SPEECHES, ADDRESSES,
AND
OCCASIONAL SERMONS,

BY

THEODORE PARKER,

MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN BOSTON.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

BOSTON:
HORACE B. FULLER,
(Successor to Walker, Fuller, and Company,)
245, Washington Street.
1867.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
THEODORE PARKER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of the District of Massachusetts.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.

I.
A Speech at a Meeting of the Citizens of Boston
in Faneuil Hall, March 25, 1850, to Consider the
Speech of Mr. Webster PAGE [1]
II.
A Speech at the New England Anti-Slavery Convention
in Boston, May 29, 1850 [38]
III.
A Discourse Occasioned by the Death of the late
President Taylor.—Preached at the Melodeon, on
Sunday, July 14, 1850 [87]
IV.
The Function and Place of Conscience, in Relation
to the Laws of Men; a Sermon for the
Times.—Preached at the Melodeon, on Sunday, September
22, 1850 [131]
V.
The State of the Nation, considered in a Sermon
for Thanksgiving Day.—Preached at the Melodeon,
November 28, 1850 [180]
VI.
The Chief Sins of the People.—A Sermon delivered
at the Melodeon, on Fast Day, April 10, 1851 [230]
VII.
The Three Chief Safeguards of Society, considered
in a Sermon at the Melodeon, on Sunday,
July 6, 1851 [292]
VIII.
The Position and Duties of the American Scholar.—An
Address delivered at Waterville, August 8, 1849 [346]

I.

SPEECH AT A MEETING OF THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON, IN FANEUIL HALL, MARCH 25, 1850, TO CONSIDER THE SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER.

Mr. President and Fellow Citizens: It is an important occasion which has brought us together. A great crisis has occurred in the affairs of the United States. There is a great question now before the people. In any European country west of Russia and east of Spain, it would produce a revolution, and be settled with gunpowder. It narrowly concerns the material welfare of the nation. The decision that is made will help millions of human beings into life, or will hinder and prevent millions from being born. It will help or hinder the advance of the nation in wealth for a long time to come. It is a question which involves the honor of the people. Your honor and my honor are concerned in this matter, which is presently to be passed upon by the people of the United States. More than all this, it concerns the morality of the people. We are presently to do a right deed, or to inflict a great wrong on others and on ourselves, and thereby entail an evil upon this continent which will blight and curse it for many an age.

It is a great question, comprising many smaller ones:—Shall we extend and foster Slavery, or shall we extend and foster Freedom? Slavery, with its consequences, material, political, intellectual, moral; or Freedom, with the consequences thereof?

A question so important seldom comes to be decided before any generation of men. This age is full of great questions, but this of Freedom is the chief. It is the same question which in other forms comes up in Europe. This is presently to be decided here in the United States by the servants of the people, I mean, by the Congress of the nation; in the name of the people; for the people, if justly decided; against them, if unjustly. If it were to be left to-morrow to the naked votes of the majority, I should have no fear. But the public servants of the people may decide otherwise. The political parties, as such, are not to pass judgment. It is not a question between whigs and democrats; old party distinctions, once so sacred and rigidly observed, here vanish out of sight. The party of Slavery or the party of Freedom is to swallow up all the other parties. Questions about tariffs and banks can hardly get a hearing. On the approach of a battle, men do not talk of the weather.

Four great men in the Senate of the United States have given us their decision; the four most eminent in the party politics of the nation—two great whigs, two great democrats. The Shibboleth of their party is forgotten by each; there is a strange unanimity in their decision. The Herod of free trade and the Pilate of protection are "made friends," when freedom is to be crucified. All four decide adverse to freedom; in favor of slavery; against the people. Their decisions are such as you might look for in the politicians of Austria and Russia. Many smaller ones have spoken on this side or on that. Last of all, but greatest, the most illustrious of the four, so far as great gifts of the understanding are concerned, a son of New England, long known, and often and deservedly honored, has given his decision. We waited long for his words; we held our peace in his silence; we listened for his counsel. Here it is; adverse to freedom beyond the fears of his friends, and the hopes even of his foes. He has done wrong things before, cowardly things more than once; but this, the wrongest and most cowardly of them all: we did not look for it. No great man in America has had his faults or his failings so leniently dealt with; private scandal we will not credit, public shame we have tried to excuse, or, if inexcusable, to forget. We have all of us been proud to go forward and honor his noble deeds, his noble efforts, even his noble words. I wish we could take a mantle big and black enough, and go backward and cover up the shame of the great man who has fallen in the midst of us, and hide him till his honor and his conscience shall return. But no, it cannot be; his deed is done in the face of the world, and nothing can hide it.

We have come together to-night in Faneuil Hall, to talk the matter over, in our New England way; to look each other in the face; to say a few words of warning, a few of counsel, perhaps something which may serve for guidance. We are not met here to-night to "calculate the value of the Union," but to calculate the worth of freedom and the rights of man; to calculate the value of the Wilmot Proviso. Let us be cool and careful, not violent, not rash; true and firm, not hasty or timid.

Important matters have brought our fathers here many times before now. Before the Revolution, they came here to talk about the Molasses Act, or the Sugar Act, or the Stamp Act, the Boston Port Bill, and the long list of grievances which stirred up their manly stomachs to the Revolution; afterwards, they met to consult about the Embargo, and the seizure of the Chesapeake, and many other matters. Not long ago, only five years since, we came here to protest against the annexation of Texas. But before the Revolution or after it, meetings have seldom been called in Faneuil Hall on such solemn occasions as this. Not only is there a great public wrong contemplated, as in the annexation of Texas, but the character and conduct of a great public servant of the people come up to be looked after. This present conduct of Mr. Webster is a thing to be solemnly considered. A similar thing once happened before. In 1807, a senator from Massachusetts was disposed to accept a measure the President had advised, because he had "recommended" it "on his high responsibility." "I would not consider," said the senator, "I would not deliberate, I would act."[1] He did so; and with little deliberation, with small counsel, as men thought at the time, he voted for the Embargo, and the Embargo came. This was a measure which doomed eight hundred thousand tons of shipping to rot at the wharf. It touched the pockets of New England and all the North. It affected the daily meals of millions of men. There was indignation, deep and loud indignation; but it was political in its nature and personal in its form; the obnoxious measure was purely political, not obviously immoral and unjust. But, long as John Quincy Adams lived, much as he did in his latter years for mankind, he never wholly wiped off the stain which his conduct then brought upon him. Yet it may be that he was honest in his vote; it may have been an error of judgment, and nothing more; nay, there are men who think it was no error at all, but a piece of political wisdom.

A senator of Massachusetts has now committed a fault far greater than was ever charged upon Mr. Adams by his most inveterate political foes. It does not directly affect the shipping of New England and the North: I wish it did. It does not immediately concern our daily bread; if it were so, the contemplated wrong would receive a speedy adjustment. But it concerns the liberty of millions of men yet unborn.

Let us look at the matter carefully.

Here is a profile of our national action on the subject now before the people.

In 1774, we agreed to import no more slaves after that year, and never finally repealed this act of agreement.

In 1776, we declared that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In 1778, we formed the Confederacy, with no provision for the surrender of fugitive slaves.

In 1787, we shut out slavery from the Northwest Territory for ever, by the celebrated proviso of Mr. Jefferson.

In 1788, the Constitution was formed, with its compromises and guarantees.

In 1808, the importation of slaves was forbidden. But,

In 1803, we annexed Louisiana, and slavery along with it.

In 1819, we annexed Florida, with more slavery.

In 1820, we legally established slavery in the territory west of the Mississippi, south of 36 deg. 30 min.

In 1845, we annexed Texas, with three hundred and twenty-five thousand five hundred and twenty square miles, as a slave State.

In 1848, we acquired, by conquest and by treaty, the vast territory of California and New Mexico, containing five hundred and twenty-six thousand and seventy-eight square miles. Of this, two hundred and four thousand three hundred and eighty-three square miles are south of the slave line—south of 36 deg. 30 min. Here is territory enough to make more than thirty slave States of the size of Massachusetts.

At the present day, it is proposed to have some further action on the matter of slavery. Connected with this subject, four great questions come up to be decided:—

1. Shall four new slave States at any time be made out of Texas? This is not a question which is to be decided at present, yet it is one of great present importance, and furnishes an excellent test of the moral character and political conduct of politicians at this moment. The other questions are of immediate and pressing concern. Here they are:—

2. Shall Slavery be prohibited in California?

3. Shall Slavery be prohibited in New Mexico?

4. What laws shall be passed relative to fugitive slaves?

Mr. Webster, in this speech, defines his position in regard to each of these four questions.

1. In regard to the new States to be made hereafter out of Texas, he gives us his opinion, in language well studied, and even with an excess of caution. Let us look at it, and the resolution which annexed Texas. That declares that "new States ... not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas ... may hereafter, by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution. And such States ... shall be admitted with or without slavery, as the people of each State asking admission may desire."

I will not stop to consider the constitutionality of the joint resolution which annexed Texas. Mr. Webster's opinion on that subject is well known. But the resolution does two things: 1. It confers a power, the power to make four new States on certain conditions; a qualified power, restricted by the terms of the act. 2d. It imposes an obligation, namely, the obligation to leave it to the people of the new State to keep slaves or not, when the State is admitted. The words may be, etc., indicate the conferring of a power: the words shall be, etc., the imposing of an obligation. But as the power is a qualified power, so is the obligation a qualified obligation; the shall be is dependent on the may be, as much as the may be on the shall. Admitting in argument what Mr. Webster has denied, that Congress had the constitutional right to annex Texas by joint resolution, and also that the resolution of one Congress binds the future Congress, it is plain Congress may admit new States from Texas, on those conditions, or refuse to admit them. This is plain, by any fair construction of the language. The resolution does not say, they shall be formed, only "may be formed," and "shall be entitled to admission, under the provisions of the Federal Constitution"—not in spite of those provisions. The provisions of the Constitution, in relation to the formation and admission of new States, are well known, and sufficiently clear. Congress is no more bound to admit a new slave State formed out of Texas, than out of Kentucky. But Mr. Webster seems to say that Congress is bound to make four new States out of Texas, when there is sufficient population to warrant the measure, and a desire for it in the States themselves, and to admit them with a Constitution allowing slavery. He says, "Its guaranty is, that new States shall be made out of it,... and that such States ... may come in as slave States," etc. Quite the contrary. It is only said they "may be formed," and admitted "under the provisions of the Constitution." The shall be does not relate to the fact of admission.

Then he says, there is "a solemn pledge," "that if she shall be divided into States, those States may come in as slave States." But there is no "solemn pledge" that they shall come in at all. I make a "solemn pledge" to John Doe, that if ever I give him any land, it shall be a thousand acres in the meadows on Connecticut River; but it does not follow from this that I am bound to give John Doe any land at all. This solemn pledge is worth nothing, if Congress says to new States, You shall not come in with your slave Constitution. To make this "stipulation with Texas" binding, it ought to have provided that "new States ... shall be formed out of the territory thereof ... such States shall be entitled to admission, in spite of the provisions of the Constitution." Even then it would be of no value; for as there can be no moral obligation to do an immoral deed, so there can be no constitutional obligation to do an unconstitutional deed. So much for the first question. You see that Mr. Webster proposes to do what we never stipulated to do, what is not "so nominated in the bond." He wrests the resolution against freedom, and for the furtherance of the slave power!

2 and 3. Mr. Webster has given his answer to the second and third questions, which may be considered as a single question, Shall slavery be legally forbidden by Congress in California and New Mexico? Mr. Webster is opposed to the prohibition by Congress. Here are his words: "Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded from those territories by a law even superior to that which admits and sanctions it in Texas. I mean the law of nature, of physical geography, the law of the formation of the earth."... "I will say further, that if a resolution or a law were now before us to provide a territorial government for New Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. The use of such a prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have upon the territory: and I would not take pains to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to reënact the will of God." "The gentlemen who belong to the Southern States would think it a taunt, an indignity; they would think it an act taking away from them what they regard as a proper equality of privilege" ... "a plain theoretic wrong," "more or less derogatory to their character and their rights."

"African slavery," he tells us, "cannot exist there." It could once exist in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Very little of this territory lies north of Mason and Dixon's line, the northern limit of Maryland; none above the parallel of forty-two degrees; none of it extends fifty miles above the northern limit of Virginia; two hundred and four thousand three hundred and fifty-three square miles of it lie south of the line of the Missouri Compromise, south of 36° 30´. Almost all of it is in the latitude of Virginia and the Carolinas. If slavery can exist on the west coast of the Atlantic, I see not why it cannot on the east of the Pacific, and all the way between. There is no reason why it cannot. It will, unless we forbid it by positive laws, laws which no man can misunderstand. Why, in 1787, it was thought necessary to forbid slavery in the Northwest Territory, which extends from the Ohio River to the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude.

Not exclude slavery from California and New Mexico, because it can never exist there! Why, it was there once, and Mexico abolished it by positive law. Abolished, did I say! We are not so sure of that; I mean, not sure that the Senate of the United States is sure of it. Not a month before Mr. Webster made this very speech, on the 13th and 14th of last February, Mr. Davis, the Senator from Mississippi, maintained that slavery is not abolished in California and New Mexico. He denies that the acts abolishing slavery in Mexico were made by competent powers; denies that they have the force of law. But even if they have, he tells us, "Suppose it be conceded that by law it was abolished—could that law be perpetual? Could it extend to the territory after it became the property of the United States? Did we admit territory from Mexico, subject to the Constitution and laws of Mexico? Did we pay fifteen million dollars for jurisdiction over California and New Mexico, that it might be held subordinate to the laws of Mexico?" The Commissioners of Mexico, he tells us, did not think that "we were to be bound by the edicts and statutes of Mexico." They pressed this point in the negotiation, "the continuation of their law for the exclusion of slavery;" and Mr. Trist told them he could not make a treaty on that condition; if they would "offer him the land covered a foot thick with pure gold, upon the single condition that slavery should be excluded therefrom, I could not entertain the offer for a moment." Does not Mr. Webster know this? He knows it too well.

But Mr. Davis goes further. He does not think slavery is excluded by legislation stronger than a joint resolution. This is his language: "I believe it is essential, on account of the climate, productions, soil, and the peculiar character of cultivation, that we shall, during its first settlement, have that slavery [African slavery] in a part, at least, of California and New Mexico." Now on questions of "A law of nature and physical geography," the Senator from Mississippi is as good authority as the Senator from Massachusetts, and a good deal nearer to the facts of the case.

In the House of Representatives, Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, amongst others, wants New Mexico for slave soil. Pass the Wilmot Proviso over this territory, and the question is settled, disposed of for ever. Omit to pass it, and slavery will go there, and you may get it out if you can. Once there, it will be said that the "Compromises of the Constitution" are on its side, and we have no jurisdiction over the slavery which we have established there.

Hear what Mr. Foote said of a similar matter on the 26th of June, 1848, in his place in the Senate: "Gentlemen have said this is not a practical question, that slaves will never be taken to Oregon. With all deference to their opinion, I differ with them totally. I believe, if permitted, slaves would be carried there, and that slavery would continue, at least, as long as in Maryland or Virginia. ['The whole of Oregon' is north of forty-two degrees.] The Pacific coast is totally different in temperature from the Atlantic. It is far milder.... Green peas are eaten in the Oregon city at Christmas. Where is the corresponding climate to be found on this side the continent? Where we sit—near the thirty-ninth? No, sir; but to the south of us." "The latitude of Georgia gives, on the Pacific, a tropical climate." "The prohibition of slavery in the laws of Oregon was adopted for the express purpose of excluding slaves." "A few had been brought in; further importations were expected; and it was with a view to put a stop to them, that the prohibitory act was passed."

Now, Mr. Foote of Mississippi—"Hangman Foote," as he has been called—understands the laws of the formation of the earth as well as the distinguished senator from Massachusetts. Why, the inhabitants of that part of the Northwest Territory, which now forms the States of Indiana and Illinois, repeatedly asked Congress to allow them to introduce slaves north of the Ohio; and but for the ordinance of '87, that territory would now be covered with the mildew of slavery!

But I have not yet adduced all the testimony of Mr. Foote. Last year, on the 23d of February, 1849, he declared: "No one acquainted with the vast mineral resources of California and New Mexico, and who is aware of the peculiar adaptedness of slave labor to the development of mineral treasures, can doubt for a moment, that were slaves introduced into California and New Mexico, being employed in the mining operations there in progress, their labor would result in the acquisition of pecuniary profits not heretofore realized by the most successful cotton or sugar planter of this country?" Does not Mr. Webster know this? Perhaps he did not hear Mr. Foote's speech last year; perhaps he has a short memory, and has forgotten it. Then let us remind the nation of what its Senator forgets. Not know this—forget it? Who will credit such a statement? Mr. Webster is not an obscure clergyman, busy with far different things, but the foremost politician of the United States.

