F0FS2

BANCROFT
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

FKEMONT-HIS SUPPORTERS AM) THEIR RECORD.

THE OPINIONS OF OUR GREAT STATESMEN UPON THE

MISSOURI RESTRICTION.

BY AN INDIANIAN.

The Black Republican candidate for the Presidency, though a sena
tor of the United States for several months, was in his seat and parti
cipated in the proceedings of that body but twenty-one days ; yet,
during that time, he showed himself to be a most ultra pro-slavery
man.

He is now the candidate of, and supported by, that class of abolition
ists who demand that wherever Congress has the power, slavery shall
be abolished.

When bill No. 226, "To suppress the slave trade in the District of
Columbia," was under consideration, Mr. Seward moved an amend
ment, "To abolish slavery in the District of Columbia." Chase, Hale
and Seward voted for the amendment, and FREMONT and DAYTON.
against it. (Senate Journal, 1st session 31st Congress, p. 627.)

Subsequently, when bill No. 347 was under consideration, the sam
amendment was proposed by Mr. Hale, and supported by Messrs.
Hale, Chase and Seward, and opposed by Messrs. FREMONT and
DAYTON. (Senate Journal, 1st session 31st Congress, p. 617.)

Under the responsibility of official duty, and the obligations of his
senatorial oath, Mr. Fremont resisted the proposition to abolish slavery
in the District of Columbia, although he conceded the power. Yet, he
is now the candidate of the party with which that measure is first in
importance. What brought about this change in his views of right and
duty in relation to so important a measure "? Has he abandoned a high
principle to attain a high position ? Has his gaze been so intent upon
the White House, that he would send his principles to the auction
block,- that he might reach the Presidency ? Let the unprejudiced mind
answer.

The Senate on the 14th of September, 1850, resumed the considera
tion of bill No. 226, "To suppress the slave trade in the District of
Columbia," the third section of which provided, that any person who
should induce or entice a slave to run away from his master should be
imprisoned in the penitentiary for ten years. Senator Badger, of North
Carolina, movtd to strike out the clause denouncing a penalty of ten
years' imprisonment, and insert, " For any time not exceeding five
years."

Mr. FREMONT voted against this amendment. (Senate Journal, 1st
session 31st Congress, p. 632.)

He was the only senator representing a free State who voted against

that wise and humane proposition, originating in the benevolent feelings
of a southern senator. In his judgment, to persude a slave to leave
his master was a crime of such magnitude, that nothing less than ten
year*? imprisonment in a southern penitentiary would be an adequate
punishment ; and so stern and harsh must the law be, that the court
should be denied all discretion in imposing the penalty, nor allowed to
take into consideration the character, age, or intelligence of the ac
cused, nor any mitigating circumstance. The amendment was pro
posed by a southern senator, an enlightened and able defender of
southern rights and institutions, but it was too liberal, too indulgent to
secure the vote of Mr. Fremont, though he represented a free State.
To satisfy his convictions of right, the man who might encourage a
.faithful slave to escape from a cruel master, must be crushed with a
penalty more severe than is usually inflicted upon the perpetrators of
high crimes and infamous felonies in the States. For crimes against
the property and persons of the people, the courts and juries may, in
most cases, reduce the imprisonment to a term of two years; but the
misguided enthusiast, or blind fanatic, who should encourage a slave to
flee for liberty, is denied the mercy of the court, and must suffer a fixed
and certain penalty often years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. So
voted Fremont and in giving that vote he stood alone among the sena
tors from the North. That record stands unchanged ; but where stands
the man who made it? the man who was so ultra in his views that a
southern measure was not sufficiently stringent he who was so quick
and valiant to draw his sword for the South ? Six years have passed
since, that record, but in that short period the relative position and
strength of the sections, North and South, have greatly changed. The
North has become powerful and defiant whilst the South, by calling
into action every energy, is scarcely able to maintain her constitutional
rights, and her equality in the Union. A sectional party in the North
seeks to seize and control the government, and this late champion of
the South. John C. Fremont, is their candidate for the Presidency.
He is supported by Seward, Sumner, Giddings, Chase, Wade, Hale,
and their compeers the acknowledged leaders and mouth-pieces of the
Abolition party of the United States. .

John C. Fremont has made no political record since his brilliant
senatorial career; therefore to ascertain the opinions and sentiments that
will govern him in his administration of public affairs, if the American
people shall, by their suffrage, place him in the highest office in the gift
of a free people, we must recur to the avowed arid published opinions
and purposes of his political associates.

The leaders of his party have a record a record of vituperation
against the Democratic party, against the federal constitution, and
against the federal Union; this record we submit to the American
people, and ask them to decide, in November next, whether the diver
sified interests of this great country are to be subserved by commit
ting them to the management of such men.

On the petition of John J. Woodward and others, praying that a
plan might be devised for a dissolution of the Union, the yeas
were, SALMON P. CHASE, JOHN P. HALE, and WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
(Senate Journal, 1st session 31st Congress, p. 129.)

