WORDS OF COUNSEL

MEN OF BUSINESS.

BY A MAN OF BUSINESS.

WORDS OF COUNSEL.

The object of this little tract — simply and intelligibly written
— is to show reflecting men, and especially citizens of Pennsyl
vania and the North, why they should vote for Mr. Buchanan as
President of the United States. It is addressed to men of busi
ness and practical industry. It is written by a man of business,
who understands the work he has had to do in life better than
politics; and who was born and bred and has earned his living,
and whatever success he has had, here in Pennsylvania. Nor is
it at all material — and so end these words of preface — whether
the writer is a merchant or mechanic of Philadelphia, a farmer
of Lancaster or Berks, a collier from Schuylkill, or Luzerne, or
Lehigh, an iron-master from Centre or Columbia, or a manu
facturer from Pittsburg — if the reader will realize the actual
truth that he is a man of work, mental and bodily. Among
all trades and occupations, especially here in Pennsylvania,
penetrated in every nook and corner by the nerves of internal
commerce, and more dependent than any other State on domestic
tranquillity, there is the closest sympathy and communion. The
question of the next Presidency is a question of practical inte
rest to all, and so it ought to be regarded.
THE TRUE QUESTION.
Let us see how it presents itself, under what aspect of novelty,
and with what portents for the future — not the remote future
which is to dawn upon our children, but the immediate future in
which we living, working-men are interested. It may be well to
look at this question without reference to individuals. Let us
then so consider it — and let him who reads meditate on each
proposition that is stated, and if he questions any matter of fact,
let him scrutinize it for himself. This is no appeal to passion
or to prejudice, but an honest effort to convince.

It is now, or will be next September, sixty-nine years since
the Constitution of the United States was formed. They have
been years of tranquillity and prosperous progress. With brief
spasms of war, lasting in the aggregate but some half dozen
years out of the sixty-nine — and of occasional commercial dis
tress, trade and industry, except when experiments with the
currency have interfered with them, have wonderfully prospered,
but never have they more prospered than within the last ten
years. Yet during this long period of steady progress,, there
have been periodical political contests and changes, marked with
ordinary party acrimony. One side has succeeded to-day — and
another succeeded to-morrow, and yet national prosperity, social
and economical, has not been disturbed. In truth, the revolu
tions in national politics, especially those which have occurred
since 1836, have seemed to exercise a salutary influence by the
very change of administrative routine which they involved.
Questions of politics ran through the whole Union. The South
ern Democrat or the Southern Whig had close sympathy with
his Northern or Eastern or Western brother. The four Presi
dents of the last sixteen years were sometimes Northern and
sometimes Southern men, but whatever they were, there was
nothing in the victory their party gained, to force on them the
necessity of proscribing, in their administrative arrangements,
the public men of any portion of the country. All was harmo
nious, and the government, with apparent rather than real change
of policy, continued to protect and sustain the great interests of
the whole country. That which was the great element of success
with government, and contentment with the people, was the
absence of sectional party spirit. Throughout the last half, cen
tury there has been not only a political union in form, but a
sympathy that transcended and overcame all territorial divisions —
and it is not in the capacity of language to describe how condu
cive this has been to the business interests of the country.
Every now and then, a spirit of sectionalism broke out, as a pesti
lence is apt to do, in a certain spot, but it raged with violence
only round that spot, and the rest of the Union put it in strict
quarantine and kept it out. In 1844, " sectionalism," or to use
a more familiar term, " abolitionism" (or under its new name
"republicanism"), prevented the election of Mr. Clay, determi
ning by the Birney votes, that of the State of New York. In
1848, sectionalism in a new guise reappeared in certain locali
ties as before, and took the same vote from General Cass. But
then, and till now, sectionalism was what the doctors call
jsporadic : very bad in certain places, but easily managed and
controlled elsewhere. How is it going to be how ? This is the
question for men of business, for national men, for patriots, for
lovera of the Constitution — without whose protection business

interests cannot exist — to ponder over well. The Union has been
before now supposed to. be in danger, and anxious and nervous,
and in some instances, judicioua men have become alarmed about
its permanence. This was the case in 1819, in the agitation of
the Missouri Question, when the real point at issue before the
people was evaded, and the palliative was resorted to of a territorial
prohibition for posterity, to postpone the evil day. It was the case
again in 1832, when General Jackson's resolute patriotism (and
how thoroughly and gallantly the whole nation sustained him !)
repressed Nullification in a single Southern State,and a compro
mise postponing tariff pregnant of future trouble was the remedy.
And again was there anxiety and alarm in 1850, when local irri
tation in the form of Wilmot provisoes, and Prigg decisions, and
evasions and resistance of fugitive slave laws in the North — and
jealous irritability and perhaps disappointment in the South, led
to apparent conflict ahd disturbance, and to the compromise
measures of 1850. The almost dying words of a Whig Presi
dent, in the only message he sent to Congress, yet linger in the
heart of this nation — for, Southern man as he was, he loved the
Union with a simple faith and loyalty that shames the treason
able denunciations of fanaticism.
"For more than half a century," said General Taylor in his
message to the 31st Congress, " during whicli kingdoms and
empires have fallen, this Union has stood unshaken. The patriots
who formed it have long since descended to the grave ; yet still it
remains the proudest monument to their memory, and the object
of affection and admiration with every one worthy to bear the
American name. In my judgment, its dissolution would be the
greatest of calamities, and to avert that should be the study of
every American. Upon its preservation must depend our own
happiness and that of countless generations to come."
But all these were superficial irritations and transient alarms,
for through them all, in the darkest and most threatening hours,
there was nothing like sectional politics. There were Southern
and Northern Whigs, and Southern and Northern Democrats —
and fanatics and sectionalists stood aloof, in little knots by
themselves. No Abolitionist, as such, ventured to raise his voice
or show his face in a Democratic or a Whig meeting or Conven
tion. If abolitionism, or sectionalism, or intrusive fanaticism, had
opened its lips in the whig city of Philadelphia, the merchants,
and manufacturers, aside from all patriotic sentiment, feeling
how deeply their business interests were involved in the peace of
the Union, would have sternly rebuked it — if in the Democratic
counties of Berks, or Schuylkill, or Westmoreland or Centre, the
voice of treason or even disaffection to the Union had been .heard,
the result would have been the same.
But now, in this year 1856, for the first time in the history of