But why do I mention the speeches of Mr. Foote, a year ago? Here is something hardly dry from the printing-press. Here is an advertisement from the "Mississippian" of March 7th, 1850, the very day of that speech. The "Mississippian" is published at the city of Jackson, in Mississippi.

"CALIFORNIA,

"THE SOUTHERN SLAVE COLONY.

"Citizens of the slave States, desirous of emigrating to California with their slave property, are requested to send their names, number of slaves, and period of contemplated departure, to the address of 'Southern Slave Colony,' Jackson, Miss....

"It is the desire of the friends of this enterprise to settle in the richest mining and agricultural portions of California, and to have the uninterrupted enjoyment of slave property. It is estimated that, by the first of May next, the members of this Slave Colony will amount to about five thousand, and the slaves to about ten thousand. The mode of effecting organization, &c., will be privately transmitted to actual members.

"Jackson (Miss.), Feb. 24, 1850. "dtf.

What does Mr. Webster say in view of all this? "If a proposition were now here for a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a provision for the prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it." Why not vote for it? There is a specious pretence, which is publicly proclaimed, but there is a real reason for it which is not mentioned!

In the face of all these facts, Mr. Webster says that these men would wish "to protect the everlasting snows of Canada from the pest of slavery by the same overspreading wing of an act of Congress." Exactly so. If we ever annex Labrador—if we "re-annex" Greenland, and Kamskatka, I would extend the Wilmot Proviso there, and exclude slavery forever and forever.

But Mr. Webster would not "reaffirm an ordinance of nature," nor "reënact the will of God." I would. I would reaffirm nothing else, enact nothing else. What is justice but the "ordinance of nature?" What is right but "the will of God?" When you make a law, "Thou shalt not kill," what do you but "reënact the will of God?" When you make laws for the security of the "unalienable rights" of man, and protect for every man the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are you not re-affirming an ordinance of nature? Not reënact the will of God? Why, I would enact nothing else. The will of God is a theological term; it means truth and justice, in common speech. What is the theological opposite to "The will of God?" It is "The will of the devil." One of the two you must enact—either the will of God, or of the devil. The two are the only theological categories for such matters. Aut Deus aut Diabolus. There is no other alternative, "Choose you which you will serve."

So much for the second and third questions. Let us now come to the last thing to be considered. What laws shall be enacted relative to fugitive slaves? Let us look at Mr. Webster's opinion on this point.

The Constitution provides—you all know that too well—that every person "held to service or labor in one State,... escaping into another, shall be delivered up." By whom shall he be delivered up? There are only three parties to whom this phrase can possibly apply. They are,

1. Individual men and women; or,

2. The local authorities of the States concerned; or,

3. The Federal Government itself.

It has sometimes been contended that the Constitution imposes an obligation on you, and me, and every other man, to deliver up fugitive slaves. But there are no laws or decisions that favor that construction. Mr. Webster takes the next scheme, and says, "I always thought that the Constitution addressed itself to the Legislatures of the States, or to the States themselves." "It seems to me that the import of the passage is, that the State itself ... shall cause him [the fugitive] to be delivered up. That is my judgment." But the Supreme Court, some years ago, decided otherwise, that "The business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in the power of congress and the national judicature." So the matter stands now. But it is proposed to make more stringent laws relative to the return of fugitive slaves. So continues Mr. Webster—"My friend at the head of the judiciary committee has a bill on the subject now before the Senate, with some amendments to it, which I propose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent."

Everybody knows the act of Congress of 1793, relative to the surrender of fugitive slaves, and the decision of the Supreme Court in the "Prigg case," 1842. But everybody does not know the bill of Mr. Webster's "friend at the head of the judiciary committee." There is a bill providing "for the more effectual execution of the third clause of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States." It is as follows:—

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That when a person held to service or labor, in any State or Territory of the United States, under the laws of such State or territory, shall escape into any other of the said States or territories, the person to whom such service or labor may be due, his or her agent, or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from service or labor, and to take him or her before any Judge of the Circuit or District Courts of the United States, or before any commissioner or clerk of such courts, or marshal thereof, or before any postmaster of the United States, or collector of the customs of the United States, residing or being within such State wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made; and, upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge, commissioner, clerk, postmaster, or collector, as the case may be, either by oral testimony or affidavit taken before and certified by any person authorized to administer an oath under the laws of the United States, or of any State, that the person so seized or arrested, under the laws of the State or territory, from which he or she fled, owes service or labor to the person claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge, commissioner, clerk, marshal, postmaster, or collector, to give a certificate thereof to such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, which certificate shall be a sufficient warrant for taking and removing such fugitive from service or labor to the State or territory from which he or she fled.

"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That when a person held to service or labor, as mentioned in the first section of this act, shall escape from such service or labor, therein mentioned, the person to whom such service or labor may be due, his or her agent or attorney, may apply to any one of the officers of the United States named in said section, other than a marshal of the United States, for a warrant to seize and arrest such fugitive; and upon affidavit being made before such officer (each of whom, for the purposes of this act, is hereby authorized to administer an oath or affirmation), by such claimant, his or her agent, that such person does, under the laws of the State or territory from which he or she fled, owe service or labor to such claimant, it shall be and is hereby made the duty of such officer, to and before whom such application and affidavits are made to issue his warrant to any marshal of any of the courts of the United States, to seize and arrest such alleged fugitive, and to bring him or her forthwith, or on a day to be named in such warrant, before the officer issuing such warrant, or either of the other officers mentioned in said first section, except the marshal to whom the said warrant is directed, which said warrant or authority, the said marshal is hereby authorized and directed in all things to obey.

"Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That upon affidavit made as aforesaid, by the claimant of such fugitive, his agent or attorney, after such certificate has been issued, that he has reason to apprehend that such fugitive will be rescued by force from his or their possession, before he can be taken beyond the limits of the State in which the arrest is made, it shall be the duty of the officer making the arrest, to retain such fugitive in his custody, and to remove him to the State whence he fled, and there to deliver him to said claimant, his agent or attorney. And to this end, the officer aforesaid is hereby authorized and required to employ so many persons as he may deem necessary to overcome such force, and to retain them in his service, so long as circumstances may require. The said officer and his assistants, while so employed, to receive the same compensation, and to be allowed the same expenses as are now allowed by law, for transportation of criminals, to be certified by the judge of the district within which the arrest is made, and paid out of the treasury of the United States: Provided, That before such charges are incurred, the claimant, his agent, or attorney, shall secure to said officer payment of the same, and in case no actual force be opposed, then they shall be paid by such claimant, his agent or attorney.

"Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, When a warrant shall have been issued by any of the officers under the second section of this act, and there shall be no marshal or deputy marshal within ten miles of the place where such warrant is issued, it shall be the duty of the officer issuing the same, at the request of the claimant, his agent, or attorney, to appoint some fit and discreet person, who shall be willing to act as marshal, for the purpose of executing said warrant; and such persons so appointed shall, to the extent of executing such warrant, and detaining and transporting the fugitive named therein, have all the power and the authority, and he, with his assistants, entitled to the same compensation and expenses, provided in this act, in cases where the services are performed by the marshals of the courts.

"Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and wilfully obstruct or hinder such claimant, his agent, or attorney, or any person or persons assisting him, her or them, in so serving or arresting such fugitive from service or labor, or shall rescue such fugitive from such claimant, his agent, or attorney, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given or declared, or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor, to escape from such claimant, his agent, or attorney, or shall harbor or conceal such person, after notice that he or she was a fugitive from labor, as aforesaid, shall, for either of the said offences, forfeit and pay the sum of one thousand dollars, which penalty may be recovered by, and for the benefit of, such claimant, by action of debt in any court proper to try the same, saving, moreover, to the person claiming such labor or service, his right of action for, on account of, the said injuries, or either of them.

"Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That when such person is seized and arrested, under and by virtue of the said warrant, by such marshal, and is brought before either of the officers aforesaid, other than said marshal, it shall be the duty of such officer to proceed in the case of such person, in the same way that he is directed and authorized to do, when such person is seized and arrested by the person claiming him, or by his or her agent, or attorney, and is brought before such officer or attorney, under the provisions of the first section of this act."

This is the bill known as "Mason's Bill," introduced by Mr. Butler of South Carolina, on the 16th of January last. This is the bill which Mr. Webster proposes to support, "with all its provisions to the fullest extent." It is a Bill of abominations, but there are "some amendments to it," which modify the bill a little. Look at them. Here they are. The first provides in addition to the fine of one thousand dollars for aiding and abetting the escape of a fugitive, for harboring and concealing him, that the offender "shall also be imprisoned twelve months." The second amendment is as follows—"And in no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such fugitive be admitted in evidence."

These are Mr. Mason's amendments, offered on the twenty-third of last January. This is the bill, "with some amendments," which Mr. Webster says, "I propose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." Mr. Seward's bill was also before the Senate—a bill granting the fugitive slave a trial by jury in the State where he is found, to determine whether or not he is a slave. Mr. Webster says not a word about this bill. He does not propose to support it.

Suppose the bill of Mr. Webster's friend shall pass Congress, what will the action of it be? A slave-hunter comes here to Boston, he seizes any dark-looking man that is unknown and friendless, he has him before the postmaster, the collector of customs, or some clerk or marshal of some United States court, and makes oath that the dark man is his slave. The slave-hunter is allowed his oath. The fugitive is not allowed his testimony. The man born free as you and I, on the false oath of a slave-hunter, or the purchased affidavit of some one, is surrendered to a southern State, to bondage life-long and irremediable. Will you say, the postmaster, the collector, the clerks and marshals in Boston would not act in such matters? They have no option; it is their official business to do so. But they would not decide against the unalienable rights of man—the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That may be, or may not be. The slave-hunter may have his "fugitive" before the collector of Boston, or the postmaster of Truro, if he sees fit. If they, remembering their Old Testament, refuse to "bewray him that wandereth," the slave-hunter may bring on his officer with him from Georgia or Florida; he may bring the custom-house officer from Mobile or Wilmington, some little petty postmaster from a town you never heard of in South Carolina or Texas, and have any dark man in Boston up before that "magistrate," and on his decision have the fugitive carried off to Louisiana or Arkansas, to bondage for ever. The bill provides that the trial may be had before any such officer, "residing or being" in the State where the fugitive is found!

There were three fugitives at my house the other night. Ellen Craft was one of them. You all know Ellen Craft is a slave; she, with her husband, fled from Georgia to Philadelphia, and is here before us now. She is not so dark as Mr. Webster himself, if any of you think freedom is to be dealt out in proportion to the whiteness of the skin. If Mason's bill passes, I might have some miserable postmaster from Texas or the District of Columbia, some purchased agent of Messrs. Bruin & Hill, the great slave-dealers of the Capitol, have him here in Boston, take Ellen Craft before the caitiff, and on his decision hurry her off to bondage as cheerless, as hopeless, and as irremediable as the grave!

Let me interest you in a scene which might happen. Suppose a poor fugitive, wrongfully held as a slave—let it be Ellen Craft—has escaped from Savannah in some northern ship. No one knows of her presence on board; she has lain with the cargo in the hold of the vessel. Harder things have happened. Men have journeyed hundreds of miles bent double in a box half the size of a coffin, journeying towards freedom. Suppose the ship comes up to Long Wharf, at the foot of State Street. Bulk is broken to remove the cargo; the woman escapes, emaciated with hunger, feeble from long confinement in a ship's hold, sick with the tossing of the heedless sea, and still further etiolated and blanched with the mingling emotions of hope and fear. She escapes to land. But her pursuer, more remorseless than the sea, has been here beforehand; laid his case before the official he has brought with him, or purchased here, and claims his slave. She runs for her life, fear adding wings. Imagine the scene—the flight, the hot pursuit through State Street, Merchants' Row—your magistrates in hot pursuit. To make the irony of nature still more complete, let us suppose this shall take place on some of the memorable days in the history of America—on the 19th of April, when our fathers first laid down their lives "in the sacred cause of God and their country;" on the 17th of June, the 22d of December, or on any of the sacramental days in the long sad history of our struggle for our own freedom! Suppose the weary fugitive takes refuge in Faneuil Hall, and here, in the old Cradle of Liberty, in the midst of its associations, under that eye of Samuel Adams, the bloodhounds seize their prey! Imagine Mr. Webster and Mr. Winthrop looking on, cheering the slave-hunter, intercepting the fugitive fleeing for her life. Would not that be a pretty spectacle?

Propose to support that bill to the fullest extent, with all its provisions! Ridiculous talk! Does Mr. Webster suppose that such a law could be executed in Boston? that the people of Massachusetts will ever return a single fugitive slave, under such an act as that? Then he knows his constituents very little, and proves that he needs "Instruction."[2]

"Slavery is a moral and religious blessing," says somebody in the present Congress. But it seems some thirty thousand slaves have been blind to the benefits—moral and religious benefits—which it confers, and have fled to the free States. Mr. Clingman estimates the value of all the fugitive slaves in the North at $15,000,000. Delaware loses $100,000 in a year in this way; her riches taking to themselves not wings, but legs. Maryland lost $100,000 in six months. I fear Mr. Mason's bill and Mr. Webster's speech will not do much to protect that sort of "property" from this kind of loss. Such action is prevented "by a law even superior to that which admits and sanctions it in Texas."

Such are Mr. Webster's opinions on these four great questions. Now, there are two ways of accounting for this speech, or, at least, two ways of looking at it. One is, to regard it as the work of a statesman seeking to avert some great evil from the whole nation. This is the way Mr. Webster would have us look at it, I suppose. His friends tell us it is a statesmanlike speech—very statesmanlike. He himself says Vera pro gratis[3]—true words in preference to words merely pleasing. Etsi meum ingenium non moneret necessitas cogit—Albeit my own humor should not prompt the counsel, necessity compels it. The necessity so cogent is the attempt to dissolve the Union, in case the Wilmot Proviso should be extended over the new territory. Does any man seriously believe that Mr. Webster really fears a dissolution of this Union undertaken and accomplished on this plea, and by the Southern States? I will not insult the foremost understanding of this continent by supposing he deems it possible. No, we cannot take this view of his conduct.

The other way is to regard it as the work of a politician, seeking something beside the permanent good of a great nation. The lease of the Presidency is to be disposed of for the next four years by a sort of auction. It is in the hands of certain political brokers, who "operate" in presidential and other political stock. The majority of those brokers are slaveholders or pro-slavery men; they must be conciliated, or they will "not understand the nod" of the candidate—I mean of the man who bids for the lease. All the illustrious men in the national politics have an eye on the transaction, but sometimes the bid has been taken for persons whose chance at the sale seemed very poor. General Cass made his bid some time ago. I think his offer is recorded in the famous "Nicholson Letter." He was a Northern man, and bid Non-intervention—The unconstitutionality of any intervention with slavery in the new territory. Mr. Clay made his bid, for old Kentucky "never tires," the same old bid that he has often made—a Compromise. Mr. Calhoun did as he has always done. I will not say he made any bid at all; he was too sick for that, too sick for any thought of the Presidency. Perhaps at this moment the angel of death is dealing with that famed and remarkable man. Nay, he may already have gone where "The servant is free from his master, and the weary are at rest;" have gone home to his God, who is the Father of the great politician and the feeblest-minded slave. If it be so, let us follow him only with pity for his errors, and the prayer that his soul may be at rest. He has fought manfully in an unmanly cause. He seemed sincerely in the wrong, and spite of the badness of the cause to which he devoted his best energies, you cannot but respect the man.

Last of all, Mr. Webster makes his bid for the lease of "that bad eminence," the Presidency. He bids higher than the others, of course, as coming later; bids Non-intervention, Four new slave States in Texas, Mason's Bill for Capturing Fugitive slaves, and Denunciation of all the Anti-slavery movements of the North, public and private. That is what he bids, looking to the southern side of the board of political brokers. Then he nods northward, and says, The Wilmot Proviso is my "thunder;" then timidly glances to the South and adds, But I will never use it.

I think this is the only reasonable way in which we can estimate this speech—as a bid for the Presidency. I will not insult that mighty intellect by supposing that he, in his private heart, regards it in any other light. Mr. Calhoun might well be content with that, and say "Organize the territories on the principle of that gentleman, and give us a free scope and sufficient time to get in—we ask nothing but that, and we never will ask it."

