(FROM THE PENNSYLVANIAN.) _ 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 i 
 
 HON. B. F. HALLETT, 
 
 OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 Delivered at the great Democratic Meeting for Pierce and King, 
 
 Held at Reading, Pennsylvania, September 4,1852. 
 
 Mr. Hallett said that he was happy in being announced by the distin¬ 
 guished President of the meeting [Hon. James Buchanan] as a Massachu¬ 
 setts Democrat, not unknown to the Democrats of Pennsylvania. He was 
 proud of having the right to say that four years ago he had met and addressed 
 the true hearted Democracy of Berks, here in the Central Square in which 
 we now stood, and had gone with them to the great meeting then held in the 
 heart of this fertile county, at Womelsdorf, where he had met, for the first 
 time in his life, the substantial German farmers of this great agricultural 
 State. And now, [said Mr. H., raising his voice,] if I have any old friends 
 here who remember “Ben. Hallett, the Boston Democrat,” or if I can make 
 any new ones, who would like to hear how a straight forward Massachusetts 
 Democrat talks, I wish that the thousands of you who are standing in groups 
 at different points in this great square, \yould just come up here about the 
 stand and give me a fair chance to show whether I can say anything worth 
 your attention. If you find I can’t—and I won’t make you any promises— 
 then you are free to retire, and I will stop at the first broad hint you give 
 that you are tired of me. I know that you have been standing here in the 
 area some four hours, and it is a severe test to put the bestnatured audience 
 in the world to, to listen in the open air, on their feet, in a crowd, under a 
 hot sun, for so long a time, even to the sound political truths and the fervid 
 eloquence that have been uttered here by the distinguished orators who have 
 preceded me. [By this time the platform was surrounded by some three 
 thousand persons.] 
 
 Men of Pennsylvania, I am not going to make a fanciful speech. That 
 is not in my line. I am not going to argue which can fight the best, Pierce 
 or Scott, because we are going to choose a President and not a chief to fight 
 Indians or Mexicans. What I say will be with a view to a practical applica¬ 
 tion. We all know that there is a Presidential election pending. That the 
 vote of Pennsylvania, though not now as in ’48 indispensible to the election 
 of our candidate, is indispensible to the permanent triumph of the Demo¬ 
 cratic party upon the principles of the Constitution, as formed, construed, 
 and administered by the republican fathers. The great issue of this election, 
 which, in my mind, absorbs all others, is to put the test to the whole coub- 
 try, North, South, East and West, to the twenty-six millions of people of 
 these thirty-one United States, aye, and to the civilized world, whether there 
 is, in all the States of this Union, one homogeneous, constitutional party 
 
