T EW DOGMA OF THE SOUTH - "SLAVERY A BLESSING." ~,I 0 SPEECH OF HON. HENRY Le DAWES, OF MASS. Delivered in the House of Representatives, April 12, 1860. 0 conviction that property in man is a sin and a crime, I have thought my brief hour might be best occupied in discussing the question: How has acd how ought this conviction to be met? A preliminary inquiry, indispensable to a satis factory answer, suggests itself at the threshold. Whence came and of how long standing is this conviction, the very existence of which now seems to peril the Republic? Men who stum ble upon it, treat it as something new. They start back from it as from a new dogma-the offspring of some maudlin philanthropy, some attenuated, transcendental philosophy, some sickly sentimentality, born of the hour, bent on mischief, and eager to overturn and subvert. It is condemned as the creed of the reformer, and the war cry of the innovator. Against it, as against the sacrilegious hand of an invader, is thrust that other doctrine, that slavery is not only not a sin and a crime, but is morally, socially, and politically, a positive good, "the highest type of civilizationn;" "ennobling to both the white and the black." And this is pushed forward as if it were an old canon of the church, or an old defender of the ancient house hold gods of the Republic, arrayed in the habili ments of conservatism and peace. It is of these two conflicting, radically antagonistic, and fundamentally hostile ideas, that I propose to speak. Whether the contact of these two dif ferent theories in politics, social condition, mo. rality, and religion, will prove to be " an irre pressible conflict of opposing and enduring forces," it is not in my way to inquire; for words and phrases, like the clothes we put on, wear out and are laid aside when they can no longer serve the uses to which they are applied. To the politician, who finds food for his intell Sects and inspiration for his ambition in beating: The House being in C ommitt ee of the Whole on the state of the Union- Mr. DAWES said: Msr. CHAIRMAN: In the fi rs t week of the sesp sion, and before the early mutterings of the - storms which raged for more than forty days about this Capitol, ha d re ached t he e ar of the o nation, a distinguished member from Alabama [itIr. CURRY] startled the country with th e ap pasllin e announcement that the Republic was ho ldi ng its breath. This alarminan declaration stirred for a m ome nt the already'fluttering pulse of a sensitive people, and, but for its con stant repetition upon this floor by the sensa tiollists w ho liv e in the murky atmosphere of this tempest, would still command all that seri ous consideration to which earnestness and sincerity origin ally commended it. And now, sir, that t he st orm has passed away, and the Republic, emerging into th e c lear blue sky of unimpassioned reason, gives on every side un mistakable evidence that it still breathes, I have not sought the floor to controvert the fact or search for the cause of so direful a peril, in the v ery jaw s of wh ich th e na ti on has so lately been discovered. The gentleman apprised the country as well of the primal cause as of the terrible effect, and, with the same earnestness and sincerity which mark all his course here, decl ar ed that " the real cause of t he agitation of the public mind tad the li a teradix of the excitement, is the anti slavery sentiment of the North-the conviction that property in man is a sin and a crime." Not wishing to deny, but, on the other hand, assuming and recognising the fact thus stated, that there does exist in all the North, so deep-seated that it may justly be termed radical, and so firm as to be fundamental, the ; - 4 ,.1. , 2 - il.! I 0 "i 2 the dus;t.out of the old clothes he picks up by c the wayside, I turn over this cast-off garment of the member of this House from Virginia, c [Mr. PRYOR,] and of the great Senator from the State of New York, rir. SEWARD.] f They have both, each in his own felicitous c language, pronounced this contact of these two antagonistic ideas to be a conflict of opposing e forces, and, from the profound depths of their t philosophic and prophetic minds, they have I both predicted that, in the nature of things, there can be no peace in this conflict. They havec both prophesied that it is to go on till the one n shall prevail-over the other-till the whole na tion shall come to know and feel and acknowl- t edge, in a living, active, practical faith, either that slavery, as is the prophecy of the one, shall be confessed of all to be a positive good, sanctioned by the Divine command, approved by the wisdom of experience, a blessing alike to the master and the slave, and yet to be universal-or, as is predicted by the other, all, with one assent, shall pronounce it a sin and a crime before God and man; a withering, blighting curse to the earth it rests upon, and the men who walk its surface; from under which the nation shall yet lift itself to the plane of uni versal freedom. The Virginian has clothed his vaticinations in the following language, at once devout and militant: " Repeatedly have we asked the North,' has not the ex periment of universal liberty failed? Are not the evils of free society intolerable? and do not most thinking n meu among you propose to sulbvert anld reconstruct it i' Still no answer. This gloomy silence is another conclusive proof added to