Such are the four great questions before us; such Mr. Webster's answers thereunto; such the two ways of looking at his speech. He decides in advance against freedom in Texas, against freedom in California, against freedom in New Mexico, against freedom in the United States, by his gratuitous offer of support to Mr. Mason's bill. His great eloquence, his great understanding, his great name, give weight to all his words. Pains are industriously taken to make it appear that his opinions are the opinions of Boston. Is it so? [Cries of No, No.] That was rather a feeble cry. Perhaps it is the opinion of the prevailing party in Boston. [No, No.] But I put it to you, Is it the opinion of Massachusetts? [Loud cries of No, No, No.] Well, so I say, No; it is not the opinion of Massachusetts.

Before now, servants of the people and leaders of the people have proved false to their employers, and betrayed their trust. Amongst all political men who have been weighed in the balance, and found wanting, with whom shall I compare him? Not with John Quincy Adams, who, in 1807, voted for the embargo. It may have been the mistake of an honest intention, though I confess I cannot think so yet. At any rate, laying an embargo, which he probably thought would last but a few months, was a small thing compared with the refusal to restrict slavery, willingness to enact laws to the disadvantage of mankind, and the voluntary support of Mason's iniquitous bill. Besides, Mr. Adams lived a long life; if he erred, or if he sinned in this matter, he afterwards fought most valiantly for the rights of man.

Shall I compare Mr. Webster with Thomas Wentworth, the great Earl of Strafford, a man "whose doubtful character and memorable end have made him the most conspicuous character of a reign so fertile in recollections?" He, like Webster, was a man of large powers, and once devoted them to noble uses. Did Wentworth defend the "Petition of Right?" So did Webster many times defend the great cause of liberty. But it was written of Strafford, that "in his self-interested and ambitious mind," patriotism "was the seed sown among thorns!" "If we reflect upon this man's cold-blooded apostasy on the first lure to his ambition, and on his splendid abilities, which enhanced the guilt of that desertion, we must feel some indignation at those who have palliated all his iniquities, and embalmed his memory with the attributes of patriot heroism. Great he surely was, since that epithet can never be denied without paradox to so much comprehension of mind, such ardor and energy, such courage and eloquence, those commanding qualities of soul, which, impressed upon his dark and stern countenance, struck his contemporaries with mingled awe and hate ... But it may be reckoned a sufficient ground for distrusting any one's attachment to the English Constitution, that he reveres the name of Strafford." His measures for stifling liberty in England, which he and his contemporaries significantly called "Thorough" in the reign of Charles I., were not more atrocious, than the measures which Daniel Webster proposes himself, or proposes to support "to the fullest extent." But Strafford paid the forfeit—tasting the sharp and bitter edge of the remorseless axe. Let his awful shade pass by. I mourn at the parallel between him and the mighty son of our own New England. Would God it were not thus!

For a sadder parallel, I shall turn off from the sour features of that great British politician, and find another man in our own fair land. This name carries us back to "the times that tried men's souls," when also there were souls that could not stand the rack. It calls me back to "The famous year of '80;" to the little American army in the highlands of New York; to the time when the torch of American liberty which now sends its blaze far up to heaven, at the same time lighting the northern lakes and the Mexique Bay, tinging with welcome radiance the eastern and the western sea, was a feeble flame flickering about a thin and hungry wick, and one hand was raised to quench in darkness, and put out forever, that feeble and uncertain flame. Gentlemen, I hate to speak thus. I honor the majestic talents of this great man. I hate to couple his name with that other, which few Americans care to pronounce. But I know no deed in American history, done by a son of New England, to which I can compare this, but the act of Benedict Arnold!

Shame that I should say this of any man; but his own motto shall be mine—vera pro gratis—and I am not responsible for what he has made the truth; certainly, meum ingenium non moneret, necessitas cogit!

I would speak with all possible tenderness of any man, of every man; of such an one, so honored, and so able, with the respect I feel for superior powers. I would often question my sense of justice, before I dared to pronounce an adverse conclusion. But the Wrong is palpable, the Injustice is open as the day. I must remember, here are twenty millions, whose material welfare his counsel defeats; whose honor his counsel stains; whose political, intellectual, moral growth he is using all his mighty powers to hinder and keep back. "Vera pro gratis. Necessitas cogit. Vellem, equidem, vobis placere, sed multo malo vos salvos esse, qualicunque erga me animo futuri estis."

Let me take a word of warning and of counsel from the same author; yes, from the same imaginary speech of Quintus Capitolinis, whence Mr. Webster has drawn his motto:—Ante portas est bellum: si inde non pellitur, jam intra mænia erit, et arcem et Capitolium scandet, et in domos vestras vos persequetur. The war [against the extension of Slavery, not against the Volscians, in this case] is before your very doors: if not driven thence, it will be within your walls [namely, it will be in California and New Mexico]; it will ascend the citadel and the capitol [to wit, it will be in the House of Representatives and the Senate]; and it will follow you into your very homes [that is, the curse of Slavery will corrupt the morals of the nation].

Sedemus desides domi, mulierum ritu inter nos altercantes; præsenti pace læti, nec cernentes ex otio illo brevi multiplex bellum rediturum. We [the famous Senators of the United States] sit idle at home, wrangling amongst ourselves like women [to see who shall get the lease of the Presidency], glad of the present truce [meaning that which is brought about by a compromise], not perceiving that for this brief cessation of trouble, a manifold war will follow [that is, the "horrid internecine war" which will come here, as it has been elsewhere, if justice be too long delayed]!

It is a great question before us, concerning the existence of millions of men. To many men in politics, it is merely a question of party rivalry; a question of in and out, and nothing more. To many men in cities, it is a question of commerce, like the establishment of a bank, or the building of one railroad more or less. But to serious men, who love man and love their God, this is a question of morals, a question of religion, to be settled with no regard to party rivalry, none to fleeting interests of to-day, but to be settled under the awful eye of conscience, and by the just law of God.

Shall we shut up slavery or extend it? It is for us to answer. Will you deal with the question now, or leave it to your children, when the evil is ten times greater? In 1749, there was not a slave in Georgia; now, two hundred and eighty thousand. In 1750, in all the United States, but two hundred thousand; now, three millions. In 1950, let Mr. Webster's counsels be followed, there will be thirty millions. Thirty millions! Will it then be easier for your children to set limits to this crime against human nature, than now for you? Our fathers made a political, and a commercial, and a moral error—shall we repeat it? They did a wrong; shall we extend and multiply the wrong? Was it an error in our fathers; not barely a wrong—was it a sin? No, not in them; they knew it not. But what in them to establish was only an error, in us to extend or to foster is a sin!

Perpetuate Slavery, we cannot do it. Nothing will save it. It is girt about by a ring of fire which daily grows narrower, and sends terrible sparkles into the very centre of the shameful thing. "Joint resolutions" cannot save it; annexations cannot save it—not if we re-annex all the West Indies; delinquent representatives cannot save it; uninstructed senators, refusing instructions, cannot save it, no, not with all their logic, all their eloquence, which smites as an earthquake smites the sea. No, slavery cannot be saved; by no compromise, no non-intervention, no Mason's Bill in the Senate. It cannot be saved in this age of the world until you nullify every ordinance of nature, until you repeal the will of God, and dissolve the union He has made between righteousness and the welfare of a people. Then, when you displace God from the throne of the world, and instead of his eternal justice, reënact the will of the Devil, then you may keep Slavery; keep it forever, keep it in peace. Not till then.

The question is, not if slavery is to cease, and soon to cease, but shall it end as it ended in Massachusetts, in New Hampshire, in Pennsylvania, in New York; or shall it end as in St. Domingo? Follow the counsel of Mr. Webster—it will end in fire and blood. God forgive us for our cowardice, if we let it come to this, that three millions or thirty millions of degraded human beings, degraded by us, must wade through slaughter to their unalienable rights.

Mr. Webster has spoken noble words—at Plymouth, standing on the altar-stone of New England; at Bunker Hill, the spot so early reddened with the blood of our fathers. But at this hour, when we looked for great counsel, when we forgot the paltry things which he has often done, and said, "Now he will rouse his noble soul, and be the man his early speeches once bespoke," who dared to fear that Olympian head would bow so low, so deeply kiss the ground? Try it morally, try it intellectually, try it by the statesman's test, world-wide justice; nay, try it by the politician's basest test, the personal expediency of to-day—it is a speech "not fit to be made," and when made, not fit to be confirmed.

"We see dimly in the distance what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate;
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within—
'They enslave their children's children, who make compromise with sin.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. John Quincy Adams.

[2] Alas, a single year taught me the folly of this confidence in Boston! See No. VI. of this volume.

[3] Motto of Mr. Webster's speech.

II.

SPEECH AT THE NEW ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION IN BOSTON, MAY 29, 1850.

Mr. President,—If we look hastily at the present aspect of American affairs, there is much to discourage a man who believes in the progress of his race. In this republic, with the Declaration of Independence for its political creed, neither of the great political parties is hostile to the existence of slavery. That institution has the continual support of both the whig and democratic parties. There are now four eminent men in the Senate of the United States, all of them friends of slavery. Two of these are from the North, both natives of New England; but they surpass their southern rivals in the zeal with which they defend that institution, and in the concessions which they demand of the friends of justice at the North. These four men are all competitors for the Presidency. Not one of them is the friend of freedom; he that is apparently least its foe, is Mr. Benton, the Senator from Missouri. Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, is less effectually the advocate of slavery than Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts. Mr. Webster himself has said, "There is no North," and, to prove it experimentally, stands there as one mighty instance of his own rule.

In the Senate of the United States, only Seward and Chase and Hale can be relied on as hostile to slavery. In the House, there are Root and Giddings, and Wilmot and Mann, and a few others. "But what are these among so many?"

See "how it strikes a stranger." Here is an extract from the letter of a distinguished and learned man,[4] sent out here by the King of Sweden to examine our public schools: "I have just returned from Washington, where I have been witnessing the singular spectacle of this free and enlightened nation being buried in sorrow, on account of the death of that great advocate of slavery, Mr. Calhoun. Mr. Webster's speech seems to have made a very strong impression upon the people of the South, as I have heard it repeated almost as a lesson of the catechism by every person I have met within the slave territory. It seems now to be an established belief, that slavery is not a malum necessarium, still less an evil difficult to get rid of, but desirable soon to get rid of. No, far from that; it seems to be considered as quite a natural, most happy, and essentially Christian institution!"

Not satisfied with keeping an institution which the more Christian religion of the Mohammedan Bey of Tunis has rejected as a "sin against God," we seek to extend it, to perpetuate it, even on soil which the half-civilized Mexicans made clear from its pollutions. The great organs of the party politics of the land are in favor of the extension; the great political men of the land seek to extend it; the leading men in the large mercantile towns of the North—in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia—are also in favor of extending slavery. All this is plain.

But, Sir, as I come up here to this Convention year after year, I find some signs of encouragement. Even in the present state of things, the star of hope appears, and we may safely and reasonably say, "Now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed" in anti-slavery. Let us look a little at the condition of America at this moment, to see what there is to help or what to hinder us.

First, I will speak of the present crisis in our affairs; then of the political parties amongst us; then of the manner in which this crisis is met; next of the foes of freedom; and last, of its friends. I will speak with all coolness, and try to speak short. By the middle of anniversary week, men get a little heated; I am sure I shall be cool, and I think I may also be dull.

There must be unity of action in a nation, as well as in a man, or there cannot be harmony and welfare. As a man "cannot serve two masters" antagonistic and diametrically opposed to one another, as God and Mammon, no more can a nation serve two opposite principles at the same time.

Now, there are two opposite and conflicting principles recognized in the political action of America: at this moment, they contend for the mastery, each striving to destroy the other.

There is what I call the American idea. I so name it, because it seems to me to lie at the basis of all our truly original, distinctive and American institutions. It is itself a complex idea, composed of three subordinate and more simple ideas, namely: The idea that all men have unalienable rights; that in respect thereof, all men are created equal; and that government is to be established and sustained for the purpose of giving every man an opportunity for the enjoyment and development of all these unalienable rights. This idea demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government after the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake, I will call it the idea of Freedom.

That is one idea; and the other is, that one man has a right to hold another man in thraldom, not for the slave's good, but for the master's convenience; not on account of any wrong the slave has done or intended, but solely for the benefit of the master. This idea is not peculiarly American. For shortness' sake, I will call this the idea of Slavery. It demands for its proximate organization, an aristocracy, that is, a government of all the people by a part of the people—the masters; for a part of the people—the masters; against a part of the people—the slaves; a government contrary to the principles of eternal justice, contrary to the unchanging law of God. These two ideas are hostile, irreconcilably hostile, and can no more be compromised and made to coalesce in the life of this nation, than the worship of the real God and the worship of the imaginary Devil can be combined and made to coalesce in the life of a single man. An attempt has been made to reconcile and unite the two. The slavery clauses of the Constitution of the United States is one monument of this attempt; the results of this attempt—you see what they are, not order, but confusion.

We cannot have any settled and lasting harmony until one or the other of these ideas is cast out of the councils of the nation: so there must be war between them before there can be peace. Hitherto, the nation has not been clearly aware of the existence of these two adverse principles; or, if aware of their existence, has thought little of their irreconcilable diversity. At the present time, this fact is brought home to our consciousness with great clearness. On the one hand, the friends of freedom set forth the idea of freedom, clearly and distinctly, demanding liberty for each man. This has been done as never before. Even in the Senate of the United States it has been done, and repeatedly during the present session of Congress. On the other hand, the enemies of freedom set forth the idea of slavery as this has not been done in other countries for a long time. Slavery has not been so lauded in any legislative body for many a year, as in the American Senate in 1850. Some of the discussions remind one of the spirit which prevailed in the Roman Senate, a. d. 62, when about four hundred slaves were crucified, because their master, Pedanius Secundus, a man of consular dignity, was found murdered in his bed. I mean to say, the same disregard of the welfare of the slaves, the same willingness to sacrifice them—if not their lives, which are not now in peril, at least their welfare, to the convenience of their masters. Anybody can read the story in Tacitus,[5] and it is worth reading, and instructive, too, at these times.

Here are some of the statements relative to slavery made in the thirty-first Congress of the United States. Hearken to the testimony of the Hon. Mr. Badger, of North Carolina:

"It is clear that this institution [slavery] not only was not disapproved of, but was expressly recognized, approved, and its continuance sanctioned by the divine lawgiver of the Jews."

"Whether an evil or not, it is not a sin; it is not a violation of the divine law.

"What treatment did it receive from the founder of the gospel dispensation? It was approved, first negatively, because, in the whole New Testament, there is not to be found one single word, either spoken by the Saviour, or by any of the evangelists or apostles, in which that institution is either directly or indirectly condemned; and also affirmatively." This he endeavors to show, by quoting the passages from St. Paul, usually quoted for that purpose. Nothing would be easier than for St. Paul to have said—'Slaves, be obedient to your heathen masters; but I say to you, feeling masters, emancipate your slaves; the law of Christ is against that relation, and you are bound, therefore, to set them at liberty.' No such word is spoken.

Thus far goes the Hon. Senator Badger, of North Carolina.

Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, goes further yet. He knows what some men think of slavery, and tells them, "Very well, think so; but keep your thoughts to yourselves." He is not content with bidding the "Freest and most enlightened nation in the world," be silent on this matter: he is not content, with Mr. Badger, to declare that if an evil, it is not a sin, and to find it upheld in the Old Testament, and allowed in the New Testament; he tells us that he "regards slavery as a great moral, social, political and religious blessing—a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master."

Thus, the issue is fairly made between the two principles. The contradiction is plain. The battle between the two is open, and in sight of the world.

But this is not the first time there has been a quarrel between the idea of slavery and the idea of freedom in America. The quarrel has lasted, with an occasional truce, for more than sixty years. In six battles, slavery has been victorious over freedom.

1. In the adoption of the Constitution supporting slavery.

2. In the acquisition of Louisiana, as slave territory.

3. In the acquisition of Florida as slave territory.

4. In making the Missouri Compromise.

5. In the annexation of Texas as a slave State.

6. In the Mexican war—a war, mean and wicked, even amongst wars.

Since the Revolution, there have been three instances of great national importance, in which freedom has overcome slavery; there have been three victories:

1. In prohibiting slavery from the Northwest Territory, before the adoption of the Constitution.

2. In prohibiting the slave-trade in 1808. I mean, in prohibiting the African slave-trade; the American slave-trade is still carried on in the capital of the United States.