 C. Alexanitcb, Printer. 
 
2 
 
 which can stand together upon one platform, for a national creed, and sup¬ 
 port for national offices men of sound and universally prevailing national 
 principles. A party in every section and State, uttering in all their appeals 
 to the people, the same fundamental doctrines of government, and adhering 
 in good faith to the great duty of our political creed so beautifully expressed 
 by the Democratic candidate for President, “ the sacred maintainance of the 
 common bond and true devotion to the common brotherhood of the Union 
 Democrats of Pennsylvania, are you aware of the great importance of this 
 mighty gathering here to-day, when viewed in the present and the future 
 of our beloved country ? Do you feel what great destinies are now in your 
 hands, especially in the hands of men of labor, of honest toil, the bone and 
 sinew of our republic, who carry to the polls the ballots which are about 
 to decide whether a national or a sectional party shall rule the country— 
 whether we shall be an united, a progressive, a true constitutional Republic, 
 now and for all time to come? There is but one vital question that threat¬ 
 ens us, and that is, will w r e honestly adhere to, abide by and faithfully execute 
 the solemn engagements our fathers made, when they formed this Union? 
 You say yes, and that is the point I beg leave to put home to you. This is 
 the very time and place to test that question. There are on this platform 
 distinguished men, prominent Democrats, men and statesmen of large rep¬ 
 utation and expansive views, coming at your special invitation, from twelve 
 States of this Union, to give you their opinions upon the men and the measures 
 of government. They represent the views, local and national, of the dem¬ 
 ocratic party in their respective States. Of all the thirteen States here rep¬ 
 resented, six are slave-holding and seven non-slaveholding States. We 
 shall now learn whether they utter, in one common language, a common 
 sentiment, or whether, like our opponents, they speak in the confounding 
 tongues of a political Babel. Such an assemblage, and such an array of 
 speakers have never come together before in any popular gathering in any 
 Presidential canvass, at the same place on the same day. The Democracy 
 of Pennsylvania are the arbiters to decide upon w hat they hear and see.— 
 The place is well chosen. The great State of Pennsylvania is the great cen¬ 
 tral State of the Union. She reposes in the majesty of her amplitude, her 
 vast internal resources and still vaster power of labor and skill in her ener¬ 
 getic working men, between the Northern States on one side where dis¬ 
 union in the guise of Abolitionism or Free Soilism (it is immaterial by which 
 name you call it) has its stronghold, if indeed it now has any stronghold in 
 the country, and that is the issue which the election we are canvassing will 
 determine ; and the Southern States on the other. Maryland and Virginia, 
 who are here to-day with their eloquent and distinguished sons, are divided 
 from you only by an imaginary line. The far South and the young West are 
 here, both slaveholding and non-slaveholding States. Illinois, Maryland and 
 Virginia have spoken, and it has fallen to me, as the only representative 
 now present for the New England Democracy, the school in which was bred 
 the New England candidate who is about to become the first New 'England 
 Democratic President of this Union, to follow them. I do not shrink from 
 such a duty, simply because it depends upon plain principles, with which 
 the Democracy of the North are familiar, and not upon the mere skill of an 
 orator. I have no fear of committing the candidate from New England, 
 because I believe, and therefore can utter only these constitutional opinions 
 which he, beyond any other Democrat in New' England, has taught and 
 practically enforced by a noble moral courage—a courage immeasurably 
 above all mere physical bravery. I shall speak here to you, and in the presence 
 of representatives of the States most alive to their rights and their interests 
 in this matter, as I am accustomed to speak and write in Democratic Con- 
 
3 
 
 ventions and meetings in Massachusetts, that hot-bed of abolitionism and 
 all other “isms” as it has been called, where all sorts of parties have been 
 born, and have died out, or changed their names and principles, if they had 
 any, except the Democratic party. I mean that Democratic party which 
 sustains the candidate for the Presidency and the 'platform. (With any other 
 you have no fellowship, no common bond of brotherhood, and no more of 
 Union than they have of love for the Union.) 
 
 In their name—for they will sustain me here in what I say, as they have 
 again and again sustained me at home—I say to you, that there is no con¬ 
 flict of opinion upon the construction and the duties under the Constitution, 
 tonching the rights of the South, between the Democracy of the North and 
 the South. 
 
 That is the point of concentration and of union throughout the Union to 
 which the nominations of Pierce and King, and the adoption of the Bal¬ 
 timore platform, have brought the Democratic party, and given the assur¬ 
 ance of victory which now animates all our popular meetings, and warms 
 all our hearts. Inflexible firmness on this point, the carrying out of that 
 noble declaration of Franklin Pierce, in his letter to Major Lally—“I 
 will never yield to a craven spirit that, from considerations of policy, would 
 endanger the Union”—will not merely give us the victory now, but will give 
 it to us upon that ancient rock of our strength against which Federalism 
 and Whiggery never have and never can prevent the union of the Democracy 
 of the North and South. This is my theme. 
 
 There stands history, teaching us by example, and we have dearly bought 
 its lessons. In ten out of thirteen elections, we have chosen Democratic 
 Presidents. Never, it has been said, without the vote of Pennsylvania ; but 
 also let it be said, never without the union of the Democratic party North 
 and South! For the first time since the country divided under Jefferson 
 and John Adams, the people failed to elect a Democratic President in 1S40, 
 And why did they fail ? Because Northern and Southern Democrats divid¬ 
 ed, and then it was that this political virus of party Abolitionism was infused 
 in the form of “malignant philanthropy,” into the veins of the Union. 
 
