we condemn and deplore the former, and demand that the freewill of all its people shall be permitted to disappoint the latter, creating no necessity for the Geographical party, afford no excuse for the injustice meditated:

That such a party is dangerous to the internal tranquillity and general welfare of the United States, and that it tends by probable and natural consequence less or more remote to their separation.

Such was once, was ever, until to-day, the universal judg ment of wise and honest men and true patriots; and by their counsels it is safe, moral, and respectable to abide.

That such a party, militant or triumphant, electioneering for the administration or in possession of it, must exert influences of wide and various evil, even whether they do or do not reach to the overthrow of our system; that it accustoms the people of each section to turn from contemplating that fair and grand ideal, the whole America, and to find their country in one of its fragments; a revolution of the public affections, and a substitution of a new public life; that it accustoms them to exaggerate, intensify, and put forward into everything the one ele ment of discord and diversity, and to neglect the cultivation of the less energetic elements of resemblance and union; that, in fixing their attention on a single subject, and that one appealing simply to passion and emotion, to pride, to fear, to moral sensibilities, it exasperates and embitters the general temper, and sows the seeds of sentiments which we did not inherit, but which we may transmit, sentiments of the vehement and energetic class which form and unform nations; that it has to an extraordinary degree changed the tone of political discussion in this its own section, and made it intolerant, immoral, abusive and insolent to those who differ, to an extent to which our party disputes have before afforded no example; that it tends to place moderate men and national men, North and South, in a false position, by presenting to them the alternative of treason to the whole or treason to the section,- thus putting moderate counsels to shame, and destroying the influence which might help to restore the good temper and generous affection of the parts and the whole.

That while it is organized on the single basis of resistance to what it calls the slave power, it misconceives or disregards

the true duties of the patriotism, philanthropy, and Christianity of the Free States in the matter of slavery; that it excites hatred of the master, but no prudent, nor reasonable, nor useful love of the slave; that to hinder the mere extension of that relation over more area, although one good thing, is not the only one demanded; that even that may be rendered worse than useless by the mode of seeking to effect it; that whatsoever else we do or attempt, in whatsoever else our power comes short of our wishes in this regard, we are bound to know that discords and animosity on this subject between North and South, however promoted, do but retard the training for freedom and postpone the day of its gradual and peaceful attainIf ye so hate the master, or so fear him, or so contend with him, that ye rivet the fetters of the slave or lengthen the term of his slavery, what reward have ye or has he?

ment.

With these opinions, Fellow-citizens, I aim, in this election, at one single object; I feel but one single hope, and one single fear. To me, all of you, all men who aim at that object and share that hope and that fear, seem allies, brothers, partners of a great toil, a great duty, and a common fate. For the hour, opinions upon other things, old party creeds adapted for quiet times, old party names and symbols and squabbles and differences about details of administration, seem to me hushed, suspended, irrelevant, trifling, the small cares of a master of ceremonies in the palace on the morning of the revolution, about red heels, small-clothes, and buckles in the shoe, within an hour of the final storm. I care no more now whether my co-worker is a Democrat, or an American, or an old Whig, a Northern man or a California man, than you should care if a fire fell on your city in winter and was devouring your workshops and streets one after another, and houseless women and children and old men and sick were seen hovering on the side of the river in the snow, whether he who passed or received your buckets was rocked in his cradle on this side of the sea or the other; whether he was an Arminian or Calvinist; a ten-hours' labor man or a twenty-four hours' labor man. The election once over, we are our several selves again. "If we get well," the sick man said, when with difficulty reconciled to his enemy, both being supposed dying, "if we get well, it all goes for nothing." Certainly somewhat there is in the position of all of us a

little trying, ties of years, which knit some of us together, are broken; cold regards are turned on us, and bitter language and slander, cruel as the grave, is ours.

"I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me."