3. The prohibition of slavery in Oregon may be regarded as a third victory, though not apparently of so much consequence as the others.

Now comes another battle, and it remains to be decided whether the idea of slavery or the idea of freedom is to prevail in the territory we have conquered and stolen from Mexico. The present strife is to settle that question. Now, as before, it is a battle between freedom and slavery; one on which the material and spiritual welfare of millions of men depends; but now the difference between freedom and slavery is more clearly seen than in 1787; the consequences of each are better understood, and the sin of slavery is felt and acknowledged by a class of persons who had few representatives sixty years ago. It is a much greater triumph for slavery to prevail now, and carry its institutions into New Mexico in 1850, than it was to pass the pro-slavery provisions of the Constitution in 1787. It will be a greater sin now to extend slavery, than it was to establish it in 1620, when slaves were first brought to Virginia.

Ever since the adoption of the Constitution, protected by that shield, mastering the energies of the nation, and fighting with that weapon, slavery has been continually aggressive. The slave-driver has coveted new soil; has claimed it; has had his claim allowed. Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California and New Mexico are the results of Southern aggression. Now the slave-driver reaches out his hand towards Cuba, trying to clutch that emerald gem set in the tropic sea. How easy it was to surrender to Great Britain portions of the Oregon Territory in a high northern latitude! Had it been south of 36° 30´, it would not have been so easy to settle the Oregon question by a compromise. So when we make a compromise there, "the reciprocity must be all on one side."

Let us next look at the position of the political parties with respect to the present crisis. There are now four political parties in the land.

1. There is the Government party, represented by the President, and portions of his Cabinet, if not the whole of it. This party does not attempt to meet the question which comes up, but to dodge and avoid it. Shall Freedom or Slavery prevail in the new territory? is the question. The government has no opinion; it will leave the matter to be settled by the people of the territory. This party wishes California to come into the Union without slavery, for it is her own desire so to come; and does not wish a territorial government to be formed by Congress in New Mexico, but to leave the people there to form a State, excluding or establishing slavery as they see fit. The motto of this party is inaction, not intervention. King James I. once proposed a question to the Judges of England. They declined to answer it, and the King said, "If ye give no counsel, then why be ye counsellors?" The people of the United States might ask the government, "If ye give us no leading, then why be ye leaders?" This party is not hostile to slavery; not opposed to its extension.

2. Then there is the Whig Party. This party has one distinctive idea; the idea of a Tariff for Protection; whether for the protection of American labor, or merely American capital, I will not now stop to inquire. The Whig Party is no more opposed to slavery, or its extension, than the Government party itself.

However there are two divisions of the whigs, the Whig Party South, and the Whig Party North. The two agree in their ideas of protection, and their pro-slavery character. But the Whig Party South advocates Slavery and Protection; the Whig Party North, Protection and Slavery.

In the North there are many whigs who are opposed to slavery, especially to the extension of slavery; there are also many other persons, not of the whig party, opposed to the extension of slavery; therefore in the late electioneering campaign, to secure the votes of these persons, it was necessary for the whig party North to make profession of anti-slavery. This was done accordingly, in a general form, and in special an attempt was made to show that the whig party was opposed to the extension of slavery.

Hear what Senator Chase says on this point. I read from his speech in the Senate, on March 26, 1850:—

"On the whig side it was urged, that the candidate of the Philadelphia Convention was, if not positively favorable to the Proviso, at least pledged to leave the matter to Congress free from Executive influence, and ready to approve it when enacted by that body."

General Cass had written the celebrated "Nicholson Letter," in which he declared that Congress had no constitutional power to enact the Proviso. But so anxious were the Democrats of the North to assume an anti-slavery aspect,—continues Mr. Chase,—that

"Notwithstanding this letter, many of his friends in the free States persisted in asserting that he would not, if elected, veto the Proviso; many also insisted that he regarded slavery as excluded from the territories by the Mexican laws still in force; while others maintained that he regarded slavery as an institution of positive law, and Congress as constitutionally incompetent to enact such law, and that therefore it was impossible for slavery to get into the territories, whether Mexican law was in force or not."

This, says Mr. Chase, was the whig argument:—

"Prohibition is essential to the certain exclusion of slavery from the territories. If the democratic candidate shall be elected, prohibition is impossible, for the veto will be used: if the whig candidate shall be elected, prohibition is certain, provided you elect a Congress who will carry out your will. Vote, therefore, for the whigs."

Such was the general argument of the whig party. Let us see what it was in Massachusetts in special. Here I have documentary evidence. This is the statement of the Whig Convention at Worcester in 1848, published shortly before the election:—

"We understand the whig party to be committed in favor of the principles contained in the ordinance of 1787, the prohibition of slavery in territory now free, and of its abolition wherever it can be constitutionally effected."

They professed to aim at the same thing which the free soil party aimed at, only the work must be done by the old whig organization. Free soil cloth must be manufactured, but it must be woven in the old whig mill, with the old whig machinery, and by the old whig weavers. See what the Convention says of the democratic party:—

"We understand the democratic party to be pledged to decline any legislation upon the subject of slavery, with a view either to its prohibition or restriction in places where it does not exist, or to its abolition in any of the territories of the United States."

There is no ambiguity in that language. Men can talk very plain when they will. Still there were some that doubted; so the great and famous men of the party came out to convince the doubters that the whigs were the men to save the country from the disgrace of slavery.

Here let me introduce the testimony of Mr. Choate. This which follows is from his speech at Salem. He tells us the great work is, "The passage of a law to-day that California and New Mexico shall remain forever free. That is ... an object of great and transcendent importance:... we should go up to the very limits of the Constitution itself ... to defeat the always detested, and forever-to-be detested object of the dark ambition of that candidate of the Baltimore Convention, who has consented to pledge himself in advance, that he will veto the future law of freedom!" "Is there a whig upon this floor who doubts that the strength of the whig party next March will extend freedom to California and New Mexico, if by the Constitution they are entitled to freedom at all? Is there a member of Congress that would not vote for freedom?" [Sancta simplicitas! Ora pro nobis!] "Is there a single whig constituency, in any free State in this country, that would return any man that would not vote for freedom? Do you believe that Daniel Webster himself could be returned, if there was the least doubt upon this question?"

That is plain speech. But, to pass from the special to the particular, hear Mr. Webster himself. What follows is from his famous speech at Marshfield, September, 1848.

"General Cass (he says) will have the Senate; and with the patronage of the government, with the interest that he, as a Northern man, can bring to bear, coöperating with every interest that the South can bring to bear, we cry safety before we are out of the woods, if we feel that there is no danger as to these new territories!" "In my judgment, the interests of the country and the feelings of a vast majority of the people require that a President of these United States shall be elected, who will neither use his official influence to promote, nor who feels any disposition in his heart to promote, the further extension of slavery in this country, and the further influence of it in the public councils."

Speaking of the free soil party and the Buffalo platform, he says—"I hold myself to be as good a free soil man as any of the Buffalo Convention." Of the platform he says—"I can stand upon it pretty well." "I beg to know who is to inspire into my breast a more resolute and fixed determination to resist, unyieldingly, the encroachments and advances of the slave power in this country, than has inspired it, ever since the day that I first opened my mouth in the councils of the country."

If such language as this would not "deceive the very elect," what was more to the point, it was quite enough to deceive the electors. But now this language is forgotten; forgotten in general by the whig party North; forgotten in special by those who seemed to be the exponents of the whig party in Massachusetts; forgotten at any rate by the nine hundred and eighty-seven men who signed the letter to Mr. Webster; and in particular it is forgotten by Mr. Webster himself, who now says that it would disgrace his own understanding to vote for the extension of the Wilmot Proviso over the new territory!

There were some men in New England who did not believe the statements of the whig party North in 1848, because they knew the men that uttered the sentiments of the whig party South. The leaders put their thumbs in the eyes of the people, and then said, "Do you see any dough in our faces?" "No!" said the people, "not a speck." "Then vote our ticket, and never say we are not hostile to slavery so long as you live."

At the South, the whig party used language somewhat different. Here is a sample from the New Orleans Bee:—

"General Taylor is from birth, association, and conviction, identified with the South and her institutions; being one of the most extensive slaveholders in Louisiana—and supported by the slaveholding interest, as opposed to the Wilmot Proviso, and in favor of securing the privilege to the owners of slaves to remove with them to newly acquired territory."

3. Then there is the Democratic party. The distinctive idea of the democrats is represented by the word anti-protection, or revenue tariff. This party, as such, is still less opposed to slavery than the whigs; however, there are connected with it, at the North, many men who oppose the extension of slavery. This party is divided into two divisions, the democratic party South, and the democratic party North. They agree in their idea of anti-protection and slavery, differing only in the emphasis which they give to the two words. The democrats of the South say Slavery and Anti-protection; the democrats North, Anti-protection and Slavery. Thus you see, that while there is a specific difference between democrats and whigs, there is also a generic agreement in the matter of slavery. According to the doctrine of elective affinities, both drop what they have a feeble affinity for, and hold on with what their stronger affinity demands. The whigs and democrats of the South are united in their attachment to slavery, not only mechanically, but by a sort of chemical union.

Mr. Cass's Nicholson letter is well known. He says Congress has no constitutional right to restrict slavery in the territories. Here is the difference between him and General Taylor. General Taylor does not interfere at all in the matter. If Congress puts slavery in, he says, Very well! If Congress puts slavery out, he says the same, Very well! But if Congress puts slavery out, General Cass would say, No. You shall not put it out. One has the policy of King Log, the other that of King Serpent. So far as that goes, Log is the better king.

So much for the democratic party.

4. The Free Soil party opposes slavery so far as it is possible to do, and yet comply with the Constitution of the United States. Its idea is declared by its words,—No more slave territory. It does not profess to be an anti-slavery party in general, only an anti-slavery party subject to the Constitution. In the present crisis in the Congress of the United States, it seems to me the men who represent this idea, though not always professing allegiance to the party, have yet done the nation good and substantial service. I refer more particularly to Messrs. Chase, Seward and Hale in the Senate, to Messrs. Root, Giddings and Mann in the House. Those gentlemen swear to keep the Constitution; in what sense and with what limitations, I know not. It is for them to settle that matter with their own consciences. I do know this, that these men have spoken very noble words against slavery; heroic words in behalf of freedom. It is not to be supposed that the free soil party, as such, has attained the same convictions as to the sin of slavery, which the anti-slavery party has long arrived at. Still they may be as faithful to their convictions as any of the men about this platform. If they have less light to walk by, they have less to be accountable for. For my own part, spite of their short-comings, and of some things which to me seem wrong in the late elections in New England, I cannot help thinking they have done good as individuals, and as a party; it seems to me they have done good both ways. I will honor all manly opposition to slavery, whether it come up to my mark, or does not come near it. I will ask every man to be true to his conscience, and his reason, not to mine.

In speaking of the parties, I ought not to omit to say a word or two respecting some of the most prominent men, and their position in reference to this slavery question. It is a little curious, that of all the candidates for the Presidency, Mr. Benton, of Missouri, should be the least inclined to support the pretensions of the Slave Power. But so it is.

Of Mr. Cass, nothing more need be said at present; his position is defined and well known. But a word must be said of Mr. Clay. He comes forward, as usual, with a "Compromise." Here it is, in the famous "Omnibus Bill." In one point it is not so good as the Government scheme. General Taylor, as the organ of the party, recommends the admission of California, as an independent measure. He does not huddle and lump it together with any other matters; and in this respect, his scheme is more favorable to freedom than the other; for Mr. Clay couples the admission of California with other things. But in two points Mr. Clay's bill has the superiority over the General's scheme.

1. It limits the Western and Northern boundaries of Texas, and so reduces the territory of that State, where slavery is now established by law. Yet, as I understand it, he takes off from New Mexico about seventy thousand square miles, enough to make eight or ten States like Massachusetts, and delivers it over to Texas to be slave soil; as Mr. Webster says, out of the power of Congress to redeem from that scourge.

2. It does not maintain that Congress has no power to exclude slavery in admitting a new State; whereas, if I understand the President in his Message, he considers such an act "An invasion of their rights."[6]

Let us pass by Mr. Clay, and come to the other aspirant for the Presidency.

At the Philadelphia Convention, Mr. Webster, at the most, could only get one half the votes of New England; several of these not given in earnest, but only as a compliment to the great man from the North. Now, finding his presidential wares not likely to be bought by New England, he takes them to a wider market; with what success we shall one day see.

Something has already been said in the newspapers and elsewhere, about Mr. Webster's speech. No speech ever delivered in America has excited such deep and righteous indignation. I know there are influential men in Boston, and in all large towns, who must always have somebody to sustain and applaud. They some time since applauded Mr. Webster, for reasons very well known, and now continue their applause of him. His late speech pleases them; its worst parts please them most. All that is as was to be expected; men like what they must like. But, in the country, among the sober men of Massachusetts and New England, who prize Right above the political expediency of to-day, I think Mr. Webster's speech is read with indignation. I believe no one political act in America, since the treachery of Benedict Arnold, has excited so much moral indignation, as the conduct of Daniel Webster.

But I pass by his speech, to speak of other things connected with that famous man. One of the most influential pro-slavery newspapers of Boston, calls the gentlemen who signed the letter to him, the "Retainers" of Mr. Webster. The word is well chosen and quite descriptive. This word is used in a common, a feudal, and a legal sense. In the common sense, it means one who has complete possession of the thing retained; in the feudal sense, it means a dependent or vassal, who is bound to support his liege lord; in the legal sense, it means the person who hires an attorney to do his business; and the sum given to secure his services, or prevent him from acting for the opposite party, is called a retaining fee. I take it the word "Retainers," is used in the legal sense; certainly it is not in the feudal sense, for these gentlemen do not owe allegiance to Mr. Webster. Nor is it in its common sense, for events have shown that they have not a "complete possession" of Mr. Webster.

Now, a word about this letter to him. Mr. Webster's retainers—nine hundred and eighty-seven in number—tell him, "You have pointed out to a whole people the path of duty, have convinced the understanding, and touched the conscience of a nation." "We desire, therefore, to express to you our entire concurrence in the sentiments of your speech, and our heartfelt thanks for the inestimable aid it has afforded towards the preservation and perpetuation of the Union."

They express their entire concurrence in the sentiments of his speech. In the speech, as published in the edition "revised and corrected by himself," Mr. Webster declares his intention to support the famous fugitive slave bill, and the amendments thereto, "with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." When the retainers express their "entire concurrence in the sentiments of the speech," they express their entire concurrence in that intention. There is no ambiguity in the language; they make a universal affirmation—(affirmatio de omni). Now Mr. Webster comes out, by two agents, and recants this declaration. Let me do him no injustice. He shall be heard by his next friend, who wishes to amend the record, a correspondent of the Boston Courier, of May 6th:—

"The speech now reads thus:—'My friend at the head of the Judiciary Committee has a bill on the subject, now before the Senate, with some amendments to it, which I propose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent.' Changing the position of the word which, and the sentence would read thus:—'My friend at the head of the Judiciary Committee has a bill on the subject, now before the Senate, which, with some amendments to it, I propose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent.'"

"Call you that backing your friends?" Really, it is too bad, after his retainers have expressed their "entire concurrence in the sentiments of the speech," for him to back out, to deny that he entertained one of the sentiments already approved of and concurred in! Can it be possible, we ask, that Mr. Webster can resort to this device to defend himself, leaving his retainers in the lurch? It does not look like him to do such a thing. But the correspondent of the Courier goes on as follows:—

"We are authorized to state, first—That Mr. Webster did not revise this portion of his speech, with any view to examine its exact accuracy of phrase; and second—That Mr. Webster, at the time of the delivery of the speech, had in his desk three amendatory sections,... and one of which provides expressly for the right of trial by jury."

But who is the person "authorized to state" such a thing? Professor Stuart informs the public that it "comes from the hand of a man who might claim a near place to Mr. Webster, in respect to talent, integrity, and patriotism."

Still, this recantation is so unlike Mr. Webster, that one would almost doubt the testimony of so great an unknown as is the writer in the Courier. But Mr. Stuart removes all doubt, and says—"I merely add, that Mr. Webster himself has personally assured me that his speech was in accordance with the correction here made, and that he has now in his desk the amendments to which the corrector refers." So the retainers must bear the honor, or the shame, whichsoever it may be, of volunteering the advocacy of that remarkable bill.

