Ei33 Ifss LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 001 I 111 II Mi VI » 1 8 97 809 2 # SPEECH OF "THE HON. Bs F. HAL LETT AT THE DEMOCRATIC 'RATIFICATION MEETING WALTHAM, MASS., FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 2, 1855. [published at the request of the democratic town committee.] PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE BOSTON POST. K. SPEECH. 'PHONOGRAPHIC REPORT BY MR. YERRINTON.] Mr Halle tt was loudly applauded as lie came upon the platform, and spoke as follows : — Me President and Fellow Citizens — When we are called upon to exercise that great prerogative that belongs only to American citizens, the right of free suffrage, we should well consider what are the questions that call for our deliberate action. That power which every man holds in this great country — the power by his own will of declaring, as one of the majority who exercises the like power, who shall be his rulers, who shall make the laws by which he is to abide ; — that great power, when you come to exercise it, is one with which no man should proceed to the ballot box without careful deliberation. New, gentlemen, we are upon the eve of a state election, merely ; and as you know it is the custom of politi- cal orators to say — "This coming election is the most important one ever had in the history of the world !" This, though not generally applicable to a state elec- tion, is essentially true, in one particular, of the elec- tion in Massachusetts ; because, although you are to choose only your state officers, you are taking the preliminary steps to that great division of the people in this country, which is to be made, North and South, throughout this Union, next year in the Presidential election. In that election, whatever may be the local names of factions, there will be but two parties; one, a party for the Constitution, the other, a party against the Constitution; one, a party for the Union, the other, a party for disunion ; one, a sectional party composed of a sectional portion of the North, the other, a party of the whole country. Now, on which side are you going to stand ? That is the issue. And why does this great national issue arise now ? Ordinarily we go into an election,— as we have for the last twenty-live years, — with the democratic party and the whig party as the main armies on both sides contending under their well-known flags; and then we knew where we were and what the results were likely to be. But in the next Presidential election we are to have a new organization, or rather disor- ganization, of parties. Some people, very wise in their own conceit, pretend to have found out that the old parties were corrupt, and must be broken up and that a new party must be formed, an incorrup' tible new party of which they were to be the incor' ruptible (?) leaders, and which was to be made up o* all anti-slavery men and native Americans taken from the old parties ? How they accomplished this we saw last winter in the State House ! But bad as the new parties both have been in practice and legis- lation, one good result, certainly, has flowed from their winowing out old parties. It has very much tended to purify the democratic party, and has re- lieved it from a great many men who were impatient, selfish, dissatisfied, while in our ranks, and were al- ways wanting to be something other than democrats. If there are any men of that description within your acquaintance, who have always been a disturbing element in the party, all I can say is, if they have gone over to the freesoil party, or the fusion party, or the know nothing party, just " let them slide .'" (Applause). And, moreover, if you know any man that you have fostered and warmed into political life on your hearths ; one you had taken from his un- friended boyhood, and brought up by your hands, car- ried in your arms, cherished in your bosoms, and trained up to manhood, and then, by your suffrages, placed him in offices of honor, profit and trust, and just when you supposed you had imbued him with democratic principles, and made him true to his party and true to his country, you find that man, after all your training, all your kindness, all your confidence, and after all the honors you' had heaped upon him, deserting first to the " secret order " of midnight cabals and then betraj'ing them and en- listing under the black flag of disunion, and there denouncing the democratic administration, sneering at the Constitution, and proclaiming that he is ready to " let the Union slide " — I say to you, see to it that you "slide" that man clean off from all con- nection with the democratic party now end forever ! (Loud applause).* * Hon. N. P. Bj.nks, of Waltham, formerly a democrat, in his speech in the republican contention in Maine, speaking of the preservation of the Union said— "lam willing, in a certain slate of circumstances, to l> t it slide .'" And I pray you, brother democrats, now, when we are once more getting to be n peaceable family, when we can get t< the Union, when we can talk of the fraternity of the Northern demi ad the Southern demo* one great brotherhood bound together for the good of the whole country in one bond of common union; — now that we can do that without the hypocrisy, the insinuatii ns, the backbiting, the pitiful side is ues of men coming in with their narrow prejudic tarianism ai dism, — now that we can do that, I say, let us shut the door and keep tho out! — never let them back into your confidence, to disturb our peace and betray our party Now, then, what are these issues thai s before the people ? It is said, suddenly, that there arc two awful terrors that are about to destroy the