6
the nation, the politics of the country have, by the acts of one
party alone, become intensely sectional. Every calculation of
chance which fanaticism makes is founded on sectionalism.
One candidate, and he the candidate, not of the patriotic, but of
the fanatic North, expecte to get none but Northern votes, and
thus to gain a sectional triumph.
Let us see how this has come about, and what it musf end in.
The answer is to be found in the action of two political conven
tions, one of which met at Cincinnati, and nominated James
Buchanan, and the other of which met at Philadelphia, two weeks
later, and nominated John C. Fremont. It must be borne in mind
that in this relation we are not speaking of individuals, or of
candidates, except as representatives^
In the Cincinnati Convention, every State of the Union, North,
South, Bast, and West, was fully represented, and the choice
was a Northern man. In the Philadelphia Convention no
Southern State had an actual representation. Virginia had a
few straggling representatives, but they felt themselves degraded,
and were silent. It was, in its component parts, sectional from
first to last.
But what spirit directed its action and controlled its choice ?
In what spirit was it convoked ?
On the 16th of May, 1856, thus spoke a Senator from Massa
chusetts in his place in the Senate.
" The slave power with its loathsome folds is now coiled over
the whole land." " It shall be swept into the charnel-house of
defunct tyrannies." " Hirelings picked from the drunken spew and
vomit of an uneasy civilization — in the form of men — leagued to
gether by secret signs and lodges, have renewed the incredible
atrocities of the Assassins and of the Thugs ; showing the blind sub
mission ofthe Assassins to the Old Man of the Mountain, in robbing
Christians on the road to Jerusalem, and showing the heartless
ness of the Thugs, who, avowing that murder was their religion,
waylaid travellers on the great road from Agra to Delhi ; with
the more deadly bowie-knife for the dagger of the Assassin, and
the more deadly revolver for the noose ofthe Thug."
So spoke one Massachusetts man in an atmosphere already
heated and explosive.
Mark, American reader — mark, you who love the Union, and
feel how much the Union does for you and yours — the words of
another Massachusetts m"an — one who was found worthy to be
Daniel Webster's first successor in the Senate. On the 2d of
June, but a few days before the Philadelphia Convention met,
Robert C. Winthrop wrote these words of wise and gentle
eounsel :
" I have no hope that violent speeches, angry resolutions, or
inflammatory appeals will do anything towards accomplishing a

good result. It is no time for indulging in sweeping denunciations,
indiscriminate and insulting reproaches, towards other sections of
the Union. On the contrary, beyond almost all other periods of
our history, since we had a history as a united nation, unless we
are willing to see that history brought to a bloody close and the
volume closed forever, it is the time for the calmest, wisest, most
collected words of which any man is capable."
To these words of gentle wisdom, while " licentious grossness
of language and personal violence" were desecrating the Capitol
and preparing for the outburst of fanaticism at Philadelphia,
there came an answer from Virginia, from one of the most dis
tinguished and most tolerant and conservative of her statesmen,
living in retirement within sight of Jefferson's grave.
" We have been," writes William C. Rives, of Virginia, " of late
rapidly and fearfully drifting into that geographical antagonism
of parties, which all good and wise men have so earnestly depre
cated; and in which, when it shall have been consummated,
what, Mr. Madison impressively asks, is to ' control those great
repulsive masses from awful shocks against each other ?' Pass
ing events have given a solemnity to this prophetic warning,
which it is no longer possible to disregard, and which calls upon
patriotic and reflecting men everywhere to unite in a strenuous
and determined effort to exclude from the arena of national
politics a question so fruitful of sectional strife."
At the same time, as if in further warning, Millard Fillmore
wrote fromthe Old World to his friends here, that he was return
ing home, "if possible to aid in quieting that alarming sectional
agitation which, while it delights the monarchists of Europe,
causes every true friend of our own country to mourn."
Thus stimulated on the one hand and warned on the other — in
the city where the Constitution was framed, and where were
uttered Washington's farewell words of warning against " Geo
graphical Parties," a Convention met, and named a sectional
candidate for President of the United States, and urged his elec
tion on sectional grounds. This, no human being doubts. No
longer were abolitionists localized. They — the most violent and
fanatical of the name — were the leaders of the Convention. The
orators were Giddings and Wilmot and Elder and Lovejoy — the
slanderers of Clay and Webster, the defiers of the Constitution,
the exhorters of resistance to statutes of the United States. —
When the name of John M'Lean, of Ohio, was suggested and
urged, the memory that as a Federal Judge, sworn to support the
Constitution of the United States, he had sustained and enforced
the Fugitive Slave Law, rose up, and he was rejected, almost in
scorn, as unsuited to sectional purposes.
One speaker (J. Watson Webb") said, embodying in his words
the worst spirit of violence, " If we fail at the election, we must