These men are now the acknowledged leaders of Black Republi
canism ; they are of those who profess love for the constitution and
the Union, whilst black and horrid treason has possession of their
hearts ; but when they nominated John C. Fremont, they declared to
the world that " the constitution ir.u?t and shall be preserved." This
they did, only to deceive the contiding, and mislead the unwary.
Their votes speak louder than their words. They use the language of
patriotism and of love for the Union to secure the support of Union-
loving men, whilst their votes, their acts, and their organization, lead
only to a dissolution, and all the evils that must follow. They believe
in the " higher-law" doctrine, first enunciated at a Black Republican
(then called a Liberty) convention, held in the city of Buffalo in 1843,
at which the following resolution was unanimously adopted, with Sal
mon P. Chase as chairrran of the Committee on Resolutions:

" Resolved, That we hereby give it to be distinctly understood, by this nation and the world,
that, AS ABOLITIONISTS, considering that the strength of our cause lies in its righteousness,
and our hopes for it in our conformity to the laws of God, and our support of the rights of
man, we owe to the sovereign Ruler of the Universe, as a proof of our allegiance to Him, in all
our civil relations and offices, whether as friends, citizens, or as public functionaries, sworn to
support the constitution of the United States, to regard and treat the third clause of the in
strument, whenever applied in the case of a fugitive slave, as utterly null and void, and conse
quently as forming no part of the constitution of the United Slates, whenever we are called upon,
or sworn to support it."

This doctrine was reiterated in June, 1853, at Ravenna, Ohio, by a
mass meeting of Free-soilers, which was addressed by CHASE, GID-
DINGS, SAMUEL LEWIS, and JUDGE SPAULDTNG, (all of whom are now
the champions of the Fremont cause,) by the adoption of the follow
ing resolution :

" Resolved, That we cannot respect, nor can we confide in those lower-law doctors of divinity
who hold human laws above the laws of God ; nor can we concur in their teachings, that
the divine law is subject to Congressional compromises."

And again announced by the Hon. Charles Sumner, in 1854, in the
Senate of the United States.

Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, asked, "If we repeal the fugitive-
slave law, will Massachusetts execute the provision of the constitution
without any law of Congress?" Will this honorable senator [Mr.
Sumner] tell me that he will do it?" To which Mr. Sumner replied :
" Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" Mr. Butler con
tinued : " Then you would not obey the constitution. Sir, standing
here before this tribunal, where you swore to support it, you rise and
tell me that you regard it the office of a dog to enforce it. You stand
in my presence as a co-equal senator, and tell me that it is a dog's
office to execute the constitution of the United States ?" To which
Mr. Sumner said: ( ' I recognise no such obligation."

Welcome is Mr. Sumner to his senatorial honors, acquired by
charging that only a "dog" could recognise or execute an express
clause of the constitution of the United States, which, however, is in
strict accordance with the Buffalo and Ravenna resolutions, and com
ports with the "higher-law" notions of the party who recently made
Colonel Fremont their presidential candidate.

This doctrine, which makes the private notions or prejudices of each
individual the paramount law of his political action, is but a practical
development of the "higher-law" notions as applied to American poli-

tics by William H. Seward, who, in a speech delivered in the United
States Senate in 1850, said :

" The constitution regulates our stewardship ; the constitution devotes the domain to
Union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the
constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble
purposes."

It is scarcely necessary to say that, with such ideas in the ascendant
in any country, no government is practical, and anarchy and confusion,
and brute force, must inevitably rule the hour. Bodies of men or in
dividuals, maddened by sectional or party prejudices, will never want
an excuse for the violation of unpalatable laws, so long as they are
permitted to substitute the vagaries of their own distempered intellects
as having a stronger claim to their obedience than the constitution of
their country.

As a further development of this idea of individual sovereignty,
Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts, at a Free-soil meeting in Boston,
in May, 1849, said:

"We confess that we intend to trample under foot the constitution of this country. Daniel
Websttr says : ' You are a law-abiding people ;' that the glory of New England is, ' that it is
a law-abiding community.' Shame on it, if this be true ; if even the religion of New England
sinks as low as its statute-book. But I say we are not a law-abiding community. God be
thanked for it."

But the Black Republican platform says:

"The federal constitution, the rights of the States, and the Union of the States, must and
shall be preserved."

In preservation of the "rights of the States," JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS,
in the House of Representatives, in May, 1854, said :

"'I look forward to the day when there shall be a servile insurrection in the South ; when
the blaik man, armed with British bayonets, and commanded by British officers, shall wage a
war of extermination againsi the white man ; when the master shall see his dwelling in flames,
and his hearth-stone polluted ; and, though I may not mock at their calamity, nor laugh when
their fear cometh,yet shall I hail it as the dawn of a political millenium."

The man who uttered this chaste sentiment contributed more to the
nomination of Fremont than perhaps any other man in the convention;
he was the master-spirit of that convention, and was no doubt the
author of that clause in the platform which declares " the rights of the
States must and shall be preserved." Yes, such preservation " as the
woJf gives to the lamb !"

