BRECKINRIDGE AND LANE CAMPAIGN DOCUMENT, NO. 13. 
 
 THE DOCTRINES AND POLICY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REPUBLICAN PARTY, 
 
 AS GIVEN BY ITS RECOGNIZED LEADERS, ORATORS, 
 
 PRESSES, AND PLATFORMS. 
 
 “OUT OF THINE OWN MOUTH WILL I CONDEMN THEE.*' 
 
 We propose, to give as fully as our limits will allow, the sentiments and policy 
 of the leading Republicans now supporting Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency. 
 We charge upon these men a systematic effort to excite the hostility of the North 
 towards the South, to inflame the citizens of both to mutual hatred and variance, 
 by the most galling and offensive language they can employ in reference to the 
 South; and then, by creating a feeling incompatible with the Union, to bring 
 about its final overthrow. We charge upon them a reckless disregard of the Con¬ 
 stitution, a studied contempt for the judicial tribunals, and the utterance of dog¬ 
 mas which are calculated to incite insurrection among the slaves, and to result in 
 all the horrors of a servile war. We charge upon them the well-known fact that 
 these teachings and this agitation, begun for the basest purposes, have already 
 realized at Harper's Ferry a successful result in the murder of peaceful and unof¬ 
 fending citizens; and that this midnight massacre of slaveholders, and attempted 
 servile revolt, so far from exciting abhorrence and condemnation from this party, 
 has elicited warm sympathy for the guilty actors, who were selected to give a 
 practical illustration of their doctrines. 
 
 We ask you, fellow-citizens, if this work is to be permitted to go on ? We urge 
 you to read carefully the extracts which we annex, showing the aims and designs 
 of the leading Republicans, and to consider whether such a party of sectional hate 
 and intolerance may be permitted with safety to control our institutions, or to be 
 allowed to grasp the reins of government of our Federal Union. 
 
 We quote first from Seward, because he is the real leader and soul of the Re¬ 
 publican party, as he was the first to build up and promote this sectional organiza¬ 
 tion. Hear the man who received 173 votes at the Chicago Convention, and who 
 would have been nominated but for the private malice of Greely. At Cleveland, 
 in 1848, he said : 
 
 “ Slavery can be limited to its present bounds; it can be ameliorated. It can be, and 
 it must be, ABOLISHED, and you and I can and must do it. The task is as simple and 
 easy as its consummation will be beneficent, and its rewards glorious. It requires only to 
 follow this simple rule of action : to do everywhere and on every occasion what we can, 
 and not to neglect or refuse to do what we can, at any time, because at that precise time, 
 and on that particular occasion, we cannot do more. Circumstances determine possibilities.” 
 
 * * * “ Extend a cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at 
 
 your door, and defend him as you would your paternal gods.” 
 
 “Correct your own error that slavery has any constitutional guarantee which may not 
 be released, and ought not to be relinquished.” * * “ You will soon bring the parties 
 
 of the country into an effective aggression upon slavery.” 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY—Issued by the National Democratic Executive Committee, 1860. 
 
9 
 
 Not content with thus denying the existence of u any constitutional guaran¬ 
 tee” to slavery; not satisfied with thus advising a forcible resistance to the recla¬ 
 mation of fugitive slaves in defiance of the Constitution, which says expressly that 
 they shall be “ delivered up,” Mr. Seward proceeds to set aside the entire Con¬ 
 stitution, and to erect in its stead his higher-law gospel: 
 
 “Bat there is a higher law than the Constitution , which regulates our authority over the 
 domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.” 
 
 In October, 1855, at Albany, he said: 
 
 “ Slavery is not, and never can be, perpetual. It will be overthrown either peacefully 
 and lawfully under this Constitution, or it will work the subversion of the Constitution 
 together with its own overthrow. Then the slaveholder would perish in the struggled 
 
 We quote from Horace Mann, of Massachusetts, former M. C.; Henry Wilson, 
 U. S. Senator; Charles Sumner, Joshua R. Giddings, N. P. Banks, and other 
 leading Republicans, all of whom concur in temper and spirit with Mr. Seward, 
 or surpass him in violence and treasonable doctrine : 
 
 “ In conclusion, I have only to add that such is my solemn and abiding conviction of the 
 character of slavery, that under a full sense of my responsibility to my country and my 
 God, I deliberately say, better disunion —better a civil or a servile war —better anything that 
 God in His providence shall send—than an extension of the bounds of slavery.”—(Speech 
 of Hon. Horace Mann.) 
 
 “ We shall change the Supreme Court of the United States, and placemen in that court 
 who believe with its pure and immaculate Chief Justice, John Jay, that our prayers will be 
 impious to heaven while we sustain and support human slavery. We shall free the Supreme 
 Court of the United States from Judge Kane. And here let me say there is a public senti¬ 
 ment growing up in this country that regards Passamore Williamson in his prison at Phila¬ 
 delphia as a martyr to the holy cause of personal liberty. There is a public sentiment 
 springing up that will brand upon the brow of Judge Kane a mark that will make him ex¬ 
 claim, as his namesake, the elder Cain : - It is too great for me to bear.’”—(Speech of Sen¬ 
 ator Wilson, October, 1855, at New York.) 
 
 At the Philadelphia American Convention, June 12, 1855, Senator Wilson said: 
 
 “I am in favor of relieving the Federal Government from all connection with, and respon¬ 
 sibility for, the existence of slavery. To effect this object I am in favor of the abolition of 
 slavery in the District of Columbia and the prohibition of slavery in all the Territories .” 
 
 “ I tell you here to-night, that the agitation of this question of slavery will continue 
 while the foot of a slave presses the soil of the American Republic.”—(Speech of same Sena¬ 
 tor on another occasion. 
 
 “ There was no freedom at the South for either white or black ; and he would strive to pro¬ 
 tect the free soil of the North from the same blighting curse. There was really no Union 
 now between the North and the South ; and he believed no two nations upon the earth enter¬ 
 tained feelings of more bitter rancor towards each other than these two sections of the Re¬ 
 public. The only salvation of the Union, therefore, was to be found in divesting it entirely from 
 all taint of slavery. There was no Union with the South. Let us have a Union,” said 
 he, “ or let us sweep away this remnant which we call a Union. I go for a Union where all 
 men are equal , or for no Union at all, and I go for right.”—(Speech of Senator Wade, of 
 Ohio, at a mass meeting of Republicans in Maine, in 1855, reported in Boston Atlas.) 
 
 Mr. Wade is now a leading Republican Senator. 
 
 “ The obligation incumbent upon the free States to deliver up fugitive slaves, is that bur¬ 
 den ; and it must be obliterated from that Constitution at every hazard .”—(Speech of Hon. 
 Josiah Quincy at Boston, August 18, 1854.) 
 
 Listen to Charles Sumner, another Republican Senator, advising resistance to 
 the Fugitive Slave law in Boston, and in the United States Senate : 
 
 “ The good citizen, as he reads the requirements of this act, (relative to fugitive slaves,) 
 is filled with horror. * * * Here the path of duty is clear. I am bound to 
 
 DISOBEY THIS ACT.” ****** 
 
 “ Sir, I will not dishonor this home of the Pilgrims, and of the Revolution, by admitting— 
 nay, I cannot believe—that this bill will be executed here.”—(Sumner’s Boston speech, 1850.) 
 
 This seditious conspirator is the pet of his State and party. 
 
 “ There are men, or rather beings with the semblance of men, who go about the country 
 declaring that Charles Sumner is not hurt, as stated ; but that he is merely playing possum. 
 
3 
 
 They lie, and they know it. Forgive me, fellow-citizens,” said the speaker, “ for using 
 this language. 1 feel incensed against men who thus injure the noblest and purest cham¬ 
 pion of freedom.” —(Speech of Hon. Anson Burlingame at Lancaster, Pa., October, 1856.) 
 
 “ The Republican party does not wish to interfere in the internal government or social 
 institutions of the slave States, but merely to place around them a cordon of free States. 
 Then this horrible system will die of inanition : or, Wee the scorpion,seeing no meins, of escape, 
 sting itself to death." —(Speech of Hon. Anson Burlingame, of Massachusetts, at Lancaster, 
 Pa., October, 1856.) 
 