drive back the slaveocracy with fire and sword ;" and another
(0. J. Lovejoy) used plainer language still, and he was cheered
and applauded. These are the significant words :
" The American people have a mission to carry out — this mis
sion was understood in the days of the Pilgrim fathers, and in
the days of Jefferson. It was not to chase negroes — it was indi
cated in the Declaration of Independence. The question now
to be decided is, whether we will fulfil our mission. I •proclaim
myself an Abolitionist — / think 'the ¦party has that disease, and,
hefore the campaign is through, it will break out all over."
Now, with these words fresh in recollection, authenticated and
acknowledged, will any reflecting man. North or South, hesitate
in believing that the issue thus presented to the people is a
sectional one, and that the worst prophecy of evil as to geogra
phical parties has at length been realized ? To vote for candi
dates thus named and thus sustained is to endorse the principles
of disunion enunciated. And, supposing for a moment that such'
candidates could be elected, and an Executive Administration
inaugurated on a narrow sectional basis, what four" years of
strife, and bickering, and domestic turmoil would ensue — and in
such strife and turmoil that which would be soonest sacrificed is
the great business interests of the Nation. All past distraction
would be as nothing compared with this.
Let any man of practical and successful industry realize, if he
can, the dreary waste which civil strife produces. There have
been imaginings heretofore. The inauguration of sectionalism
would work awful realities. They need no rhetoric to paint
them. It is a fearful truth, that there is greater danger at this mo
ment to the Union than ever in the history of the country. It
is more alarming because the feeling, which this sectional nomi
nation creates, is silent and suppressed.
There is no railing, there is no violence — but the conviction
forced on the mind of the South, that tfie North, or any portion
of the North, excludes them, and as it were marks them off, sinks
deep into the heart.
The election of an Abolition President breaks the Union into
pieces, and Pennsylvania becomes a frontier, with the ragged
edges of a frontier, with questions of bpundary, of runaways, of
aggression and resistance, of trouble of every kind; and Phila
delphia and Pittsburg, neither of them fifty miles from the dividing
line, not as they now are, great circulators of trade and manu
factures through the South and West, reduced to doubtful fron
tier towns, with markets dependent on foreign and uncertain
legislation. The difiiculty is to make people believe all this possible. We
have been so long used to peace and domestic concord that we

9
can hardly imagine a disruption of the actual ties of political
union. Yet, to repeat again Mr. Madison's question, in such a
state of things as now exists, with the fearful antagonism of
geographical parties — "what is to eontrol these great repulsive
masses of North and South from awful shocks against each
other" — and when was this antagonism more likely to produce
these results than now? In order to make a practical applica
tion of this, let us conteraplate an inevitable practical effect.
Mr. Fremont is elected on the principles enunciated by Mr.
Giddings and the Philadelphia Convention — the principles of
ultra, offensive Abolition — the disease, which it is foretold, is to
break out throughout the party, before the victory is won — how
is he to carry on the Government ? His cabinet must be formed
of men bred in the school, and faithful to the principles he
espouses. To suppose, that if elected by such men, he would
repudiate and abandon them, is to irapute personal dishonor.
He goes into office bound hand and foot by express promises and
close sympathy with men who do not scruple to avow they
recognize, as citizens, a higher law than the Constitution, and are
willing, in contingencies which are carelessly regarded as pro
bable, to let "the Union slide."
Now, it is a matter of no conjecture, but of absolute assurance,
that a governraent thus inaugurated cannot be peacefully or con
tentedly administered. There will be no repose. There will be
So harmony of local interests. There will be aggression, and
lere must. be 'resistance. Four years of such disturbance is a
long period in the lives of us all. Its convulsioris and excite
ments leave traces behind them on the business interests of the
people that cannot soon be obliterated. He ia at this moment
the avowed candidate of the party and of the individual men
(their names are on the record of the Republican Convention),
whom, in 1838, Henry Clay thus described and thus denounced :
" With them the rights of property are nothing ; the deficiency
of the powers of the General Government is nothing ; the acknow
ledged and incontestable powers of the States are nothing ; civil
war, a dissolution of the Union, and the overthrow of a govern
ment in which are concentrated the fondest hopes of the civilized
world are nothing; a single idea' has taken possession of their
minds, and onward they pursue it, overlooking all barriers, reck
less and regardless of all consequences. Their purpose is abo
lition, universal abolition, peaceably, if it can, forcibly, if it must.
One means, and a most lamentable one, to which they resort, is
that which this clasa of men is endeavoring to eraploy, of array
ing one portion against another portion of the Union. They try
to excite the imaginations and stimulate the rage of the people
of the free States against the people of the slave States. They
2

10
infuse a spirit of detestation and hatred against one entire section
of the Union."
Let it be understood that it is under this influence that the
Republican Candidate is nominated, will be supported, and if
elected will administer or try to administer the Government.
Who can doubt the mischievous result ?