institutions of our country. One of these great ter- rors is, slavery; the other arises from the fori born citizens thai one would suppose, from the excitement that has taken place recently about them, were new t just discovered. You would suppose from the ments of these people that they have made a grand discovery. They tell you that you are to restrict yourselves to the narrow limits of two ideas, one of anti-slavery, another of hatred to foreign born, and that there you arc to stop, and have nothing to do for your countiy beyond them. Aud from t : in which these two propositions' are put forward as "the paramount issues,"' it woidd appear that these things — slavery and foreigners — had never before existed in this country. Y\ h that listens to these declaimers would suppose that this country, when it went into the battles of the revolution, was made up of foreign Lorn and na- tive born, and no man either knew or inq whence another came? Who would suppose that when the Union was formed most of the original institution of domestic slavery, a I not a word about it, except to agree to other*;: rights, and send back fugitives fj Who would suppose that this institution of slavery, existing as a fixed, domestic institution in one half the states of the confederacy, from that d; period (J seventy years, with the ni citizens increasing from that day to this, and with such an rritory, such a va of our country, thai you can dip one hand in tl lantic on the one side.and the other in tl the other side, and say, — Thi who would si fn m the cl new parties, that we had gone oninth e what we are, and yet I and slavery all the while exis such is the fact, ami where has been the the ruin of our country, from either of to. that one fact enough to teai clamor about tic rces of da; which we are told the whole North n ne, is utterly unfounded — got up. fabricated with some other end in view than tl of the country ? 'j in: know nothing I I am' not going to .-peak at length this evening upon the question of foreign horn, but merely allude to it. A great many men say that we must make up a part}' exclusively against the influence of foreign born citizen: illy that we must "down with the jmpe, ,J who lives a great way off, — not exactly know where, for he has scarcely a ! upon which to stand from day to day; and in- stead of exhorting its. i fathers did, against "the devil aud his works," they tell us that there is nothing now to lie feared but '-the pope and orks." (Laughter and cheers.) I suppose there are some very honest and sincere men and i who are terribly afraid of the pope, audi pity them very much. I cannot but commisserate titizens who are so woefully frightened at this "raw-head and bloody-bones."' (Laughter.) I am very sorry for them, and [ want them to pluck up coinage and get cured. If they are terrified at the a population amon i fear that the nd the Irishmen will murder or drive all the native Americans out of the country, I really pity them again, that they ed by such weak fears. I wan ore them that the dent ■ 1. other -fid or not in this , be suc- I in the United S they will \ I them. (Applause aud hisses, ) I tell you, my friends of the secret order, you may need that protection by and by, because, under I ive the only pow- er that enables you to hold your secret midnight lodges and to stand he; ight. (Loud . ) If it was not ratio power ,;ives freedom to : 1 of stand- ing here to-night under I you are trying to destroy, of that Union you ai ing to dissever, you would have d) r you, and should you dare to \ ar public meeting and speak upon an; the first word or the first hiss that came from your he be followed by a file of soldiers carrying you off to some Castile. (Loud applause mingled with faint hisses.) That is what \ which you are trying to break down, by these futile attempts tc incite hatred of races, and bring up sectional issues, and form geographical p .1 that point, fellow citizens, the fi is no danger. We h at two millions of foreign born among . b they le our . and bring -■, the pa] deal industry. (AppL rica, which has D born, [ or five mti- if native boi.. . and I v. e can I - no found 1 am not willing to give in m; nothing doctrine that hi ! (Loud :. d applause.) Moreover, 1 believe thai ever it is necessary to flog anybody, to defend and protect this country, and especially if we should ever have occasion to flog England, which I trust we shall not, there are no men who would go into it with such a hearty shillalah relish as the Irishmen. (Applause.) They would stand by you to-day as they did at Bun- ker Hill, and at Yorktown, at New Orleans, at Mon- terey and Buena Vista ; as they did in every battle that has immortalized the fields that Americans have won. Let that pass. THE "ISM?" OF MASSACHUSETTS. It is a little deplorable that in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the most densely populated state, for its territory, of any in the Union; the state that has the most schools, the greatest number of churches, the highest degree of education, — it is amazing, amazing, that here, in this Commonwealth, two such absurdities as know nothingism and abolitionism should take deeper root than in any other part of this country ! Why is it ? Are religion and educa- tion adverse to good government ? Does religion and education tend to make men fanatics instead of peace- ful moral, citizens, nullificationists instead of unionists? I will not believe it. It is a perversion. Above all it is a perversion of the pulpit, in the first instance, to political purposes, and out of that has grown up this great, wide-spread evil. It has been fostered by the practice of sending