LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 012 027 628 1 ^ U Hollinger pH8.5 Mill Run F3-1955 Sold at 13 Fark Row, Nev?- Yorlc, ^ixcL at all Damooratio Newspaper Offices, at $1 per 1,000 pages. ^ ;< Campaign Document, No. 10. i ADDRESS OF HON. GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS AT PHILADELPHIA, SEPT. 30, 1864. Gentlemen op Philadelphia; — Some of you have done me the great honor to invite me to deliver an ad- dress here on the present state of the country, and the issues involved in the approaching presidential election. The nomination of General McClellan to the presidency by the Democratic par- ty, 'affords to me an ample reason for complying witli your invitation. For many long and weary months it has been my constant hope that the Amer- ican people vi^ould come at length to appreciate and sympathize with his character, and would perceive how his public principles are identified with the welfare of the country and the safety of its institutions. There is a reasonable prospect that such a condi- tion of the public mind respecting this distinguished man will be reached ; reached in spite of malignant detrac- tion, in spite of official oppression and persecution, without the slightest sac- rifice of his personal dignity, without a shadow of change on his part, and through the simple power of a true and upright character to vindicate it- self. My estimate of him is not, so far as I can perceive, the mere result of personal regard, or of narrow hab- its of observation. Having known and lived with persons of marked cliaracter all my life, I do not see any sufficient reason for mistrusting my own judgment in this particular in- stance, and I do not imagine that any- body can suggest any good reason why I should not publicly express it. It is now eighteen years, or more, since I first met General McClellan, for a single evening, in a domestic cir- cle in New England, where he had come to attend the marriage of one of his kindred. He was then a young lieutenant in the army, recently gradu- ated from West Point; alert, full of intelligence, and impressing all whom he met by a remarkable combination of spirit and modesty. But from that time I had not particularly observed him, until my attention was suddenly arrested by a very striking opinion and prediction concerning him, uttered by a veteran officer of the army, of high rank and great experience, wlio has been long retired, but wlio had fol- lowed the career of McClellan, as he Wobo^ol' r'^s''^ has the careers of all the men wlio have been educated at West Point lor tlie last forty years, with the ch)sest ob- servation. This gentleman, whose au- thority iu all niihtary alfairs stands very high, was asked by a friend, in the summer of 18G1, at the time when it began to bo rumored that General _8cott, from his increasing bodily infirm- ity, might l>e obliged to retin;, who there was that wouhl be fit to take General K^cott'.s place ? He answered immediately,*' General McClellan, who is now (igliting his way through West- ern Virginia. If he is put at the head of the army, the government and the ' country will be safe." I Fi-om that period until General Mc- ' Clellan was removed from all active service, for no assignable or creditable reason, 1 followed his course with the strongest interest, and when he came to the city of New York to reside, in the early part of tiie winter of 1862-8, I sought to renew our acquaintance' and have since been lionored by his friendship. The opinions, therefore, which I have formed concerning him,' are not; founded solely uj)on observa- tion of his public acts or writings ; al- though there is but little need t^o 'put I forward the judgments of private inter- i couse. General McClelian's qualities i as a man and a statesman stand l)efore tJie world upon tests which all intelli- ' geut persons can apply. His accom- plishmonts as a soldier are by no means the limit of liis powers. A l)road capacious, and cultivated intellect' well instructed in the principles and nstory of our institutions; a great la.;ulty (or calm and wise thinkiu'r ; a solid judgment; a power of sell^^on- trol that has been tried by greater and worse provocations than even Wash- ington was sul)jected to, and that has l>rov.Ml as strong as Washington's • a sagacity in perceiving the cliaracters of mm, which will insure him, I con- lidently predict, from unworthy influ- ences, .strong religious principle^ entire purity (.1 l.fo, and fervent patriotism — tlinse are some of the charactei-istics of a man who, still under the age of forty I has a wider personal popularity than I any other living American. How I strange it would be now, that a great : party has named such a man for the I highest office in the land, and has as- sumed his public principles as its pol- icy, if he were not to be the choice of a majority of the people ! How strange it is, that such a man should be the sul)ject of gross misrepresentation and misconception ! One hears, occasion- ally, from persons otherwise intelligent, an amount of prejudice concerning General McClellan, and a degree of credulity equal to the reception of the most monstrous fabrications, that are so astonishing that one is tempted to ask how such persons can have acquired such impressions or what their modes of forming their opinions can be. But the mfluence of party over the mind is too old a thing to need elucidation, and the arts by which the unscrupu- lous make use of that influence have I not been invented for this particular era. It will be a good proof of our mtelligence and virtue, as a people, if we shall now break that influence and defeat those art,s. I Notwitiistanding my great personal regard for General McClellan, I cer- tainly would jiot vote for him, or ur.