JAMES BUCHANAN NO SECTIONALIST.
Turning from this scene of violence, and sectionalism, and
certain discord, we invite the working and business man to note
the contrast. Let him observe the words of peaceful and con
servative wisdom with which James Buchanan speaks of this
hateful subject of slavery and sectional discord. They are
earnest. They are emphatic They are precise. They reflect
the deliberate intent with which he approaches the discharge of
the great duty upon him — that of a National President of the
United Statea.
" The agitation on the question of Domestic Slavery," says Mr.
Buchanan, " has too long distracted and divided the people of this
Union and alienated their affections from each other.
" Most happy will it be for the country, if thia long agitation
were at an end. During ita whole progresa it has produced no
practical good to any human being, whilst it has been the source
of great' and dangerous evils. It has alienated and estranged
one portion of the Union from the other, and has even seriously
threatened its very existence. To my own personal knowledge,
it has produced the impression among foreign nations, that our
great and glorious confederacy is in constant danger of dissolu
tion. This does us serious injury, because acknowledged power
and stability always command respect among nations, and are *
among the best securities against unjust aggression and in favor
of the maintenance of honorable peace."
Now, in these few words of plain and direct truth, is the pro-'
mise which this nomination gives to the industry of the Nation,
that they shall have, on this exciting topic, at least during Mr.
Buchanan's Administration, — what industry most needs, — vvhat
the merchant and farmer, the mechanic, and manufacturer most
require-— stability, steadiness, repose. What a blessing beyond
calculation it will be, to have an 'administration for four year.s,
during which, by the mere force of personal example, no word
of acrimony shall be uttered on the subject of Domestic Slavery,
and the nation's evil passions may be at rest !
So much for the claims and merits of each party on the one
absorbing question of Sectionalism and Nationalism. It will be
well now to inquire, — keeping steadily in view the business, prac-

11
tical interests of the nation, — what else the administration of a
public man like James Buchanan, promises to the people.
HIS PRIVATE CHAKACTER.
Let us in no spirit of adulation (for the day for idnlizing great
men has happily passed by), look back on his career, as illustrated
in forty years' history of his country, and see what assurance it
gives. Chief of all his claims on public confidence (and let no tech
nical politician depreciate the praise) is his gentle temper, and
the unblemished p'rity of his private life. Of that high honor,
not even ungenerous adversaries can deprive him ; and if the
attempt were made, there would arise from the neighborhood
where his whole life has been spent, a voice of indignant, hearty
vindication. The life of a public man has its private trials and
temptations. There beset the path of an American Statesma,h,
extending in this instance from youth to age, not a few perils to
which the private character of many a one has bfeen sacrificed.
It is only he who, guarded and protected by kind and gentle influ
ence generated in his own heart, walks steadily that walks se
curely. More than two thousand years ago an orator of freedom
wisely said that it was impossible for a man whose private cha
racter was bad, to be a faithful leader of his country ; or that
private depravity could consist with public virtue ; or that he
could be the Nation's friend, who was, in truth, the friend of no
man there — that he could be strenuous in his country's cause,
who slighted the charities " For "whose dear sake
That country, if at all, must be beloved!"
It is the truth yet — and the private character of the Pennsyl
vania Statesman, thus unstained and spotless, is the higheat and
strongest of the links that bind him around the hearts of his
countrymen. Nor is this an austere, forbidding virtue, for it is ennobled and
harmonized by a gentle genial temper, and this too will be the
testiraony of those who know him best, of his Lancaster County
neighbors, his friends and associates of fifty years — and of those
public men who through all the vehemence of party strife (and
our country has known heated times »within the last brief cen
tury) have always acknowledged his gentleness, his liberality, his
devoted courtesy. And here too we may well say, let no rude
caviller deride this gentle virtue ; it helps to make the career
of any public man happier. Mr. Buchanan's words have never
stung to resentment. His personal demeanor has never made
his friends for a moment blush for passion or indiscretion. There

12
has been no vehemence, no intemperance in anything he ever
uttered. Ours is the day of vehement passions and heated sectional
animosities. It is the day too when the legislation of the country
is believed to be threatened with insidious dangers. It is there
fore the time of all others when there is needed at the head of
affairs a Statesman of pure character, unsuspected integrity, and
of conciliatory, gentle, but resolute temper.
HIS PUBLIC CAREER.
Now let us, in the same spirit of candor — see what assurance
for the future, his long public life, chequered by few reverses,
gives his countrymen.
That future — our immediate future — at the moment these words
are written — is swelling with events of perilous significance. To
some affecting internal peace, allusion has been made. To others
threatening our friendly relations with the world abroad, it is not
necessary further to refer than by saying how clearly they admo
nish us to trust the Executive administration to safe, discreet, and
resolute hands. Well might the man of business tremble for his
fortune or his credit if there were danger that sectional intole
rance and undisciplined enthusiasm so kindred to weakness should
at a crisis like this usurp the government.
THE STATE LEGISLATURE.
It is now forty-two years since Mr. Buchanan entered public
life. His first step was on the modest platform of the State
Legislature, where in Pennsylvania so rauch talent has been unos
tentatiously developed, but from which, to our shame till now be
it spoken, there has been so little preferment. James Buchanan
learned his e;arliest politioal lessons in the best school for public
men, the Legislature of his native State. He was there during a
foreign, war, voting steadily to sustain the measures of that war,
and enabling Pennsylvania to attain the real honor for which
other States are now fiercely contending of contributing (as she
did in the Revolution) most men and most money to the public
service. He became a National man, in 1821, having that year entered
the House of Representatives. THE MISSOURI QUESTION.
It was a period of lull after a momentous storm ; for the Mis
souri question hadjust been decided, and the compromise line of
arbitrary division adopted. The public mind was relieved from