 “ The cry of ‘the Union is in danger,’ is the argument of fools to an audience of idiots.” 
 (Speech of Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, at Lancaster, October, 1856.) 
 
 “ In the other section, they found fifteen slave States. There they did not find the me¬ 
 chanic arts, save in a rude form ; there they did not find commerce, nor philanthropic insti¬ 
 tutions ; but they found three millions of slaves, and six millions of degraded white 
 freemen !”—(Speech of Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, in New York, October 4, 1856.) 
 
 “ We deny the authority of Congress, or a territorial legislature, of any individual or 
 association, or individuals, to give legal assistance to slavery in any Territory of the 
 United States, while the present Constitution shall be maintained.”—(Republican plat¬ 
 form of 1856.) 
 
 “ Resolved, That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the Terri¬ 
 tories of the United States for their government, and that in the exercise of this power, it 
 is both the right and duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territory those twin relics of 
 barbarism, polygamy and slavery.” —(Republican platform of 1856.) 
 
 The foregoing extracts, from the Republican platform of 1856, are in conso¬ 
 nance with the revolutionary doctrines of Seward, Wilson, and others above cited; 
 and the several resolutions quoted is but the digest of Sumner’s late offensive 
 harangue in the U. S. Senate upon what he termed the u barbarism of slavery.” 
 
 John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, a delegate to the Republican Fremont Con¬ 
 vention, of 17th June, 1856, and then, as now, a leading Republican Senator, 
 addressed that convention, and said : 
 
 “ Mr. Hale congratulated the convention upon the spirit of unanimity with which it had 
 done its work. 1 believe ,” said he, u that this is not so much a convention to change the ad¬ 
 ministration of the government, but to say whether there shall be any government to be adminis¬ 
 tered. You have assembled, not to say whether this Union shall be preserved, but to say whether 
 it shall be a blessing or a scorn and hissing among the nations .” 
 
 Rufus P. Spaulding was a leading member of the Republican party of 1856. 
 He said : 
 
 “ In the case of the alternative being presented, of the continuance of slavery or a disso¬ 
 lution of the Union, I am for dissolution; and I care not how quick it comes.” 
 
 Nathaniel P. Ranks, of Massachusetts, was chosen by the Black Republicans 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives at the session of 1855-6. The follow¬ 
 ing is an extract from one of his New England speeches : 
 
 “ Although I am not one of that class of men who cry for the preservation of the Union ; 
 though I am willing, in a certain state of circumstances, to let it slide, I have no fear for its 
 perpetuation. But let me say, if the chief object of the people of this country be to main¬ 
 tain and propagate chattel property in man—in other words, human slavery— this Union 
 cannot and ought not to stand." 
 
 While Mr. Banks was a candidate for the Speakership, he was interrogated as 
 to his views upon the subject of an equality of the white and black races. Mr. 
 Banks was in doubt upon this point; but took good care not to admit the inferi¬ 
 ority of the negro race. He said : 
 
 “So far as he had studied the subject of races, he had adopted the idea that when there 
 is a weaker race in existence, it will succumb to and be absorbed in the stronger race. 
 This was the universal law as regarded the races of men in the world. In regard to the 
 question, whether the white race or the black race was superior, he proposed to wait until time should 
 deve'op whether the white race should absorb the black, or the black absorb the white.” 
 
 Mr. Banks was elected by a solid, sectional, abolition vote. It appears that 
 previous to his election, it was demanded that he should pledge himself to organize 
 the committees of the House upon sectional principles. This disgraceful stipu¬ 
 lation was put through at the instance of Joshua R. Giddings, in caucus. See the 
 Ohio State Journal, a Republican paper, of that date, which says : 
 
4 
 
 “On the 1st instant, at a very full meeting of the members opposed to the extension of 
 slavery, the following resolution, offered by that vigilant, tried, and stern old man, Mr. 
 Giddings, was adopted without a dissenting voice : 
 
 “ Resolved, That we will support no man for Speaker who is not pledged to carry out the 
 parliamentary law by giving to each proposed measure, ordered by the House to be com¬ 
 mitted, a majority of such special committee, and to organize, the standing committees of the 
 House by placing on each a majority of the friends of freedom, and ivho are favorable to making 
 reports on all petitions committed to them.” 
 
 Mr. Banks has been and is now the Republican G-overnor of Massachusetts, and 
 was a prominent candidate of the Republicans for the Presidency. He carried 
 out his instructions as Speaker of the House. Mr. Giddings was a leader of the 
 Fremont Convention in 1856, and was one of the most prominent persons in the 
 Convention of 1860, which nominated Abraham Lincoln. Listen to him: 
 
 “ I look forward to the day when there shall be a servile insurrection in the South ; when 
 the black man, armed with British bayonets, and led on by British officers, shall assert his 
 freedom, and wage a war of extermination against his master; when the torch of the incen¬ 
 diary shall light up the towns and cities of the South, and blot out the last vestige of slavery. 
 And though I may not mock at their calamity, nor laugh when their fear cometh, yet I 
 
 WILL HAIL IT AS THE DAWN OF A POLITICAL MILLENIUM.” 
 
 The following is the position upon the Fugitive Slave law of this Republican 
 leader of the Convention of 1860—a man who had influence enough in that 
 body to obtain the insertion of a plank in the platform, intended by him to 
 imply the doctrine of negro equality. (See the letter of Hon. Joshua R. Gid¬ 
 dings to a meeting at Palmyra, Ohio, in 1850.) He says : 
 
 “ The Fugitive Slave law commands us to participate in arresting and sending victims 
 to this southern immolation, by torture a thousand times more cruel than ordinary assassi¬ 
 nation. I would be as willing to handle the scourge, to sink the thing into his quivering 
 flesh, and to tear from him the life which God has given him, as to seize him and hand him 
 over to his tormenters, with the full knowledge and conviction that they will do it. Nor is 
 the crime of the slave-catcher less in the sight of God and good men, than is the guilt of 
 him who consummates the outrage by this final sacrifice of the victim. 
 
 “Yet, we are told, we must obey this law and perpetuate these crimes, until a slave- 
 ridden Congress shall see fit to reclaim us from such sin against God by repealing the law. 
 Whether it be right to obey God rather than man, judge ye. 
 
 “ From my inmost soul, I abhor, detest, and repudiate this law. I despise the human 
 being who would obey it, if such a being has existence .” 
 
 Here is resistance to a law of the land, which has been pronounced consti¬ 
 tutional by the judicial tribunals, openly counselled by Giddings, as we have shown 
 it to be by Sumner, Seward, and other Republican leaders ! These men, with 
 Greely , Banks, and other kindred spirits, are the men whom Lincoln, if chosen 
 President, would call to aid him in “ administering the laws” of the Union, accord¬ 
 ing to the oath prescribed. Are such men fit to be trusted with such duties ? 
 
 Listen to Hon. Anson Burlingame, Republican member of Congress from Massa¬ 
 chusetts : 
 
 “ The times demand, and we must have, an anti-slavery Constitution, an anti-slavery 
 Bible, and an anti-slavery God !” 
 
 No Republican press has ever rebuked or disavowed this frightful blasphemy. 
 In fact, it is but a sample of their ordinary political harangues. 
 
 “ I have no doubt that the free and slave States ought to separate.”— (J. S. P., regular 
 correspondent of New York Tribune.) 
 
 When the Kansas-Nebraska bill was pending, Greely, of the New York Tribune, 
 was for destroying the Government and Union rather than allow the bill to pass 
 by the ordinary forms of legislation. He said : 
 
 “We urge, therefore, unbending determination on the part of the northern members hos¬ 
 tile to this intolerable outrage, and demand of them, in behalf of peace, in behalf of freedom, 
 in behalf of justice and humanity, resistance to the last. Better that confusion should 
 ensue—better that discord should reign in the national councils— better that Congress should 
 break up in wild discord — nay, better that the Capitol itself should blaze by the torch of the inctn- 
 
5 
 
 diary, or fall and bury all its inmates beneath its crumbling ruins, than that this perfidy and 
 wrong should be finally accomplished .” 
 
