply the dram-shop support, and those whose pecuniary 
 interests are immediately dependent on that brutalizing, degrad- 
 ing and bestial business, that his Excellency now confidently 
 reposes his political claims I And, in his case, it is a contest 
 between virtue and vice ; order and confusion ; innocence and 
 crime; purity and depravity ;' competency and poverty ; industry 
 and indolence ; thrift and vagrancy ; education and ignorance ; 
 plenty and poverty ; freedom and the jail ; goodness and the 
 gallows ; in short, the welfare or ruin of our people. Should 
 we not, then, take a firm and unflinching stand in opposition to 
 the election of any man to any office, however high or otherwise, 
 involving matters that concern so essentially the welfare of every 
 human being in the State ? 
 
 The Democratic party has at no time in its previous history 
 presented, or attempted to present, a candidate for any office ex- 
 clusively on one issue — on one interest, relying on that alone, 
 and nothing else, for support. It has hitherto been considered a 
 liberal party, of enlarged sympathies and enlightened views ; em- 
 bracing in its fostering grasp all the great interests of the coun- 
 try ; and generally taking ground against monopolies of all kinds. 
 It is therefore an anomaly to see a candidate with democratic 
 pretensions, leaving behind him all the great issues on which the 
 Democratic party has so long and so firmly stood and effectually 
 fought, and adopting a new creed of three letters and one sylla- 
 ble, and only one idea and a single word, and that word, Bum ! 
 This monopoly, bad as it is, can never be recognized by the mass 
 of democratic voters, as legitimate and valid ; and Governor Sey- 
 mour, although it is very likely he may secure a staggering 
 
22 
 
 victory over the candidate of the " Hards," owing to his unwise 
 indorsement of the wicked repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
 will nevertheless find that a political platform, sustained only by 
 Lager-beer, Gin-toddy, Whiskey, and " Aromatic schnapps," is a 
 tottering and dangerous erection, on which it will be impossible 
 for him to stand very steadily for any length of time. Should 
 Governor Seymour succeed in being re-elected — it would be 
 worse for him than defeat. Victory obtained on an issue so nar- 
 row and so entirely obnoxious to the true interests of our people ; 
 so insulting to the intelligence of the age — would be the knell of 
 his political death ! 
 
 Of the individual, nominated on the ticket with Governor 
 Seymour for his Lieutenant; who, by his unmanly conduct, 
 during a short residence at Albany, disgraced the Speaker's chair 
 of the Assembly, it is quite unnecessary for me to say much at 
 this time. All of you must, I dare say, have had some know- 
 ledge of him during his residence on your, beautiful island. And 
 you will not fail to remember the circumstances attending his 
 political execution by the Syracuse convention, over which he 
 was called to preside ; and how that his sad political remains 
 were subsequently handed over for interment to a certain MANN 
 in the village of Jamaica, who discharged the duties of under- 
 taker on that occasion, secundeni artem. 
 
 Decency demands that we tread lightly over the ashes of the 
 inglorious dead, and I most willingly leave the sorry subject of 
 these remarks to a long and silent repose. 
 
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