 Then it was that Demagogues at the North—aye Whigs as well as Abo¬ 
 litionists—first began to make political capital by clamoring against the 
 “slave power,” meaning all the time this very conservative power of the 
 Union, the power of the United Democracy, North and South, by which 
 Democratic Presidents were elected with Democratic administrations, and 
 all that series of bad measures which the Whigs themselves now admit are 
 obsolete ideas, from the alien and sedition laws to bank charters, were 
 defeated, and the country kept upright; liberal in legislation, strict and 
 honest in constitutional construction, expansive in territory without section¬ 
 alism, and sound in maintaining all the rights of the States without conflict 
 with or aggression of the federal government. 
 
 In 1848 the Democracy of the N«rth and South were again divided, and 
 again Pennsylvania and New York lowered the national standard and we 
 were beaten. The South, let me say, had her lesson then, to profit by 
 hereafter. She did not discriminate. She mistook a false sentiment of a 
 class at the North for an opinion covering all Northern men. Southern 
 Whigs while co-operating with Northern Whigs, who were abolitionizing 
 the North, affirmed at home that Taylor though elected by Northern Aboli¬ 
 tionists, would be truer to the South, because he was 'a slave-holder, than 
 that great American statesman, Lewis Cass, who, without the presidency, 
 will ever stand among the foremost in the hearts of his countrymen. I do 
 not intimate that this had any influence upon the sound and sterling Dem¬ 
 ocrats of the South, but it took off just enough of a floating class to prevent 
 
4 
 
 the South from correcting, as she might have done, the perverse error of 
 New York, and the great mistake of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Now, then, comes the application here. New York, we have every rea¬ 
 son to believe, has learnt this great truth, that we cannot have a Democratic 
 President without the union of the Northern and Southern Democracy. 
 The glorious gathering of her sons by tens of thousands, on Thursday last, 
 proves it. There the same doctrines from some of the same eloquent lips 
 which you have heard and will hear to-day, were responded to as they are 
 here, with one heart and one mind for Pierce, King, and the platform !— 
 New York will be redeemed. 
 
 Let me tell you, therefore, Democrats of Pennsylvania, that Pennsylvania 
 must have no isms, no inertness, no divisions in her Democracy, if she' 
 means to contest the great prize of taking the head of the Democratic co¬ 
 lumn in the march of the States with Pierce and King to the Capital! And 
 to do this, you must carry the State elections in October. Remember that, 
 and do not sleep upon it. 
 
 And the South—will they falter in their zeal or give a single electoral vote 
 to another military chieftain in the person of General Scott, wl o, whatever 
 may be the form in which he annexes to his acceptance of the Presidency the 
 Whig Baltimore Platform, is himself annexed to the bad influences of Sew¬ 
 ard and all his isms? 
 
 No ! men of Pennsylvania. The South comes here to-day and asks you, 
 will you stand by the Constitution ? And you have responded as we all re¬ 
 spond, North, East, West, and South, yes, so help us God! The South 
 then, in her own sunny home, must and will respond with an almost undi¬ 
 vided voice, to her own nomination of Frank Pierce of New Hampshire, as 
 the true defender of that Constitution ! And under his glorious banner, glo¬ 
 rious becaus e perpetual union is inscribed upon it, the united Democracy 
 North and South will once more become invincible. 
 
 We see a gratifying evidence of the patriotic purpose of the South, in the 
 presence here to-day of the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. 
 Faulkner,) who has so ably addressed you. With a becoming and manly 
 frankness, he tells you that hitherto a Whig, he is no longer such, for his 
 conscience will not allow him to go one step farther with the Whigs of the 
 South in giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the South and the Union. 
 