 The sympathy of the Republican party with these anarchical and revolutionary 
 views of Horace Greely, and their readiness to break up the government in order 
 to carry out their plans, was fully shown some few months afterwards by their 
 defeating the Army Appropriation hill in the House of Representatives, where 
 they were in a majority; thus stopping the wheels of government , and compelling 
 an extra session of Congress, because the Senate would not relinquish their 
 powers as a co-ordinate branch of the G-overnment, and agree to the unconstitu¬ 
 tional proviso passed by the House, depriving the President of the command of 
 the army and navy of the United States! 
 
 James Watson Webb, a member of the Fremont Convention, and the editor 
 of the New York Courier and Enquirer, a leading Republican organ, made a 
 speech in that body, from which we extract the following: 
 
 “ Our people—loving order, loving law, and willing to abide by the ballot-box—come 
 together from all parts of the Union and ask us to give them a nomination which, when 
 fairly put before the people, will unite public sentiment, and through the ballot-box will 
 restrain and repel this pro-slavery extension, and this aggression of the slaveocracy. 
 What else are they doing? They tell you they are willing to abide by the ballot-box, and 
 willing to make that last appeal. If we fail there, what then ? We will drive it back, sword 
 in hand, and, so help me God, believing that to be right, I am with them. [Loud cheers, and 
 cries of ‘good.’] Northern gentlemen, on your action depends the result. You may, with 
 God’s blessing, present to this country a name, rallying around it all the elements of the 
 opposition, and thus we will become so strong that, through the ballot-box, we shall save 
 the country. But, if a name be presented on which we may not rally, and the consequence is 
 civil war—nothing more, nothing less, but civil war—1 ask, then, what is our first duty ?” 
 
 The assigned cause for the formation, organization, violence, treason, and re¬ 
 sistance to the laws by the Republican party, was the repeal in the Kansas-Nebraska 
 act, of the Missouri compromise line of 36° 30'. Yet it is notorious that the line 
 was voted against by the freesoilers and abolitionists, when proposed to be applied 
 to Texas by the South, in 1844. This line was framed on the principle of & par¬ 
 tition or division of the Territory between the North and the South. In 1847-8, 
 9, and 50, when the South demanded the application of this line (of thirty-six, 
 thirty) to the Territories acquired from Mexico, these freesoilers voted it down. 
 In 1854 and '5, they were ready to dissolve the Union to preserve this line, which 
 they, years before, repudiated with scorn. 
 
 In 1856, the staple of their party was the pretended outrages upon their friends 
 in Kansas. All these troubles there, sprung from the resistance of men like John 
 Brown and Jim Lane to the laws and judicial tribunals of the Territory. How 
 far this violence belonged to one party may be seen from the following extract: 
 
 Wequot e from the Kansas correspondent of the New York Times , a Repub¬ 
 lican Press, in 1856: 
 
 “ About one hundred of Lane’s party, including Dr. Cutter’s, were on hand, and seemed 
 to glory in an opportunity to fight so soon for principle. They are a fine-looking set of 
 men, and are of the right stamp to make Kansas free—that is, they have the nerve and the 
 will to hew out their own fortunes freely and boldly. To-morrow our camp moves into 
 town, to await further orders. The campaign seems begun. The third last monster invasion 
 of Kansas is at hand, and the cry is, Spare not.” 
 
 In consonance with such a hellish spirit, we find the murder of the Doyles 
 and other unarmed men in Kansas by John Brown and his party—by John Brown, 
 the favorite of the Republican party—John Brown, whose services and accomplish¬ 
 ments shown in the work of murder and assassination in Kansas induced the Re¬ 
 publicans to entrust him with the Harper’s Ferry invasion. Mrs. Doyle testifies 
 that John Brown and his party of soldiers took her husband from his bed by 
 night and her two eldest boys, and led them outside of the building, where they 
 murdered them in cold blood. Allen, Wilkinson, and Sherman, were murdered 
 
6 
 
 under similar circumstances by John Brown, and the Republicans forthwith ex¬ 
 tolled him to the skies as a hero ! 
 
 A letter dated August 22, 1856, to the Springfield (Mass.) Republican , a Re¬ 
 publican paper, says: 
 
 “ We are having war in earnest—four fights within the last five days, in all of which the 
 frce-State men were the assailants, and the victors. Four lives lost on our side, and some 
 eight or ten badly wounded.” 
 
 Is this what the Republicans refer to by their parrot-cry of u bleeding Kansas?” 
 
 But read the following disgraceful confession which appeared in the New York 
 Times, (a Republican sheet.) It fully shows that the system of outrage and 
 violence was purposely kept alive in Kansas during the campaign of 1856, with 
 a view to inflame the popular mind of the North against the South, and thus pro¬ 
 mote Fremont’s election: 
 
 “Lawrence, Kansas, Monday, July2\, 1856. 
 
 “Companies of dragoons are stationed at Lecompton, Blanton, Palmyra, and Cedar 
 Creek. In their immediate neighborhood, and generally throughout the Territory, affairs 
 appear quiet and peaceful. This appearance, however, is deceptive. The same feelings— 
 the same desire to fight—exists now as did exist before the appearance of the dragoons. 
 Travelers here and there are stopped and robbed, and cabins where arms are secreted and men 
 stationed are assaulted and rifled of their arms and ammunition. These attacks on the part 
 of the free-State party are conducted in a more quiet and orderly manner than heretofore. 
 W’hendone, it is done so that no bogus sheriff, backed by the United States dragoous, kuows 
 upon whom to put his finger. Within a few days arms and ammunition have been taken 
 from different places where they had been stored by the pro-slavery regulators, and expe¬ 
 ditions are now on foot looking to further captures ! We are frequently in receipt of 
 rumors from different parts of the Territory, giving account of the encampments of armed men. 
 Enough daily happens to keep alive the excitement and give healthful encourage¬ 
 ment TO the war spirit.” 
 
 This writer lets out the whole secret of the Republican campaign of 1856. It 
 was war in Kansas, and agitation at the North. His operations in the line of 
 bloodshed and robbery looked solely to Fremont’s election. John Brown appears 
 to have been controlled by a cordial love for such “ Kansas work” —to use 
 his own expressive phrase—while many of their associates were probably con¬ 
 trolled by both these motives. The sagacity of the people detected this foul 
 conspiracy, and by the Presidential election of 1860 the Republican party was 
 found to be in a minority, in the popular vote of the Union, by the instrumen¬ 
 tality of not less than 1,346,000 votes! ! It has lost instead of gaining strength 
 since then; but by the divisions of the conservative masses opposed to them, this 
 party, which is now in a minority of more than a million of the popular vote of 
 the Union, dares to hope and contend for an administration of the government 
 upon its own sectional, unconstitutional, and infamous basis. It aims to work 
 wrong, injustice, and insult to our southern brethren of a minority government. 
 
 At December term, 1856, the United States Supreme Court gave its decision 
 in the celebrated Dred Scott case. The case had been begun in Missouri in 1853, 
 was appealed to the Supreme Court, and the judgment there appeared in the spring 
 of 1857. With unusual unanimity the court ruled that a negro was not a citizen 
 of the United States, and that neither by Congress or by a Territorial legislature 
 (the creature of Congress) could the right of property in slaves held in a Terri¬ 
 tory be impaired or destroyed. This decision was a death-blow to the doctrines 
 of negro equality and the Wilmot proviso, which were the corner-stone of the Re¬ 
 publican faith. Forthwith their presses all over the land teemed with the foulest 
 abuse of the court, and contempt for its authority. The judges who, up to that 
 hour, had been revered by every good citizen, and respected even by the bad, were 
 reviled as the tools of the “ slave power,” their personal characters assailed, and 
 the members of the court declared to be in their dotage. The Tribune , which is 
 more read than any other Republican organ, declared that their judgment was 
 
7 
 
 not entitled to any more “ moral weight than the judgment of a majority of those 
 congregated in any Washington bar-room.” 
 