the many other conclusive evidences we had flir nished, that free society, in the long run, is an impracticable form of society. It is everywhere starving, demoralized, infidel, insurrectionary, moribund. * * * Policy, hlu manity, and Christianity, alike forbid the extension of the evils of free society to new people and coming generations. "If," continues our philosopher, on the other hand, " sla very be unnatural, immoral, irreligious, it cannot stand. Nature is truth, and is sure at last to prevail. Nature is the active expression of God's will, and men are not long per mitted to violate that will. If slavery be not the right, the healthful form of society, it will not endure long. Belt it has endured already for countless ages, and now covers nine tenths of the world. Public opinion has bLecome well nighi omnipotent. Two opposing and conflicting forms of society canomt, among civilized mela, coexist and endure. The one ,tust give way, and cease to exist, the other become imiver sal. If free society be unnatural, immoral, unchristian, it ,must fall, and give way to a social system old as the world, universae as man. The war between the two systems is raging in Europe and America, and will continue to rage. It is a *var of extermination. It is the war of God and nature against her violators. The issue will soon show who are those violators, and who are fighting the battle of -the true faith, * * * the greatest, most momentous battle in which mankind ever yet engaged."-Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 22,1856. com-merce~ wh;.ch daly becomes more intlmate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social nity or consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are coitinually coming into closer contact, and collision results. I Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think ~hat it;is~Sccidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or. nanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the ~ase altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely slaveholding nation, or entirely a [lee-labor nation. Either the cotton antd rice fields of South Carolinia, ail the sugar plantations of Louisiana, will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Mass Lchluis'Mtts and New York must again be surrendere-l by their farmers to slave culture, and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies an(dLsollts of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many un s tcessfl attempts at final compromise between tlhe slave and free States, iind it is the existence of this great fact that renders all such pretended c6iiipromnises, when imsade, vain and ephemeral. " -Roch&ter Speech, 1858. Such, as it appears to these two statesmen, is the nature of this conflict. They differ as to the result, but they agree as to the charact er of the struggle. I n all the essen tial characteristicsh of this great antagonism, they stan d side by side, and onlny in their pro ph ecy a s to what shall bef the fina l issue do they part compa ny. The rash and impetuous Virginian, born be - neath the blessed auspices of the i nstitutio n of slavery, his tender e ar cha r med with the dmusic of the clanking symbols of its beauty, and his mature ambition nursed and fed with the milk of its fondling, believes that sl av e labor will ultimat e ly triumph over free lab or; that capiitael must and will own labor, and that the irresistible progress of events, and the t endency of the whol e n ation, is to slaveholdina. The equipoised and philosophic statesman of Ne w York- alike confident, and more hopeful; it may be, because reared amid the bracing ifluences of firee institution s, and taught from early in fancy that their blessings should descend, like the dew of heaven, on all alike; and that in the ri ghts, priv ileges, and immunities, o f th e citizen, those i nstitutions should be no more a respecter of person tha s th an is the God his people wor s hip-rejoices in the beli ef t hat i n this con test free labor will ultimately triumph over slave labor; that capital and labor, mutually dependent, shall serve and bless and adorn each other; and that the march of events is onward and upward to that higher plane of universal freedom. Such is the future for this nation which opens on the one side and the other to the prophetic ken of these two states men. With the eye of his faith, the one be holds all these States, in the future, slavehold ing; the other, all free. It is the portentous calamity of these times, that, to embrace the dark and dismal faith of the Virginian, is, in perversion of all sense and truth, hailed as Democracy, while to imbibe the hopeful and ;glorious inspiration of the Senator, is, in equal perversion of terms and of truth, denounced as treason. It is no part of my present purpose to discuss tic probabilities of this issue. The: Esure logic of events is moving on to its solu In contrast with this b ellic ose piety of the Virginian, I place the calm and philosophic speculations of the New York Senator, who thus with truthfulness, though with less of warlike " rage," describes the same contest: "Hitherto, the two systems have existed in different 'States, but side by side within the American Union. This ha happened because the Union is a confederation of States. But in another aspect, the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of