13
an impending danger, and all were glad to have repose at any
iost. Mr. Buchanan came into national public life just as this
struggle was over — the danger of sectionalism removed — the
pretension of Congress to take frora a State with a republican
constitution the right to regulate for itself its own domestic
institutions once and forever repudiated, and that question at
last settled.

THE WAR OF THB CURRENCY.
Then came — and Mr. Buchanan was in it from first to last —
.the great tweifty years' warfare about currency and trade. It
began as early as General Jackson's first administration, and it
ended on the perraanent establishraent of a revenue tariff and
the utter separation of the Government and its resources from
banking institutions and their resources, whatever they may claim
to be. In all this wild warfare Mr. Buchanan has been steady
and consistent, and moreover, has been proved to be in the right.
For if at this moment of substantial prosperity, there is one
thing on which the public mind of this nation is settled — it is
that freedom of commercial intercourse, and a tariff for
revenue, and above all restriction, vigilant and suspicious, of all
contrivances for expanded credit, are the true secret of sound
economical administration. There is not, it may safely be
affirmed, a sane man in the country, who desires to see restored
a high tariff — a Bank of the United States — or an expansion of
paper currency. There is not a farmer, ora collier, or a miner,
or a mechanic, from one end of the United States to the other,
who is not at this moment content with what he earns, and with
the coin in which he is paid for his daily labor. Yet it was for
this that during twenty years, for the triuraph was slowly won,
Jaraes Buchanan and the Democratic party labored. Wlif» shull
say after watching this struggle, and this great result, that the
party of the people is not after all the conservative party of the
country. And who shall say — and this is the raoral to which we call
the attention of the working business men — that the commercial
and industrial interests of the nation are not safer in the guar
dianship of public men thus trained and thus conservative, than
in the hands of any light-headed, inexperienced adventurer,
sprung from the diseased soil of commercial specuktion. The
Pennsylvania statesraan who has all his life seen the sarae results
of steady labor operating on the generous but not luxuriant soil
of our fertile valleys, or winning by patient industry sure wages
from our coal-mountains and iron-mines, is a safer guardian of
the great interests, social and economical, of this hard-working

14
people, than any gold-digger or land operator that ever became
rich by luck.
And this training — this discipline in the right school of finance
— it is which makes James Buchanan the very man for the
times, looking at the election in its relations to mere business
interests — the interest of the merchant, the farmer, or the manu
facturer. For industry, the great blessing is stability and repose.
This review of Mr. Buchanan's life is not meant to be bio
graphy. It is h,ut the rapid recapitulation of leading incidents,
or rather the retrospect of a long career of public service which
it is believed has tended to form the charaeter of a conservative
statesman — a safe man for the times.
National, then, in his views of our conflicting domestic institu
tions — resolute in his convictions on thegreat questions of finance
and currency, what assurance do his life and character of mind
give as to our foreign policy ?

FOKEIGN POLICY.
The anxious wish of the American people — let mischievous
traducers say what they please — is for honorable peace with all
the world, and strict neutrality in the conflicts of foreign nations.
Never did this wish more strongly move the people than at this
very moment. Commerce, and manufactures, and agriculture,
and the mechanic arts, never more prosperous than now, need
and will exact, a peaceful policy from our rulers. The nomi-
nation at Cincinnati was hailed by all thoughtful men at home,
and wil! be so regarded abroad, as the triumph of the prin
ciples and polioy of peace. It is, however, especially the triumph
of the best sort of peaceful influences and sentiment — those
which are Consistent with jealous maintenance of national honor
and national interests. Nothing can more tend to maintain
peace with foreign nations — and especially thift great nation
iVom whom we inherit so raany virtues and some peculiarities —
than such concord and united counsels as the Convention at
Cincinnati presented, united on all questions of internal policy,
and united in the choice of their candidates. Wbat could more
stimulate the aggressions of foreign nations, especially those
whose commercial interest it may aeem to be to divide us, than
the prospect that, for four years to corae, there are to be do
mestic bickerings and discordant counsels — the North arrayed
Hgainst the South, and the South against the North — an acci-
dlantaland inexperienced Executive, in turmoil with Congress, and
looked upon aa an enemy worae than a foreign foe by a large
portion of the people. The most hostile Englishman or French
man that ever railed at our free institutions never breathed