--e others to do so, if I believed that the?e was the slightest danger of his proving, in the ofhce of President, to be an?' thu.g but the firm and independent man that I conceive him to be Li my opmion, there is no ground what- ever for any apprehension on this ^ point. I do not indeed think that his iiidepend3nce is of that quality that w.l lead hnn to disregard the comisels ot the wise and the good; but I firmly beheve that It IS of a quahty that will prevent the counsels of those who are not wise and good from ever approach- ng Iiun. If any man labors ti bring about Gen. McClelian's election in thf o.Kpectation that he can thereby accom- phsh any se fish perso.ial scheme, or ai.y public plan or project that is not as comprehensive as the Union, and as honoficcnt as the Constitution ilself, L my judgment he will make a great mis- l-Ki take. If any man shall refrain from votinji; for him in tlic belief tliat his administration will be influenced by any person or persons in whom the peo})le of this country ought not to conlide, such a man will also, I believe, greatly err. 1 know how difficult it has been made for the American people to believe in public virtue. Private or personal virtue we can believe in. But our politics have been so degra- ded by tricks of deception, our politi- cians have so often compelled the peo- ple to distrust them, — that when a man, placed suddenly in a conspicu- ous and responsible position as a can- didate for our suffrages, is called upon to declare his principles, one of our first impulses is to regard what he says, as a suare for our votes. This is a miserable habit, but it is not with- out its causes. All I can do to coun- teract it in this instance is, to tell you frankly what I think •about Gen- eral McClellan's letter accepting the nomination, and about the man who wrote it. Be good enough, then, to remember one thing, that General McClellan, while he lias the perceptions, qualities, and knowledge of a statesman, is not a politician. He has never been ac- customed to practice the arts by which elections are carried, and I do not believe that he ever wrote a line in his life for mere political effect, or one that did not express his honest convictions. His letter accepting the nomination was written to give to the people of this country liis ideas of the principles on which a national admin- istration ought, iii this crisis, to be constituted ; and to state the princi- les on which it must be constituted by him, if he is to be the next Presi- dent. That he will be likely, under any " pressure," to pursue any other course, or that he will ever be found to have said one thing and to do another, I have no shadow of apprehension. Of course it was impossible for him to do anything more than to lay down the general principles that must guide him, if he is»placed in the high office to which he has been named. But if you will take that letter and examine it carefully and without prejudice, you will find that it states the only policy by which there can be any hope for a reunion of the whole people of this country under one flag and one gov- ernment, —the flag and the govern- ment of the United States. It is very easy for this man or that to find a par- ticular fault, or to pick a particular flaw in it ; but if any man will take his pen in his hand and sit down to state a course of policy that can give peace to this country, and at the same time reestablish its government over the whole of its territory, he will find that if he varies essentially what is contained in that letter, he will have introduced or omitted something, the introduction or omission of which an enlightened and sound judgment must pronounce to be, in all human proba- bility, absolutely fatal to any prospect of success. So at least, it has ap- peared to me. Knowing as I did, that when the nomination came, the an- swer to it would emanate directly from the mind of a man who had calmly surveyed the whole field of our national troubles, who has now been for some time removed from the im- mediate turmoil of public affairs, who has kept himself aloof from political entanglements, who has neither asked or desired political preferment, and who has at the same time watched from day to day and with a careful eye the military and tlie political as- pects of this great civil war, I was prepared for a wise and well consid- ered response. I was not disappoint- ed. To mo, under all the circum- stances of the nomination, consider- ing the various and conflicting views which our opponents attributed to the several parts of the great party which nominated him, — the firmness, the candor, and the precision of his an- swer stand as the surest guarantees of his own future course, and of that of the party whose leader he has become. If the American people cannot so re- gard it, I know not wlicre, or how we are to find the qualities tiiat shall " give the world assurance of a Man." It is a remarkable evidence of Gen- eral McClcUan's intellectual powers, that he not only perceived, at the very first, the inai^nitude and character of the military struggle that was about to take place between the two great sec- tions of this country, but that he com- l)reiiended the civil relations of the fed- oral government to the people of the revolted States more accurately, and with a wider grasp, than most of our statesmen. That his views were so correct and so extensive, must be re- garded, when we consider his age, as quite extraordinary. At the begin- ning of tlie war he was just five and thirty. Where else was there a man of that age in the United States whose opinions, respecting the character and relations of this great civil dissension, which had sundered an empire, would bear to bo tested by the true theory of the institutions of the country ? Be- tween the opinion that there could be no coercion of the people of a revolted or seceded State, and the opinion that the federal government could throw off all the restraints of the Constitu- tion and ])rocoed to subjugation, there was certainly a middle ground of rea- son and of law. That ground General McClellau occupied from the first. Before the two houses of Congress had declared that ground in the resolution which the Republican Administration and its party afterwards so signally and fatally deserted, he applied it in all his military conduct in West- ern Virginia; and after he arrived in Washington, in August, 1861, and proceeded to form the Army of the I*otomac, and to lay out a great cam- piigu, the very first paper whicli he sulnniited to his official superiors, and all his orders and instructions to his subordinates, show what his concep- tion was of the only lawful and consti- tutional theory on which the war could be waged l)y the government of the United States. His view appears to have beeu this. The government of the United States is a government of direct and sovereigu powers, granted to it by solemn cession of the people of each State. It has therefore a right to put down all mili- tary or other forcible resistance to the exercise of its constitutional powers in any State. But it can have no right to acquire by force powers which have nev- er been conferred upon it by the Consti- tution, and which cannot be exercised under the Constitution ; and it can therefore never treat a State, or the people of a State, as if they had forfeit- ed their right of self- government in those matters to which the Constitu- tion of the United States does not ex- tend. Taking this just and accurate view, he appears to have entertained the hope that after the Southern armies had been defeated, the people of the seceded States would find it most ex- pedient to abandon their plan of a sep- arate government and resume their constitutional obligations. But in or- der to aid this tendency, if such a ten- dency could be developed in the South, he saw very clearly that ahumane, civ- ilized, and just policy toward the peo- ple of those States was absolutely es- sential to success ; and having been educated in the high principles with which modern civilization surrounds the exercise of war by Christian nations, and recognizing the fact that this con- test had taken the proportions of a great war, he strove, in all that he did and all that he inculcated, to impress such a policy upon all its operations. Nay more, he strove to impress that policy upon the action of the govern- ment. It is all embodied, as you know very well, in the celebrated btter which he addressed to President Lin- coln from Harrison's Bar, When Mr. Lincoln received that let- ter he had in General McClellan an en- tirely disinterested and patriotic advis- er. When the President made up his mind not to pursue such a policy as General McClellan recommended, but on the contrary to pursue a directly op- posite course, forced upon him by what he liimself described as the "pressure" of a faction of his own party, he not only surrendered to the judgment of his contemporaries and of history the wisdom of his act, but by liis subse- quent conduct toward General McClel- lan he surrendered to the judgment of mankind his own character for mag- nanimity and justice. Whatever might be his opinion, or the opinion of others, respecting General McClellan's views on tlie conduct of the war, he knew that General McClellan had served him as the head of the government, and had served the country witli perfect fidelity and honor, and that both President and people owed to tliat general a large debt of gratitude. Yet he has permit- ted General McClellan to be p,ursued by his partizans with an almost unpar- alleled malignity, when he might at any time have stopped the current of detraction. Tlie power which a Presi- dent of the United States can exercise over his party organs, and that portion of his followers wlio are most prone to attack the character of others by un- scrupulous defamation, is as great as the power of any monarch over his courtiers ; and when that power is not used to restrain and rebuke such defa- mation in the case of a man eminent- ly conspicuous and important to the country, it is a just and proper infer- ence that the power has not been exer- cised because he who holds it is willing that the injury should be done. Be the verdict of posterity, therefore, what it may, respecting the wisdom of Mr. Lincoln's rejection of General McClel- lan's policy, and his removal from com- niand, it will be held hereafter as it must now be held by all unprejudiced minds that, as an impartial ruler and as as a just man, Mr. Lincoln owed it to the country, to himself, and to the general who had so faithfully and truly served both, to protect that generaFs reputation from attacks which he knew to be malicious, and from imputations which he knew to be unfounded. This duty he has entirely failed to perform. Yet it was a duty plainly incumbent upon him, both as a man and as the ex- ecutive head of this nation. But I did not come here to discuss the personal relations of the two men who are now the representatives of two opposite parties, and on the election of one or the other of whom the weal or the woe of our country is, as I believe, to depend. I wish to state the issues, and to state them fairly, in an appeal to your reason and intelligence ; and I wish if possible to clear those issues of all irrelevant matter. Li this effort, my, first duty is, to state the Democratic policy, as represented by the candidacy in which General McClellan stands be- fore the country, according to my con- ception of his position. Of course, I look for that position where the coun- try looks for it, in General McClel- lan's letter accepting the nomination. I beg you not to think that it was mere- ly out of regard to his own consisten- cy that General McClellan made the an- swer which he did make to the Chicago nomination. Consistency is a very im- portant thing to a man who has a great reputation at stake, and whose useful- ness depends upon the preservation of the public respect for his steadiness of character and purpose. But there are duties incumbent upon a patriot which are at least as great as the duty of per- sonal consistency, and one of those du- ties in addition to the duty of being consistent. General McClellan has per- formed most nobly on this occasion, and to my entire satisfaction as I hope it will prove to yours also. All will agree, who are not ready to court vast public dangers, that the preservation of the Constitution of the United States is, or should be, the ob- ject of all our efforts. To me it ap- pears very clearly that for both sections of the Union, for the South as well as for the North, the Constitution affords the only means by which we of the North can restore the Union, or by which they of the South can reenter it. It cannot be doubted that the Constitu- tion is in the greatest possible peril. On the one hand, it has been so wrenched out of its appropriate working and its' true meanings by those who have for four years been charged with its adminis- tration, that great number? of men have been made to feci that instead of being the best it is the worst government on earth. On the other hand, there are those who, despairing of the attainment of peace \iiider the forms of tlie Consti- txition, which tlicy have seen perverted as they bcHeve, into the means of pro- longing the war, and promoting disun- ion have turned their thoughts toother .methods, and have forecast in various modes of reconstruction, some new arraiigomcnt of our national existence, that would imply a new national gov- ernment. Sectional ideas and inter- ests, other than those which mark the distinctions between North and Soutli, begin to intrude themselves among these discontents. Men in the West speculate upon its rehitions with the East and with the centre. Men