population, which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues, and an internal 3 dition of slavery, and in to the cornsecquences that resulted from it; and I was satisfied that the mind of the South had, undergone a change to this great extent: that it was now almost the universal belief in the South, not only that the condition of Arican bondage in their midst was the best condition to which the African race had ever been subjected, but that it had the effect of ennobling both races, the white and the black." A colleague of that Senator in this House, [ Mr. PRYOR,] to whose opinions upon this subject I[ have before had occasion to allude, has gone further, and has not only confessed the change which slaveholders have experienced, but has been enabled to fix the precise time.and cause of the change. According to him, sir, this Ppentecostal conversion of slaveholders to the pious glory of their own system was caused by a discovery made by an exploring expedition among the catacombs of Virginia within the present generation. In a recent eulogy upon his deceased predecessor, out of which even Southern conservatism could not keep the agitation of this subject, he invoked the admiration of mankind upon-the boldness and sagacity of that predecessor in stifling the anti-slavery imnpulses of the Virginia Convention of 1832, and then proceeds in this wise: I A Ifterwvard, by common consent, the extravagances of a popular panic were covered with a vail of oblivion. But the effect of that interesting episode in the history of Virginia was not so evanescent and inconsequential. For the first time, citizens of a slaveholding community were driven, by the tapparent insecurity of the system, to explore its foundations; and with a resllt for which very few persons were prepared. In contravention ot traditional idleas, it was discovered and demonstrated that negro slavery, instead of being an acci dental evil, which men tolerate merely for want of a practicable remedy, is al institution which exists in virtue of the most essential human interests, and the highest sanctions of the moral law. Froiu that day; the slaveholder stood on surer anymore solid ground. Frora that day,his conscience being clear, and his jud(gment convinced, he renounced the expedients of apology and extenuation and planted hirmself on the impregnable basis of reason and right." It is the attempt to force this conversion upon the whole nation which has kindled, and is still fanning, the flames of civil discord. It is an old method of propagating a new faith, one which has broken down and failed everywhere else, and must meet with like discomfiture here. It is the resistance encountered in:the work of driving out of the judgment and con science of the entire nation the old deep-seated conviction that property in man is a sin and a crime, and enthroning the new dogma that slavery is a blessing, which is the cause, the radix, of all agitation and commotion in the land. Fire and the fagot even have proved impotent, though backed by standing armies, when invoked as instrumentalities for the prop agation of the holy religion itself; and the flames they have kindled have only licked up and con sumed those who fanned them.,, Man never was and never will be forced to believe anything That slavery is a sin and a crime, the propagana. ist admits is a conviction of the judgment and heart of the North, and, till lately, of the whole nation, yet he fails altogether to treat it as such. If -this faith in which the Northern heart and soul has grown up-the faith of their fathers and of yours-is ever to give tion with a certaintv and rapidity to which every hour is giving new strength. I turn to the contemplation of some of the characteristics of this mnighty straggle. The great mistake of this conflict of opposing ideas, embittering and misleading all involved in it, is the unblushing asse rt ion, maintained with an effrontery equalled only by its falsity, that the all-pervsading seuntiment of the North tht human bondage is a sin and a crime, is a new doqmee. And like ntou it is the ki nd r ed falsehood, ihiche arrogates th e right to clothe in the garb of conservatism and peace this last great encroaching pretencse of slavery, that it is a boon and a blessing to society. It is neither conservatism nor peace, but invasion and subversion. The conviction that property in man is a sin and a crihne, encountered in its march Northward by th e slave power, in a resistance so persistent as to be p ronounced by the gentleman from Alabama to be the cause and root of all our trouble, is no new doctrine, born of Northern fanaticism or delusion. It is older than the Republic, and was the deep-seated conviction of the signers of the Declaration and the framers of the Constitution, when the nation began its existence. It was he.ze then, and it was everywhere ili the country. TL-e statesman, the divine, the forum, the pulpit, the press, the school, the fire-side, all gave it voice. He who denies it, puts behind him the recorded opinions of the times, and shuts his eyes to the evidences emblazoned on every page of the early history of the country and the Governmelnt. I dotot propose to consume any portiont of my hour in reproducing the evidence, so positive, so entirely concurrent, and so ample, which abounds on every hand in the pathway this nation has trod, from itfancy to the fullness of stature, that slavery