When Paul was persecuted for righteousness' sake, how easily might "the offence of the cross" have been made to cease, by a mere transposition! Had he pursued that plan, he need not have been let down from the wall in a basket: he might have had a dinner given him by forty scribes, at the first hotel in Jerusalem, and a doctor of the law to defend him in a pamphlet.

But, alas! in Mr. Webster's case, admitting the transposition is real, the transubstantiation is not thereby effected; the transfer of the which does not alter the character of the sentence to the requisite degree. The bill, which he volunteers to advocate, contains provisions to this effect: That the owner of a fugitive slave may seize his fugitive, and, on the warrant of any "judge, commissioner, clerk, marshal, postmaster, or collector," "residing or being" within the State where the seizure is made, the fugitive, without any trial by jury, shall be delivered up to his master, and carried out of the State. Now, this is the bill which Mr. Webster proposes "to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." Let him transfer his which, it does not transubstantiate his statement so that he can consistently introduce a section which "provides expressly for the right of trial by jury." This attempt to evade the plain meaning of a plain statement, is too small a thing for a great man.

I make no doubt that Mr. Webster had in his desk, at the time alleged, a bill designed to secure the trial by jury to fugitive slaves, prepared as it is set forth. But how do you think it came there, and for what purpose? Last February Mr. Webster was intending to make a very different speech; and then, I make no doubt, it was that this bill was prepared, with the design of introducing it! But I see no reason for supposing, that when he made his celebrated speech, he intended to introduce it as an amendment to Mr. Mason's or Butler's bill. It is said that he will present it to the Senate. Let us wait and see.[7]

But, since the speech at Washington, Mr. Webster has said things at Boston, almost as bad. Here they are; extracts from his speech at the Revere House. I quote from the report in the Daily Advertiser. "Neither you nor I shall see the legislation of the country proceed in the old harmonious way, until the discussions in Congress and out of Congress upon the subject, to which you have alluded [the subject of slavery], shall be, in some way, suppressed. Take that truth home with you—and take it as truth." A very pretty truth that is to take home with us, that "discussion" must be "suppressed!"

Again, he says:—

"Sir, the question is, whether Massachusetts will stand to the truth against temptation [that is the question]! whether she will be just against temptation! whether she will defend herself against her own prejudices! She has conquered every thing else in her time; she has conquered this ocean which washes her shore; she has conquered her own sterile soil; she has conquered her stern and inflexible climate; she has fought her way to the universal respect of the world; she has conquered every one's prejudices but her own. The question now is, whether she will conquer her own prejudices!"

The trumpet gives no uncertain sound; but before we prepare ourselves for battle, let us see who is the foe. What are the "prejudices" Massachusetts is to conquer? The prejudice in favor of the American idea; the prejudice in favor of what our fathers called self-evident truths; that all men "are endowed with certain unalienable rights;" that "all men are created equal," and that "to secure these rights, governments are instituted amongst men." These are the prejudices Massachusetts is called on to conquer. There are some men who will do this "with alacrity;" but will Massachusetts conquer her prejudices in favor of the "unalienable rights of man?" I think, Mr. President, she will first have to forget two hundred years of history. She must efface Lexington and Bunker Hill from her memory, and tear the old rock of Plymouth out from her bosom. These are prejudices which Massachusetts will not conquer, till the ocean ceases to wash her shore, and granite to harden her hills. Massachusetts has conquered a good many things, as Mr. Webster tells us. I think there are several other things we shall try our hand upon, before we conquer our prejudice in favor of the unalienable rights of man.

There is one pleasant thing about this position of Mr. Webster. He is alarmed at the fire which has been kindled in his rear. He finds "considerable differences of opinion prevail ... on the subject of that speech," and is "grateful to receive ... opinions so decidedly concurring with" his own,—so he tells the citizens of Newburyport. He feels obliged to do something to escape the obloquy which naturally comes upon him. So he revises his speech; now supplying an omission, now altering a little; authorizes another great man to transpose his relative pronoun, and anchor it fast to another antecedent; appeals to amendments in the senatorial desk, designed to secure a jury trial for fugitive slaves; derides his opponents, and compares them with the patriots of ancient times. Here is his letter to the citizens of Newburyport—a very remarkable document. It contains some surprising legal doctrines, which I leave others to pass upon. But in it he explains the fugitive slave law of 1793, which does not "provide for the trial of any question whatever by jury, in the State in which the arrest is made." "At that time," nobody regarded any of the provisions of that bill as "repugnant to religion, liberty, the Constitution, or humanity;" and he has "no more objections to the provisions of this law, than was seen to them" by the framers of the law itself. If he sees therein nothing "repugnant to religion, liberty, the Constitution, or humanity," then why transpose that relative pronoun, and have an amendment "which provides expressly for the right of trial by jury?"

"In order to allay excitement," he answers, "and remove objections." "There are many difficulties, however, attending any such provision [of a jury trial]; and a main one, and perhaps the only insuperable one, has been created by the States themselves, by making it a penal offence in their own officers, to render any aid in apprehending or securing such fugitives, and absolutely refusing the use of their jails for keeping them in custody, till a jury could be impanelled, witnesses summoned, and a regular trial be had."

Think of that! It is Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York, which prohibit the fugitive from getting a trial for his freedom, before a jury of twelve good men and true! But Mr. Webster goes on: "It is not too much to say, that to these State laws is to be attributed the actual and practical denial of trial by jury in these cases." Generally, the cause is thought to precede the effect, but here is a case in which, according to Mr. Webster, the effect has got the start of the cause, by more than fifty years. The fugitive slave law of Congress, which allowed the master to capture the runaway, was passed in 1793; but the State laws he refers to, to which "is to be attributed the actual and practical denial of trial by jury in these cases," were not passed till after 1840. "To what base uses may we come at last!" Mr. Webster would never have made such a defence of his pro-slavery conduct, had he not been afraid of the fire in his rear, and thought his retainers not able to put it out. He seems to think this fire is set in the name of religion: so, to help us "Conquer our prejudices," he cautions us against the use of religion, and quotes from the private letter of "One of the most distinguished men in England," dated as late as the 29th of January—"Religion is an excellent thing in every matter except in politics: there it seems to make men mad." In this respect, it seems religion is inferior to money, for the Proverbs tell us that money "answereth all things;" religion, it seems, "answereth all things," except politics. Poor Mr. Webster! If religion is not good in politics, I suppose irreligion is good there; and, really, it is often enough introduced there. So, if religion "seems to make men mad" in politics, I suppose irreligion makes them sober in politics. But Mr. Webster, fresh from his transposition of his own relative, explains this: His friend ascribes the evils not to "true and genuine religion," but to "that fantastic notion of religion." So, making the transposition, it would read thus: "That fantastical notion of religion," "is an excellent thing in any matter except politics." Alas! Mr. Webster does not expound his friend's letter, nor his own language, so well as he used to expound the Constitution. But he says, "The religion of the New Testament is as sure a guide to duty in politics, as in any other concern of life." So, in the name of "Conscience and the Constitution," Professor Stuart comes forward to defend Mr. Webster, "by the religion of the New Testament; that religion which is founded on the teachings of Jesus and his apostles." How are the mighty fallen!

Mr. Webster makes a "great speech," lending his mighty influence to the support and extension of slavery, with all its attendant consequences, which paralyze the hand of industry, enfeeble the thinking mind, and brutify the conscience which should discern between right and wrong; nine hundred and eighty-seven of his retainers in Boston, thank him for reminding them of their duty. But still the fire in his rear is so hot, that he must come on to Boston, talk about having discussion suppressed, and ask Massachusetts to conquer her prejudices. That is not enough. He must go up to Andover, and get a minister to defend him, in the name of "Conscience and the Constitution," supporting slavery out of the Old Testament and New Testament. "To what mean uses may we not descend!"

There is a "short and easy method" with Professor Stuart, and all other men who defend slavery out of the Bible. If the Bible defends slavery, it is not so much the better for slavery, but so much the worse for the Bible. If Mr. Stuart and Mr. Webster do not see that, there are plenty of obscurer men that do. Of all the attacks ever made on the Bible, by "deists" and "infidels," none would do so much to bring it into disrepute, as to show that it sanctioned American slavery.

It is rather a remarkable fact, that an orthodox minister should be on Mr. Webster's paper, endorsing for the Christianity of slavery.

Let me say a word respecting the position of the Representative from Boston. I speak only of his position, not of his personal character. Let him, and all men, have the benefit of the distinction between their personal character, and official conduct. Mr. Winthrop is a consistent whig; a representative of the idea of the whig party North, Protection and Slavery. When he first went into Congress, it was distinctly understood that he was not going to meddle with the matter of slavery; the tariff was the thing. All this was consistent. It is to be supposed that a Northern whig will put the mills of the North before the black men of the South: and "Property before persons," might safely be writ on the banner of the whig party, North or South.

Mr. Winthrop seems a little uneasy in his position. Some time ago he complained of a "Nest of vipers" in Boston, who had broken their own teeth in gnawing a file; meaning the "vipers" in the free soil party, I suppose, whose teeth, however, have a little edge still left on them. He finds it necessary to define his position, and show that he has kept up his communication with the base-line of operations from which he started. This circumstance is a little suspicious.

Unlike Mr. Webster, Mr. Winthrop seems to think religion is a good thing in politics, for in his speech of May 7th, he says—"I acknowledge my allegiance to the whole Constitution of the United States.... And whenever I perceive a plain conflict of jurisdiction and authority between the Constitution of my country and the laws of my God, my course is clear. I shall resign my office, whatever it may be, and renounce all connection with public service of any sort." That is fair and manly. He will not hold a position under the Constitution of the United States which is inconsistent with the Constitution of the Universe. But he says—"There are provisions in the Constitution [of the United States, he means, not of the universe], which involve us in painful obligations, and from which some of us would rejoice to be relieved; and this [the restoration of fugitive slaves], is one of them. But there is none, none, in my judgment, which involves any conscientious or religious difficulty." So he has no "conscientious or religious" objection to return a fugitive slave. He thinks the Constitution of the United States "avoids the idea that there can be property in man," but recognizes "that there may be property in the service or labor of man." But when it is property in the service of man without value received by the servant, and a claim which continues to attach to a man and his children forever, it looks very like the idea of property in man. At any rate, there is only a distinction in the words, no difference in the things. To claim the sum of the accidents, all and several of a thing, is practically to claim the thing.

Mr. Winthrop once voted for the Wilmot Proviso, in its application to the Oregon Territory. Some persons have honored him for it, and even contended that he also was a free soiler. He wipes off that calumny by declaring, that he attached that proviso to the Oregon bill for the purpose of defeating the bill itself. "This proviso was one of the means upon which I mainly relied for the purpose." "There can be little doubt," he says, "that this clause had its influence in arresting the bill in the other end of the capitol," where it was "finally lost." That is his apology for appearing to desire to prevent the extension of slavery. It is worth while to remember this.

Unlike Mr. Webster, he thinks slavery may go into New Mexico. "We may hesitate to admit that nature has everywhere [in the new territory] settled the question against slavery." Still he would not now pass the proviso to exclude slavery. It "would ... unite the South as one man, and if it did not actually rend the Union asunder, would create an alienation and irritation in that quarter of the country, which would render the Union hardly worth preserving." "Is there not ample reason for an abatement of the northern tone, for a forbearance of northern urgency upon this subject, without the imputation of tergiversation and treachery?"

Here I am reminded of a remarkable sentence in Mr. Webster's speech at Marshfield, in relation to the northern men who helped to annex Texas. Here it is:—

"For my part, I think that Dough-faces is an epithet not sufficiently reproachful. Now, I think such persons are dough-faces, dough-heads, and dough-souls, that they are all dough; that the coarsest potter may mould them at pleasure to vessels of honor or dishonor, but most readily to vessels of dishonor."

The Representative from Boston, in the year 1850, has small objection to the extension of slave soil. Hearken to his words:—

"I can never put the question of extending slave soil on the same footing with one of directly increasing slavery and multiplying slaves. If a positive issue could ever again be made up for our decision, whether human beings, few or many, of whatever race, complexion or condition, should be freshly subjected to a system of hereditary bondage, and be changed from free men into slaves, I can conceive that no bonds of union, no ties of interest, no cords of sympathy, no consideration of past glory, present welfare, or future grandeur, should be suffered to interfere, for an instant, with our resolute and unceasing resistance to a measure so iniquitous and abominable. There would be a clear, unquestionable moral element in such an issue, which would admit of no compromise, no concession, no forbearance whatever.... A million of swords would leap from their scabbards to assert it, and the Union itself would be shivered like a Prince Rupert's dress in the shock.

"But, Sir, the question whether the institution of slavery, as it already exists, shall be permitted to extend itself over a hundred or a hundred thousand more square miles than it now occupies, is a different question.... It is not, in my judgment, such an issue that conscientious and religious men may not be free to acquiesce in whatever decision may be arrived at by the constituted authorities of the country.... It is not with a view of cooping up slavery ... within limits too narrow for its natural growth;... it is not for the purpose of girding it round with lines of fire, till its sting, like that of the scorpion, shall be turned upon itself,... that I have ever advocated the principles of the Ordinance of 1787."

Mr. Mann, I think, is still called a whig, but no member of the free soil party has more readily or more ably stood up against the extension of slavery. His noble words stand in marvellous contrast to the discourse of the representative from Boston. Mr. Mann represents the country, and not the "metropolis." His speech last February, and his recent letter to his constituents, are too well known, and too justly prized, to require any commendation here. But I cannot fail to make a remark on a passage in the letter. He says, if we allow Mr. Clay's compromise to be accepted, "Were it not for the horrible consequences which it would involve, a roar of laughter, like a feu de joie, would run down the course of the ages." He afterwards says—"Should the South succeed in their present attempt upon the territories, they will impatiently await the retirement of General Taylor from the executive chair to add the 'State of Cuba' ... to this noble triumph." One is a little inclined to start such a laugh himself at the idea of the South waiting for that event before they undertake that plan!

Mr. Mann says: "If no moral or religious obligation existed against holding slaves, would not many of those opulent and respectable gentlemen who signed the letter of thanks to Mr. Webster, and hundreds of others, indeed, instead of applying to intelligence offices for domestics, go at once to the auction room, and buy a man or a woman with as little hesitancy or compunction as they now send to Brighton for beeves?" This remark has drawn on him some censures not at all merited. There are men enough in Boston, who have no objection to slavery. I know such men, who would have been glad if slavery had been continued here. Are Boston merchants unwilling to take mortgages on plantations and negroes? Do northern men not acquire negroes by marrying wealthy women at the South, and keep the negroes as slaves? If the truth could be known, I think it would appear that Dr. Palfrey had lost more reputation in Boston than he gained, by emancipating the human beings which fell to his lot. But here is a story which I take from the Boston Republican. It is worth preserving as a monument of the morals of Boston in 1850, and may be worth preserving at the end of the century:—

"A year or two since, a bright-looking mulatto youth, about twenty years of age, and whose complexion was not much, if any, darker than that of the great 'Expounder of the Constitution,' entered the counting-room, on some errand for his master, a Kentuckian, who was making a visit here. A merchant on one of our principal wharves, who came in and spoke to him, remarked to the writer that he once owned this 'boy' and his mother, and sold them for several hundred dollars. Upon my expressing astonishment to him that he could thus deal in human flesh, he remarked that 'When you are among the Romans, you must do as the Romans do.' I know of others of my northern acquaintances, and good whigs too, who have owned slaves at the South, and who, if public opinion warranted it, would be as likely, I presume, to buy and sell them at the North."

I have yet to learn that the controlling men of this city have any considerable aversion to domestic slavery.[8]

Mr. Mann's zeal in behalf of freedom, and against the extension of slavery, has drawn upon him the indignation of Mr. Webster, who is grieved to see him so ignorant of American law. But Mr. Mann is able to do his own fighting.

So much for the political parties and their relation to the matters at issue at this moment. Still, there is some reason to hope that the attempt to extend slavery, made in the face of the world, and supported by such talent, will yet fail; that it will bring only shame on the men who aim to extend and perpetuate so foul a blight. The fact that Mr. Webster's retainers must come to the rescue of their attorney; that himself must write letters to defend himself, and must even obtain the services of a clergyman to help him—this shows the fear that is felt from the anti-slavery spirit of the North. Depend upon it, a politician is pretty far gone when he sends for the minister, and he thinks his credit failing when he gets a clergyman on his paper to indorse for the Christian character of American slavery.