in the central States look upon both sides of them, and are reflecting on tlie relative strength and importance of the ties which go eastward and westward. All are uneasy and anxious about the particular relation of their own or of some other section to the cau- ses and di(Tcr(Mices which produced, or which still keep open, this great schism that has separated the South from the rest of the Union. Meanwhile, the burden of taxation is settling down upon the whole people with a terrible weight, and men begin to real- ize the magnitude of a public debt which they fear is already beyond the just resources of the country to pay, for which they can see no limitation ahead, and which is expressed in a fluctuating currency — the most demoralizing of all the hnancial conditions into which a nation can l)e thrown. Every rellecting person will admit, then, that here is a state of things which imposes upon any man who has a part to play in j)ublicafliiirsa very stringent duty — the duty of dofiinding and pre- serving that Constitution, which not only forms the existing bond that now holds us tog(*ther as a poojile, but which affords the only possible means by which we can reach any improvements in oursystem without revolution and its attendant risk? of anarchy, as it is, in my judgment, the only means by which we can win back to the national fold the members who have gone astray from it. These considerations, then, will be allowed by all reasonable men, as fur- nishing a sufficient ground for insisting that the just authority of the federal government shall be preserved, and that whatever modifications are hereaf^ ter to be made in our national system, they must be made according to the forms and method which the Constitu- tion prescribes. I hold this to be a prin- ciple absolutely essential to the safety of our American institutions. I have lived through one scene of revolution, enacted, to be sure, on a small scale,and in a community in which I was interest- ed only as a near neighbor, in which it was attempted to makeTi new govern- ment by substitution, without resorting to the sanction and consent of the exist- ing government to the proposal of a change ; and I never wish to see a rep- etition of that process. I allude, of course, to the case of Rhode Island and its civil war. I have, indeed, read elab- orate discussions, in which a process of making a new Union outside of the methods of amendment, provided for by the Constitution, have been worked out on paper ; but I have never seen one which was not marked by a fatal hiatus — that did not leave open a door through which anarchy would be almost certain to enter ; or one that did not necessarily admit itself to be a revolu- tion. There is, therefore, in my opinion, a very important principle, as well as sound policy, involved in the position taken by General McClellan. That po- sition is that the Southern States shall return to the Union ; and that if they do so we will receive them and guaran- tee to them all the rights which the Con- stitution has ever secured to them. Is there anything unreasonable in this re- quirement, anything which will be like- ly to cause the peoi)le of the Soutii to reject it when it shall l)e proposed to them by a great popular vote of the Nortli which shall remove the present administration from office ? Let us see. Tiie people of the South must see, as well as we do, that when a popular gov- ernment like that of the United States has been in operation for nearly eiglity years, resting upon certain principles which have made a powerful nation out of a feoljle confederacy, while it has a perfectly well-defined method of meet- ing all requirements of change, cannot be set aside with safety, for the purpose of making another system by mere sub- stitytion. The}'', as well as we, require for national safety a principle that is able to make a vigorous nationality strong enougii to cope with any exter- nal enemy that the world can present to us ; but we cannot preserve the pow- er and attitude of a great nation, if we are to set aside that principle, and go into the formation of a new confederacy by agreement of the two sectional parts of that nation. The hazards are too great, and the people of both sections ought to see that it is neither necessary nor wise to incur those hazards. The Constitution we can amend, in its order- ly and regular method, if it requires amendment, but we cannot set aside the principle of union which makes us a jiation, and which is as essential to their welfare and safety as it is to ours. These truths I expect to see the peo- ple of the South recognize, if we can furnish them with the evidence that we require nothing more of them than their return to the Union. The Democratic party, speaking through General Mc- Clellan, has done all that it can do, at present, to give this assurance. If the people of the North will sanction this policy by their votes, and the people of the South really desire peace and reun- ion, this long and bloody civil war can be brought to an honorable and suc- cessful termination. It is plain, how- ever, that one of the first things to be done hereafter will be to ascertain if the people of the South desire to return to the Union, and to promote as well as we can, without compromising the authority of the Federal Government, any existing wishes of that kind. The great misfortune of the case and what creates the chief difficulty, arises from the character and conduct of Mr. Lincoln's administration. It is an administration which does not appear to have had any course of ac- tion that could be dignified with the name of a policy. It has lived from hand to mouth on a series of expedi- ents. No one connected with it has been able to hold out to the South a steady, consistent system based on a correct constitutional theory of the war, and leading to a simple and defi- nite constitutional end. This is the reason why multitudes of men in the North have not been able to support Mr. Lincoln's prosecution of the war, and why there has been no Union par- ty in the South. Measures lying wholly outside of the • Constitution, or at least lying wholly witiiin very debatable ground, have been resorted- to i)i terrorem for the purpose of being used as auxiliary to the exercise of military force — such as the sweeping edicts of confiscation and emancipa- tion, and the plans of the President for making constructive States within the domains of the States now claim- ing to be seceded from the Union. The consequence of all this has been to convince the people of the South that the triumph of the military pow- er of the United States involves the loss of all their property, and the de- struction of that principle of our sys- tem which makes every State the un- controlled regulator of its domestic institutions. So much for the past. , A new drama now opens. Mr. Lincoln is a candidate for reelec- tion ; and we have under his own hand, since he became a candidate for reelection, a direct, authentic, and perfectly plain declaration of the con- ditions on which he will consent to receive the people of the South back into the Union. It is in these words : Executive Mansion, j Washington July 18, is()4. j To lohom it may concern : — Any proposition which embraces the resto- ration of peace, the integrity of the whola Union, and the abandonment of slavery^^ and ; 8 tchich cnme.