is a political, social, and moral evil —a curse, and not a blessing. Spread upon the debates of, the present session, from the lips of the fathers and of the early statesmen of every section of the country, stand, uncontradicted and unde nied, their recorded conviction that property in man is a sils and a crime. I shall content myself with reproducing, from this mass of testimony now upon the record, the confession made in our hearing, by two of the most zeal ouis expounders of that opposite and antago niistic doctrine, that slavery is a moral, social, and political good —from their lips I produce the confession both of the early conviction and the chance which these timers have wrought, even — upon slavehol(lers themselves. One of the S3etlators from Virginia, [Mr. MAsor —,] in a recent debate, thus admits the change of opin ion in the whole South} and states the conclu sion to which a new faith has brought them: ", What I mleant to say the other (lay, and what I think I did Bay, wNasi this: that because of the agitation by one por tion of thifs Unlion on the question of the abolition of slavery, the mind of the South hall betel brought more deeply and ~onsfiderately to ponder upon it;* the mind of the South heak been broulght by that agitation to look fulrthewr into the con li- - C, I I 4 seeks to cover with the mantle of religion the foul deformity which stalks in hideous naked ness through all the land where slavery dwells I Threats are the potent enginery of these times and of this work, and the conversion of the na tion is to be achieved by the irresistible agency of terror. The whole complex machinery now in active operation at a thousand stand-points, covering its movements by every device and pretence which human ilngenuity and hypocrisy can invent, and concealing its true character as it moves on with stealthy tread to its purposes, has but one ruling principle and controlling motive power-and that is the power to work upon the fears of the people, at whatever ave taue of approach it may select. By force, and not by argumnent, is this conviction to be driven out, and its place usurped. The slow process of reason is to be discarded, and the surer one of subjugati,on adopted in its stead. The spirit of propagation, now bold and defiant as an army with banners, and now as subtle and soft in its tread as the velvet foot-fall of the cat, still moulds its protean shape to every similitude the exigencies of such a service may require. Whether it be the gorgon head of disunion, which rises upon this floor and threatens trea son till timid conservatism quakes and quails, or whether it be lean and lank non-intercourse, under whose a uspices th h e whole manufacturing energy of a great State has culminated in two suits of gray homespun, flaunted in these Halls into the very face of faint-hearted trade, or whether it be the political seer, holding up his horoscope to the gaze of the wondering, till simplicity turns pale and shudders when it is bidden to read, magnified and horrified in his nagic lantern, the painted words, " TiiiS IS THE BEGI,N,NING OF ThIE EIND "-whatever shape it assume;, whatever avenue it approaches, what ever time or occasion it seize3 upon or form it puts on, it is one ard the same thin,,-an at tempt to convert a whole people to a new and detested and infamous dogma, by appeals to its fears. Foremost and loudest among these threats are those denominated political threats, made in the Halls of Congress, and faintly-echoed back from feebler lungs at a distance. During the two months' contest for Speaker, the Representatives of the Democratic party openly proclaimed upon this floor their purpose to commit treason, and rend asunder the Government they have sworn to support, unless we abandoned the faith of our fathers, and bowed down before this new divinity their own hands had created. Blistering the official records of this House, stands the open threat of the masters of the Democratic party, that, if called by the people to render an account of their stewardship, if summoned by the ballot to surrenlder the reins of Governmenet to a Republican President, sooner than obey that sumnmons, they would raze this Government " from turret to foundation stone." And. then, with the cools place to one, not only new, but scarce yet fecure in its dominion over he Southern mind even, by what means is this change to be ac complished? By what instrumentalities is the reason of a wh o le pe o ple to be subjugaated, its consc i ence conquered, and its faith extinguish ed? iHe who r ises up to teach a new system of morals, a new stand ard of ethics, would do well, before he lays a ruthless hand upon the pillar s of ancient belief, or th rusts it underneath the foundation stones of unshaken convictions, to fi r st count the cost, and, from a careful sur veyr of the wh ol e field of polemics, to select, and, from th e wh ole mstore-house of human ex perience and wi sdom, to d irect and command an agency potent enough for his Hercule an un dertaking. A convictio n can never be drive n out of a man un til h is whole nature s hall be changed, a nd h e e wises to be a man. Chains and the dungeon- y ea, stripes, and tortures, and the stake, even-have only served to build up, to st rengthen, and to glorify, that they have been marshalled to exterminate. The blood of th e martyr s is no more the seed of one church than of a n o