missionaries in the guise of minis- ters, and anti-slavery lecturers, all over the Com- monwealth, who, instead of preaching the Bible preach politics, instead of preaching the Constitution preach disunion, instead of preaching brotherly love preach hatred of sections and races, hatred of foreign born, hatred between the North and the South, and stir up intolerance and all manner of uncharitable- ness among us. Let us banish these ideas and teach- ings, and come back to the doctrines of the fathers, to the Bible and the Constitution. Now, as regards this issue of hatred to foreign born ci tizens, I pass it over, with this single remark, that I can never eease to bear in mind this fact : — When a man boasts that he is a native born American citi- zen, and derides another man, who is not native born, but who has the same rights of citizenship as he has, — it seems to me that the adopted citizen may well say to the native born, "Why, sir, you are an American citizen by accident; you were born here and could not help it. I, sir, am an American citi- zen by choice; I came here when my will and my mind brought me here." And, as has been well said in other respects, the only difference between a full-grown American citizen born here, and the other citizen who has come here and been made a citizen, is that, so far as concerns this new world, one of them came into the world without any clothes on, and the other with his clothes on. (Laughter and loud ap- plause. ) Let us thank God that there is room enough here for both to work in and continue to clothe them- selves, and to be happy and prosperous. THE FUSION ISSUE — "THE AGGRESSIONS OF THE SLAVE POWER." But I want to touch more directly upon this ques- tion of anti-slavery — this fusion doctrine — which is now in the field as the very newest of the "new par- ties." Passing over this question of the terrible ag- gressions of the Catholics, which some very timid people are so frightened about, let us look at this other issue, — ' This great and paramount issue," as Mr Julius Rockwell calls it, — "The aggressions of the slave power." Can anybody tell me what that means ? Why, when Mr Senator Sumner gets up to address an audience, he asks — "Are you in favor of freedom or are you in favor of slavery ? ' ' Suppose you answer "yes," or "no," what does it amount to ? Suppose you answer we are all in favor of free- dom, — what then, Mr Sumner? "Why — why — I don't exactly know," says Mr Sumner, only he reads an advertisement for a runaway negro down south, and then goes off into some fine flourish of rhetoric and plenty of quotations from the classical dictionary. But let us follow him up with the practical ques- tion — "What are you going to do? Suppose you could combine all the North against the South are you going to dissolve the Union ?" "Oh, no," says Mr Sumner, "we are for the Union provided we can drive slavery out of it." "But suppose you can't drive it out of the states or out of the territories and keep the South in the Union , what then ? Will you f orce the South to stay in the Union and be ruled by negroes ? Will yon fight the South ?" "Yes," says Senator Wade, of Ohio, "That is just what we mean to do, — ' set the dogs on them.'' " That is his "fu- sion" remedy. The black republicans are to get an abolition president and an abolition congress if they can, and vote the South down ; and then if the Southern members retire from Congress and refuse to be bound by it, the abolition leaders are to "set the dogs on them!" Who are to be "the dogs?" Why, the farmers, the mechanics, the working men, the "know nothings," of Massachusetts and other abolition states, they are to be "the dogs" to carry on a civil war with the South for the benefit of Messrs Seward, Wade, Sumner, Wilson, and Company, to make them the great men of the North. (Cries of "No, no.") No, you will not do it; I know you will not do it; the North will never do it. I tell you, then, that this plausible question, "Are you for freedom or are you for slavery ? " is not the real issue. The real question is — "Are you for the Constitution or against it ? Are you for upholding the government of the United States or for anarchy, revolution and disunion ?" That is the question. If you are for the Constitution, then you are for the ex- istence of the Union under that Constitution just as it stands, with slavery existing, just as our fathers found it. Not as a national but as a State right in- stitution, with the principle inseparable from the right of self-government that grows out of it, viz : the rightof every political community to regulate that matter for themselves under the Constitution. That is the democratic doctrine to settle all these sectional and geographical differences, which by agitation are made so often to threaten the Union. There must be some point of sound conservatism touching the slavery question, upon which Union men North and South must agree to repose, or tLe two sections will finally irritate each other into dis unii n. Where shall we find it ? This new fusion or republican party, as they mis- call themselves, offer no remedy for the evils they complain of, except their insane idea of getting pos- session of the government and conquering the South ! The democratic party propose a clear and distinct settlement of all these sectional quarrels. It is "/Ac principle of non-intervention by Congress with sla- very in the states and in the territories." That is simply the fundamental doctrine of demo- cratic institutions, the right of self government, — a wonderful pacificator, if we will only apply it to the Union, the state, the territory, the town, the parish, the family, each