< by and with an authority that can cnnfrol fftn nrmie.'f now at war against the United Slat PS, will /x? rereirfd and considered hy the Jixtcudve Government of the United States, ami will be met by libi-ral Utdls on other sub- stantial and collateral jiolnts, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways. Auraiiam Lincoln. I liavo no right to impute to Mr. Lincoln purposes which he luis not ex- j^i-c.'-sed, or reservations which he has not made. I liavc seen a great many in- genious exphiuations written hy his po- litical friends, to show how the President did not say that he would not receive and act upon other propositions which he did not mention. But I think if I were to read that paper to a jury of twelve intelligent men, who knew the subject to which it relates, and were to ask them to infer from it that Mr. Lin- coln did not mean to make the aban- donment of slavery one of three con- ditions on which he is willing to have a restoration of the Union, I should provoke a very significant smile. As jJainly as the English language can speak, he couples together " the resto- ration of peace," " the integrity of the whole Union," and " the abandonment of slavery," as the three things which must be presented to him in one proj)- osition, by the power that now controls the Southern armies. A proposition, lie says, embracing these three things, will be met by the executive govern- ment of the United States — hoio ? l>y liberal terms on those three points ? Not at all ; they will be met by liberal terms on ^^ other sultstantiul and col- fdtrraf points." The language is care- fully framed to exclude the idea that Miere can be any more liberality about the point of slavery than about the restoration of peace and the integrity of Dm- Union. The one is as much a fixed purpose with Mr. Lincoln as the tw(^ others. He kjiows that both sec- tions of the country have so under- stood him, and to this day ho has never uttered a word to correct that impression. We arc bound to believe that lie does not wish to correct it. Here then is a position which "goes a whole bar's length " beyond the res- ervation to the supreme court of the (piestion what has become of slavery in the progress of the war. Speaking in a paper addressed to every man on earth who can read English and has any con- cern in knowing his views, and dealing at the same time with the restoration of peace and tlie preservation o*' the integ- rity of the Union, Mr. Lincoln makes a positive requirement of the abandon- ment of slavery as an essential feature of any proposition on which he will treat, lie. did not mean to " palter in a double sense." He meant to be under- stood. He has been understood. The issue is made up between him and the Democratic party, on tliis point. If he changes that issue he comes over to us, so far as this matter is concerned. For, my friends, let it be ob.served that the Democratic party, speaking through General McClellan, its candidate, while it demands the restoration of peace and the integrity of the Union, has not made the condition of the abandonment of slavery esseiitial cither to peace or Un- ion. There can be no mistake about General McClellan's position anymore than about lilr. Lincoln's. We ask, says General McClellan, nothing but the Union. We, says Mr. Lincoln de- mand with the Union the abolition of slavery. You of the South, says the one, can come into the Union as you were before you left. You can come into the Union, says the other, but you must abandon slavery before your prop- osition to return can be considered. Now let us inquire calmly, which of these courses of action is likely to give peace to this country ; present and last- ing peace. For the attainment of Mr. Lmcoln's object, it is but rational to suppose that absolute and complete sub- jugation of the white race is essential. It IS not within the limits of probabil- ity, that the people of the Southern States will consent to abolish slavery at our dictation, until the white race there IS so reduced that its consent will be practically unimportant, and will there- lore cease to be necessary. The conse- quence will ba that you will have on your hands, for government, a country as large as Europe, in which the whites will be unwilling, if they are able, and unable if they are willing, to cooperate in carrying on civil government. You miist govern the country by the sword until you can introduce a new white population, and even then you must constantly interfere to settle the ques- tion as to which race is to be the pre- dominant one.. The result mus't be sub- stantially a state of war for generations, or a reduction of vast portions of our country to a condition resembling that of other countries in which African slavery has been iniprovidently and summarily abolished. That we could make such a country pay the cost of governing it, no rational being can sup- pose ; and that we ourselves can pay the taxes requisite, is just as far from being a rational conjecture. Mr. Lincoln, I think, before he com- mitted himself to such a course, should have considered where he was carry- ing the public credit of the United States. The financial scheme on which his administration has been managed has made the property of every man in tliis country, even that of the de- positors in our savings banks, depend- ent for its value upon the safety and redemption of the public debt. If this war is to be conducted for the object propounded by Mr. Lincoln, that debt is absolutely illimitable, and must con- sequently become worthless, without any distinct act or acts of repudiation. If, on the other hand, we can have by a change of administration, a definite