ther. A man's limbs, his muscles, his boda, and, if -need be, his life, may yield to force; but his judgme ntp his conscien ce, his convictions, never. T he h istory of the world contains no instance of a peo ple wh o have yielded up the convictions of an enlightened judgment and an honest con. science. to the terror of tnreats and physical force. Yet these, and more vain than these, are the instrumentalities chosen, by the apostles of the new and sweeping doctrine that slavery is, in and of itself, a boon and a blessing, to sub vert in us the faith taught us by their fathers and ours-a faith in which, till our day, the united voice of the whole nation concurred, and which found its most earnest supporters and its sincerest disciples among those to whom experience was a daily preacher. For, be it remembered, throughout all this controversy, that the doctrine that slavery is a social, moral, and political good, a doctrine which now threatens the overthrow of the Government, if need be, to establish itself as the dominant, living, practical creed of the nation, has, in its march to its present arrogant and defiant position, met with no opposition so serious as the recorded testimony of Southern statesmen themselves, men who, while beneath the shadow of the institution of slavery itself, still spoke of the things they saw and knew, in a language which cannot be misunderstood. They all, with one accord, and with a conciurrent and solemn testimony swelling into a volume, pronounced the institution of slavery an unmitigated wrong, a blighting curse to the land it rests upon, a sin and a crimne ia the people who gather: its guilty fruits. And what are the instrumentalities invoked to dislodge the deep-seated, conscientious conviction of the lifetime of a whole people, and install ink its place the dogma-which this days , i i 5 ness of brass, they call upon us to come to their r rescue, and save them from committing trea- son, by abstaining ourselves from the exercise of our constitutional rights in choosing a Speaker of this House or a President of the United States.. He who exercises the elective franchise at the bidding of another, is himself a slave; and he who dictates when and how that franchise shall be exercised, is the master. Yet the masters of negro slaves, and of the Democratic party, have the brazen effrontery to propose to Northern freemen this degrading slavery, as the only condition upon which they will omit the commission of treason themselves, and suffer the Union to continue. The man who will bend to this impudent threat, and thus put his vote, his judgment, and the conscien tious convictions of his life, in the keeping of another, has already a collar about his neck, and needs no change of condition, but only of color, to adorn a plantation. He never per formed an act under a menace, who did not compromit his honor. And he, among Northern men, who turns either to the right or to the left because of this threat, and does not the rather move right on upon the line of his duty, with a firmer step and a hilgher brow, so long as it is held in terrorem over his head, is a craven of too little spirit to be a freeman, and of too poor material to be a slave. These are arguments to which it as little becomes a freeman to listen, as it does a patriot to offer them. They will bring home to their authors no other fruit than discomfiture and dismay. They will have no other effect upon those to whom they are addressed, than to make more universal and settled the conviction that slavery, out ofwhose womb they issue, is indeed the mother of sin and crime. Co-operating with the treasonable threat to destroy, if not permitted to control the Government, and employed for the same ultimate purpose, is that aimed at trade-the commercial, the mercenary threat. There is to be no more trade by the new converts with the old sinners, till the old altars are pulled down, and the black god of slavery is installed in every Northern sanctuary, to receive the homage of freemen. Those who cannot be driven with the threat of disunion are to be approached with a price. The Scribes and the Pharisees of this day count out their thirty pieces of silver, and the Judases are not wanting. Public advertisement is made upon what terms exemption can be purchased from the consequences which hang upon this threat. Southern agents traverse Northern cities, and confessionals are constituted at the principal marts of business, to which, with an eye to the main chance, the trembling penitent flock, and absolution from the heresy of their lives is vouchsafed for a considerationi. Straightway the names of the penitent are inscribed on the white roll, and their wares commended to the patronagee of the faithful, while all who slight these offered terms~of reconciliation, and} refusing to pay the price, turn their indifferent footsteps away from the portals of thi s confes sional, awake only to read their names in the black list, and to fiind their coods doomed to encounter the chillinnot ne- lett of t he devotees of this ne w faith. But competition i n this, as in all other business transac tions, is likely to overdo this new method of conver ting a whole people frow the errors o f its life be y the argu ment of the ledger and per centage. Already Southern speculators in conscientiouts s cruples, with advertising circulars a nd ind ulgence bro kers scat te red all over