Here I ought to speak of the party not politicians, who contend against slavery not only beyond the limits of the Constitution, but within those limits; who are opposed not only to the extension, but to the continuance of slavery; who declare that they will keep no compromises which conflict with the eternal laws of God,—of the Anti-slavery party. Mr. President, if I were speaking to whigs, to democrats, or to free soil men, perhaps I might say what I think of this party, of their conduct, and their motives; but, Sir, I pass it by, with the single remark, that I think the future will find this party where they have always been found. I have before now attempted to point out the faults of this party, and before these men; that work I will not now attempt a second time, and this is not the audience before which I choose to chant its praises.

There are several forces which oppose the anti-slavery movement at this day. Here are some of the most important.

The Demagogues of the Parties are all or nearly all against it. By demagogue I mean the man who undertakes to lead the people for his own advantage, to the harm and loss of the people themselves. All of this class of men, or most of them, now support slavery—not, as I suppose, because they have any special friendship for it, but because they think it will serve their turn. Some noble men in politics are still friends of the slave.

The Demagogues of the Churches must come next. I am not inclined to attribute so much original power to the churches as some men do. I look on them as indications of public opinion, and not sources thereof—not the wind, but only the vane which shows which way it blows. Once the clergy were the masters of the people, and the authors of public opinion to a great degree; now they are chiefly the servants of the people, and follow public opinion, and but seldom aspire to lead it, except in matters of their own craft, such as the technicalities of a sect, or the form of a ritual. They may lead public opinion in regard to the "posture in prayer," to the "form of baptism," and the like. In important matters which concern the welfare of the nation, the clergy have none or very little weight. Still, as representatives of public opinion, we really find most of the clergy, of all denominations, arrayed against the cause of Eternal Justice. I pass over this matter briefly, because it is hardly necessary for me to give any opinion on the subject. But I am glad to add, that in all denominations here in New England, and perhaps in all the North, there are noble men, who apply the principles of justice to this question of the nation, and bear a manly testimony in the midst of bad examples. Some of the theological newspapers have shown a hostility to slavery and an attachment to the cause of liberty which few men expected; which were quite unknown in those quarters before. To do full justice to men in the sects who speak against this great and popular sin of the nation, we ought to remember that it is harder for a minister than for almost any other man to become a reformer. It is very plain that it is not thought to belong to the calling of a minister, especially in a large town, to oppose the actual and popular sins of his time. So when I see a minister yielding to the public opinion which favors unrighteousness, and passing by, in silence and on the other side, causes which need and deserve his labors and his prayers, I remember what he is hired for, and paid for,—to represent the popular form of religion; if that be idolatry, to represent that. But when I see a minister oppose a real sin which is popular, I cannot but feel a great admiration for the man. We have lately seen some examples of this.

Yet, on the other side, there are some very sad examples of the opposite. Here comes forward a man of high standing in the New England churches, a man who has done real service in promoting a liberal study of matters connected with religion, and defends slavery out of what he deems the "Infallible word of God,"—the Old Testament and New Testament. Well, if Christianity supports American slavery, so much the worse for Christianity, that is all. Perhaps I ought not to say, if Christianity supports slavery. We all know it does not, never did, and never can. But if Paul was an apologist for slavery, so much the worse for Paul. If Calvinism or Catholicism supports slavery, so much the worse for them, not so much the better for Slavery! I can easily understand the conduct of the leaders of the New York mob: considering the character of the men, their ignorance and general position, I can easily suppose they may have thought they were doing right in disturbing the meetings there. Considering the apathy of the public authorities, and the attempt, openly made by some men,—unluckily of influence in that city,—to excite others to violence, I have a good deal of charity for Rynders and his gang. But it is not so easy to excuse the conspicuous ecclesiastical defenders of slavery. They cannot plead their ignorance. Let them alone, to make the best defence they can.

The Toryism of America is also against us. I call that man a Tory, who prefers the accidents of man to the substance of manhood. I mean one who prefers the possessions and property of mankind to man himself, to reason and to justice. Of this Toryism we have much in America, much in New England, much in Boston. In this town, I cannot but think the prevailing influence is still a Tory influence. It is this which is the support of the demagogues of the State and the Church.

Toryism exists in all lands. In some, there is a good deal of excuse to be made for it. I can understand the Toryism of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and of such men. If a man has been born to great wealth and power, derived from ancestors for many centuries held in admiration and in awe; if he has been bred to account himself a superior being, and to be treated accordingly, I can easily understand the Toryism of such a man, and find some excuse for it. I can understand the Tory literature of other nations. The Toryism of the "London Quarterly," of "Blackwood," is easily accounted for, and forgiven. It is, besides, sometimes adorned with wit, and often set off by much learning. It is respectable Toryism. But the Toryism of men who only know they had a grandfather by inference, not by positive testimony; who inherited nothing but their bare limbs; who began their career as tradesmen or mechanics,—mechanics in divinity or law as well as in trade,—and get their bread by any of the useful and honorable callings of life—that such men, getting rich, or lifting their heads out of the obscurity they were once in, should become Tories, in a land, too, where institutions are founded on the idea of freedom and equity and natural justice—that is another thing. The Toryism of American journals, with little scholarship, with no wit, and wisdom in hom[oe]opathic doses; the Toryism of a man who started from nothing, the architect of his own fortune; the Toryism of a Republican, of a Yankee, the Toryism of a Snob,—it is Toryism reduced to its lowest denomination, made vulgar and contemptible; it is the little end of the tail of Toryism. Let us loathe the unclean thing in the depth of our soul, but let us pity the poor Tory; for he, also, in common with the negro slave, is "A man and a brother."

Then the Spirit of Trade is often against us. Mr. Mann, in his letter, speaks of the opposition made to Wilberforce by the "Guinea merchants" of Liverpool, in his attempts to put an end to the slave-trade. The Corporation of Liverpool spent over ten thousand pounds in defence of a traffic, "the worst the sun ever shone upon." This would seem to be a reflection upon some of the merchants of Boston. It seems, from a statement in the Atlas, that Mr. Mann did not intend his remarks to apply to Boston, but to New York and Philadelphia, where mass meetings of merchants had been held, to sustain Mr. Clay's compromise resolutions. Although Mr. Mann did not apply his remarks to Boston, I fear they will apply here as well as to our sister cities. I have yet to learn that the letter of Mr. Webster's retainers was any less well adapted to continue and extend slavery, than the resolutions passed at New York and Philadelphia. I wish the insinuations of Mr. Mann did not apply here.

One of the signers of the letter to Mr. Webster incautiously betrayed, I think, the open secret of the retainers when he said—"I don't care a damn how many slave States they annex!" This is a secret, because not avowed; open, because generally known, or at least believed, to be the sentiment of a strong party in Massachusetts. I am glad to have it also expressed; now the issue is joined, and we do not fight in the dark.

It has long been suspected that some inhabitants of Boston were engaged in the slave-trade. Not long since, the brig "Lucy Anne," of Boston, was captured on the coast of Africa, with five hundred and forty-seven slaves on board. This vessel was built at Thomaston in 1839; repaired at Boston in 1848, and now hails from this port. She was commanded by one "Captain Otis," and is owned by one "Salem Charles." This, I suppose, is a fictitious name, for certainly it would not be respectable in Boston to extend slavery in this way. Even Mr. Winthrop is opposed to that, and thinks "a million swords would leap from their scabbards to oppose it." But it may be that there are men in Boston who do not think it any worse to steal men who were born free, and have grown up free in Africa, and make slaves of them, than to steal such as are born free in America, before they are grown up. If we have the Old Testament decidedly sustaining slavery, and the New Testament never forbidding it; if, as we are often told, neither Jesus nor his early followers ever said a word against slavery; if scarcely a Christian minister in Boston ever preaches against this national sin; if the Representative from Boston has no religious scruples against returning a fugitive slave, or extending slavery over a "hundred or a hundred thousand square miles" of new territory; if the great Senator from Massachusetts refuses to vote for the Wilmot Proviso, or reaffirm an ordinance of nature, and reënact the will of God; if he calls on us to return fugitive slaves "with alacrity," and demands of Massachusetts that she shall conquer her prejudices; if nine hundred and eighty-seven men in this vicinity, of lawful age,[9] are thankful to him for enlightening them as to their duty, and a professor of theology comes forward to sanction American slavery in the name of religion—why, I think Mr. "Salem Charles," with his "Captain Otis," may not be the worst man in the world, after all! Let us pity him also, as "A man and a brother."

Such is the crisis in our affairs; such the special issue in the general question between freedom and slavery; such the position of parties and of great men in relation to this question; such the foes to freedom in America.

On our side, there are great and powerful allies. The American idea is with us; the spirit of the majority of men in the North, when they are not blindfolded and muzzled by the demagogues of State and Church. The religion of the land, also, is on our side; the irreligion, the idolatry, the infidelity thereof, all of that is opposed to us. Religion is love of God and love of man: surely, all of that, under any form, Catholic or Quaker, is in favor of the unalienable rights of man. We know that we are right; we are sure to prevail. But in times present and future, as in times past, we need heroism, self-denial, a continual watchfulness, and an industry which never tires.

Let us not be deceived about the real question at issue. It is not merely whether we shall return fugitive slaves without trial by jury. We will not return them with trial by jury! neither "with alacrity," nor "with the solemnity of judicial proceedings!" It is not merely whether slavery shall be extended or not. By and by there will be a political party with a wider basis than the free soil party, who will declare that the nation itself must put an end to slavery in the nation; and if the Constitution of the United States will not allow it, there is another Constitution that will. Then the title, Defender and expounder of the Constitution of the United States, will give way to this,—"Defender and expounder of the Constitution of the Universe," and we shall reaffirm the ordinance of nature, and reënact the will of God. You may not live to see it, Mr. President, nor I live to see it; but it is written on the iron leaf that it must come; come, too, before long. Then the speech of Mr. Webster, and the defence thereof by Mr. Stuart, the letter of the retainers and the letters of the retained, will be a curiosity; the conduct of the whigs and democrats an amazement, and the peculiar institution a proverb amongst all the nations of the earth. In the turmoil of party politics, and of personal controversy, let us not forget continually to move the previous question, whether Freedom or Slavery is to prevail in America. There is no attribute of God which is not on our side; because, in this matter, we are on the side of God.

Mr. President: I began by congratulating you on the favorable signs of the times. One of the most favorable is the determination of the South to use the powers of government to extend slavery. At this day, we exhibit a fact worse than Christendom has elsewhere to disclose; the fact that one sixth part of our population are mere property; not men, but things. England has a proletary population, the lowest in Europe; we have three million of proletaries lower than the "pauper laborers" of England, which the whig protectionists hold up to us in terror. The South wishes to increase the number of slaves, to spread this blot, this blight and baneful scourge of civilization over new territory. Hot-headed men of the South declare that, unless it is done, they will divide the Union; famous men of the North "cave in," and verify their own statements about "dough-faces" and "dough-souls." All this is preaching anti-slavery to the thinking men of the North; to the sober men of all parties, who prefer Conscience to cotton. The present session of Congress has done much to overturn slavery. "Whom the gods destroy they first make mad."

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Mr. Silgeström.

[5] Annal. Lib. XIV. cap. 42, et seq.

[6] Executive Documents: House of Representatives, No. 17, p. 3.

[7] Since the delivery of the above, Mr. Webster has introduced his bill, providing a trial by jury for fugitive slaves. If I understand it, Mr. Webster does not offer it as a substitute for the Judiciary Bill on the subject, does not introduce it as an amendment to that or to any thing else. Nay, he does not formally introduce it—only lays it before the Senate, with the desire that it may be printed! The effect it is designed to produce, it is very easy to see. The retainers can now say—See! Mr. Webster himself wishes to provide a trial by jury for fugitives! Some of the provisions of the bill are remarkable, but they need not be dwelt on here.

[8] While this is passing through the press, I learn that several wealthy citizens of Boston are at this moment owners of several hundreds of slaves. I think they would lose reputation among their fellows if they should set them free.

[9] It has since appeared that several of those persons were at the time, and still are, holders of slaves. Their conduct need excite no surprise.

III.

A DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF THE LATE PRESIDENT TAYLOR.—PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, JULY 14, 1850.

Last Sunday, on a day near the national anniversary, something was said of the relation which the American citizen bears to the State, and of the duties and rights which belong to that relation. Since then an event has occurred which suggests another topic of a public nature, and so I invite your attention to a discourse of the general position and duties of an American ruler, and in special of the late President Taylor. It is no pleasant task to rise to speak so often on such themes as this, but let us see what warning or guidance we can gather from this occasion.

In order that a man should be competent to become a complete political ruler and head of the American people, he ought to be distinguished above other men in three particulars.

First, he ought to have just political ideas in advance of the people, ideas not yet organized into institutions in the State. Then he will be a leader in ideas.

Next, he ought to have a superior power of organizing those ideas, of putting them into institutions in the State. Then he will be a leader in the matter of organizing ideas.

Then he ought to have a superior power of administering the institutions after they are made. Then he will be a leader in the matter of administering institutions.

An eminent degree of these three qualities constitutes genius for statesmanship, genius, too, of a very high order. A man who really and efficiently leads in politics must possess some or all of these qualities; without them, or any of them, he can only seem to lead. He and the people both may think he is the leader, and call him so; but he that shall lead others aright, must himself be on the right road and in advance of them. To perform the functions of a leader of men, the man must be eminently just also, true to the Everlasting Right, the Law of God; otherwise he can never possess in the highest degree, or in a competent degree, the power of ideas, of organization, of administration. A man eminently just, and possessing these three qualities is a leader by nature; if he is also put into the conventional position of leader, then he bears the same relation to the people, which the captain of a ship, skilful and competent, would bear to the ship's company who were joint owners with him, and had elected him to his office, expecting that he would serve them as captain while he held the office of captain.

The complete and perfect leader must be able to originate just political ideas, to organize them justly, to administer the organization with justice. But these three powers are seldom united in the same man; so, practically, the business of leading, and therefore of ruling, is commonly distributed amongst many persons; not concentrated in one man's hands. I think we have as yet had no statesman in America who has enjoyed each and all of these three talents in an eminent degree. No man is so rich as mankind. Any one of them is a great gift, entitling the man to distinction; but the talent for administration is not very rare. It is not difficult to find a man of good administrative ability with no power to invent, none to organize the inventions of other men. How many men can work all day with oxen yoked to a plough; how few could invent a plough or tame wild cattle. It is not hard to find men capable of managing political machinery, of holding the national plough and conducting the national team, when both are in the field, and there is the old furrow to serve as guide. That is all we commonly look for in an American politician. He is to follow the old constitutional furrow, and hold the old plough, and scatter a little democratic or whig seed, furnished by his party, not forgetting to give them the handsel of the crop. That is all we commonly look for in an American politician, leaving it for some bright but obscure man in the mass of the people to discover a new idea, and to devise the mode of its organization. Then the politician, perched aloft on his high place and conspicuous, holds the string of the kite which some unknown men have thought out, made up, and hoisted with great labor; he appears to be the great man because he sits and holds the string, administering the kite, and men look up and say, "See there, what a great man he is! Is not this the foremost man of the age?"

In this way the business of ruling the nation is made a matter of mere routine, not of invention or construction. The ruler is to tend the public mill; not to make it, or to mend it; not to devise new and better mills, not even to improve the old one. We may be thankful if he does not abuse and leave it worse than he found it. He is not to gather the dam, only to shut the gate at the right time, and at the right time open it; to take sufficient toll of all comers, and now and then make a report of the grinding, or of what he sees fit to communicate to the owners of the mill. As it is a part of the written Constitution of the land that all money bills shall originate with the House of Representatives, so it is a part of the unwritten custom that political ideas in advance of the people shall not originate with the nominal rulers of the nation, but elsewhere. One good thing results from this: we are not much governed, but much let alone. The American form of government has some great merits; this I esteem the greatest; that it lets the people alone so much. In forming ourselves into a State, we agreed with one another not to meddle and make politically with individuals so much as other nations had done.