and constitiitional end before us — if peace and reunion on the basis of the Constitution cfin be secured — the Dem- ocratic administration can address it- self to the financial measures neces- sary to protect the public credit, by husbanding its resources, and by a vigorous application of economy to the pu1)lic expenditures. That it will do so is morally certain, for no politi- cal party can, under any conceivable circumstances, assume the awful re- sponsibility of ruining a nation and all its people by a voluntary repudi- ation. If there is one thing of which the Democratic party has a right to Ijoast, it is its management of the national credit. That credit has never been in- jured in Democratic hands, and for my- self I do not believe that it ever will be, while the continued existence of the Union shall enable us to have any pub- lic credit all. But you can destroy the national credit by the same kind of process by which you can destroy the Union, and that is, by embarking in projects for which the Constitution af- fords you no warrant, and which open expenditures, compared to Avhich all the present cost of this wasteful and extravagant war are as the drop which you can suspend from your finger to the illimitable ocean. in pvery possible light in which it can be viewed, I deprecate this require- ment which Mr. Lincoln has made a joint condition with the restoration of peace. It strikes at the principle which lies at the basis of the whole Union, and which denies to the federal power, as the representative of even a majority of the people of the United States, the right to dictate local laws and institutions. There are other communities besides those which hold slaves, that are jeal- ous of their rights of local self-govern- ment. And, therefore, thankful as I should be if slavery could be abolished by the consent of those whose affair it is, and who can alone deal with the ne- gro wisely and beneficially for him and themselves, I am unwilling to purchase its abolition by putting at hazard that important principle of local self-govern- ment. I do not wish to see wliat re- mains of the Union subjected to any further strains. I frankly confess my fears of the effect of such consolidation, and just as frankly I avow my belief that its effect on the stability of the Union will be most pernicious. We are a people more singularly situated than any other people have ever been, who have reached a commanding height of national greatness with republican forms of government. By a most hap- py thought, our fathers devised a means of constituting a nation out of separate 10 republics, by uniting tbcir inhabitants for certain purposes of government, leaving them for all other purposes in- dependont of each other. What front against tiie outer world this principle of Union has enabled us to present, I need not remind you. But have you ever retlectcil ujmmi what it is that preserves constitutional liberty, in our internal condition ; what it is that stands as a barrier against the mere physical force of this mition, and protects the rights of minorities and sections from being crushed beneath the same power that can make itself so formidable to the ex- ternal world 'i Beyond all question, it' is the States, with their separate politi- cal rights, their local institutions, their admitted control over their own domes- tic affairs. Break down these barriers, and one of two conseqiiences must inev- itably ensue ; we shall cither resolve ourselves into a completely consolidat- ed nation, which must of necessity take the form and wield the powers of a des- potism, or we shall take refuge against that destruction of our civil liberties, in the formation of sectional confeder- acies. Now, whether this result is, or is not to come about, depends in my opinion, upon the clearness with which the peo- ple of the United States shall see, and the lirnmess with which they shall act ui)on, the requirements of the prob- lem of the restoration of the Union between the North and the South. If, disregarding the principles of the Constitution, and e.Kereishig the powers of military conquerors, we demand as conditions of jteace things inconsistent with the acknowledged basis of the Union, wt! shall, if we succeed in ex- torting th()S(; conditions, overthrow the principle that makes Republican insti- tutions possilile in so great a country ; and then, to avert the fmallossof such institutions, wc shall in turn destroy the principle tiiat gives us nationality, and disa|)j)ear from otir position among the leading jtowers of the world. The intrigues tliat have I^een and will bo set on foot, by foreign inliuences, to hasten this catastrophe, you can appreciate as well as I can describe them. If, on the other hand, we are wise enough to per- ceive and follow the safer path, we have a most powerful lever with which to work, in that principle of human nOr turc which the creator of all has im- planted in all, and which opens or shuts the reason of mankind according as pride is wounded or is saved. I know liow much the sectional passions have been aroused. I know that the people of the North must rise to a great lieight of magnanimity. But after all, when, our. own interest.dictates the very thing that magnanimity demands, does it re- quire a very great moral cifortto reach that temper of mind, which will enable us to see how we can relieve the pride of an adversary and convert luui into a friend. This is often the only needful stroke inhuman affairs, and it is a pro- cess of wonderful simplicity and effica- cy even in the most imbittercd contro- versies. There can be no question, as it seems to me, that this administration df Mr. Lincoln stands to-day as a barrier against the reunion of the South and the North. Believing this to be true, I have, as a citizen of the United States, a duty to perform in endeavor- ing to effect a change. I am bound not to yield to Mr. Lincgln's personal demand for reelection, when I am con- vinced that he has made his removal from office necessary. That he him- himself has made this so, is but too apparent from, the exaction which he has coupled with the restoration of peace. Here, then, is exactly, where we of the Democratic party stand. AVe pro- pose no compromise whatever of the authority of the federal government. Our candidate has made this absolute- ly plain. But wo do not admit that Mr. Lincoln has any claim to be for four years longer identified in person, with the authority of the goveriuiient, when we believe that we could