the North, have offered so easy terans, and tieade the way t o me rcantile salvation so broad, that not only is the market overstocked, but th aly f the quality of the art;e is greatly chea pen ed. And no w a new convert north Of Mason and Dixon's line faills forth - with below par, and passes at once into the uncurrent circulation of the country. Have men engaged in this forcible-feeble crusade upon the business of the North for opinion's sake ever stopped to consider how b enoe ficial would have been the results achieved by this process, had it proved ever so successful? Have they failed to see that in this traffic they are purchasing only those who are for sale? When a man has sold himself once, the process be comes easier, and the price less, as the temnpta tions multiply, until he becomes a drug in the market, and can find no purchaser. A man's honor, like a woman's virtue, once stained, sinks beyond recovery. And he -who will sell his principles with his dry goods, and box up both together for a Southern market. has lost only the opportunity to have underbid Judas himself, and to have robbed him, at once, of his silver and his infamy. The community or party which, for the sake of mere numbers, takes such venality to its embrace, is far behind, in political wisdom, that policy which, to people new States, opens prison doors, and pollutes the current of life with the pestiferous rottenness of the old. Let not the Soutlh deceive itself, but let it look at the means through which it seeks Northern support against Northern conviction, and then judge of its value. They who trust the professional Union-savers of the North, while turning panic to profit and principles into merchandise before their eyes, are blindly and stupidly leanirlng on a broken reed, which will most assuredly pierce the side. This kind of traffic, like every other, will seek the best market; and those princi ples which are sold to-day with the box of goods shipped for the Southern trade, will as soon go to any other section, and pander to any other pre.judice or caprice<, rwhenlever the demand or the per centage will justifyr the shipment in that direction. Ships thus freighted always sail before the wind. Even now, the emissaries sent North to propagate this new fgaith, with the I)rerd Scott decision for a Bible in one h:lnd, and all inl-, horn and book in the other, g~oing from floor to are resorted to with a bolder hand and a fiercer spirit. Liberty of thought and of speech is assaulted by the cohorts of slavery propagandism, with a fury equal only to that which, in a better cause, and for its very deliverance, in revolutionary France, struck off together the fetters of the press, and the head of the monarch who forged them. If men will not, for the sake of saving slaveholders from committing treason, nor even that they themselves may fatten on Southern trade, give up the faith of their fathers, and the inbred solemn convictions of their own souls that the fruit of hunian bondage is only evil, and that continually, then, bv all the powers of the whole slave kingdomn and its Northern allies, they shall not give utterance to the thoughts within them. The press that offends against this self-constituted censorship is sunk beyond fathom, and the editor himself, who persistently claims and clings to the constitutiontal covenant that bids him speak, and the nation shall hear, is shot down and made food for dogs. Mails are rifled, and an army of co,intry postmasters, with their subalterns, well nigh as large as that which followed the fortunes of absolutism on the plains of S-lferi,io, is commanded by a geni era! order emanating froin the central, moving spirit anll power, to break the sacred seal of private correspondence, and commit to the f i lames whatever may be found not in harmony with the key-note in whiceh ire sung the praises and blessings of slavery. The sacredness of persodn is i nvaded; and whether men shall travel insafety, no longer depends upon what tlev do, but what they think. The Constitution, wwhich wraps itself like a coat of mail around the citizen, for his protection, wherever his footsteps niay lead himnt within the broad limits of this Repablic, is set at naught, and its very joints pierced as worthless gossamer, by the fell spirit of this demon in its mad attempt to bend every knee before its altar. At its bid ditg, meai repudiate their debts and banish their creditors. By its ethics, contracts with Northern men, as with heretics, are dissolved into thin air, and he whose business pursuits call himn from a free North, within the shadow of this institution, is tracked from city to city, and his every movement subjected to an espi onage which would disgrace the despotism of Russia, and set France in a blaze. A: North ern man may to-day roani the world over, out side of the bouther-i States, free in thought and speech, in more safety of person than he can inside of them. And all this because he will not abjure his fathers' faith and his own, and take to, his embrace, without question, the hor rid teniets of a dogma admitted by its preachers to have been born of the light and of the spirit which descended upon the heads of a chosen few of this generation only. But, sir, these instruments of warfare recoil upon those who use them. These fruits of the institution move the inquiring mind to look at door and from cit y to city, and holding up t )efore timaid, slithkiei selfishness the alter native of submission to the one or a black record ill the other, are being mocked by the sly and slippery converts whose absolution fee they pocket with so) mtuch "national conservative" unction. And, before the shadow ofthese political colporteurs has disappeared from the countinu-rooin, the cost of thas mercantile salvation is added, like freight and cartag,e, to the next bill, or, it ma,y be, to the next dozen bills of goods sent, labelled1 " sound," back to that mart which buys only of those who sell their principles and wares together. Thuis it is that this tax upon pr)ofS of political piety, which seems so grievous to be borne, comes track, multiplied manifold, from out the vTery coffers of the arrogant and domineering slave power, into the pocket of the North,er,i devotee, kneeling Southward, behind his own counter. But there is a law which governs trade, stronger than politics or parties, and indifferent alike to threats anid entreaties; and that is the law of profits. Men will buy where they buy cheapest, and sell'where they they can sell best. .No humnan enactment has ever yet annulled this controlling rule of trade, no haman device has ever yet proved itself sufficient to cope with or circumvent it, and no danger has seemed appalling enough to altogether check it. This law has pushed the search for wealth into every quarter of the globe, and into the face of every peril. It has ploved the Arctic ice up to the polar sea, and has confronted the cannibal'1 beneath the soriuthern cross. Pestilence has failed to stay its venturous footsteps, and war itself is but a summons to a richer hbar vest, to be gathered from beneath the smoke and dust of trainpinig armies. How foolish aind ftitile, then, for a little country newspaper in Atalanta, Georgia, or a Lilliputian copart niership in Richmond, Virginia, to level pop guns and hurl paper anathemas, arrayed in black or white, as the pay may be, against the universal trading world, moving on in one beaten pathway, guided by one all-controlling, uftlinehing, utirelaxing l:;w, which heeds no more than the idle wind the tempest of the hour. And thlus it proved, that during all this time that the nation has been holding its breath, and the politicians wasting theirs, the account current has shown more Southern trade at New Yorl, at Boiton, at Lynn, and at every other Northern mart, than during any other corresporra'rag p eriod for the least quarter of a century. Balt as t!:se devices, waerewith to displace the;on,-settled conviction of the Northerni conscience, that slavery is a sin and a crime, and install in its place'the revolting and dam ning dognma that justifies and sanctifies and blesses it —as these devices one after anothler fail, and pass to the wreck of human contri vances, in contravention of the immutable and immovable laws of justice and right, others 41,,. 6 7 the tree itself which bears them. These manifestations of the spirit which animates the systern of slavery, lead us to look downward and not upward for its author. Every day's teaching to which it thus subjects us but opens our eyes to its enormities, and drives us from it as from the plague. Every day's experience of the passions it foments, of the intolerance it begets, of the domination it asserts, and of the crimes it commits, demonstrates more clearly that its hand is against every man's hand, and that foul-mouthed curses follow in its train. I assure gentlemen that their work of conversion, with all the appliances of threats, with all the blandishments of favor, with all the scourges and stripes they have invoked to their aid, is, after all, a failure. You may subject us to farther experiment and indignity, for the power is in your hands. That all wise Providence, whose inscrutable ways are past finding out, has, in working out the great purposes of His government, placed this people for a time in your keeping, as lie did of old His chosen people in charge of the slaveholders of Eglypt. Yours is the Executive and the Supreme Court. Further trial with these instrumentalities to bend our knee to this Moloch awaits us yet a little longer. It may be that this spirit which rules you and us, as it sees the sands of its power running out, will attempt, in its rage, to thrust us still farther between the patronage and power of the one, and the inexorable decrees of the other, as the incorrigible victims of the Spanish Inquisition were bound, at last, to the floor oftheir prison-house, while the wallop, on the one side and the other, were made to move towards each other with a slow and silentt bu t s ure and awful approach, whic h no human agency could stay. But, sir, history tells us that even this hellish enginery proved impotent to crush out the true faith, and served only, in the end, to build it up and strengthen its pillars. In this hope, and in this faith, we bide our time. We tell you candidly, yet firmly, we will have none of your institution among us. If you are not content to leave this matter as your fathers and ours left it, on your beads, not ours} be the consequences. We take t i this thing as it came to us, and we will take no m ore of it. i ug this institution to your own bosoms, if your pleas e, where your fathers and ours left it, and we will not to uch so much as a hair of its head. Channe your own o pin ions, and spit upon those of your fathers, if