 Mr. Seward charged directly collusion and corrupt connivance on the court, 
 in his speech in the Senate on 3d March, 1858. Hear him : 
 
 “ The mock debate had been heard in the chamber of the court in the basement of the 
 Capitol, in the presence of the curious visitors at the seat of Government, whom the dullness 
 of a judicial investigation could not disgust. The court did not hesitate to please the incoming 
 President by seizing this extraneous and idle forensic discussion, and converting it into an 
 occasion for pronouncing an opinion that the Missouri prohibition was void, and that by force of 
 the Constitution, slavery existed, with all the elements of property in man over man, in ail 
 the Territories of the United States, paramount to any popular sovereignty within the Ter¬ 
 ritories, and even to the authority of Congress itself.” * * * 
 
 “ The day of inauguration came— the first one among all the celebrations of that great 
 national pageant that was to be desecrated by a coalition between the Executive and Judicial 
 departments, to undermine the national legislature and the liberties of the people." 
 
 Well might Senator Benjamin ask, “ Is there a solitary word of truth in this ? 
 Not one. Is a solitary fact alleged ? Not one; hut a broad and naked charge 
 is made, which is intended to stamp infamy upon characters hitherto beyond the 
 breath of reproach. Shame, shame upon the Senator that makes such charges as 
 these, and has no proof to support them/’ 
 
 Further on, in the same speech, Mr. Seward boldly threatens an attempt to re¬ 
 organize the Supreme Court so as to make it conform to the will of the Repub¬ 
 lican party. He says: 
 
 The Supreme Court also can reverse its spurious judgment more easily than we can 
 reconcile the people to its usurpation.” * * “The people of the United 
 
 States never can, and they never will, accept principles so unconstitutional and so abhorent. 
 Kever, never. Let the court recede. Whether it recedes or not, we shall reorganize the 
 COURT, AND THUS REFORM ITS POLITICAL SENTIMENTS AND PRACTICES, and bring them into 
 harmony with the Constitution and the laws of nature.” 
 
 Following up the same strain, Mr. Abraham Lincoln says : “ The people of the 
 United iStotes are the rightful masters of both Congress and courts.” Mr. Lincoln 
 proposes to substitute popular clamor, however transient or erroneous, for the con¬ 
 clusions of an independent judiciary bound by their oaths to look only to the law 
 and the facts. 
 
 Mr. Abbott, a Republican member of the House, said : 
 
 “ Hence, the opinions of the court therein expressed are not only false, but they are extra¬ 
 judicial usurpations, entitled to no more respect than the opinions of any other equal number 
 of political demagogues and similar morals with themselves .” 
 
 The address of the Republican Convention, of New York, October, 1855, says : 
 
 “ It is one of the most lamentable features of the present Democratic degeneracy, that it 
 has invaded even the sanctuary of justice, and from the seat once honored by Jay, Rutledge, 
 Ellsworth, and Marshall, novj strains its equity through the sieve of sectionalism, in accents as 
 barbarous as they are disgraceful to the nation to which we belong, and the age in which 
 we live. The infamy of the Dred Scott decision is but a legitimate sequence to the efforts 
 that have been put forth to sectionalize and pack a tribunal in which was once centered the 
 respect and confidence of the nation /” 
 
 In October, 1858, we find Mr. Seward, then confessed by all as the leader and 
 master-spirit of the Republicans, laying down, in his Rochester speech, their mani¬ 
 festo of future operations. It contemplates no peace with the South, no cessation 
 of the sectional strife, nothing but enduring hostility to southern institutions. 
 He says : 
 
 “ Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and col¬ 
 lision results. Shall I tell you what this collision means ? They who think it is accidental, 
 unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake 
 the case 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 entirely a 
 slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of 
 South Carolina, and the sugar plantations of Louisiana, will ultimately be tilled by free labor. 
 
8 
 
 # 
 
 and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye 
 fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their 
 farmers to slave culture, and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become 
 once more a market for trade in the bodies and souls of men. It is the failure to appre¬ 
 hend this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final compromise between 
 the slave and free States, and it is the existence of this great fact that renders all such pre¬ 
 tended compromise, when made, vain and ephemeral .” 
 
 The whole country was startled and disgusted at this brutal and bloody mani¬ 
 festo. Conservative men of the North stood aghast at the idea of an unending 
 strife between the North a*nd the South. They held that it was not necessary for 
 either section to force its system upon the other, and they knew that, to attempt it, 
 would compel disunion and civil war. This doctrine of Seward’s, however, was not 
 new with him. It may be found shadowed forth in the speeches of Wilson and other 
 Republicans heretofore quoted, and was distinctly avowed anterior to Seward by 
 Mr. Abraham Lincoln, the present Republican candidate for the Presidency, 
 in his canvass for the United States Senate. Hear him: 
 
 “ In my opinion, it (the slavery agitation) will not cease until a crisis shall have been 
 reached and passed. ‘ A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe the Government 
 cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall, but 1 
 do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either 
 the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public 
 mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates 
 will push forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States—old as well as new, North 
 as well as South.” 
 
 It will be seen that Mr. Seward has merely worked up Lincoln’s ideas into 
 somewhat better phraseology, and that, for the sentiments of sectional hate and 
 antagonism involved, they are equally responsible before Glod and man. Let no 
 conservative or thoughtful man imagine that Seward was discarded because of 
 his ultraism, when we find Lincoln on precisely the same ground. 
 
 Again, at Rome, New York, in same month, (October, 1858,) Mr. Seward says : 
 
 “Everything has been lost which can be lost, except the enjoyment of freedom and the 
 exclusion of slavery within the free States. Slavery remains apparently stronger than ever 
 in all the slave States, and freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of suffrage 
 upon the subject of slavery, are actually unknown in those States. Slavery remains in the 
 District of Columbia defiant of all your power; slavery remains in all the arsenals, docks, 
 and navy-yards of the United States, and upon all the decks of your national marine.” 
 
 “To retrieve these losses will be the work of a future day.' 1 ' 
 
 After the seeds of hate to the South had been thus planted in the minds of the 
 ignorant and fanatical by the Republican leaders, it was not surprising that one 
 who had been almost idolized by the Republican party for his midnight murders 
 of unarmed southern men in cold blood in Kansas, should essay to carry out 
 these teachings of an “irrepressible conflict,” by stirring up a servile insurrec¬ 
 tion in Virginia. This bloody work was begun by John Brown, at Harper’s Ferry, 
 with a band of Republicans, black and white, aided by arms and money supplied 
 by their political friends, on Sunday night, the 16th October, 1859. The time 
 was fitly chosen by a party which clamors for an “ anti-slavery Bible and anti¬ 
 slavery Grod. We shall not recite how the town and United States arsenal were 
 seized—how freedom was offered to the blacks, and pikes wherewith to murder 
 the whites, and thus renew the scenes of Saint Domingo; and how peaceful and 
 unoffending white citizens were murdered in the sight of their families by these 
 Republican wretches, fresh from Kansas, and covered with plaudits for like deeds 
 there. The country is familiar with the facts, and will not soon forget how, from 
 the first day to the very last, when all these men paid the penalty they could by 
 their deaths for their atrocious crimes, the Republican press and orators apolo¬ 
 gized for their acts, extenuated their conduct, traduced the State which punished 
 the murderers, and eulogized those murderers as martyrs and heroes in the cause 
 of liberty! The people will recall how thousands of dollars have been collected 
 
9 
 
 for Brown’s family, while thousands of deserving and honest men, women, and 
 children at the North were suffering last winter for bread. 
 
 Take the doctrine of the New York Times upon John Brown, and every man 
 who believes free labor the best state of society is bound to approve and justify 
 his (Brown’s) acts: 
 
 “ No man can justify an insurrection of southern slaves upon any other basis than this— 
 that a better state of society for all concerned would certainly result from it than that which 
 now exists. Anything less than this would not compensate for the slaughter of innocent 
 women and children, the wholesale destruction of property, the infliction of torture, rapine, 
 and every imaginable horror, the overthrow of all order, peace, and security, and the black 
 and bloody anarchy, which must inevitably attend upon the most successful insurrection of 
 southern slaves which could possibly take place.” 
 