 That has been the great error of the South. Southern Whigs, conscious 
 that they could not repel the charge that Northern Whigs, under the guid¬ 
 ance of Seward and Greeley, were faithless to the Constitution, have met it 
 by insisting that the Northern Democracy stood in the same category, and 
 that both parties were the enemies of the South. A portion even of the 
 Southern Democracy have fallen into this snare set to divide the Democracy 
 of the two sections, and thus insure the triumph of the Whig party with its 
 abolition allies. The abolitionists of the North have played upon the credu¬ 
 lity of the South, by charging upon prominent Democrats at the North, just 
 as they now do by the most shameless falsehoods and forgeries, upon Gene¬ 
 ral Pierce himself, the heresy of political abolitionism. We are waiting to 
 see whether the intelligence and good faith of the South is proof against 
 this wicked devise of the enemy to divide and conquer. If high minded 
 Southern Whigs, seeing this low stratagem, will no longer act with a party 
 at the South which takes the lying testimony of Northern traitors to the 
 Union to prove that the Constitutional Union Democrats of the North are 
 like traitors with the false witnesses, surely then the Democrats of the South 
 can never again be deceived by such instruments at. the North, and their ac¬ 
 complices at the South! We Northern and Western men, and you Penn¬ 
 sylvanians, meeting together with the South, in this vast assemblage, say 
 
5 
 
 here in the presence of the eloquent men who best know and can best in¬ 
 form the Southern Democracy, that they have a duty to perform in this be¬ 
 half as well as the North, in order to make the union of the Northern and 
 Southern Democracy effective to preserve the Union. Give us your confi¬ 
 dence and we will give you our fidelity to the compact. Take no evidence 
 of Northern Abolitionists to charge upon the National Democracy of the 
 North, treason to the Union. And whenever you find a Southern man or a 
 Southern press using such evidence to stir up jealousy between the common 
 brotherhood of the Democracy, North and South—denounce them and 
 treat them as accomplices with their perjured witnesses! Why, gentle¬ 
 men, at the South your laws will not admit of the conviction of a white 
 man of crime, upon the sole testimony of colored witnesses. Will your 
 honor as men admit the evidence of the slares of fanaticism to asperse the 
 reputation of Northern Democrats, who ever since this slavery agitation 
 took a party form to destroy the Union, have stood, with Franklin Pierce in 
 the breach, to maintain the constitutional rights of the South? Not be¬ 
 cause they were the rights of the South merely, but because they are rights 
 essential to the Union, secured by the constitution ; and hence in the strong 
 language of General Pierce, “ what difference can it make, whether the out¬ 
 rage shall seem to fall on South Carolina , Maine , or Mew Hampshire .— 
 Are not the rights of each equally dear to us allV ’ 
 
 Carry home with you men of the South and bring it home to your con¬ 
 stituents, that here is the firm pledge of eternal brotherhood, under the 
 Constitution, between the Democracy of the North and the Democracy of 
 the South. And when the slanders of Abolition or Whig presses or stump 
 orators again assail a Northern Democrat, repel it with the energy of manly 
 confidence. And as you love the Union, see that you discriminate between 
 men called Democrats at the North, who practically regard the oath they 
 have taken to support the Constitution and execute the laws,and those who are 
 practically false to their allegiance to the Constitution by repudiating the 
 laws enacted to carry out its requirements in good faith, and spit upon the 
 platform of principles that uphold such laws and maintains the compro¬ 
 mises. And here again comes in most fittingly the cogent language of our 
 distinguished candidate, who, so unlike Gen. Scott, never touches with his 
 pen, aught that he does not illustrate and adorn—always beautiful in diction, 
 sound in thought and manly in sentiment. “If,” said General Pierce in his 
 letter to Major Lally, “ w r e of the North, who have stood by the Constitu¬ 
 tional rights of the South, are to be abandoned to any time-serving policy, the 
 hopes of Democracy and of the Union must sink together.” 
 