It is a long time since we have had a man of large genius for politics at the head of affairs in America. I think we could not mention more than one who had any genius for just political ideas in advance of the people. Skilful administrators we have had in great abundance in politics as in other matters. Nature herself seems democratic in her action here, and all our great movements appear to be brought about by natural power diffused amongst many men of talent, not by natural power condensed into a single man of genius. So long as this is the case, the present method of letting alone is the best one. The American nation has marched on without much pioneering on the part of its official rulers, no one of them for a long time being much in advance of the million; and while it is so it is certainly best that the million are very much left to themselves. But if we could have a man as much in advance of the people in all these three qualities, and especially in the chief quality—as the skilful projector of a cotton mill is in advance of the girls who tend the looms, in all that relates to the projection of a cotton mill,—then we should know what it was to have a real leader, a ruler who could be the schoolmaster of the nation, not ruling over our bodies by fear, but in the spirit of love, setting us lessons which we could not have devised, nor even understand without his help; one who preserves all the good of the old, and adds thereto much new good not seen before, and so instructs and helps forward the people. But as the good God has not sent such a man, and he is not to be made by men, only found, nor in the least helped in any of those three qualities by all the praise we can pour on him; so it comes to pass that an ordinary ruler is a person of no very great consequence. His importance is official and not personal, and as only the person dies, not the office, the death of such an one is not commonly an affair of much significance. Suppose after Mr. Tyler or Mr. Polk had taken the oath of office, he had appointed a common clerk, a man of routine and experience, as his factotum, with power to affix the presidential name to necessary documents, and then had quietly and in silence departed from this life, how much would the nation have lost? A new and just political idea; an organization thereof? No such thing. If the public press had kept the secret, we should not have found out their death till this time. The obscure clerk could tend the mill as well as his famous master who would not be missed.

Louis XIV. said, "The State! That is I." He was the State. So when the ruler dies, the State is in peril. If the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Russia or Austria, or the Pope of Rome were to die, there would be a revolution, and nobody knows what would come of it; for there the ruler is master of the people, who are subjects, not citizens, and the old master dying, it is not easy to yoke the people to the chariot of a new one. Here the people are the State; and though the power of General Taylor was practically greater than that of any monarch in Europe, save Nicholas, William, and Ferdinand, yet at his death all the power passes into the hands of his successor, with no noise, no tumult, not even the appearance of a street constable. I think that was a sublime sight—the rule over twenty millions of people, jealous of their rights, silently, by due course of law, passes into the hands of another man at dead of night, and the next morning the nation is just as safe, just as quiet and secure as before, no fear of change perplexing them. That was a sublime sight—one of the fair things which comes of a democracy. Here the ruler is servant, and the people master; so the death of a President, like Mr. Van Buren, or any of his successors, Harrison or Tyler or Polk, would really have been a very unimportant event; not so momentous as the death of one of the ablest doctors in Boston, for should the physician die, your chance of life is diminished by that fact. If Dr. Channing had died at the age of forty, before he wrote his best works, his death would have been a greater calamity than that of any or all of the four Presidents just named, as soon as their inaugural address was delivered; for Dr. Channing had some truths to tell, which there was nobody else to deliver at that time. No President since Jefferson, I think, has done the nation so much good as the opening of the Erie Canal in New York, or the chief railroads in Massachusetts, or the building up of any one of the half dozen large manufacturing towns in New England. Mr. Cunard, in establishing his line of Atlantic steamers, did more for America than any President for five-and-twenty years. The discovery of the properties of sulphuric ether, the devising of the magnetic telegraph, was of more advantage to this nation, than the service of any President for a long time. I think I could mention a few men in Boston, any one of whom has been of more service than four or five Presidents; and, accordingly, the death of any one of those would be a greater calamity than the demise of all those Presidents the day after election. With us the President is only one spoke in the wheel, and if that is broken we always have a spare spoke on hand, and the wheel is so made that without stopping the mill, the new spoke drops into the place of the old one and no one knows the change till told thereof. If Mr. Polk had really been the ablest man in the land, a creator and an organizer, his death would have been a public calamity, and the whole nation would have felt it, as Boston or New York would feel the loss of one of its ablest manufacturers or merchants, lawyers or doctors. That would deprive us of the services of a man which could not be supplied. We have always spare men of routine, but not spare men of genius. Dr. Channing has been missed ever since his death, and the churches of Boston, poor enough before, are the poorer for his absence. So has John Quincy Adams, old as he was, been missed in the House of Representatives. The enemy of freedom may well rejoice that his voice is still. But who misses General Harrison or Mr. Polk? What interest languishes in consequence of their departure? What idea, what right, lost thereby a defender? If Sir Robert Peel were to die, the British nation would feel the loss.

We attach a false importance to the death of a President. Great calamities were apprehended at the death of General Harrison. But what came? Whigs went out of office and democrats went into office. Had Jefferson died before the Declaration of Independence, or Washington any time after it, or before the termination of his official service, or John Adams before the end of the war, that would have been a great calamity; for I know not where we should have found another Jefferson, to see so distinctly, and write down so plain the great American idea, or another Washington to command an army without money, without provisions, without hats and shoes, as that man did. The death of Samuel Adams, in 1760, would have been a terrible misfortune to America. But the death of General Harrison only made a change in the Cabinet, not in the country; it affected the politicians more than the people.

We are surrounded in the world with nations ruled by kings, who are the masters of the people; hard masters too! When they die the people mourn, not always very wisely, not always sincerely, but always with ceremony. The mourning for George IV. and William IV. in England, I doubt not, was more splendid and imposing than that for Edward the Confessor and Oliver Cromwell; and that for Louis XV. outdid that for Henry IV. In a monarchy, men always officially mourn their king, whether it be King Log, or King Snake, or King Christian; we follow the example of those States. If some of the men, whose death would be the greatest calamity, should die, the newspapers would not go into mourning; we should not have a day of fasting set apart; no minister would think it "An inscrutable providence;" only a few plain country people would come together and take up the dust, disenchanted of the genius which gave it power over other and animated clay, to lay it down in the ground. There would be no Catafalques in the street; but the upper mountain-tops would miss that early sun which kissed their foreheads, while all below the world was wrapped in drowsy mist, and the whole race of man would be losers by the fading out of so much poetry, or truth, or justice, love and faith.

The office of President of the United States is undeniably one of great importance. If you put in it a great man, one with ability to invent, to organize and to administer, he has a better opportunity to serve mankind than most kings of Europe. I know of no position in the world more desirable for a really great man, a man with a genius for statesmanship, a million-minded man, than to take this young, daring, hopeful nation, so full of promise, so ready for work, and lead them forward in the way of political righteousness, giving us ideas, persuading us to build institutions thereof, and make the high thought of a man of genius the common life of a mighty nation, young as yet and capable of taking any lesson of national nobility which the most gifted man can devise; to be the ruler, not over Russian serfs, but American freemen, citizens, not subjects; to be the schoolmaster for twenty millions, and they such promising pupils, loving hard lessons; and the men that set them, the most enterprising race of persons in the world, who have already learned something of Christianity and the idea of personal freedom,—why that is a noble ambition. I do not wonder that a man of great powers should covet this great position, and feel a noble dissatisfaction and unrest until he found himself there, gravitating towards it as naturally as the Mississippi to the ocean. Put in it such men as I point to, one with the intellect of a Webster, the conscience of a Channing, the philanthropy of much humbler men; let him aim at the welfare of the nation and mankind; let him have just political ideas in advance of the nation, and, in virtue thereof, ability to solve the terrible social and political questions of this age; careless of his popularity and reputation, but careful of his conscience and his character, let him devote himself to the work of leading this people, and what an office is that of President of the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century! He would make this nation a society for mutual improvement twenty millions strong; not King Log, not King Stork, but King Good-man, King Christian if you will, he would do us a service, dignifying an office which was itself a dignity.

But if it be so noble for such a man, working with such an aim, for such an end; when a little man is in that office, with no ideas in advance of the people, and incapable of understanding such as have them; with no ability to organize the political ideas not yet organized, and applied to life; a man of routine; not ruling for the nation, but the ruler of a party and for a party, his ambition only to serve the party; an ordinary man, surrounding himself with other ordinary men; with ordinary habits, ordinary aims, ordinary means, and aiming at the ordinary ends of an adventurer; careless of his conscience and character, but careful of his party-popularity and temporary reputation,—why the office becomes painful to think of; and the officer, his state is not kingly, it is vulgar and mean, and low! So the lighthouse on the rocks of Boston harbor, is a pleasant thing to see and to imagine, with its great lamp looking far out to sea, and shining all night long, a star of special providence; seen afar off, when stormy skies shut other stars from sight, it assures the mariner of his whereabouts, guides the whaler and the Indiaman safe into port and peace, bringing wealth to the merchant, and a husband to the lingering wife, almost a widow in the cheating sea's delay and her own heart-sickness from hope so long deferred. But take away the great lamp, leaving all else; put in its place a little tallow candle of twenty to the pound, whose thin glitter could not be seen a mile off, spite of the burnished reflectors at its side, and which requires constant picking and trimming to keep the flame alive, and at its best estate flickers with every flutter of the summer wind,—what would the lighthouse be to look upon or to imagine? What a candlestick for what a candle! Praise it as much as you will; flatter it in the newspapers; vote it "adequate" and the "tallest beacon in the world;" call it the "Pharos of America;" it is all in vain; at the best, it can only attract moths and mosquitoes on a serene night; and when the storm thunders on that sepulchral rock, it is no light at all; and the whaler may be split asunder, and the Indiaman go to the grave, and the wealth of the merchant be scattered as playthings for the sea, and the bones of the mariner may blanch the bottom of the deep, for all the aid which that thin dazzle can furnish, spite of its lofty tower and loftier praise!

To rule a bank, a factory, or a railroad, when the officer is chosen for business and not charity, to command a packet-ship or a steamboat, you will get a man of real talent in his line of work; one that has some history, who has made his proof-shot, and shown that he has some mettle in him. But to such a pass has the business of ruling a nation arrived, that, of all the sovereigns of Christian Europe, it is said not more than two, Nicholas of Russia, and Oscar of Sweden, would have been distinguished if born in private stations. The most practical and commercial nation in the world, possessing at this moment a power more eminently great than that of the Roman empire in its palmy time, has for a ruler a quite ordinary woman, who contributes neither ideas nor organizations, and probably could not administer wisely the affairs of a single shire in the island. In this respect, the highest stations of political life seem to have become as barren as the Dead Sea. In selecting our rulers in America, it is long since we have had a man of large powers, even of the sort which the majority of men appreciate in a contemporary. I have sometimes thought men were selected who were thought not strong enough to hurt us much, forgetting that a weak man may sometimes hurt us as much more than a strong one would.

After all this preliminary, let me now say something of the late President Taylor, only further premising that I am here to tell the truth about him, so far as I know it, and nothing more or less. I am not responsible for the facts of the case, only for the correct statement thereof. There have been men who were not disposed to do him justice; there were men enough to flatter and overpraise him while alive, and there will probably be enough of such now that he is dead. Much official panegyric has there been already, and much more is in prospect. I think I need not be called on for any contribution of that sort. I wish to weigh him in an even balance, neither praising nor blaming without cause. To eulogize is one thing; to deal justly, another and quite different.

Zachary Taylor was born on the 24th of November, 1784, in Orange county, Virginia. His father, Richard Taylor, was a soldier during a part of the Revolutionary War, had a colonel's commission in 1779, and appears to have been a valuable officer and a worthy man. In 1785 he removed to Kentucky, where he resided until his death. He was a farmer, a man of property and influence in Kentucky, then a new country. He was one of the framers of the Constitution of that State; several times in the Legislature, and the first collector of the port of Louisville, then a port of entry.

Zachary, the third son, followed the business of farming until he was more than twenty-three years of age. During his childhood he received such an education as you can imagine in a new and wild country like Kentucky sixty years ago. However, it is said his father took great pains with his education, and he enjoyed the instruction of a schoolmaster from Connecticut, who is still living. Hence it is plain the best part of his education must have come, not from the schoolmaster, but from the farm, the woods, and the connection with his parents and their associates. What a man learns at school, even in Boston, is but a small part of his education. In General Taylor's case, it is probable that things had much more to do with his culture than words. Men nursed on Greek and Latin would probably have called him an uneducated man; with equal justice he might call many a scholar an uneducated man. To speak and write with grammatical accuracy is by no means the best test of education.

Fondness for a military life is natural in a man born and bred as he was, living in a country where the vicinity of the Indians made every man a Quaker or a soldier.

About 1808, volunteers were raised in the West to oppose the expected movements of Aaron Burr, a traitor to his country, a bold, bad man, who had been the candidate of the federalists for the Presidency; perhaps the worst man we had had in politics up to that time. Mr. Taylor joined one of the companies of volunteers. In 1808 he was appointed Lieutenant in the army of the United States, joined the forces, was soon sent to New Orleans, was seized with the yellow fever, and returned home.

In 1810 he was married to Miss Margaret Smith, of Maryland.

In 1811 he was employed in expeditions against the Indians in the Northwest of the United States. Here he was under the command of General Harrison.

In 1812 he was made Captain, and had the command of a block-house and stockade called Fort Harrison, on the Wabash river, soon after the declaration of war against England. This place was attacked by a strong body of Indians. Captain Taylor with less than fifty men, defended it with vigor and success. In consequence of his services on that occasion, he was promoted to the rank of Brevet Major. During the rest of the war, he continued in service on the frontiers, and seems to have done his duty faithfully as a soldier.

After the war was over, in 1815, the army was diminished to a peace establishment, and Major Taylor reduced to the rank of Captain. In consequence of this, he withdrew from the army, but, after a few months, returned, and was then, or subsequently, restored to his former rank as Major. For several years he was employed in such various military services, in the west and south-west, as must be performed in a time of peace. In 1819 he was made Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1832 he became Colonel, and in that year, with a command of four hundred men, he served under General Atkinson, in the expedition against the Sacs and other Indians led by the celebrated Black Hawk. Afterwards he was intrusted with the command of Fort Crawford, where he remained till 1836, when he was ordered to Florida, to fight against the Seminole Indians.

It was here that he made use of the bloodhounds to hunt the poor savages from their hiding-places in the woods. You know what Mr. Pitt once said of the Spanish use of this weapon in the sixteenth century, but the animals imported from Cuba, where they had been trained to hunt runaway slaves, were of no value when put upon the track of red men. I do not know who originated the scheme of employing the bloodhounds. It has often been ascribed to General Taylor, and with good reason, I believe, has it been denied that he was the author of that plan. It was of no great honor to the nation, let who would invent it; and few men will be sorry that it did not turn out well.

It was thought Colonel Taylor displayed a good deal of skill, in contending with the Indians in Florida, and, accordingly, he was made Brevet Brigadier-General, in 1838. After finishing the conquest of the Indians, he left Florida, in 1840. It is said that fighting against the Indians is a good school for a soldier. General Taylor served long at this work, and served faithfully. In the Florida war, his conduct as General is said to have been noble.

In 1840, he was made Commander of that portion of the American army in the south-west of the United States, and in 1841, removed his family from Kentucky to Baton Rouge, in Louisiana, which has since been his home. In 1845 he was ordered to Texas, and had command of the "Army of Occupation," and subsequently of the "Army of Invasion." In the war against Mexico, it is thought by competent judges that he displayed a good deal of military skill. He was beloved by his soldiers, and seems to have won their confidence, partly by success, partly by military talent, but also in part by his character, which was frank, honest, just and unpretending. I have heard of no instance in the whole war, in which cruelty is chargeable upon him. Several anecdotes are related of his kindliness, generosity, and openness of heart. No doubt they are true. War is a bloody trade; it makes one shudder to think of it in its terrible details; but the soldier is not necessarily a malignant or a cruel man; that bloody and profane command, so well known, uttered in the heat of conflict, when the battle seemed to waver, does not imply any peculiar cruelty or ill-will. It is only one of the accidents of war, which shows more clearly what its substance is.

I am no judge of warlike operations and of military skill, and therefore shall not pretend to pass judgment on matters which I know I do not understand; I shall not inquire as to the military value of the laurels he won at Resaca de la Palma, at Monterey, and at Buena Vista. But, in our judgment, we ought to remember one circumstance: that is, the inferiority of the Mexicans. They were beaten, I think, in every considerable battle throughout the whole war; no matter who commanded. General Scott landed at Vera Cruz, captured the city, and the far-famed Castle of St. Juan d'Ulloa, garrisoned by four thousand three hundred and ninety soldiers, and the American loss amounted to thirteen men killed, and sixty-three hurt! General Scott took possession of the great port of the nation, with less than twenty thousand soldiers, with only about fifteen thousand troops; marched nearly two hundred miles into the interior, fighting his way, and garrisoning the road behind him, sometimes even subsisting his army in the country which he conquered as he went on; and finally took the capital, a city with nearly two hundred thousand inhabitants, with less than six thousand soldiers. Suppose an army of that size were to land at Newburyport, with the intention of marching to Worcester, not two hundred miles, but only fifty or sixty, how many do you think would ever reach the spot? Why, suppose the American men did nothing, there are women enough in Massachusetts to throw every soldier into the Merrimac!