 The New York Tribune, the leading Republican Journal of the United States, 
 and read probably by over 400,000 Republicans, said: 
 
 “There will be enough to heap execration on the memory of these mistaken men, (Brown 
 and his party.) We leave this work to the fit hands and tongues of those who regard the 
 fundamental axioms of the Declaration of Independence as ‘ glittering generalities.’ ” * 
 
 Again, on 9th December, 1859, it says: 
 
 “ You know that mistaken old John Brown and his brave sons with him at Harper’s Ferry, 
 laid down their lives not to injure but benefit the South ; that they and their comrades, dead 
 or about to be killed, were the least ‘sectional of human beings.” They sacrificed their all 
 in an unlawful but heroic effort to benefit those whom they had never seen.” 
 
 Again, it says: 
 
 “ Unwise the world will pronounce him—reckless of artificial yet palpable obligations he 
 certainly was ; but his very errors were heroic—the faults of a brave, impulsive, truthful 
 nature, impatient of wrong, and only too conscious that resistance to tyrants is obedience 
 to God ! Let whoever would first cast a stone, ask himself whether his own noblest act was 
 equal in grandeur and nobility to that for which John Brown pays the penalty of a death on 
 the gallows.” ******* 
 
 “ To all who have suffered for human good, who have been persecuted for an idea, who 
 have been hated because of their efforts to make the daily path of the despised and unfor- 
 tunato less rugged, his memory will be fragrant through generations. It will be easier to 
 die hereafter in a good cause, even on the gallows, since John Brown has hallowed that 
 mode of exit from the troubles and temptations of this mortal life.” 
 
 Consider, fellow-citizens, that the secret of all this eulogy of a murderer is, that 
 he murdered southern men in an attempt to get up a servile insurrection at the 
 South. Consider, too, that the editor who indites this eulogy upon the murderer, 
 Brown, was the ruling spirit of the Chicago Convention , which nominated Lincoln , 
 and that by his efforts, even Seward was set aside, not for his ultraism, but to 
 gratify the private malice of a disappointed place-hunter. 
 
 Wendell Phillips, at Boston, in February, 1860, said : 
 
 “ And better than that Puritan conscience awakes , and flings its spear down into the centre 
 of Virginia, in the revolt of John Brown ; and the world says, do I approve of him? Well, 
 he is your eldest born, you ought to know him; he bears your lineaments, you ought to 
 acknowledge him. lie is the natural product of the thought of the North, seeking vent somewhere. 
 The irrepressible conflict has begun.” ***** 
 
 On the same occasion, Garrison said : 
 
 “Whatever stands in the v*ay of this sacred cause, put it down. If it is a party, let the 
 party be abandoned; if it is the Church, let the Church be anathematized ; if it is the Govern¬ 
 ment, let the Government be repudiated.” 
 
 The Chambersburg (Pennsylvania) correspondent of the Tribune writes, on the 
 26th October, 1859, in respect to Cook and John Brown: 
 
 “ The public pulse here throbs pity for Cook. * * Both here and in Philadelphia, 
 
 the conduct of Cook and of Brown is arousing a deeper and broader anti-slavery sentiment, 
 (outside as well as inside of Abolition circles,) which even Kansas, with all its horrors and 
 outrages, failed signally to excite. Why? It has appealed to the beliqjous nature of 
 THE people, and water is beginning to flow from the rock of Horeb.” 
 
10 
 
 The Rev. Theodore Parker writes, on the 24th November, 1859, the following 
 upon John Brown: 
 
 1. “A man held against his -will as a slave has a natural right to kill every one who seeks 
 to prevent his enjoyment of liberty. 
 
 2. “It may be a natural duty of the slave to develop this natural right in a practical 
 manner, and actually kill all those who seek to prevent his enjoyment of liberty. 
 
 3. “ The freeman has a natural right to help the slaves recover their liberty, and in that 
 enterprise to do for them all which they have a right to do for themselves. 
 
 4. “ It may be a natural duty for the freeman to help the slaves to the enjoyment of their 
 liberty, and, as means to that end, to aid them in killing all such as oppose the natural freedom.” 
 
 This letter of the Rev. Mr. Parker is published in the Tribune of 27th De¬ 
 cember, 1859, without one word of caution or dissent. 
 
 On the night of the day Speaker Pennington was elected, Mr. Cameron, United 
 States Senator from Pennsylvania, speaking of the Harper’s Ferry invasion, spoke 
 of it slightingly, as follows: 
 
 “ Never mind Harper’s Ferry, my friends, that is a nine days’ wonder.” 
 
 Mr. Hickman, a prominent Republican member of the House, said: 
 
 “And I say to you to-night, my fellow-citizens, that if it will require the State of Vir¬ 
 ginia in arms to take old John Brown, and seventeen men and one cow, it will require more 
 than the fifteen feeble States of the South to successfully compete with the eighteen mighty 
 States of the North.” 
 
 The Winstead (Connecticut) Herald, a Republican press, said of John Brown 
 and his acts : 
 
 “ For one, we confess we love him, we honor him, we applaud him. He is honest in his 
 principles, courageous in their defence, and we have yet to be taught, reading from the book 
 of inspiration we all acknowledge, how and wherein old John Brown is a transgressor.” 
 
 “He dared to undertake what you , (the Republican leaders,) in the security of your 
 sanctums, only are bold to preach.” 
 
 We come next in our order to the infamous Helper book, or “ The Impending 
 Crisis of the South—how to meet it—by Hinton Rowan Helper;” of which the 
 Republican leaders proposed to distribute one hundred thousand copies. Sixty- 
 six Republican members of Congress recommended this book. Among them, 
 (thus cordially endorsing the opinions and approving the enterprise,) we find all 
 the prominent Republicans—Colfax, Burlingame, Lovejoy, Granger, Grow, Gid- 
 dings, Edward Wade, Chaffee, John Sherman, the Washburns, Stanton, Covode, 
 Potter, and other leading men. It is pretended, in behalf of these men, that they 
 had not seen the compendium; but it must be remembered that the original work, 
 of which this was to be a digest, is far more offensive, fanatical, and violent, than 
 the compend. The writer says : 
 
 “ Such are the agricultural achievements of slave labor ; such are the results of ‘ the sum 
 of all villanies.’ The diabolical institution subsists on its own flesh. At one time children are sold 
 to procure food for the parents; at another, parents are sold to procure food for the children. 
 Within its pestilential atmosphere nothing succeeds ; progress and prosperity are unknown ; 
 inanition and slothfulness ensue ; everything becomes dull, dismal, and unprofitable; wretch¬ 
 edness and desolation stand or lie in bold relief throughout the land ; au aspect of most 
 melancholy inactivity and dilapidation broods over every city and town ; ignorance and pre¬ 
 judice sit enthroned over the minds of the people ; usurping despots wield the sceptre of power ; 
 everywhere and in everything, between Delaware and the Gulf of Mexico, are the multitudin¬ 
 ous evils of slavery apparent.” * * * * * * 
 
 “On the other hand, we contend that many years of continual blushing and severe 
 penance would not suffice to cancel or annul the shame and disgrace which justly attaches 
 to the South in consequence of slavery—the direst evil that ever befel the land ; that the 
 South bears nothing like even a respectable approximation to the North in navigation, com¬ 
 merce, or manufactures; and that, contrary to the opinion entertained by ninety-nine hun¬ 
 dredths of her people, she is far behind the free States in the only thing of which she has 
 ever dared to boast—agriculture.” 
 
 “ The great revolutionary movement which was set on foot in Charlotte, Mecklenburg 
 county, North Carolina, on the 20th day of May, 1775, has not been terminated, nor will it 
 
 be, until every slave in the United States is freed from the tyranny of its master. Every victim 
 
11 
 
 of the vile institution, whether white or black, must be re-invested with the sacred rights 
 and privileges of which he has been deprived by an inhuman oligarchy.” * * 
 
 “ She (the South) has hugged a viper to her breast. Her whole system has been para¬ 
 lyzed ; her conscience is seared ; and, still holding in her embrace the cause of her shame and 
 suffering, she is becoming callous to every principle of justice and humanity.” * * 
 
 “In this extraordinary crisis of affairs, no man can be a true patriot without first be¬ 
 coming an abolitionist.” * * * * * 
 
 “ Henceforth, sirs, we are demandants, not supplicants. We demand our rights, nothing 
 more, nothing less. It is for you to decide whether we are to have justice peaceably or by 
 violence; for whatever consequences may follow , we are determined to have it one way or the 
 other.” 
 