 It is most gratifying to see all the evidence around us of the new cement¬ 
 ing of this Union, by a right understanding, and a re-union of the Southern 
 and Northern Democracy. This is the great mission of the Democracy; by 
 which the whole series of sound Democratic measures and policy, which 
 alone can govern this country wisely and well, and secure to the masses their 
 just rights, with civil and religious freedom to all are to be consummated 
 under the administration of Pierce and King. Religious liberty, not tolera- 
 tion by sufferance, and a liberal and enlarged policy to the acquired rights of 
 the millions of the oppressed in the Old World, who by their own intelli¬ 
 gent choice, and not by the mere accident of nativity, are to become bone of 
 our bone, and flesh of our flesh, as fellow citizens in this great body politic. 
 
 And this has been brought about, and is going on, by the simple process 
 of Northern and Southern Democrats coming together and communing and 
 understanding each other. Let me mention a recent instance of this—be¬ 
 cause I can do it without any breach of courtesy. It was my pleasure to 
 meet in Boston, recently, a distinguished lawyer, Mr. Lyons from Richmond, 
 
6 
 
 Va. He had been active in the Whig ranks, had held the position of Chair¬ 
 man of the Central Whig Committee; and if I mistake not was a candidate 
 for Elector, which he declined on the nomination of Gen. Scott. 
 
 We invited him to be present at a meeting of the Democracy in Faneuil 
 Hall, which was addressed by Senator Clemens, of Alabama, and other distin¬ 
 guished gentlemen from other States. The resolutions of the meeting and 
 the sentiments of the speakers were such as the Democracy fully understood 
 and appreciated in Faneuil Hall; and after the meeting the gentleman said 
 to me, “ why sir, your Democracy understand this question in its relations 
 to the Union, even better than we do at the South.” The answer was, that, 
 if so, it grew out of the fact that we had been compelled to reason out the 
 matter and meet all sides of it, and we had thus put down, all but the clamor 
 and senseless denunciations of the Abolitionists, and reasoned them out 
 of everything save their fanaticism or their perverseness. You have seen 
 the published note of Mr. Lyons in which he vouches for the soundness of 
 the Northern Democracy. And now fellow ciiizens, let us look one mo¬ 
 ment at the fair common sense view which involves all the real issues be¬ 
 tween the North and the South under the Constitution, and see if sound ar¬ 
 gument and good conscience are not with us. 
 
 You have just listened to the very eloquent argument of the Governor of 
 Maryland. It is cheering to see a Democratic Governor and one so able 
 from that old Federal State, almost as hardened in that heresy as eld Mas¬ 
 sachusetts. He put it to you whether you believed that the South would 
 ever have consented to enter into the Union without the reservation of 
 the right of reclaiming their fugitives ? You declared no. We all know 
 that. Well, now I put it to you as a Northern man to Northern men:— 
 after the South came into the Union under that pledge, do we mean, because 
 we have a majority of the States, to cheat the South out of that solemn 
 compact made by our fathers? [No, no.] Why every honest man must say 
 no. Well then, if the North, having the majority, should cheat the South out 
 of that compact would it not be a total nullification of the whole agreement 
 under which States, entirely sovereign and independent of each other, sur¬ 
 rendered certain powers to the General Government, and secured certain 
 enumerated rights and reserved all powers and rights not granted? Clearly, 
 then not to fulfil that agreement is treason to the Constitution, or it must 
 be revolution or a mutual dissolution of the Union. 
 
 Then what is the constitutional obligation, and how was it formed ? Here 
 were certain States, which, under their laws, held persons, not citizens, to 
 perpetual service. Other States held apprentices to labor, and the compact 
 was that if any person held to service or labor under the laws of any State, 
 should escape into another State, he should be delivered up to the party 
 owning such service or labor. Mark the disjunctive, service or labor ; thus 
 designating by service, the servitude in the South, and by labor the employ¬ 
 ment of the apprentice. Well, then, this agreement was a mutual contract 
 as if in so many words, and binding as the deed of your lands, that if a slave 
 escaped from his master over the Virginia line into Pennsylvania, he should 
 be restored to his master, any law of the State of Pennsylvania to the con¬ 
 trary notwithstanding. So that Pennsylvania was not required to make any 
 State law to restore him, but she was pledged to make no law and do no 
 act that should interfere with or prevent his restitution. That is the solemn 
 duty of every State, and of the citizens of every State in this Union, and can 
 never be absolved but by a dissolution of the Union. 
 