in its proper sphere, each under its own proper Constitution. The zealots, and fanatics, and reformers who for twenty-five years have been casting about for a place to rest their lever on to move the world, have settled down upon rum and negroes. The whole statesman- ship of the country, they tell us, must now be fused and absorbed in that. If there were no alcohol there would be no vice; if there were no social distinction between negroes and white men there would be no slavery. Hence all this false legislation about tem- perance, and all this sectional clamor at the North about slavery in the South. Are they not both wrong ? There can be no moral reform effected by mere legislation, unless the legislation is just and based on sound constitutional principles. THE MAINE LAW ISSUE. Let this test the modern legislation on .Alcohol. Instead of following the sound principle of our fathers which was to regulate the evils that God Almighty had permitted to exist among them; — instead of re- cognizing in civil government the principle God has established in divine government that man is a free agent, and appealing to his reason; these modern lawgivers contend that the only way to make men virtuous is to destroy all temptations to vice — to pro- hibit and remove from use every good thing that can be abused to a bad use. Hence, in-tead of regulating the use of intoxicating drinks as our fathers did for two hundred years, they undertake to make all use of it for drink, a crime. But the killing inconsistency is that when they un- dertook to make it a crime, they made only one-half of it a crime, punishal.de with the house of correction, and left the other half as free from crime as drinking water. They make it a crime for one man to stand behind a counter and take sixpence for a glass of al- cohol and they leave it as free as the most virtuous act, for the other man to buy and drink and pay for it ! (Applause.) Now, that is making one half of an act a crime, and the other half not a crime. Do you not see that that is a false principle ? that you cannot declare that a crime which is commitled by two parties, and cannot be committed by one, and make it a crime in one and declare it no crime in the other ? Therefore you see why the foundation principle of this whole legislation tails; for they do not dare to come forward and say "Punish the man who buys as well as the man who sells." But why not, if selling is a crime ? Why, what would these law Umperance folks say if you should propose to make it a crime to sell a negro into sla- very and no crime to buy him ? If you should de- clare that the man who sells him should be punished, but the man who buys him left unmolested to do with him as he pleased ? Would they not scout the idea ? But do they not act upon this principle in regard to the liquor traffic ? The man who sells and never drinks, says this Maine law, shall be sent to the house of correction, though he never would sell un- less templed to do so by a buyer. But the man who buys and drinks and commits the ether half of the crime, he is only to be pitied and not to be punished at all ? That is false legislation, wrong in morals, wrong in government, and therefore it has failed. For twenty years the law temperance men have been at work drawing the strings tighter and tighter, until they had got the bow string up tight enough to strangle every dealer they could catch with a decan- ter on his shelf; and what has been the result ? Why the tension has been so high that the string has sud- denly snapped, and away has gone the Maine law. From Maine on the Atlantic side to California on the Pacific side the people are determined to sweep this false legislation into the sea, and now there is a re- action dangerous to the cause of temperance even in its beautiful and healthful moral aspect. Such is the end of false and bad legislation inflicted on a peo- ple who choose their own law-makers. ANTI-SLAVERY HAS INJURED THE ANTI-SLAVRET CAUSE. Next let us examine the other evil which the fusion reformers are proclaiming "paramount," the slavery question. That, too, is in pretty much the same hands and runs on the same wrong track with the other "isms" of law-temperance and know nothingism. The abolitionists, freesoilers, and anti-slavery men, of all shades, have been at work upon that matter fcr fifty years. The North began its aggressions upon the South from the day that Thomas Jefferson was elected President over John Adams; not for love of the slave, but because Jefferson was in a slave state, and the federal opponents of democracy of that day played upon the philanthropy of the North to get up a '^fusion" to put down the democracy of the South. The state of Masaschusetts was the most intensely federal state in the Union, and thus inheriting the old federal hate to Jefferson, Louisiana, and the ex- tension of territory, she is naturally now the most in- tensely abolition and Southern hating state in the Unit n. And what has been the result of her oper- ations against the Union based on this anti-slavery element ? Her legislature has always been meanly subservient to the dictation of a minority of political abolitionists. Whether in the hands of whigs, democrats, coalitionists or know nothings, any reso- lutions against slavery which a single abolition dem- agogue called for, were passed as a matter of course. It was thought safer to let the few demagogues have their way than to offend what the demagogues and pulpit politicians c tiled "the sentiment of Massachu- setts on slavery." Hence the demagogues and the canting pulpit politicians have had it all their own way, and reason has nut dared to stand up