15
harsher or more envenomed words — amounting to raoral treason
— than were familiarly uttered and Vehemently appkuded in the
assemblage which lately met in Philadelphia. The peace which
they must expect from the world is only the peace which pity
might vouchsafe to grant — not the peace which union and strength
demand. In the Democratic Convention there was no word of sectional
discord. The spectacle there exhibited was the representation
of a united, high-spirited, and yet peace-loving nation. The
only word of dissent that was whispered came from Southern lips,
and they were words (and this the calumniators of the South
would do well to reraember) of caution and circumspection on the
side of peace. For it is a fact worthy to be meditated on even
by fanatics, and certainly by Northern raen of business, that more
than once in the history of our country, have Southern statesmen
saved us from the calamities of actual war, or those hardly less
annoying inflictions of commercial anxiety whether there will be
war or not. The much-reviled South has sometiraes saved us
from the follies and passions of the North. They are our friends
and brothers yet.
And most of all did the nomination, by cordial unanimity, of
James Buchanan say to the world that the United Statea de
sires honorable peace.
" The noraination of Mr. BoCHAifAN," writes Fremont's father-
in-law, to the citizens of Missouri, " determines my course. !
consider him the safest chance for preserving the peace of the
country, now greatly endangered both at home and abroad ;
and believing him to be the best chance for peace, I hold it to
be the duty of all to support it."*
The American people so regard it. Mr. Buchanan has ex
actly that experience which fits him for the crisis, whether it be
one of peace or war, or the anxious, doubtful, crisis of peuce or
war, when a rash word or a timid look may precipitate an im
pending evil. He has been under varied circumstances our re
presentative abroad. First, at the court of thatgreat power of'
the North of Europe, whence more than once, out of the thick
darkness of apparent despotism, have issued gleams of friendly
feeling to our American interests and our country; then and
lately, and during a period of grave responsibility, at the raetro
polis" of Great Britain, the seat of intelligence and high civiliza
tion more formidable in the rivalry of friendly nations than
ruder elements of power. To meet and appreciate actual kind
ness, and yet not to be swayed too much by it — to assert rights
with firmness — to repulse the first signs of indignity— to conduct
controversy with ability and courtesy — and to make strangers,
and especially Englishmen (who, to their credit and not to their
• Colonel Beaton's Letter, June 7, 18S6.

16
sharae be it spoken, are always watching and proraoting English
interests all the world over), to make them understand that
American interests are dear to American statesmen, and will at
all hazards, or at any sacrifice, be maintained ; — these were the
duties and this the succeaa of our Pennsylvania statesman during
the three years he has, with so much honor to Ijimse^f and us,
represented this nation abroad.
Nor is this all — four years of Mr. Buchanan's life, from 1844
to 1848, were paaaed as the chief adviser of an executive ad
ministration, during a period of hostile diplomatic controversy
with more nations than one, and at last of actual war. He was
Secretary of State during that brief but perilous conflict with
Mexico, which severely tried the spirit of the Nation and settled
forever the doubt whether a Republic could wage a war ,in a
distant country. The war was waged and the victory was won.
The great executive trial was <withstood. The flag of the Union
was canied by our gallant soldiers to the centre of an enemy's
country. It was magnanimously withdrawn when the victory was
won — and it is part of Mr. Buchanan's fame, one of the elements
of strength he now has at home and abroad, that he was one of
that Cabinet which carried the war to its wonderful result.
Who then gives better assurance for peace than he does.?
Who could more safely adrainister the Governraent in the trial
of war, should Providence i^ its inscrutable wisdom thus afllict
us ? RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE.
Thus then stands, in these leading relations, the question he
fore the people of the United States. There is one other, though
lower point of view in which it must be regarded. It is a pain
ful and degrading one. Still it must be recalled.
Sixty years ago, in ihe month of January, 1793, George
Waphtngton wrote these memorable words :
"We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this land the
light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry
and superstition, and that every person mny here worship God
according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened
age and in the land of equal liberty, it is our boast that a man's
religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor
deprive hira of the right «of attaining and holding the highest
offices in the United States."
On the ItJth June, 1856, James Buchanan said to the people
of the United States words not unlike those of Washington :
"I cordially concur in the sentiments expressed by the Con
vention on the subject of civil and religious liberty. No party
founded on religious or political intolerance towards one class of

17
American citizens, whether born in our own or in a foreign land,
can long continue to exist in this country. We are all equal
before God and the Constitution ; and the dark spirit of despot
ism and bigotry which would create odious distinctions among
our fellow-citizens, will be speedily rebuked by a free and en
lightened public opinion."
And we may well pause and ask why in this day of toleration
and intelligence, it is necessary for a public man thus to speak.
Why, have Washington's words of warning against religious in
tolerance gained new significance ?
The answer, humiliating as it is, is at hand. Less than two
years ago, there sprang up in darkness and secrecy — literally
the growth of night — a political organization banded together by
fearful and dishonest obligations, having two leading objects, —
the political and social proscription of naturalized citizens and
of the professors of one forra of religious belief. It had for a
time an ominous success. It seduced into its ranks raany an
honest and misguided man who saw not the path designing men
were terapting him to tread. It had its attractions in mystery
and mummery. It made its appeals to the worst passions of
humanity, those endurating influences which have hardened the
persecutor's heart in every age. The leading idea of its disci
pline was disingenuous evasion. It was the only party ever known
whose fidelity was falsehood. Still, it grew, and strengthened,
and, in its mystery and its intolerance, became one of the poli
tical parties of the country. It usurped a sacred name "Ame
rican," just as " Abolitionism" tries to wear the uniform of
" Republicanism." But the moment of its apparent triumph
was that of its discorafiture, for, as soon as it abandoned its
secresy and renounced the sectarian sentiraent, it withered and
perished. So low did it sink, so fallen did it become, that its
candidates have been thrust aside, and, when its principles were
hinted at in the Convention, which now seeks to raise Republic
anism on its ruins, it was derided and insulted. Nay, further,
as if to degrade this once powerful organization still more, the
leaders of the sectional agitation moveraent — those, who, in
Convention, at first faintly cajoled the accredited Americans,
are now indirectly trying to court the very voters, who, a year
ago, were persecuted and proscribed. Mark the words in which
a leading Republican appeals to the emigrant from other lands.
Mark the enormity, with which he compares our Southern breth
ren, one and all, to the butchers and despots of Austria and
Italy. " Our Declaration (of Abolition) appeals to the foreign born,
who, rejoicing in the privileges of American citizens, will not
hesitate to join in this holy endeavour to vindicate them against
the aggressions of an oligarchy worse than any tyranny from
2*