 “ Inscribed on the banner which we herewith unfurl to the world, with the full and fixed 
 determination to stand by it or die by it, unless one of more virtuous efficacy shall be pre¬ 
 sented, are the mottoes which, in substance, embody the principles, as we conceive, that 
 should govern us in our patriotic warfare against the most subtle and insidious foe that 
 ever menaced the inalienable rights and liberties, and dearest interests, of America : 
 
 “1. Thorough organization and independent political action on the part of the non¬ 
 slaveholding whites of the South. 
 
 “ 2. Ineligibility of pro-slavery slaveholders; never another vote to any one who ad¬ 
 vocates the retention and perpetuation of human slavery. 
 
 “ 3. No co-operation with pro-slavery politicians; no fellowship with them in religion ; no 
 affiliation with them in society. 
 
 “4. No patronage to pro-slavery merchants; no guestship in slave-waiting hotels; no fees 
 to pro-slavery lawyers; no employment of pro-slavery pby icians ; no audience to pro¬ 
 slavery parsons. 
 
 “5. No more hiring of slaves by non-slaveholders. 
 
 “ 6. Abrupt discontinuance of subscription to pro slavery newspapers. 
 
 “ 7. The greatest possible encouragement to free, white labor.” 
 
 The foregoing extracts may serve as a sample of the “ Anti-slavery Bible” 
 which the Hon. Mr. Burlingame said the “ times demanded.” This is the book 
 which the Republican leaders, in their circular, think would be “ productive of 
 most beneficial results.” This is the book of which the Tribune, 27th Decem¬ 
 ber, 1859, says: 
 
 “Finally, ignoring a few harsh epithets and questionable theories, and overlooking occa¬ 
 sional faults of style, in view of the magnitude of the theme, the ‘ Impending Crisis of the 
 South’ is entitled to a place among the most valuable books of the day.” 
 
 In accordance with the spirit of this book, we find the following resolution 
 adopted at a public meeting in the town of Natick, Massachusetts, the residence of 
 Senator Wilson, 20th November, 1859: 
 
 “Whereas, resistance to tyrants is obedience to God, therefore— Resolved, That it is the 
 right and duty of the slaves to resist their masters; and it is the right and duty of the peo¬ 
 ple of the North to incite slaves to resistance, and to aid them in it.” 
 
 Mr. Wilson was present at this meeting, and did not raise his voice in opposi¬ 
 tion to the resolution. 
 
 The Helper book, bad as it is, is not more pernicious in its teachings and in¬ 
 fluence than the book of Mr Lysander Spooner, entitled the “ Unconstitutionality 
 of Slavery,” endorsed by W. H. Seward and other Republicans. Mr. Seward, 
 after reading it, says, it is a “ very able work,” and wishes that “ it might be 
 universally studied.” 
 
 This book of Spooner denies that slavery had any legal existence in the country 
 at the time of the Revolution, and holds that the Declaration of Independence 
 makes slavery even now illegal. 
 
 In chapter 14, the writer says : 
 
 “ Our answer to this argument is, that at the adoption of the Constitution of the United 
 States, there was no legal or constitutional slavery in the States. Not a single State 
 constitution then in existence recognized, authorized, or sanctioned slavery. All the 
 slaveholding then practised was merely a private crime, committed by one person against another, 
 like theft, robbery, or murder .” 
 
 “ Slavery is inconsistent with nearly everything that is either expressed or legally 
 implied in the Constitution.” 
 
12 
 
 “ This illustration is sufficient to prove that the power of the General Government to 
 liberate men from slavery, by tbe use of the writ of habeas corpus, is of the amplest char¬ 
 acter; that it is not confined to the cases of those who are a part of ‘ the people of the 
 United States,’ and so parties to the Constitution ; that it is limited only by the territory 
 of the country; and that it exists utterly irrespective of ‘ anything in the Constitution or laws 
 of any Stated ” 
 
 “If these opinions are correct, it is the constitutional duty of Congress to establish courts, 
 if need be, in every county and township even, where there are slaves to be liberated; to provide 
 attorneys to bring the cases before the courts ; and to keep a standing military force, if need be, 
 to sustain the proceedings. 
 
 “ In addition to the use of the habeas corpus, Congress has power to prohibit the slave- 
 trade between the States, which of itself would do much towards abolishing slavery in the 
 northern slaveholding States. They have power, also, to organize, arm, and discipline the 
 slaves as militia ; thus enabling them to aid in obtaining and securing their ov:n liberty .” 
 
 Our extracts are taken from the New York Herald of 24th March, 1860. 
 This book does not contain the violent language of the Helper book, but is even 
 more malign and insidious in its attack upon the Constitution and the domestic 
 peace of the country. 
 
 Read the following from the speech of the Hon. Owen Lovejoy, a prominent 
 Republican from Illinois, delivered in the House of Representatives April 5,1860 : 
 
 “ Slaveholding has been justly designated as the sum of all villany. Put every crime 
 perpetrated among men into a moral crucible, and dissolve and combine them all, and the 
 resultant amalgam is slaveholding. It has the violence of robbery. 
 
 “ A member. You are joking. 
 
 “ Mr. Lovejoy. No, sir, I am speaking in dead earnest, before God, God’s own truth. 
 It has the violence of robbery, the blood and cruelty of piracy; it has the offensive and 
 brutal lusts of polygamy, all combined and concentrated in itself, with aggravations that 
 neither one of these crimes ever knew or dreamed of. 
 
 “Mr. Chairman, I was about stating, when interrupted, that, the principle upon which 
 slaveholding was sought to be justified in this country would, if carried out in the affairs 
 of the universe, transform Jehovah, the Supreme, into an infinite Juggernaut, rolling the 
 huge wheels of his omnipotence, ankle-deep, amid the crushed, mangled, and bleeding 
 bodies of human beings, [laughter on the Democratic side,] on the ground that he was 
 infinitely superior, and that they were an inferior race.” 
 
 Mr. Lovejoy is a parson, and is a great favorite on the Republican side of the 
 House. His speech was re-published in the Tribune, and praised for its “ terseness 
 and manly vigor.” He is a warm political friend of Abraham Lincoln, of course. 
 
 On 24th July, 1860, Mr. John Hickman, member from Pennsylvania, said, at 
 Concert Hall, Philadelphia : 
 
 “ I am not ignorant of the fact that those who suppose they may rightfully make merchan¬ 
 dise of mothers and their children, seem to think that they can shape the designs of Provi¬ 
 dence, and re-write the history of humanity, reversing everything our fathers thought, and 
 for the maintenance of which they perilled life and honor.’ 
 
 The Hon. H. C. Leach, from Michigan, on 14th March, 1860, said in the 
 House of Representatives: 
 
 “And I hesitate not to say, that these principles, (of the Republicans,) faithfully ob¬ 
 served in the administration of government affairs, will lead to the abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia, to the repeal or essential modification of the Fugitive Slave law, and to 
 the limitation of slavery to the States in which it now exists. If these resolutions from 
 the Republican platform mean anything, they mean no less than this. And, sir, to limit 
 slavery to its present possessions* is to destroy it. It must expand or die.” 
 
 Hear Senator Wade, of Ohio, on the Helper book, in the United States Senate, 
 14th December, 1859 : 
 
 “ Now, 1 want to ask the Senator if there is anything in that book that he thinks danger¬ 
 ous to the people of any section of this country ?” * * “ Why, sir, has it come to this, 
 
 in free America, that there must be a censorship of the press instituted—that a man cannot 
 give currency to a book containing arguments that he thinks essentially affect the rights 
 of whole classes of the free population of this nation? I hope not, and I believe not.” 
 
 Hear Mr. Van Wyck, of New York, a leading Republican of the present House, 
 on 7tli March, I860 : 
 
13 
 
 “You talk of God, justice, and mercy, who hold, claiming by Divine authority, four mil* 
 lion of human beings in hopeless and irretrievable bondage, and ostracize free white men 
 who will not sing hosannas to your traffic in the bodies and souls of men, and stigmatize as mur¬ 
 derers and felons those who will not applaud the cruelty which tramples upon all the attributes 
 of the mind, the affections of the heart, given by the Almighty to the children of his own creation .” 
 