it seem well so to do; but y ou have no right to demand any such change in us. You may pluck the beard s of your fathers; w e will bow before ours. You may worship new gods; we will ve nera the the old ones. You mnay call evil good, and black white; but we shall pervert no terms, and renounce no self-evident truths. We do not question your s incer ity; you shall n ot ours. The policy of your fathers and ours was the same, and unmistakable; you seek to change, we to abide by it. They have set the landmarks - you are striving to remove, we to maintain them. Let the curse for so doing fall where it belongs. You say that you believe slavery to be a blessing; you can keep it; we cannot deprive you of it. We know freedom to be a blessing past measure, and you cannot rob us of it. Let us understand each other better. You demand that the whole policy of the Government, from the first morn of its existence, shall be reversed, or you will dissolve this Union, and shiver the whole fabric to atoms; we demand that that whole policy shall be maintained, and with it the Union and the grand old temple, intact from base to pin. nacle. If you have anything to tear down, on your heads, and not ours, will it fall. If you are bent on treason, upon you, and not upon us, rest the consequences. We cannot swerve from the right line of our pathway, illumined as it is by conscience and d,,,ty, even though it be to save you from your own treason. We cannot dishonor ourselves, lest you let fall the axe upon your own heads. Into this temple, built by your fathers and ours, we daily enter, and turn our faces to the symbols of their wisdom andl patriotism, which illustrate and adorn its walls on every side. If youi'follow after new and strange gods, be content in your own worship; but suffer us to cling to the ancient pillars which sustain the ample arches that span us all. I I.2 7 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860. CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE. I HON. JOHN COVODE, PENN., Treasurer. c" E.G. SPAULDING, N.Y. i " J. B. ALLEY, MASS. " DAVID KILGORE, INDIANA. " J. L. N. STRATTON, N.J. On the part of the I.ouse of Beps. REPUBLICAN EXECUTIVE IlON. PRESTON KING, N. Y., Chairman. " J. W. GRIMES, IOWA. " L. F. S. FOSTER, CONN. On the Ipart of the Senate. The Committee are prepared to furnish the following Speeches and Documents: EIGHT PAGES. Hon. H. Wilson, Mass.: Territorial Slave Code. Hon. AV. H. Seward: State of the Country. " John P. Hale, N. II. W. H. Seward: "Irrepressible Conflict' " J. J. Perry, Me.: "Posting the Books b Speech. tween the North and the South." G. A. Grow, Penn.: Free Homes for Free " J. R. Doolittle, Wis.: The Calhoun Reve Men. lution-Its. Basis and its Progress. James harlan, Iowa: Shall the Territories " C. B. Sedgwick, N. Y.: The Republic%. be Atricanized? Party the Result of Southern Aggression "John Hickman, Penn.:,... Who have Violated " M.J.Parrott,Kansas: Admission of Kansas "BColmpromises. Federalism Unmasked: Or the Rights of the B. F. Wade, Oiiio: Invasion of Harper's States, the Congress, the Executive, and FP~~~~~erry.~ ~the People, Vindicated against the En " G. W. Scranton and J. H. Campbell, Penn.: croacment of the Judiciary, prompted The Speakership. by the Modern Apostate Democracy F. P. Blair, Mo., Address at Cincinnati: Being a Compilation from the Writings Colornization and Commerce. and Speeches of the Leaders of the Ol-l 'Orris S. Ferry, Conn. Jeffersonian Republican Party. By Dan Abraham Lincoln, Ill.: The Demands of iel R. Goodloe. the South-The Republican Party Vin- TWENTY-FOUR PAGES. dicated. Hon. Jacob Collamer, Vermont. William Windom, Minn.: The Homestead Bill-Its Friends and its Foes. TIIIRTY-TWO PAGES. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois: The Barbarism Hon. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. of Slavery. ' Henry L. Dawes, Mass.: The New Dogma GERMAN. of the Sotth- Slavery a Blessing." EIGHT PAGES. R. H. Doell, N.Y.: The Position of Parties. Hon. G. A. Grow, Penn.: Free Homes for Free " M. S. Wilkinson, Minn.: The Homestead MAen. Bill. " James Ilarlan, Iowa: Shall the Territories " D. W. Gooch, Mass.: Polygamy in Utah. be Africaiized? Carl Schurz, Wis.: Douglas and Popular Sover- a' John Hickman, Penn.: Who Have Violated eignty. Compromises. Lands for the Landless-A Tract. " William Windom, Mi[n.: The Homestead The Poor Whites of the So -.. tjury done. Bill-Its Friends and its Foes. them by Slavery-A a " H. Winter Davis, Md.: Election of Speaker. Carl Schurz, Wis.: Douglas and Popular Sover SIXTEEN PAGES. eiguty. Hon. Lyman Trumbull, Ill.: Seizure of the Ar- SIXTEEN PAGES. senals at Harper's Ferry, Va. and Liberty, HIon. Lyman Trumbul], Ill.: Seizure of the Arse Mo., and in Vindication of the Republi- nals at Harper's Ferry, Va., and Liberty, can Party. Mo., and in Vindication of the Republi B. F. Wade, Ohio: Property in the Terri- can Party. tories. " W. H. Seward, N.Y.: The State of the " C. H. Van Wyck, N.Y.: True Democracy- Country. History Vindicated. Lands for the Landless-A Tract. And all the leading Republican Speeches as delivered. During the Presidential Campaign, Speeches and Documents will be supplied at the following reduced prices: per 100-S pages 50 cents, 16 pages $1, and larger d6cuments in proportion. Address either of the above Committee. GEORGE HARRINGTON, Secretary. I: 3 i " E. B. WASHBURNE, ILLINOIS.