and com- bat ■error. Massachusetts has disgraced herself by sending volumes of anti-slavery resolutions to other states to insult them. We have had abolition preach- ing and anti-slavery lectures upon the "cause of free- dom" as they call it, meaning negro freedom, until now they tell us they have found the philosopher's stone to dissolve slavery and the Union together, and they are going to do it by "fusion." And here they are, after fifty years of a sectional quarrel, kept up by a noisy, hollow hearted faction in New England, not so far advanced in negro freedom as we should have been if we had just let the South alone upon slavery and left each state free to carry out its own plans of melioration and gradual emancipation. RED JACKET'S PLAN OF FUSION. Why, all these anti-slavery people who t ilk about "fusion" to get rid of slavery, have not half the v.'isdom or shrewdness of the old Indian chief Red Jacket, whose fusion plan was just about an practical but more rational and not so likely to diss >lve the Union if carried into operation. When An i re w Jack- son was President of the United States and lie legis- latures of Virginia and Kentucky were f eely dis- cussing, like calm statesmen, the means of gradual emancipation, before the political abolition, >ts threw in their fire brands, it happened on one occa- on when lied Jacket called upon the President, that th s subject of slavery was introduced, and the Preside:, t asked Red Jacket what he thought could be done t<> get rid of slaves in this country. "Why," saidR d Jacket, "you must send all the colored women of the North South, and all the colored men of the Somli North, and in two or three generations you will get rid of it." (Laughter.) That was a much wiser proposi- tion, and more statesmanlike, than anything the abo- litionists bring up. How do they propose to get rid of it ? Why they say gu on and irritate the South un- til you drive them out of the Union. Well, suppose you could do it — suppose you drive them out of the Union — are there any less slaves in the country ? Not one. Then you could not abolish slavery in the South for it would be utterly beyond your reach. But they say, nevertheless, let us keep up at the North an in- cessant noise and agitation about slavery. What good will that do ? It only exasperates the South, and does not help the slaves. Then steal the negroes and send them off on the Underground Railroad. How soon will you get three millions of slaves off in that way ? That wiil not do. Well, they say, if a fugitive slave comes here to Massachusetts and they attempt to send him back under the laws and Constitution, get all the anti-sla- very people together, kill the marshal, kill everybody, and then have shootings and hangings, mobs and ri- ots, and a real Jacobin French reign of terror, and all that about one negro ! How much has that done to abolish slavery or make Kansas a free state ? WHITE SLAVERY ATTEMPTED IN MASSACHUSETTS. Why look at the loisdom and consistency of these "friends of freedom," as they call themselves, above all others. They went into the legislature of Massa- chusetts, without even a minority to oppose them, and passed a law declaring that if the marshal of the United States should undertake to return a fugitive slave, under a law of the Constitution which is just as constitutional as the Constitution itself, the whole mil- itary power of Massachusetts must be called out to shoot down the officers of the government while in the discharge of their duty. A Voice — "Good." Mr Hallett — Yes, good to show your heels. (Ap- plause.) I will tell you what you will have to meet that you call "good," on the side of law. The sol- diers of the United States, the armed citizens who mean to stand by the Union against abolition mobs, the whole military power of the United States called out by the President, if need be, to maintain the laws; aye, and the volunteer militia of Massachu- setts, who, if called upon by an abolition governor under that treasonable act, will join the side of the Union, 3nd help put dewn all traitors, rebels and rioters ! (Loud applause and faint hissing.) These ai'e the men who talk about resisting the laws of the Union, and when it comes to the point are the most arrant cowards in the world. They do not dare to look a brave man in the eye. I have seen them and tested them, and know all about them. Now, I say, they made that treasonable, nullifica- tion law last winter, with reference to one single black man ; by which act they indicated their wil- lingness to involve this Commonwealth in a war with the United States, to put her out of the Union, to trample upon the compacts of the Constitution, upon everything sacred and holy, and violate the oaths they had solemnly taken, — and all that for one black man. And then, on the very next page of the stat- ute book, they put another act declaring that any white man who had come into this State should not be allowed the rights of citizenship unless he had been born in this country. And by that act they meant, if in their power, to take away all political rights from at least forty thousand white men in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, while at the same time they were ready to go to war with the United States to save, unlawfully, the supposed rights of one negro ! And forever hereafter, if this u//ra-American party rules, runaway negroes are to be received with open arms, and every hunted patriot, floeing from the tyranny of the old world, to be denied au asylum and sent back as a pauper ! And is that thing to be our Massachusetts ? Are such the men she is to select to guide the helm of state and take care of