 “ The leprosy of slavery is ‘ in the warp and woof of your organization.” 
 
 We shall now ask your attention, fellow-citizens, to the speech of Hon. Charles 
 Sumner, delivered in the United States Senate on 4th June, 1860. Mr. Sumner 
 is one of the most prominent and influential Republican leaders. He has been 
 twice chosen Senator, and is a warm of supporter of Abraham Lincoln for the 
 Presidency: 
 
 “ Language is feeble to express all the enormity of this institution, which is now vaunted 
 as in itself a form of civilization, ennobling, at least, to the master, if not the slave. Look 
 at it in whatever light you will, and it is always the scab—the canker, the ‘ bare-bones,’ 
 and the shame of the country ; wrong, not merely in the abstract, as is often admitted by 
 its apologists, but wrong in the concrete also, and possessing no single element of right.” 
 
 “ Barbarous in origin ; barbarous in its law ; barbarous in all its pretensions ; barbarous in 
 the instruments it employs ; barbarous in consequences ; barbarous in spirit; barbarous 
 
 wherever it shows itself. Slavery must breed barbarians, while it develops everywhere alike in 
 the individual, and in the society of which he forms a part, the essential elements of barbarism .’> 
 
 “ By the license of slavery, a whole race is delivered over to prostitution and concubi¬ 
 nage, without the protection of any law. Sir, is not slavery barbarous?” 
 
 “ In the face of such an unutterable abomination, where impiety, cruelty, brutality, and 
 robbery, all strive for mastery, it is in vain to assert the humanity or refinement of its au¬ 
 thors.” * * “Cease, then, to blazon the humanity of slave masters. Tell me 
 
 not of the lenity with which this cruel code is tempered to its unhappy subjects. Tell me 
 not of the sympathy which overflows from the mansion of the master to the cabin of the 
 slave. In vain you assert such ‘ happy accidents.’ ” 
 
 “ Violence, brutality, injustice, barbarism, must be reproduced in the lives of all who live 
 within their fatal sphere. The meat that is eaten by man enters into and becomes a part 
 of his body ; the madder which is eaten by a dog changes his bones to red; and the slavery 
 
 on which men live, in all its fivefold foulness, must become a part of themselves, discoloring 
 their very souls, blotting their characters, and breaking forth in moral leprosy. This language is 
 strong; but the evidence is even stronger. Some there may be of happy natures, like honorable 
 Senators, who can thus feed and not be harmed. Mithridates fed on poison, and lived ; and it 
 may be there is a moral Mithridates, who can swallow without bane, the poison of slavery.” 
 
 Such is the language hurled by a leading Republican from the United States Senate at 
 the people of fifteen States of this Union! No Republican Senator rose in his place to 
 enter a protest against the tirade of indecency, violence, and venomous outpouring of per¬ 
 sonal and party malice to the South ; but all of them by their silence gave it their acquies¬ 
 cence and approval. Indeed, which one of them was authorized by his own moderation to 
 cast the first stone at Sumner. 
 
 The most influential personage in the Chicago Convention which nominated Lincoln, next 
 to Greely, was Joshua R. Giddings. Hear the apostle of the Republicans on the subject 
 of a forcible resistance to the fugitive slave law at Oberlin, Ohio : 
 
 “ In disregarding the law, the prisoners did right. Their error consisted in sparing the 
 lives of the slave catchers. Those pirates should have been delivered over to the colored 
 men and consigned to the doom of pirates. You are aware that this is the doctrine which I 
 proclaimed in Congress. I adhere to it. Had the prisoners executed the slave catchers 
 promptly, it would have taught the Administration a lesson not soon to be forgotten. We 
 should have been no more troubled with that class of miscreants. They would have learned 
 better than to show themselves among an intelligent people who know their rights, and 
 dare maintain them.” 
 
 Well might Wendell Phillips deny for himself and friends any disposition to obey laws 
 except when it suited their purposes. He said: 
 
 “We confess that we intend to trample under foot the Constitution of this country. 
 Daniel Webster says: ‘You are a law-abiding people.’ Shame on it, if this be true; if 
 even the religion of New England sinks as low as its statute-book. But I say we are not a 
 
 law-abiding community, and God be thanked for it.” 
 
 The Chicago platform declared that the causes which called the Republican party into ex¬ 
 istence “ are permanent in their nature.” This is but an iteration in another form of the 
 “ irrepressible conflict” doctrine previously enunciated by Seward and Lincoln. With such 
 
14 
 
 views, and led on by Greely (the eulogist of John Brown and Giddings,) the advocate of 
 forcible resistance to the fugitive slave law, we are not surprised to find the same conven¬ 
 tion “ denying the authority of Congress, of a Territorial legislature, or of any individuals, 
 to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States.” The obvious aim 
 of such a declaration is to encourage forcible interference with slave property in the Terri¬ 
 tories, and to incite slaves held there to rebel and murder their masters. 
 
 We find Mr. Lincoln reported as saying, on the 16th July, 1858, at Chicago, (see New 
 York Herald of 19th May, I860,) as follows: 
 
 “ I have always hated slavery , I think, as much as any Abolitionist. I have been an Old 
 Line Whig. I have always hated it, and I always believed it in a course of ultimate extinc¬ 
 tion. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question, whether slavery 
 should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote 
 that it should.” 
 
 We shall now quote the testimony of leading Republican journals to show the profligacy 
 and corruption of their own party. In nearly every State where they have had power, 
 corruption has followed their advent to office. In Wisconsin, we believe, an entire legis¬ 
 lature was found to have been bribed. At the session of Congress of which Banks was 
 Speaker, three or four Republicans were expelled for corruption—one of them, Mr. Mat- 
 teson, a shining light of their party, and a special friend of W. H. Seward. 
 
 Hear the Tribune’s appeal to the last Republican legislature of New York, begging 
 them, for the sake of the party , to be moderate in their rascalities: 
 
 “ Messrs. Republicans in the legislature ! Will you not hear the cries of your brethren 
 in this ill-starred, misgoverned city? * * But if you turn in and aggravate their 
 
 extortions—nay, even outdo them by attempting to steal yourselves rich out of the confisca¬ 
 tion of our most valuable franchises, what can we do?” * * “ If integrity and a sense of 
 decency do not suffice to make you just to us, be entreated not to ruin the cause which has hon¬ 
 ored you.” 
 
 This appeal passed unheeded by the chiefs of a party which is constantly prating of God 
 and religion. The Tribune said: 
 
 “And we do not believe it possible that another body so reckless, not merely of right, 
 but of decency, not merely corrupt, but shameless, will be assembled in our halls of legis¬ 
 lation within the next ten years. ****** 
 
 “ The State has been sold out by a portion of its chosen legislators, and they have clutched 
 the gold. * * Look at the bills which thus passed, and the bills which barely failed, and 
 
 iudge whether legislation so manifestly corrupt, legislators so debauched by wholesale bribery, 
 were ever before heard of.” 
 
 This, too, of a legislature largely Republican in both branches. But hear another Re¬ 
 publican witness. The New York Evening Post, a conspicuous Republican sheet, says of 
 the late Republican State Convention at Syracuse: 
 
 “Among the names of the delegates are quite too many of those men who have figured 
 in some way, at the late session of the legislature, in the iniquitous proceedings which have 
 justly aroused the anger of all honest men. The list of delegates from the districts is alto¬ 
 gether too thickly peppered with the nauseous names of those who were concerned in the 
 gridiron railroad and other schemes of pillage—names the very sight of which excites 
 intense disgust.” 
 
 Is this a specimen of the boasted reform promised to us by the Republicans on their 
 accession to power? “If these things are done in the green tree, what shall be done in 
 the dry ?” 
 
 Hear another Republican press, the Philadelphia Inquirer, upon the Pennsylvania legis¬ 
 lature : 
 
 “ Both houses of the legislature have adjourned, and for that one act we tender them our 
 hearty thanks; for never in the history of Pennsylvania, has a session been marked by 
 more corrupt, wicked intriguing than the present. Every good citizen feels the blush of 
 honest indignation tingling his cheeks when he thinks of their proceedings. No measure, 
 however beneficial, could stand the slightest chance of passing, unless by profuse expendi¬ 
 ture of money. Almost every man, with some noble exceptions, had his price, and if com¬ 
 mon rumor be true, it was an enormous price. If it could not be paid in the hard cash, 
 secure prospective profits were just as good.” 
 