I do not believe that this inferiority of the Mexican arises so much from the superior bravery of the Americans; almost any male animal will fight on small provocation; your Mexican male, as well as your American, on as small provocation, and as desperately. But the American soldier was always well armed, furnished with every thing that modern science makes terrible in war; well clad, well fed, well paid, he went voluntarily to the work. The Mexicans were ill armed, ill clad, ill fed, often not paid at all, and sometimes brought to fight against their will.

The difference does not end here: the main reliance of the Mexican government, the regular soldiers, the Presidiales, were men who seemed to have most of the vices of old garrison soldiers, with most of the faults of new recruits; or, as another has said, himself a soldier in the war, "All the vices engendered in a garrison life; all the cowardice which their constant defeats by the Indians had created; all the laziness contracted in an idle monotonous existence, and very little military skill." The new levies came unwillingly, and were often only "food for powder." On the American side was a small body of veteran soldiers, low and coarse men—it is the policy of America to have the rank and file of our army in peace composed usually of such—but full of brute courage; accustomed to all sorts of hardships and exposure; under a discipline rigorous and almost perfect; wonted to danger, and weaned from fear; careless of life almost to desperation; full of confidence in their commander, and of contempt for their foe. The volunteers brought with them the characteristic ardor of Americans, their confidence of success, their contempt of toil and of danger; familiar with fire-arms from their youth, they soon learned the discipline of the camp.

You see what a difference this makes between the two armies; but the chief superiority of the American soldiers was this—they came from a country where there is a complete national unity of action. So the government could trust the army, and the army the government; the soldiers had confidence in their commander, confidence in their country, confidence in their cause; while the Mexicans had no national unity of action, the people little confidence in the government, the government as little in the people; the nation but little trust in the army, and the army little in the nation; the soldiers had great fear of the enemy, little faith in their officers, and the officers little in their men. Did you ever see a swarm of bees when the queen bee was dead, and moths had invaded the hive? The Mexicans were much in the same state. The result was what had readily been foreseen: at the battle of Buena Vista, on the one side, there were twenty-one thousand five hundred and fifty-three Mexicans; on the other, four thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine American soldiers, of which only four hundred and seventy-six were regulars. Yet the American loss, in killed, wounded and missing, was but seven hundred and forty-six, while that of the Mexican army was nearly two thousand men lost. If the Mexicans had done the same proportionate execution, every American would have been killed long before night.

All these things ought to be taken into account, in making up our mind about the difficulty of the enterprise. Still, after this allowance is made, it must be confessed the American invasion of Mexico was a remarkable undertaking, distinguished for its boldness, not to say its rashness, and almost unparalleled in the history of modern wars. It certainly did require great coolness, courage, and prudence, on the part of General Taylor, to conduct his part of the expedition. He had those qualities, but it has not yet been proved or shown to be probable, that he had the nobler qualities which make a great General. The kind of warfare he was engaged in, does not bring to light the high qualities of a man like Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great, or Napoleon. Perhaps General Taylor had them, but they did not appear.

The Mexican war was unfortunate for the administration which carried it on, for the political party which caused the war. The success of General Taylor attracted the attention of the people, and the obscure soldier took popular rank before the President of the United States. Unconsciously the vicarious suitor, courting public favor for his master, won good graces for himself. The political party which began the war, was eclipsed by the triumph of its own soldier; and the slave-power which projected the war seems likely to be ruined by the success of the enterprise.

It has been said, that he was averse to the Mexican war which he fought in; I know not whether this be true or false. But if true, it deserves to be remembered in his defence, that the soldier is only an active tool, as much the instrument of his employer as the spade of the workman whose foot crowds it into the ground. The soldier, high or low, must obey the men who have the official right to command him, his free-will merging in that of his superior. If General Taylor had thought the Mexican war unjust and wicked, and in consequence had resigned his commission, he would have been covered with obloquy and contempt in the eyes of military men, and the officials of government. Most of the newspapers of the land would have attacked him, called him a coward, a traitor and a fanatic; their condemnation would have been worth as much as their praise is now. In estimating his character we ought to remember this fact, for few men do more than their office demands of them, or more than public opinion can approve.

Such was the success of General Taylor in war, at the head of a few thousand men, that public attention was turned towards him, and in a few months the obscure frontier soldier was the most prominent man in the nation. In 1848 he received the nomination of the Whig Convention at Philadelphia, for President, and in due time was elected.

His election was certainly one of the most remarkable that ever took place in America. It is worth while to look at it for a moment. There was nothing very remarkable in the man to entitle him to that eminent distinction; if there were, the nation was very slow in finding it out. He was a farmer till about twenty-four years old; then a common Lieutenant four years more. In the next twenty years he got no higher than to the rank of a "Frontier Colonel;" he attained that dignity in fact, at the age of forty-eight. He was not made General till the fifty-fifth year of his age. But for the Mexican war, I suppose he would, at this day, be as obscure as any other General in the United States' army; nobody would think he was the "Second Washington," "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," as his creatures have declared. Other military men have been chosen to the presidency. But Washington was much more than a soldier; in "a time that tried men's souls" to the utmost, he had carried the nation through eight years of most perilous warfare, more by his character than any eminent military skill, and so had become endeared to the hearts of the people as no American had ever been before. General Jackson, at first educated as a lawyer, was a man of large talents, distinguished as a Governor, as a Senator, and as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, before he was elected President, or nominated for that office. General Harrison, a man of small abilities, surely not more than a third-rate politician in Ohio, was yet familiar with the routine of political affairs. He had been a member of the Legislature of Ohio, of both branches of the Congress of the United States, and Minister to Colombia. General Taylor, with an education very imperfect, had passed his life, from twenty-four to sixty-four, on the frontiers and in the army; had never held any civil office; had seldom voted, and though an excellent officer in the sphere of duty he had occupied, did not appear to be the most promising man in the nation to select for its highest and most difficult office. The defence of a log-house in 1812 against a troop of Indians, the conquest of Black Hawk, the rout of the Seminoles, the gaining of half-a-dozen battles in Mexico, at the head of a few thousand soldiers, does not seem exactly an adequate schooling to prepare a common man to lead and rule twenty million Americans with the most complicated government in the world. It certainly was surprising, that he should be nominated for that office; and more so, that the nomination should be confirmed by the people. It is not surprising, that the distinguished Senator of Massachusetts should call this "A nomination not fit to be made;" the wonder is, he deemed it fit to be confirmed. In selecting him for our chief, the nation went hap-hazard, and made a leap in the dark. No prudent man in Boston would hire a cook or a coachman with such inadequate recommendations as General Taylor had to prove his fitness for his place. Had a sensible man on election day asked the nation, "What do you know about the man you vote for?" the people would have been sadly puzzled to seek for an answer. The reasons which led to his selection were partly special, and partly of a general and popular character. It is instructive for us to look at them, now that we can do it coolly.

I suppose this was the special cause of his nomination: The leaders of the whig party thought they could not elect either of their most prominent men. If they went before the people with nothing but their idea,—The protection of property by a tariff, and a Representative of that idea, however able and well trained, they feared defeat; such as they had met with in the last campaign, when the democratic party, with a man almost unknown to the people, a tricky lawyer from Tennessee, had yet carried the day against one of the oldest and ablest politicians in the country. So the whig leaders availed themselves of the temporary popularity of a successful General to give an accidental triumph to their party, and apparently to their idea. That I think was the specific reason which led the politicians to nominate him. Doubtless there were other private reasons, weighty to certain individuals, that need not be touched upon.

But the general reasons, which gave him weight with the mass of the people and secured his election, ought to be stated for our serious reflection.

1. There was no one of the great leaders of either party whom the people had much confidence in. I am sorry to say so, but I do not think there is much in any of them to command the respect of a nation, and make us swear fealty to those men. There were two candidates of the whig party; from one of them you might expect a compromise; from the other you were not certain even of that. The democratic candidate had not a name to conjure with. The free soil candidate—was he a man to trust in such times as these? Did you see your king and chief in any one of those four men? Was any one of them fit to be the political schoolmaster of this nation? What "ground and lofty tumbling" have we had from all four of them?

2. General Taylor was not mixed up with the grand or petty intrigues of the parties, their quarrels and struggles for office. Men knew little about him; if little good, certainly little not good; little evil in comparison with any of the others. Sometimes you take a man whom you do not know, in preference to an old acquaintance whom you have known too long and too well to trust.

3. Then General Taylor had shown himself a rough, honest, plain, straight-forward man, and withal mild and good-natured. Apparently, there was much in him to attract and deserve the good-will of the nation. His likeness went abroad through the country like a proclamation; it was the rude, manly, firm, honest, good-natured, homely face of a backwoodsman. His plain habits, plain talk, and modest demeanor reminded men of the old English ballad of "The King and the Miller" and the like, and won the affections of honest men. I doubt not the fact that General Harrison had once lived in a log cabin, and, other things failing, did drink "hard cider," gave him thousands of votes. The candidate was called "Old Rough and Ready," and there was not a clown in field or city but could understand all that was meant by those terms. Even his celebrated horse contributed to his master's election, and drew votes for the President by the thousand.

4. Then he was a successful soldier. The dullest man in the Alleghany mountains, or in the low lanes of New York and Boston, or the silliest behind the counters of a city shop, can understand fighting, and remember who won a battle. It is wholly needless for such to inquire what the battle was fought for. Hence military success is always popular with the multitude, and will be, I suppose, for some ages in America as everywhere else. Our churches know no God but the "Lord of hosts," "A man of war!"

5. Then he was a southern man, and all our masters must be from the South, or of it, devoted to its peculiar institution. If he had been born in Barnstable county, and owned a little patch of yellow sand at Cape Cod, and had the freeman's hatred of slavery, even Churubusco and Buena Vista would not have given him the votes of the Convention, and his war-horse might have lived till this day, he would not have carried his master to the presidency. He was a slaveholder, as seven Presidents had been before him, holding office for eight-and-forty years. There are some men at the North, chiefly in the country towns, who think it is not altogether right for a man to steal his brother; such men were to be propitiated. So it was diligently rumored abroad in the North, that the candidate was "opposed to slavery," that he would "probably emancipate his slaves as soon as he was elected." I am told that some persons who heard such a story, actually believed it; I think nobody who told it believed any such thing. The fact that he was a slaveholder, that he had lately purchased one hundred and fourteen men, women, and children, and kept them at hard work for his advantage, showed the value of such a story; and the opposite statement, publicly and industriously circulated at the South, that he loved slavery, desired its extension, and hated the Wilmot Proviso, shows the honesty of some of the men at the North, who, knowing these facts, sought to keep them secret.

These seem to have been the chief reasons which procured his nomination and election. It is easy to see that such a man, though as honest as Washington, must be eminently unfit for the high office of President of the United States. He knew little or nothing of the political history of the country, or of the political questions then up for solution; little or nothing of the political men. He had the honesty to confess it. He declared that he was not fit for the office, not acquainted with the political measures of the day, and only consented to be brought from his obscurity, when great men told him he was the only man that could "save the Union." He was no statesman, and knew nothing of politics, less than the majority of the more cultivated mechanics, merchants and farmers. He was a soldier, and knew something of fighting, at least of fighting Indians and Mexicans. If you should take a man of the common abilities, intellectual and moral, the common education, a farmer from Northfield, a skipper from Provincetown, a jobber from Boston, a bucket-maker from Hingham, and appoint him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, with the duty of selecting all his associate Judges, I think he would be about as competent for the office as General Taylor for the post he was elected to. In such a case as I have supposed, the new "Judge" must depend on other men, who will tell him what to do; his only safety would be in relying on their advice. Then they would be the Chief Justice, not he.

Under such circumstances, the leaders of one party nominated him. I must confess such an act, committed by such men, seems exceedingly rash. It was done by the very men who ought, above all others, to have known better. This is one of the many things we have had, which show thinking men how little we can rely on our political chiefs. The nomination once made, the election followed. The wise men told the multitude: "You must vote for him," and the multitude voted. You know how angry men were if you did not believe in his fitness for the office; how it became a test of "patriotism" to believe in him. Now the good man is cold in death, how base all that seems!

When such a man under such circumstances comes into such an office, you do not know whether the deeds which receive his official sanction, the papers published under his name, the speeches he delivers, and the messages he sends, are his or not his. It is probable that he has little to do with them; they are his officially, not personally; he writes State papers by their signature. Some of his speeches were undoubtedly made for him. You know it once happened that a speech, alleged to have been made by him at a public meeting, was sent on by telegraph, and published by the party organ, in one of our great cities, and he was taken sick before the meeting was held, and could not speak at all. That speech betrayed the trick of the administration: it was a speech he had never heard of. From this one act judge of many more. In his arduous office, he must choose advisers, but he wants advisers to advise him to choose advisers. Much will depend on his first step; that must needs be in the dark.

Since this is so, I shall pass over his brief administration with very few words. I do not know how much it was the administration of General Taylor, or how far it was that of his Cabinet. I do not know who made the Cabinet. The messages, in his official term, were as good as usual; but who made the messages? One thing is clear: he promised to be the President of the country, not of a party; to remove no man from office except for reasons not political. Neither promise was kept. It was plain that other elements interfered and counteracted the honest intentions of that honest man. General Jackson rewarded his "friends" and punished his "enemies," men who voted against him. Mr. Jefferson had done the same. But I doubt if the administration of either of these men was so completely a party administration as that of General Taylor. Men were continually removed from office purely for political reasons. The general character of his appointments to office, you can judge of better than I. It seems to me the removal of subordinate officers from their station on account of their vote is one great evil in the management of our institutions. Of what consequence is it whether the postmaster at Eastham or West-Newton, the keeper of the lighthouse at Cape Anne, or the Clay Pounds of Truro, or the district attorney in Boston, or the tide-waiters at Nantucket are "good whigs," or not good whigs?

What shall I say of the character of the man who has left this high office; of him on the whole? Some men can be as eloquent on a ribbon as on a Raphael. They find no difficulty in calling General Taylor "The second Washington." I like the first Washington too much to call any one by that name lightly. General Harrison was the "Second Washington" ten years ago. General Jackson ten years before that. I think there is another "Second Washington" getting ready, and before the century ends we shall perhaps have five or six of this family. But the world does not breed great men every day. I must confess it, I have not seen any thing very great in General Taylor, though I have diligently put my eye to the magnifying glasses of his political partisans; neither have I seen any thing uncommonly mean and little in him, though I have also looked through the minifying glasses of his foes. To be a frontier soldier for forty years, to attain the rank of Colonel at the age of forty-eight, after twenty-four years of service, to become a Brigadier-General at fifty-four, is no great thing. To defend a log-house, to capture Black Hawk, to use bloodhounds in war, and to extirpate the Seminole Indians from the everglades of Florida, to conquer the Mexicans at Churubusco and Monterey, does not require very high qualities of mind and heart. But in all the offices he ever held, he appears to have done his official duty openly and honestly. He was a good officer, a plain, blunt, frank, open, modest man. No doubt he was "rough and ready;" his courage was never questioned. His integrity is above suspicion. All this is well known. But is all this enough to make a great man in the middle of this century; a great man in America, and for such an office? Judge for yourselves.

I sincerely believe that he was more of a man than his political supporters thought him; that he had more natural sagacity, more common sense, more firmness of purpose, and very much more honesty than they expected or desired. Rumors reach me that he was not found quite so manageable as his "friends" and admirers had hoped; that he had some conscience and a will of his own. It seems to me that he honestly intended to be an honest and impartial ruler, the President of his country; that he took Washington for his general model; that he never sought the office, and at first did not desire it, but when he came to it endeavored to deserve well of his country and do well by mankind. But with the best intentions, what could such a man do, especially with such foes, and more especially with such friends.

It is said he was a religious man: sometimes that means that a man loves God and loves men; sometimes that he is superstitious, formal, hypocritical, that he does not love men, and is afraid of God, or of a devil. I do not know in which sense the word is used in reference to him. But it appears to me that he was a man of veracity, honest, upright, and downright too; a good father, a good husband, a good friend, faithful to his idea of duty; very plain, very unpretending, mild and yet firm, good-natured, free and easy. There were many that loved him; a rare circumstance among politicians. He was a temperate man, also, remarkably temperate, and such temperance as his is not a very common virtue in high political and social stations in America, as we all know too well.