have peace if that authority were lodged in the hands of a man who will not make 11 the condition of peace which Mr. Lin- cohi exacts. We wish to be rid of that condition which we believ^e enlists tlie pride of the Sontli against tlie autlior- ity of the government, and by reliev- ing that pride to save that antliority. This is the simple truth of our posi- tion, reduced to an exact issue. But the monstrous claim has been put for- ward, that Mr. Lincoln, constitution- ally elected in 1860, was entitled to rule over the whole United States ; and that, as the secession of the Southern States has prevented his so ruling for the first term, it will in some way der- ogate from the just authority of the government if Mr. Lincoln is not elected for the second term. I wish to have a word or two to say on this claim, to my Republican friends, — to my old Whig- friends, — whose votes assisted to put into office the author of the rescript " to whom it may con- cern." I ask you to analyze this strange doctrine, — what there is of it, — and to put it home to your con- sciences and your intelligence. You and I once belonged to the same polit- ical organization, the noble old Whig party of the Union. Yoic thought that the Republican party could be put into power without endangering the political institutions of this coun- try. / thought otherwise ; and so we separated. But wherever we went, we could not unlearn the teachings of the great masters of our political faith. In that school in which we were trained in long years of political success or political adversity, if we learned any- thing which it became us as American citizens to know, we learned that the elective franchise is to be used, not for the benefit of presidents or secreta- ries, but for the welfare of our coun- try ; and that, when an incumbent of office represents a policy injurious to the country, he is to be sacrificed, and the office is to be saved, that it may answer the ends of its creation. So plain is this principle of political eth- ics that it astonishes me to hear any man who ever bore the name of " Whig " advance a fictitious identity between the incumbent and the office, when the question is on the policy which that incumbent pursues. Why the very name which wo wore so long and with so much glory, and which goes back to an era of the grandest memory, puts to shamo this slavish doctrine. The English Wliigs of 1688 broke the succession to the Britisli throne, because the continu- ance of the incumbent was incompati- ble with the public welfare, and made him and his posterity wanderers on the face of the earth until their wliole line was extinct. And arc we, tho Ameri- can AVhigs of the nineteenth century, to act upon a doctrine that would have kept the Stuarts on the tiirone, be- cause, forsooth, the law gave them a right 10 expect to reign indefinitely? The Whig doctrine was that the law gave them a right to reign so long as they were fit to reign. I do not mean to admit that our American franchise is to be exercised on any lower princi- ple, especially when its sole effect on the incumbent will be to retire him to private liie, to live like tlie rest of us under the protection of the Constitu- tion and the laws. Consider, for one moment, wliere this doctrine, which has been advanced for Mr. Lincoln, inevitably leads you. You yield to this pretension of a per- sonal claim to reelection, because there lias been a rebellion against the authority which, for the time, resided in his person, and you drop your bal- lot into the box in his favor, when that ballot, deposited for any other man, just as effectually asserts and protects the authority of the office. You thus debar yourself by a fiction from all opposition to any official acts or meas- ures of Mr. Lincoln's administration, and your vote counts in the grand to- tal of sanction which the result, if it is in his favor, will afford to his entire course. You thus forego all your opinions, whatever they may be, on the financial scheme which has giveii us an inconvertible paper-currency, and un- settled all the legal and moral basis of all peconiaiy relations ; on the violent 12 aspumpflons of an executive authority to ^;eize ami imprison citizens without process of law, and in places where no military operations exist; on the supj)ression of the freedom of speech and of the press ; on the interference of military power with the rights of the hallot; on whatever act or princi- ple, or policy, of this administration ought to he passed in review by Amer- ican citizens, through the only lawful and peaceable means by which such wnings can be corrected. You will never have anotlier opportunity to ex- press your opinions upon these meas- ures than the one that is now before you ; for if Mr. Lincoln is reelected, the sanction of the American people will have l)cen deliberately placed upon his official acts, and tiie Constitution will h:ive received at the hands of the people tlieir authoritative support for^ all the constructions and interpreta- tions which he and his followers and his luinisters have undertaken to affix to it. These consequences will mani- festly follow, if you adopt and act upon the claim for reelection that is put forward for Mr. Lincoln on the groimd of his personal identification with the authority of the office. All otlun- claims that can be ad- vanced for him are, I admit, questions of public policy, and are tjiorefore fit to be considered. They resolve them- selves into the single question of his capacity to restore tiio Union. On this question, it seems to me there can l)i» but one judgment passed by intclli'^nMit men. lie' and his support- ers put themselves upon this issue, namely: They ^-egard no union as of any value, which is to embrace any slave-holding States. They must there- fore either force the Southern States, l»y war, to extinguish slavery, or, fail- ing in that, they must make a country which will exclude all slave-holding communities. A distinguished Massji- chusotts senator (Mr. Sumner) has recently expressed the attitude of Mr. Lincoln very forcibly, in these words : Tlic Prcsirlont wa-i clo.irlv rieht whon. m a. recent letter, he declared that he abou ldaccc ^pw. no term? of peace, which did not befjin with the ab.UKloninent of slavery. ("Good," and cheers.) Tlie Union cannot live with slavery. Nofliing can be clearer than this. If slavery dies the Union lives; if slavery lives the Union dies. Mr. Greeley, too, is equally explicit ; for, standing at the head of the Lincoln electoral