You have decided, Fellow Whigs, that you can best contribute to the grand end we all seek, by a vote for Mr. Fillmore. I, a Whig all my life, a Whig in all things, and, as regards all other names, a Whig to-day, have thought I could discharge my duty most effectually by voting for Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Breckenridge; and I shall do it. The justice I am but too happy in rendering you, will you deny to me? In doing this, I neither join the Democratic party, nor retract any opinion on the details of its policy, nor acquit it of its share of blame in bringing on the agitations of the hour. But there are traits, there are sentiments, there are specialties of capacity and of function, that make a party as they make a man, which fit it in an extraordinary degree for special service in special crises, -to meet particular forms of danger by exactly adapted resistance to fight fire with fire-to encounter by a sharper, more energetic, and more pronounced antagonism the precise type of evil which assails the State. In this way every great party successively becomes the saviour of the Constitution. There was never an election contest that in denouncing the particulars of its policy I did not admit that the characteristic of the Democratic party was this: that it had burned ever with that great master-passion this hour demands-a youthful, vehement, exultant, and progressive nationality. Through some errors, into some perils, it has been led by it; it may be so again; we may require to temper and restrain it, but to-day we need it all, we need it all!—the hopes -the boasts-the pridethe universal tolerance - the gay and festive defiance of foreign dictation the flag the music- all the emotions—all the traits all the energies, that have won their victories of war, and their miracles of national advancement, the country needs them all now to win a victory of peace. That done, I will pass again, happy and content, into that minority of conservatism in which I have passed my life.

To some, no doubt, the purport and tone of much that I have said may seem to be the utterance and the spirit of fear. Pro

fessors among their classes, preachers to implicit congregations, the men and women of emotion and sentiment, will mock at such apprehensions. I wish them joy of their discernment; of the depth of their readings of history; of the soundness of their nerves. Let me excuse myself in the words of an English statesman, then and ever conspicuous for spirit and courage, the present prime minister of England, in a crisis of England far less urgent than this. "Tell me not that this is the language of intimidation; tell me not that I am appealing to the fears instead of to the reason of the House. In matters of such high concern, which involve not personal and individual considerations, but the welfare of one's country, no man ought to be ashamed of being counselled by his fears. But the fears to which I appeal are the fears which the brave may acknowledge, and the wise need not blush to own. The fear to which I appeal is that early and provident fear which Mr. Burke so beautifully describes as being the mother of safety. Early and provident fear,' says Mr. Burke, is the mother of safety, for in that state of things the mind is firm and collected, and the judgment unembarrassed; but when fear and the thing feared come on together and press upon us at once, even deliberation, which at other times saves us, becomes our ruin, because it delays decision; and when the peril is instant, decision should be instant too.' To this fear I am not ashamed of appealing; by this fear legislators and statesmen ought ever to be ruled; and he who will not listen to this fear, and refuses to be guided by its counsel, may go and break his lances against windmills, but the court of chancery should enjoin him to abstain from meddling with public affairs."

6

They taunt you with being "Union-savers." I never thought that a sarcasm of the first magnitude, but as men can but do their best, let it go for what they think it worth. I take for granted, Fellow-citizens, that you, that all of us, despise cant and hypocrisy in all things,-the feigning a fear not felt, the cry of peril not believed to exist, all meanness and all wickedness of falsehood in our dealings with the mind of the people. But I take it for granted, too, that we are above the cowardice and immorality of suppressing our sense of a danger, threatening precious interests and possible to be averted, from the dread of jokers of jokes; and that we are above the folly of yielding

that vast advantage which deep convictions give to earnest men in the dissensions of the Republic. Think what a thing it were to win the proud and sounding name in reality which they bestow in derision! Suppose, only suppose it so for the argument, that there is danger, over-estimated perhaps by the solicitude of filial love, but real or probable and less or more remote, suppose, merely for the supposition, that Washington had reason to leave that warning against this kind of geographical combinations, under all pretexts, and that this one comes within the spirit and the terms of that warning, suppose it to be so that we are right; that vehement passions, eager philanthropy, moral emotions not patient nor comprehensive of the indispensable limitations of political duty; that anger, pride, ambition, the lust of sectional power, the jealousy of sectional aggression, the pursuit even of ends just and desirable by means disproportioned and needless and exasperating

the excess and outbreak of virtues, by which more surely than by vices a country may be undone, that these all working in an unusual conjuncture of affairs and state of public temper, have exposed and are exposing this Union to danger less or more remote, and then suppose that by some word seasonably uttered, some vote openly and courageously given, some sincere conviction plainly expressed, we could do something to earn the reality of the praise which they give us in jest, something for the safety, something for the peace, of this holy and beautiful house of our fathers, something, were it ever so little, would not this be compensation for the laughter of fools; aye! for alienated friendships, averted faces, and the serpent tooth of slander, -a thing worth dying for, and even worth having lived for?