 This testimony as to a Republican legislature of Pennsylvania given by a Republican 
 press of that State is copied by the New York Times, which goes on to say: 
 
 “ Perhaps our own legislators at Albany may be gratified to read what is likely to be said 
 of them whenever they shall gratify the State by adjourning. It will not differ much in its 
 
15 
 
 general tenor from the preceding. Public opinion is very nearly unanimous in regard to 
 the character of their public acts.” 
 
 So much for Republican honesty as shown up by their own organs! 
 
 At the Republican ratification meeting of June, 1HG0, to ratify Lincoln’s nomination held 
 in New York, Mr. William Evarts, chairman of the New York delegation to Chicago, said : 
 “He maintained that the slave trade was principally maintained in the city of New York.” 
 
 Yet these men are constantly denouncing the South for an alleged desire to revive this 
 traffic! 
 
 The origin of the Republican party is traced by William Lloyd Garrison, a conspicuous 
 abolitionist, and author of the sentiment that “ the United States’ Constitution is a covenant 
 with death, and an agreement with hell.” In Mr. Garrison’s speech delivered 29th May, 
 1856, we have shown to us the true connection of the Abolition and Republican parties: 
 
 “ I come now to the Republican party; and, while I do not forget its actual position under 
 the Constitution and within the Union, I am constrained to differ in judgment from some 
 of my respected friends here about the comparative merits of that party. I think that they 
 do not always accord to it all that justice demands; that they overlook the necessary for¬ 
 mation of such a party as the result of our moral agitation ; and I marvel that they do not 
 see that to quarrel with it, to the extent they are doing, is to quarrel with cause and 
 EFFECT- with the WORK OF OUR OWN' HANDS.” 
 
 Mr. Foster asked Garrison : “Do you believe they (the Republicans) can succeed ?” 
 
 Mr. Garrison. “ Certainly not. But that is not the question. They believe they can. 
 They laugh at my incredulity, because I do not believe it. I think that ere long they will 
 be satisfied that I am right, and that they have been deluded; in which case, I expect to 
 hear them cry, ‘Excelsior, come up higher!’ and to see many of them take up their posi¬ 
 tion under the banner of disunion.” 
 
 “ I have said, again and again, that in proportion to the growth of disunion will be the 
 growth of republicanism or freesoilism. I think if you will examine the map of Massachu¬ 
 setts, for example, you will find this to hold true with singular uniformity—that in those 
 places where there are the most abolitionists, who have disfranchised themselves for con¬ 
 science and the slave’s sake, the heaviest vote is thrown for the freesoil ticket. This 
 is as inevitable as the law of gravitation. The greater includes the less. If we should 
 begin our workover again, and try the same experiment ten thousand times over, we should 
 have the same result in the formation of the same party. Why, then, should any one speak 
 in a tone of despondency, or feel that our cause is in imminent danger of being wrecked ? 
 Is this to take a philosophical view of the subject ? Such, then, is my judgment of the Re¬ 
 publican party.” 
 
 Fellow-citizens, we have laid before yon, not the sentiments and occasional 
 heated expressions of a few obscure men, but the repeated declarations and avow¬ 
 als of the leading orators, statesmen, and presses of the Republican party. In 
 giving } T ou the sentiments of Seward, Wilson, Sumner, Greely, Burlingame, Gid- 
 dings, Webb, Hale, Lovejoy, Hickman, and Van Wick, we give you the doctrines 
 of the Republican leaders—of the men who have built up that party, who give it 
 tone and direction, and who would surround and control the administration of 
 Abraham Lincoln, if through your neglect he should be chosen to the Presi¬ 
 dency. We have not spread before you this mass of venomous hate and insult 
 to the South, of defiance for the laws, and contempt for the Constitution, of com¬ 
 pacts, of blasphemy and indecency, without an object which, in our judgment, 
 will excuse a presentation of contents so disgusting to every right-minded and 
 conservative citizen. We want you to know these men; to mark their sectional¬ 
 ism ; to realize the perils to which they are hurrying the country, and to save our 
 beloved land from the scene of disunion and civil war they are ready to entail 
 upon us. Ask yourselves whether such sentiments can be carried out in the 
 administration of this Government ? You well know that the North would never 
 tolerate such wrong from the South, if the latter were the most powerful section 
 of the Confederacy. Reflect that sectionalism is disunion. It means nothing 
 else, and can have no other result. It was well said by Henry Clay: 
 
 “ The abolitionists, let me suppose, succeed in their present aim of uniting the inhabit¬ 
 ants of the free States as one man against the inhabitants of the slave States. Union on one 
 side will beget union on the other, and this process of reciprocal consolidation will be at - 
 
16 
 
 tended with all the violent prejudices , embittered passions, and implacable animosities which ever 
 degraded or deformed human nature. Virtual dissolution of the Union will have taken place, 
 whilst the forms of its existence remain.” * * * * 
 
 “ One section will stand in menacing and hostile array against the other. The collision 
 
 of opinion will soon be followed by the clash of arms.” 
 
 Fortunately, there is yet time and opportunity to avert this evil. We have 
 shown you, in the language and address of the Republicans, the bitter hate and 
 denunciation towards the South, which would be hardly compatible with an actual 
 and bloody war between the two sections. Day by day this process of alienation 
 and sectional exasperation goes on. Shall it be permitted to do its work, and 
 consummate its purpose to reduce the South to the lot of mere subject provinces 
 in a union formed upon a basis of mutual equality? We ask you to give your 
 vote, your voice, your time, and best energies, to crush out this sectional party. 
 In the language of the Father of his Country we ask you “ to frown indignantly 
 upon the first dawning of any attempt to alienate any portion of our country from 
 the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.” 
 We ask you to heed the admonition of him who led our fathers through the perils 
 of the revolution; where the blood of northern and southern patriots shed upon 
 the same field, side by side, watered the tree of American liberty; and, by fol¬ 
 lowing his patriotic counsel, to repudiate and disown the teachings and platform 
 of a sectional party who wish you to hate your brethren. We ask you now to 
 strike a blow for the Union which shall restore peace and quiet to the land, and 
 to rebuke the conspirators who, marshalled by Lincoln, are seeking to subvert the 
 Constitution bequeathed to you by your fathers. We believe that you will do 
 your whole duty, and that there is yet patriotism enough in the land to save the 
 Government from the grasp of a sectional party. It remains for the conservative 
 men of the North to prove that this confidence has not been placed in vain. 
 
 NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
 
 -- 
 
 The following-named gentlemen compose this Committee : 
 
 Hon. I. I. STEVENS, of Oregon, Chairman. 
 
 Hon. R. W. JOHNSON, of Arkansas. 
 
 Hon. JEFFERSON DAVIS, of Mississippi. 
 
 Hon. JESSE D. BRIGHT, of Indiana. 
 
 Hon. THOMAS B. FLORENCE, of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Hon. GEORGE W. HUGHES, of Maryland. 
 
 Hon. JOHN W. STEVENSON, of Kentucky. 
 
 Hon. JOHN R. THOMSON, of New Jersey. 
 
 Hon. A. B. MEEK, of Alabama. 
 
 AUGUSTUS SCHELL, Esq., of New York. 
 
 ISAAC H. WRIGHT, Esq., of Massachusetts. 
 
 Hon. JAMES G. BERRET, of Washington, D. C. 
 
 WM. FLINN, Esq., of Washington, D. C. 
 
 WALTER LENOX, Esq., of Washington, D. C. 
 
 M. W. CLUSKEY, Washington, D. C., Resident Secretary. 
 
 GEO. W. RIGGS, Washington, D. C., Treasurer. 
 
 All communications should be addressed to Hon. ISAAC I. STEVENS, Chairman, 
 Washington, D. C. Rooms of the Committee, at No. 28, 4£ street. 
 
 * 
 
 McGill & Witherow, Printers.