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to whom the state of the vote was to be proved; that every one has regarded the count of the body so designated, as a making to appear," and regarded itself as having nothing at all to do but to declare what had already been made to appear, and what amendment had already been completely and certainly adopted. To have followed these precedents evinces the possession of judicial qualities, and exemplifies a judicial character, which entitle the respondent, if he stood in need of it, to the candor and indulgence of an assembly of honorable minds.

And now, Mr. President, the discussion is closed. It is an infelicity of the judicial office, that the judge does not, and can never come to his own day of trial attended and assisted by a demonstrative and sustaining popularity. The necessities of the great trust he stands in prescribes seclusion, and thought, and the study of books. They prescribe the duty, and they form the habit of looking less to the party than to the cause; the habit of meditations on rights more than of intercourse with men. He grows formal, therefore, and reserved, if not austere. In old age he becomes venerable by the establishment of an illustrious reputation, we rise up and bless him; we follow his footsteps and attend him to his grave, with tears, and reverence, and gratitude. But the earlier and middle life of the good judge, of the best judge, has won little of the popularity which follows; none at all of that which is run after. The respondent, thus, is here almost alone. I am told, and I believe, that if his self-respect and good taste would have permitted it, if the nature of the charge, if the necessities of the hour had allowed it, we might have shown you by the testimony of the bar over whom he has had opportunity to preside, by the testimony of all who have observed his brief, but studious and most busy official life, that already an ornament of the bench, he has a future of distinction and usefulness, which may justify any degree of hope of his friends and of the public. But here and now he seems alone, - upheld by consciousness of his own innocence, and by trust in his judges, of this convention, and of the people. The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy are his. Some circumstances invest him and his position with extraordinary interest. He represents a grand doctrine of constitutional freedom, dear to Maine as

are the ruddy drops that visit her large heart. He represents that transcendent idea of a separation of departments of government, without which tyranny is begun already. He represents that element of security, without which liberty itself is an empty and dreary thing, and its worship a vain oblation, a security of right under an equal law, and a learned and incorrupt judge. He commands and he has that respect of God and man, which is yielded ever to him who strives to protect himself, and those he loves, from oppression and dishonor. Your kindness thus far he has experienced, and his counsel have experienced, in bountiful measure. This you might give or might withhold; but justice he has a right to demand; and justice even this high tribunal is bound to render.

SPEECH "ON THE POLITICAL TOPICS NOW

PROMINENT BEFORE THE COUNTRY."

DELIVERED AT LOWELL, MASS., OCTOBER 28, 1856.

I HAVE accepted your invitation to this hall with pleasure -although it is pleasure not unattended by pain.

To meet you, Fellow-citizens of Lowell and of Middlesex, between whom, the larger number of whom, and myself, I may hope from the terms of the call under which you assemble, there is some sympathy of opinion and feeling on the "political topics now prominent before the community;" to meet and confer, however briefly and imperfectly, on the condition of our country, and the duties of those who aspire only to be good citizens, and are inquiring anxiously what in that humble yet responsible character they have to do to meet thus, and here not as politicians, not as partisans, not as time-servers, not as office-seekers, not as followers of a multitude because it is a multitude, not as sectionalists, but as sons and daughters of our united and inherited America; who love her, filially and fervently for herself; our own-the beautiful, the endeared, the bounteous; the imperial and general Parent!—and whose hearts' desire and prayer to God is only to know how we shall serve her best, this is a pleasure and a privilege for which I shall be very long and very deeply your debt.

in

And this pleasure, there is here and now nothing to alloy. Differing as we have done, some of us, through half our lives; differing as now we do, and shall hereafter do, on means, on details, on causes of the evil, on men, on non-essentials non-essentials I would say in so far as the demands of these most rugged and eventful times are concerned- I think that

on the question, what is the true issue before us and the capital danger we have to meet; on this, and on all the larger ideas, in all the nobler emotions which ought to swell the heart and guide the votes of true men to-day through this one sharp and dark hour we shall stand together, shoulder to shoulder, though we have never done so before, and may never do so again.

-

I infer this from the language of your invitation. The welcome with which you have met me, allows me to expect so much. The place we meet in gives assurance of it.

If there is one spot of New England earth rather than another, on whose ear that strange music of discords to which they are rallying the files a little scattered and a little flinching, thank God! - of their Geographical party must fall like a fire-bell in the night, it is here; it is in Middlesex; it is in Lowell!

If

If this attempt at combining States against States for the possession of the government has no danger in it for anybody, well and good. Let all then sleep on, and take their rest. it has danger for anybody, for you, Fellow-citizens of Lowell, more than for any of New England or as much, it has that danger. Who needs the Union, if you do not? Who should have brain and heart enough to comprehend and employ the means of keeping it, if not you? Others may be Unionists by chance; by fits and starts; on the lips; Unionists when nothing more exciting, or more showy,

profitable, casts up. You are Unionists by profession; Unionists by necessity; Unionists always. Others may find Vermont, or Massachusetts, or New Hampshire, or Rhode Island, large enough for them. You need the whole United Continent over which the flag waves to-day, and you need it need it governed, within the limits of the actual Constitution, by one supreme will. To secure that vast, and that indispensable market at home; to command in the least degree a steady, uniform, or even occasional protection against the redundant capital, matured skill, pauper labor, and ebbing and falling prices of the Old World at peace; to enable the looms of America to clothe the teeming millions of America ; — you need a regulation of commerce, uniform, one, the work of one united mind, which shall draw along our illimitable coast

of sea and lake, between the universal American race on one side, and all the rest of mankind on the other, a line, not of seclusion, not of prohibition, but a line of security, and discrimination-discrimination between the raw material at least

and the competing product- a line of social and industrial boundary behind which our infancy may grow to manhood; our weakness to strength; our "prentice hand" to that skill which shall hang out the lamp of beauty on the high places of our wealth, and our power, and our liberty!

Yes, this you need; and you know how, and where, you

can have it.

How perfectly our springing and yet immature manufacturing and mechanical interests in 1788 discerned this need, and with what deep, reasonable, passionate enthusiasm they celebrated the adoption of the Constitution which held out the promise of meeting it! I know very well that all good men; all far-seeing men; all large-brained and large-hearted men were glad that day. I recall that grand and exultant exclamation of one of them: "It is done; we have become a nation." But even then it seemed to some, more than to others, the dawn of a day of good things to come. If you turn to that procession and that pageant of industry, in Philadelphia, on the 4th of July, 1788, -that grand and affecting dramatic action through which, on that magnificent stage as in a theatre, there were represented the sublime joy, and the sublime hopes with which the bosom of Pennsylvania was throbbing, then and thus I think you seem to see, that while the Constitution promised glory and happiness to all our America, it was to the labor of America the very breath of life. We hear it said that it was for trade-foreign and domestic, largely that the new and more perfect union was formed, and that is true. Very fit it was that in that gorgeous day of national emblems, the silver Delaware should have shown forth prominently decorated and festive to announce and welcome from all her mast-heads the rising orb of American commerce. Yet was there one piece in the performance opening a still wider glimpse of its immense utilities and touching the heart with a finer emotion. That large "stage borne on the carriage of the Manufacturing Society, thirty feet in length, on which carding machines, and spinning machines, and weaving