18
•
which they have fled. In this contest there is every motive to
union, and also every motive to exertion. ' Now or never, now
and forever !' Such was the ancient war cry which, embroidered
on the Irish flag, streamed frora the Castle of Dublin and re
sounded through the whole island, arousing a generous people
to a new struggle for their ancient rights ; and this war cry may
be fitly inscribed on our standard now. Arise now, or our in
exorable slave-driving tyranny will be fastened upon you ; arise
now, and liberty will be secured forever."*
Is it possible that this is an American citizen speaking of his
own country and his own countrymen ? Is it conceivable that
"Americans" can forgive such insults? Who can imagine that
the naturalized or Catholic citizen can be misled by an appeal
so disingenuous and indecent ?
The Democratic party and their candidate profess no new
born zeal for religious freedom and equality of rights. They
stand where they have always stood, and stand there more
proudly now, surrounded and supported by gallant and honorable
men of other parties who were glad to join them on the great
platforra which Washington helped to build, and which rests on
the granite of the Constitution.
Hence it is, that James Buchanan utters, on this vital topic,
with new emphasis, the precepts and almost the words of Wash
ington. THE PENNSYLVANIA SPIRIT.
These are the national aspects in which the question of the
next Presidency is submitted to the people. There is one other
view, more narrow, but still very impressive, which must be taken
ofit. It is a Pennsylvania nomination, and as such is commended to
Pennsylvanians. To them the appeal is directly made. Why
should the local sentiment be disowned ? Why should it not be
stimulated ?
When, on his return from England, Mr. Buchanan was wel
comed back by his fellow-citizens of Maryland, he told them that,
at the outset of his professional life, he had once thought of re
moving and living in Baltimore; but early association, love for
the soil which gave him birth, the meraory of childhood, — all
those ties which, operating on generous and patriotic hearts, bind
us to our birth-place, were too powerful. He could not, and he did
not desert Pennsylvania. Nor will Pennsylvania now withhold
her support frora him.
The old Thirteen States, — of which Pennsylvania was the cen
tral and controlling one, — have given birth to twelve Presidents
• Letter of the Hon. Charles Sumner on Fremont's nomination.

19
of the United States (Virginia, six ; Massachusetts, two ; North
Carolina, two; New York and New Hampshire each one); and
yet never till now has a nomination been made frora Pennsyl
vania. Pennsylvania by her vote bas decided every Presidential
election, yet her claims have never been regarded. She has
yielded, and been postponed, and no voice of murmur or com
plaint has ever escaped her lips. Her fidelity to the Constitution
and the Union, — her deference to national duty, — her submission
to national policy, has been manifested at all tiraes, and in every
crisis. Her loyalty to a coraraon country was proved long ago
amid the trials of the Revolution ; and justice, slow but sure, is
now done to her patriots of that day. " Pennsylvania," wrote
Washington in the darkest hour of the war, " Pennsylvania ia
our chief dependence;" and our commonwealth did not fail him.
It waa on her shoulder, and not on that of Massachuaetta and
Virginia (as has been claimed) that the hand of Washington
, rested most heavily in hours of the greatest gloom and perplexity.
' When, in March, 1780, she abolished slavery within her limits,
as she had a right to do, it was done temperately, delicately,
and with tender regard for the rights of others bound at least in
social union with her. As has been well said by one of her own
historians, " No Southern State, no Southern statesman com
plained of her example. Obtrusive fanaticism had not then
alienated the sympathies of our Southern brethren. The Penn
sylvania statesmen of the Revolution thought and acted in their
treatment of this perilous subject on principles of moderate and
practical wisdom. Abolition was with them no wayward freak
of headlong enthusiasm." What a profanation of history it is,
to compare the temperate, loyal spirit which then reigned m
Pennsylvania with the vituperative disloyalty of our times ! It
is quite as unjust as to call sectarian intolerance and proscription
"Americanism," or to dignify abolitionists as republicans.
When the Constitution of the United States was formed, the
first State which adopted it was our neighbor Delaware, the next
Pennsylvania, and the third New Jersey. The three middle
states of the Old Thirteen, then as ever, were quickest in their
loyalty. And they have been steadfast ever since. In 18iy,
the Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed its representatives to
support the Missouri restriction ; but when Congress, reflecting
the popular feeling throughout the knd, decided adversely,
Pennsylvania acquiesced, and welcomed Missouri cordially as she
chose to come,-with or without slavery, as her people deter
mined for themselves,-into the family of States. No Pennsjl.
vania Legislature ever approved the Missouri compromise. When,
in 1847, designing and excited men,-the very same who now
are fomenting sectional excitement agam,-tore down part of
the fabric of legislation, which our ancestors erected sixty-seven