the prosperity and the honor of the old commonwealth ? What then but discord, discredit, disgrace, if not disunion, can come to Massachusetts or the North by this unavailing and incessantly irritating aggression, of the abolition section of the North upon the South ' Has all the agitation in congress by a minority exM; gained anything ? Could you /use eveiy voter of iae North into an abolitionist, and get a majority aboli- tion Congress and President, would you gain anything then but disunion ? And if you should finally bring, about what these know nothing fusion leaders in the North are using the voters of the North for, a disruption . of the Union, what then have you gained but two re- publics, one with slavery and one without ? And I tell you that when two such republics are formed, (if ever 8 God leaves us to such judicial blindness,) and the runaway negroes from the South overspread your territory, then even if the South abandon them, and there is no civil war, you will have to build forty alms houses for their reception and support them as paupers, or else send them out of the Commonwealth as a burden too grievious to be borne. And these very men, now the most clamorous for negro free- dom, will be the most earnest to have them sent back ! Let us see, gentleman liberators, what your philan- thropy amounts to. Here are a little rising of three millions of slaves in this country and twenty-five mil- lions of white people. The proportion of these ne- groes, if freed, for Massachusetts, is about one hun- dred and twenty thousand. Is she ready to open her arms and take tins unformed mass to her bosom, and sit down with them in social and political fraternity ? Of course they are not to keep them at the South. They would be worthless and unavailing there just as in Jamaica. If the South frees them out of compli- ment to the North, the North must take care of them. The South would not keep them because then the South and West would be filled up by Northern and foreign laborers who would flee from contact with the degraded free slave labor of the North, and go South, and thus the North would have negro labor and the South the benefit and strength of free white labor, and instead of being our market, she would be our competitor, and the North would run down with the worst and most degrading "fusion" of pauper labor. So that if this fusion, anti-slavery scheme could pos- sibly succeed either by civil war or consent of the South, it would just change the North into a worse condition as to labor than the South by giving us all the negro labor — the worst kind of labor fiee slave labor — and all its consequent pauperism. Now the common sense of the North, the self res- pect of her working men, will never follow any leaders, nor "fuse" into any formidable party, for such purposes or such results as these. Fusion is useless, therefore, except to produce only worse confusion on the slavery question. NON-INTErVENTION THE ONLY CONSERVATIVE DOC- TRINE. What are we going to do about it then ? Let these Kgitators follow the advice of Jefferson, whom they aflect to quote. We of the South, said Mr Jefferson in substance, have got the wolf by the cars, and if we let him go he will tear us in pieces. All we can do is to hold on ! So if you ask us what the States who have get no slaves shall do about slavery the answer of the democratic party is let it alone. Let these who have got the wolf hold on or tame and loose him as they choose, and dont let us be tickling his tail to stimulate his rage and compel his master to hold him tighter. (Cheers.) Hew easy it is to let it alone, and instead of the sectional embroilment talce care of the great interests of the state and country. What is it to Senator Sew- ard or any other northern man if South Carolina, as he pretends, has her favored class of slaveholders, any more than it is to South Carolina that New Yoik and Massachusetts have their favored classes of bankers, manufactures, and merchant princes ! The constitu- tion of the United States has no concern with it. be- cause all these classes or privilegss are created by state legislation and the general government makes no war on either. Just so if the people of a new terri- tory or a new state adapted to slave labor insist upon having it, where do we of the North get the right to legislate it out of a territory any more than they of the South have to legislate it in ? Yeur sentiments and mine are opposed to slave ry, but is that any reason why we should go on a crusade against the South to liberate the slaves, or make a battle ground of a Southern territory to keep it out ? No more than it is that we should go on a crusade into Russia to free the serfs in that country; and I confess I am rather more opposed to white slavery than to black slavery, though some people seem to think there is no sympathy to be felt tor a man un- less he be black. Even the fusienists do not pretend to a right to interfere with Russia in her system of domestic white servitude, and yet we have less right to interfere with South Carolina than we have with Russia; because an American has a right to expatri- ate himself and go to Russia and join the Poles, or get up a rebellion among the serfs, and take his chance against the government of the Czar and the kucut. But here every citizen is under a solemn vow and covenant, made by our fathers, that he will not in- terfere. There is the Constitution — what says that instrument? "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union, a republican form of gov- ernment." That included slavery where the states chose to have it, for the framers of the Constitution found slavery existing as a