ticket in the State of New York, he declares There is but one obstacle to the American Union to-day, and that is slavery ; there is but one peril to the American Union, and that is slavery. We have resolved to put down slav- ery and restore the Union. (Cheers.) On that platform we slaud. Tlius the conditions of mortality for the Union appear to be fixed. Still let us hope that before the final doom is pronounced, the people of this country may have a voice to Titter. But it must be uttered now or never. When Mr. Lincoln has been reelected, the fiai will have gone forth. He will never be able to retrace his steps ; he will never disenthral himself from the con- trol of those who have pushed him on to the point where he must make the success or failure of his arms turn upon his power to force the abolition of slavery. The motto of his next administration has been composed. " If slavery dies, the Union lives ; if slavery lives, the Union dies." And as all is to be cast upon this single die, — as all our hopes of rebuilding the Union of our fathers are to depend upon this one issue, and as that issue involves a preordained consequence and a declared purpose, it is written so that he who runs may read, that the independence of the Southern Con- federacy is to be yielded, if we cannot by arms extort the abandonment of slavery. What hope or expectation the supporters of Mr. Lincoln can have of the holding together of the West and East after such a result has been reached, I am unable to conceive. For myself, so long as there remains any Constitution of the United States to cling to — that instrument to which I have many times sworn fealty — I shall remember and keep my vows. I am a citizen of the United States, bound to the Constitution of my conn- try wliile it lives. But I cannot shut ray eyes to the manifest future. I be- lieve that the Constitution will not live under the experiment of a Northern United States ; and with that Consti- tution goes all hope of Republican self- goverjjment for this country. There are undoubtedly among those who have hitherto acted with the Re- publican party, many who are now disposed to pause and reflect. I im- plore them to consider whither we are tending. In former years,, my voice with the voices of others, was ralis&d against your organization, your policy, and your candidates, and fell unheed- ed. Let all that pass away. I ask no credit to myself or to others for any predictions we may have uttered. I shall ask none hereafter in any event. I only beseech you noio, now, in the acciipted present, in the day of salva- tion, ere the present has become the future, and we are all alike involved in what that future is to bring — to give to your country your calmest thoughts and your utmost wisdom. Give heed to the counsels of one who has perilled life and reputation on the field of battle in defence of your Union, and wlio now tells you how it may stUl be saved, in thoughts and accents that must have struck a resounding cliord in your liearts. tie has never asked for your suffrages ; he wants no place, or power, or dignity. His character seems to have formed itself into one of great strength and moral beauty, by the operation of events upon a pure and patriotic nature. Tlie love of country, iniprcssed upon him when you, oh! city of Philadelphia, gave him in his boyhood to the institution which received him for the Union and trained him to revere its flag — the love of country has been his ruling principle, next to the , fear of God. But mark how that love of coijntry has been tempered and enlarged by the great transactions in which he has borne his part. No narrow view of the exigencies of the times has cramp- ed his intellect, no personal wrongs have soured him, no injustice has driv- en him from his own equipoise, no temptation has led him into the devi- ous ways of the demagogue, no sophis- tries of his own or of others' coinage have distorted his perceptions of the true principles of our government. He stands to-day in the vigor of life, in military skill, in solidity of character, in varied accomplishments, in wise and sound intellectual habits, and in firmness of principle, the foremost man of his generation in this country ; and whatever may be the result of this pending and momentoiis canvass, his importance to the future welfare of our America will be more and more acknowledged, as such virtues and such capacities become more and more essential to the safety and defence of social order under republican institu- tions and laws. As you have done me the honor to ask for my opinions on the issues in- volved in the approaching election, I close with a recapitulation of what I have said. I believe First. That this war must be brought speedily to a close, or this country and its inhabitants will be financially ruin- ed. It is impossible noiv, to do more than pay the interest on the accrued debt, if any provision whatever is to be made for a sinking fund to meet the principal. Second. That the Lincoln policy of war for the extinction of slavery is a policy for an illimitable debt, because it is a 'policy for a perpetual standing army of vast proportions ; and if adopt- ed, that it must render our public ob- ligations and securities worthless, en- tail pecuniary ruin alike upon govern- ment and people, and overthrow the Constitution. Third. That the McClellan policy of receiving the Southern States back to their places in the Union as tliey were before they left it, is the only policy that affords the slightest pros- pect of peace and reunion, with the Constitution preserved, our nationality saved, and the public credit rescued from destruction. u HElSrilY CL^Y. EXTRACT FROSr A SPEECH OF THE IIOX. HKXKY CLAY, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE SUBJECT OF ABOLITION rETITIONS, FEBRUARY 7, 1839. "Sir, — I am not in the habit of speMkiiiu: li.L'-htly of the possibility of dis- solviiii,' this )i.i|.)iy Union. The Senate knows that I liave deprecateil allusions, on ordiniiry occasions, to that direful event. The eouiitry will testify, that, if there be anything in the history of my public career worthy of recollection, it is the truth and sincerity of my ardent de- votirin to its lasting preservation. But we should be fiilse in our allegiance to it if we did not discritninate between the imaginary and the real dangers by Avhich it may be assisted. Abolitit>n sliould no longer l)e regarded as an imaginary dan- ger. The Abolitionists, let me suppose, succeed in their present aims of unitin