 The same rule applies to an apprentice escaping from Pennsylvania into 
 Virginia. And this is the whole constitutional law, and the whole consti¬ 
 tutional duty. If you step one inch beyond this into the nature of these do- 
 
7 
 
 rrrestic relations, you are outside of your oath and outside of the Constitu¬ 
 tion. A fugitive from labor belonging to Pennsylvania is found and claimed 
 in Virginia. What business is it to Virginia how he is held here ! whether 
 he is worked in your coal mines or iron furnaces, or, il from Massachusetts, 
 in the Lowell Factories? Shall Virginia go off into a sentiment or an ab¬ 
 straction upon the forms and ielations of white domestic labor, and in that 
 pretext defraud you of a service which by law belongs to you ? Why not, 
 if you can do the same thing in respect to the forms of colored domestic ser¬ 
 vice in Virginia ? It comes to this direct point, that it is none of our busi¬ 
 ness as to the form of service in Virginia, and it is none of their business as 
 to the form of labor which we legalize. There is the compact! 
 
 Driven to the wall by this plain logic, then comes the evasion. In other 
 words, devising some pretext to cheat Virginia out of this plain agreement, 
 and yet keep her in the Union, which she never would have entered but for 
 this secured right. 
 
 Hence they contrive what is now called Northern State Rights, and con¬ 
 tend that Congress has no express power to make such a law as that of 1793 
 or 1850. A marvellous discovery after nearly seventy years of judicial con¬ 
 struction and of universal acquiescence. And at the same time, they mean 
 that the State shall not pass any law that will render up the fugitive. I con¬ 
 fess that I am ashamed of this pretext as a Massachusetts man. There is my 
 good old State, and with all her faults I dearly love her, ready to go to war 
 and to bring Virginia in to help her, just to maintain the rights of her brave 
 fishermen to catch cod within three miles of the British coast, and we insist 
 upon it, because that is the nautical construction by usage under the treaty 
 of 1818. And yet her free soilers, and many of them are interested in the 
 fisheries, want to get round the solemn compact of the Constitution, and the 
 laws under it, made by its framers, and sanctioned by the usage of seventy 
 years ! 
 
 But the argument is equally clear on th : .s point.—The Constitution is 
 made up of grants from the States to the General Government, and of agree¬ 
 ments between the States. The grants are explicit. The agreements are 
 equally so. They are rights of each State secured, and just as binding on 
 the general government as rights reserved. Hence one State cannot inter¬ 
 fere with either the reserved rights or the secured rights of another State. 
 Congress, therefore, is bound to f respect reserved rights by abstaining from 
 all legislative interference, and is equally bound to protect a secured or 
 agreed right between the States, by all necessary legislation. If any ques¬ 
 tion arises between citizens of different States, touching this matter, there is 
 the final interpreter of the law, the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
 every State and citizen is bound by a judicial decision upon a matter within 
 its jurisdiction, as in a question affecting the boundary line between two States. 
 
 The cant phrase that “freedom is national and slavery sectional” has 
 neither a legal political or constitutional meaning as applied to a justification 
 of slavery agitation. The national freedom of this Republic is freedom under 
 the Constitution ; it is liberty regulated by law. The very fact that slavery is 
 sectional proves that the agitation against it by one section of the Union 
 where it does not exist, is exclusively sectional and can never become nation¬ 
 al. Nor is it true that freedom without domestic slavery in the States is na¬ 
 tional under the Constitution, because each State has the sole right for itself, 
 to establish or abolish that domestic relation, as it sees fit. National freedom, 
 therefore, consists, and can only subsist in this Union, by leaving to each 
 State and organized political community, the right of establishing and main- 
 tianing its own domestic institution under the Constitution. An organized 
 political opposition to this construction of the Constitution and against tho 
 rights of half the States secured by its compacts and the laws under it, must 
 
8 
 
 therefore, in every sense, be anti-national, sectional and destructive of the 
 Union. 
 