settled institution in most of the thirteen independent states, and those indepen- dent states said, — "We cannot make this Union un- less you atree, in this Constitution, not to meddle with this domestic institution, and to deliver up our fugitives from service. ' ' It would be just as if thirteen families should come together, in six or seven of which black help were employed, and in the others white help; and these who had black help said to to those who had white, — You are not to interfere with us in the matter of our help; and they all agreed to it and signed a solemn compact to that ef- fect; but by-and-by, after the families had been going on prosperously and increased largely, and intermar- ried, for many years, some one family gets up and in- sists that the families which have black help shall give them up, and that no new family in the neighbor- hood formed out of the old ones, shall be allowed to take the black help from the old families into the new ones ? What an uproar there must be at once ? Now, we have solemnly sworn, in that Constitution, that we will not meddle with this question. There- tore, if we act, in this state, with the direct purpose of interfering with the domestic servitude in any state, old or new, we violate the solemn e>bligations of our oath to support the Constitution of the Uuited States. Let us then be honest citizens and keep our oaths or go out of the Union if we cannot abide its laws. Can any man of common sense read this clause in the Constitution and not understand it ? — "No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, [and this means Northern apprentices just as much as Southern slaves,] escap; ing into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such ser- vice or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." There is the Constitution in just so many plain words ; and yet, these know nothings and abolitionists went into the Legislature last winter and in ths face of their oaths, and the Constitution, declared that he should not be "delivered up." A Voice — "Good!" Mr Hallett — That same voice says "Good" again. Yes, "Good" to violate an oath ! "Good" to be per- jured ! "Good" to turn traitor to your country ! What good comes from perjury or treason ? No, my friends, rather than perjure yourselves upon this sol- emn pledge for the life of a Union, rather than go in the face of the Constitution, take the next step, you fusion men, you Julius Rockwell men, you denation- alized democrats, you know nothings, all of you who have gone or are going into this fusion party, and say you are going against the aggressions of the slave pow- er. Do not add hypocrisy to treason. Do not pretend that you can constitution.! I!;,' viol tte the Constitution, that you can dissolve the Union in the Union; but take the next step, the bold and honest treason doctrine of Garrison and his school — viz : that the Constitution does pledge you to non-intervention with slavery and therefore ycu go against the Union as a covenant with death and hell ! Neither can you stop in Kan the new states. If you have power there you have power in the old states. That is only your first step. The next step in that direction is already marked out by the recent Convention of lia'ical abolitionists held in Boston, who declared that the next principle for the fusion party to adopt was that the Constitution did not authorize slavery anywhere, and therefore, we had a right under the Constitution to abolish it in all the states ! And further, if that was not good doctrine, then they would put down the Constitution and dissolve the Union ! That is only your next step; and that is the next step you all will take, know nothings and all, in the onward course of fusion to disunion, unless we break your legs before you get there, as I verily believe we shall. (Laughter and applause.) WHAT DO THEY MEAN BY Tn£ SLAVE POWER. Now as to this "paramount issue," which the new school call going against the , s of the Slave Power. "What is it ? What is that slave power they have in view ? To hear their orators talk you would suppose that the South had been committing some enormous outrage upon the North. What is it ? Ask our merchants, mechanics and business men; where : dy that has been harmed or robbed by the South ? You cannot find anybody. Then vh.it is this "aggression of the Slave Power?" I will tell you what the South has dune which the old federal party never forgave and the new fusion party never will forgive. The democratic party of the North and the democratic party of the South, stand- ing together, have governed this country by demo- cratic men and democratic measures ever since 1801, when they elected Thomas Jefferson president. The federal party, the national republican party, the whig pai'ty, the abolition party, the free soil party, the know nothing party, the fusion party, every side issue that has been got up irom that day to this, has been a combination to break down the democratic power that has wisely ruled this country; and nation- al democracy, which has triumphed only by the union of Northern and Southern democrats, they call the Slave Power, in order to cry "mad dog," and run it down ! That is it, brother democrats ! ! how I wish you could remember that ! How I wish every demo- crat throughout this broad land would stand on that rock when these agitators and denouncers make their empty declamations about the aggressions of the South upon the North ! Why, I ask you if democrat- . ic influences had not controlled this country, what would it have been ? A little margin of thirteen At- lantic states, and that is all. That is what the fed- eral party undertook to