20
years before, and sought to declare a paltering, timid war against
the United States, by denying facilities to its ofiicers, the sober
loyalty of the people revolted, and the Democracy of Pennsyl
vania never rested till thia vexatious statute was abrogated.
Governor Johnston's defeat in 1851 was mainly attributable to
his adherence to this reprobated legislation ; and now, let it be
observed, his reward is, being a Pennsylvanian, to be scornfully
repudiated and disowned by the very men and the very party
which led him into error. The Democracy on this and on kin
dred subjects, in its loyalty to the Union and the Constitution,
has known nO shadow of turning. .
And now that, thus national in its feelings, a national man of
her own, like Mr. Buchanan, is put forward for the first office in
the people's gift, who shall say that an appeal to the state pride
of Pennsylvania will be vain? It has been truly said by a loyal
Pennsylvanian :
"Local exultation in honors rendered to our own public men,
is not an illusory sentiment. No one will think the worse of us
for indulging it. It is that which has made Virginia the raother
of Presidents. She nurses her children like a loving mother, and
does not bind thera out or cast them off without care as to what
becomes of thera. It was that which made Massachusetts cling
to Mr. Webster; North Carolina to William Gaston, one who,
according to the new standard of politico-religious intolerance,
was not fit to be trusted in public office ; and South Carolina to
Mr. Calhoun ; and which bound Kentucky, by devotion tbat never
abated, to Mr. Clay. And now, when, for the first tirae for
seventy years, a Pennsylvania Statesman is named for the
highest honor in the Nation's gift, have we not a right, nay, is it
not our duty to avow the throbbing of tie sarae sentiraent in our
hearts? If the habit of easy self-sacrifice, the readiness to be
content with sraall honors and subordinalt offices, which has been
so long the discredit and sharae of Pennsylvania, if all this have
not chilled to absolute indifference every natural eraotion of
honest pride in our bosora, this commonwealth will speak out now
in tonea which will not soon die away to silence."
Nor is this all, — and we regret to take a still narrower view of
the subject, — as a matter of fair State competition, what would
the interests of Pennsylvania gain by sustaining a candidate se
lected as John C. Fremont was, even aside from sectional feelings?
The main influences which sustained hira then, and which sustain
him now, are Northern fanaticism and the wild spirit of specula
tive adventure, stimulated by the satanic and fanatic Press (those
which have been well described as "the percussion presses of the
country"), — the organs, by mutual crimination and confession, of
venality and fanaticism. The nomination of Fremont was a vic
tory over Pennsylvania. The power of speculative wealth, — the

21
sympathy of operators in distant land scrip, puffed up to-day and
depressed to-morrow, swayed the convention which made this
nomination, and even there the Pennsylvania spirit was trampled
down with insult.
_ This is not rhetoric — not declamation — but simple and pre
cise truth. It is a fact which cannot be controverted, that this
nomination is, at least partly, due to the speculative sympathy
we have spoken of — in mines, and land scrip, and the worst of
credit — and that if successful under such auspices, it would in
augurate a new era of commercial adventure and latitudinarian
administration, such as no rational or conservative mancan fail
to deplore.
What can Pennsylvania — her moderate hard-W(?rking men —
her modest but substantial enterprises — her farmers and miners
and mechanics, — what can the merchants and traders of Phila
delphia and Pittsburg, those who have contributed so many rail
lions to our local improvements, gain from an ascendency like
this? It is their interest, then, as well as their duty, to support a states
man whose whole life and every thought is devoted to Pennsyl
vania, and no one out of Pennsylvania will think the worse of
him for this. " The older I grow," said Mr. Buchanan, once, in
his place in the Senate, "the more am I inclined to be a State
Rights man."
Pennsylvania, surely, will thank hira for this.
Such ia the question which the Araerican people must decide.
If any fact has been here stated which history does not record,
let it be disproved. If any inference has been drawn which fair
reasoning does not authorize, let it be pointed out. The truth
has been sought for anxiously and conscientiously. The isauea
for good or for evil are moat momentous, and cannot be avoided
or concealed in any spurious exciteraent which raay be attempted.
"The election of a sectional President by a strictly geographical
vote can lead to but one result, — the practical breaking down of
the Executive Department of the Government, or a dissolution
of the Union. And who, in his sober meditations, can decide
which ia the most fearful. It is no idle fear — no rhetorical
prophecy of evil-^-but the statement of a certainiresult.
May these " Words of Counsel," written by no alarmist, but by
a teraperate and reasoning student of his country's history, — by
one who has been taught from early boyhood to reverence as his
highest social law the Constitution of the Union, and never be
heved before, that, in defiance of Washington's farewell and
solemn words, sectional and geographical parties would divide this
country and endanger the Union. May these words of friendly
and earnest counsel, addressed to reasoning men, help to avert
these sad results !

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