 And now, fellow citzens, let us avoid all evasions and devices of dishonest, 
 cunning or even conscienciously misled persons, and standby the compacts 
 of our fathers, and maintain this glorious Union. 
 
 And to do this let us return to that only sure safeguard of this Union and 
 of its progressive expansion, the firm old fashioned brotherhood of the North¬ 
 ern and Southern Democracy. You know tha the Whigs cannot, as a party, 
 be trusted with the preservation of this Union. They have no universality, 
 no nationality of sentiment on these great and delicate questions. They 
 could not stand here, as we do to-day, discussing this question, each locality 
 avowing the sentiments of its party in thirteen States, without utter confusion 
 and discord. They could not agree upon any general principal or any law, 
 or no law covering the whole Union upon this question so vital to the Union. 
 
 I do not forget that there are loyal and honorable exceptions in the Whig 
 ranks. I cannot speak of Daniel Webster and of the Union Whigs who sus¬ 
 tain him in sustaining the Constitution, but wiifii respect. And yet what do 
 we see as the practical result in the Whig party, as a party, of the honorable 
 efforts made by Mr. Webster to frame and sustain, and by President Fillmore 
 to execute, a national law essential to the preservation of this Union ? Both 
 of them standing as high above Winfield Scott, in all that belongs to the 
 Statesman, as he doe? above a camp follower in all that pertains to the suc¬ 
 cessful General ; are thrown aside by the Whig Convention solely because 
 the Seward Whigs, who do not mean to be honest to the Constitution, look¬ 
 ed to the Abolition element for the succes of their candidate ; and this success, 
 under such a dark cloud, were it possible to be achieved, W'ould rend the Union. 
 And in this aspect it becomes of little moment what are the real opinions of Gen¬ 
 eral Scott, (if indeed he has any w r ell defined fixed opinion upon any subject 
 of constitutional or international or naturalization law's, of which we have no 
 evidence;) because the practical question is, what are the opinions of the 
 men who surround him, and without whose aid he could not form an ad¬ 
 ministration. They are not the opinions of the once Whig expounder of 
 the constitution, for the frown of the lofty brow of Daniel Webster is all over 
 the Scott Whigs of New England, New' York and the whole Union. The 
 effect of it I do not pretend to predict. I know not how his friends, the 
 the Union Whigs, will act in this election. I only know as we all know, 
 that standing as he now' does, on high constitutional ground, in this respect, 
 he cannot, and I do not believe he will, give in his adhesion, and become 
 an electioneerer for General Scott, because he cannot do so without a surren¬ 
 der of himself, and of all that now makes his countrymen respect and his 
 enemies fear him. 
 
 In that frown, of which I hv.ve spoken, I think I can see more than mere per¬ 
 sonal disappointment I think that he comprehends what the country now feels 
 as a great want; that there must be a party to sustain the Union upon the con¬ 
 struction and enforcement of the Constitution and the laws, in this one particu¬ 
 lar, as he and the great statesmen of the Democratic party now construe and are 
 prepared to enforce them—and that that party is not to be found in the disjoint¬ 
 ed sectional elements that support General Scott as the Presidential candidate. 
 
 Fellow citizens, I have done; and if I have detained you too long, it is be¬ 
 cause you have done me the honor so kindly to listen to me. To-day w'e 
 proclaim that the Democratic party is the Party of Union, and we here con¬ 
 summate, for time to come, the re-union of the Democratic party upon its 
 national platform, and its candidates, throughout the Union; and when we 
 meet, after November, we will mingle our congratulations over the triumph 
 of Pierce and King, and the Democratic party of the Union.