make these states in order to keep the political power. The federal party had its strength at the North, and so has all the opposition to democratic administrations from Jefferson to Pierce. Why did the old federal party of the North assail the South ? Because the South had Thomas Jefferson, and sustained him with the aid of the democrats of the North ! That was why they assailed the South. Thomas Jefierson took the lead as the great head of the democratic party. John Adams was then the head of the federal party of the North. The Southern democracy and the Northern democracy rallied around Jefferson; and even in Massachu in 1804, the democracy gave the vote of this state to Thomas Jefferson against John Adams, and they were called for so doing the "-white slaves of Virginia .'" It was by that union of the North with the South that the democratic principles of this goverment were es- tablished. [There is a stand point upon which every democrat and every Union man should place himself to over- look this question of pretended aggressions of the slave power upon the North. Admirably, cogently, has this topic been presented with elaborate research, in an article by the Boston Post, published in that- paper of November 1, (and Statesman, Nov. 2,) headed "T7ze Democratic Party and the Alleged Slave Power.'"] UNION OF SOUTHERN AND SOUTHERN DEMOCRATS. And how has it bi ! 1 ? In fourteen presi- dential elections eleven have been carried solely by the union of the Northern and Southern democracy; and whenever the federal party, or the national re- publican party, or tie whig party, or the hard cider party have stolen into power, (three times only in all that period,) I one it ? By anti-slave- ■ , and renegade democrats, travelling over the North and telling the democrats th power was enslaving them and picking their pockets, and they must go against the slave power ! And thus, once or twice in our history, enough deluded democrats have been carried < over to the ic wings and the abolitionists, to put down the democratic power of the North and South cob her. That is what these fusion 10 and knew nothing conspirators are after now. The ime "i divide and a nquer. '1 hus we find Mr Wm. H. Seward, of New York, be- gining his camp t the Constitution by crying out about the "oligarchy of the South." By that cry of "mad dog" he means the democracy of the South, which, when it unites with the den of the North, has always been invincible and carries this country. It in the oligarchy of the dem- ocratic people, North and South, which Mr Seward knows, if united, will be too strong for his "fusion oligarchy," which he wants to make him President that he may crush out the democracy of the Smith and then easily conquer the democracy of the North. THE TRIUMPHS 01' THE UNITED DEMOCRACY NORTn AM) SOUTH. FelloAv democrats be not deceived. Mho put down the tyranny of the alien and sedition laws? Who purchased Louisiana and Florida? Who se- cured the navigati< a of the mighty Mississippi ? Who fought ad sailors rights ? Who car- ried the country through the second war of Indepen- dence in 1812? Whc prostrate'! the paper money power, the United States Bank? Who gave you a, sound currency, an Independent Treasury, the great balance who md commerce ? Who put an end to the nullification of 1838, and finally estab- lished a just tariff that all now acquiesce in ? Who annex* Who put down the Wilmot proviso ? Who carried the country through the Mexican war with glory, and gave to the commerce and trade of the North the golden California ? And finally, who panded this country from fourteen States brought into the Union seventeen new States with all the rights of the old States, with or without sla- very as the people of each State chose to have it ? Who has d( me all this for your country ! The democrat- ic party, the democrats of the A'orlh and South uni- ted together ! (Loud applause.) That is what these narrow minded, sectional men of the North, these and know nothings, stigmatize as "the Slave Power." Nov I will sit down with any one of the free soilers or know nothings, or fusion men, and, beginning at 1801, 1 will trace every measure of liberal and ei statesmanship, every great act of this government for the good of the whole Union, everything that has ex- panded its territory, everything that has enlarged and democratized its influence, everything that has eleva- ted its glory abroad, everything that has insured its tranquility at homo, an 1 one by one I will show you that they have beei shed by the united votes of the Northern and Southern democracy. Whenever a died, whenever ter for a bank, whenever thi treasury was checked, whenever a high tar- ill has been imp sed, it lias been owing to a d of Northern democrats from those of the . and allowing the federal whig party to come in and take the power. That is the way it has keen done : and taking all the history of the pa looking to the future, you may re t assured, that iver these men, with their insidious sneers g about a separation and alienation between the Northern and Southern de- mocracy, thoy will open the way to an entire change i ,■ dissolution of democratic government, and strike a fatal blow at the best interests of this country, — at ly party in whose hands those interests have can remain safe. Tell me, after seventy years of such statesmanship; tell me that I. as a democrat, am to turn my back upon those true men of the South and fraternize with — God knows who ! Yes! who are these leaders of know nothings, abolitionists, fusionists and all the paltry fsmsofthe day that make Massachusetts a po- litical Bedlam? Wc never saw r these men (except a few wc always