But certainly that Black Republican party which professes so much
love for the federal constitution and the union of the States must have
a record in strict conformity to such professions. Let us, then, look to
that record. _ Mr. Mann, of Massachusetts, in 1850, expressed his love
for the constitution and the Union as follows :

" I have only to add, that, under a full sense of my responsibility to my country and my
God, 1 deliberately gay. better disunion, better a civil or a servile war, better anything that
God, in his Providence, shall send, than an extension of- the bounds of slavery."

At a celebration of the 4th day of July, 1854, by citizens of Massa
chusetts, in which the Rev. (?) Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and
others, took the lead, the constitution of the United States was thrown
into a fire, built for that purpose, and burnt in derision of the Ameri
can Union.

Senator Wade, of Ohio, in a speech to a mass meeting of the Black
Republicans, held in the State of Maine in 1855, according to the
Boston Atlas, said :

"There was no freedom at the South for either white or black, and he would strive to pro
tect the free soil of the North from the same blighting curse. There was really no Union noio
between the North and the South, and he believed no two nations upon the earth entertained
feelings of more bitter rancor towards each other than these two sections of the republic. The
only salvation of the Union, therefore, ii-as to be found in divesting it entirely from all taint of
slavery. There was no Union with the South. Let us have a Union, said he, or let us sweep
aicay 'this remnant which we call a Union. I go for a Union where all men are equal, or for no
Union at all, and I go for right."

This speech was vociferously applauded by the constitution-union-
loving people of Maine.

These disunion sentiments, and the man who uttered them, were
endorsed by the Black Republican legislature of Ohio in 1856, by re-
electing him to the Senate of the United States. The Black Republi
cans of the great State of Ohio, therefore, respond faithfully to the
sentiment: u Let its sweep away this remnant which we call a Union."

This same party, at a convention held in Boston in 1855, adopted,
by a unanimous vote, the following resolutions:

" 15. Resolved, That a constitution which provides for a slave representation and a ."lave
oligarchy in Congress, *hich legalizes slave hunting and slave catching on every inch of
American soil, and which pledges the military and naval power of the country to keep four
millions of chatiel slaves in their chains, is to be trodden under foot and p onounced accursed,
however unexceptionable or valuable may be its other provisions.

" 16- Resolved, That the one great issue before the country is, the dissolution of the Union,
in comparison with which all other issues with the slave power are as dust in the balance ;
therefore, we will give ourselves to the work of annulling this ' covenant with death,' as essential
to our own innocency, and the speedy and everlasting overthrow of the slave system."

This same party " loves this Union ! " yet, at various meetings and
processions in Indiana, during the month of July, 1856, flags and trans
parencies were carried with but sixteen stars ; emblematic of a northern
confederacy of the sixteen free States. The same thing has recently
occurred in the State of Maine :

" Hannibal Hamlin, Lot M. Morril, and Charles W. Goddard, esq., of Danville, addressed
a Fremont meeting at Norway on Monday, standing under an American flag, on which were
only sixteen stars !

" The disunion flag, with sixteen stars only, still continues to float across the public highway
in this village an emblem of sectionalism, and a disgrace to the party who placed it there."
Norway Advertiser.

" The ' Portland State of Maine ' has hung out a Fremont and Dayton flag, on which are only
sixteen stars.

" A salute of sixteen guns was fired at Portland the day Hamlin was nominated fc r governor.

" Only sixteen States were represented in the convention which nominated Fremont and
Dayton.

" These are significant signs of the disunion tendencies and feelings of the Black Republicans.
They scarcely take any pains to disguise their hostility to the Union. Let tho^e who love their
country and desire to perpetuate the Union ponder these things, and then do their duty "

Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, in a speech delivered in Faneuil
Hall, Boston, on the 2d November, 1855, said:

"Not that I love the Union less, but freedom more, do I now, in pleading this great cause,
insist that freedom, AT ALL HAZARDS, shall be preserved. God forbid that for the sake of the
Union, we should sacrifice the very thing for which the Union was made."

Our glorious Union was formed to promote the prosperity and happi
ness of the white race, and as a condition of the Union, expressed in
the constitution, the rights of the slave States are recognised and guar
antied. Shall it be sacrificed to a false philanthropy, a wild and fa
natical sentimentality towards the black race? You respond " yes,"
when you, as sectional men, support John Charles Fremont.

Wade, Sumner, and their political associates, have long and openly
declared their disunion sentiments ; they have violated their constitu
tional obligations ; they have defamed our glorious constitution ; they

have traduced their country, and have plotted treason against our beloved
Union ; they are the leaders of the black cohorts of Black Republican
ism ; whilst plotting tieason, they are also plotting for the election of
Fremont ; and if successful in either, they will have accomplished their
great first design, the disunion of these States.

Wendell Phillips issued a pamphlet in 1850, reviewing Mr. Web
ster's speech " on the constitutional rights of the States," in which is
the following :

"We are disunionists, not from any love of separate confederacies, or as ignorant of the
thousand evils that spring from neighboring and quarrelsome States, but we would get rid of
this Union."

This man that uttered these delectable sentiments is a leading Black
Republican of Massachusetts and New England, and his shrieks are
loud and long for "free speech, FREE MEN, and Fremont."

The Black Republican-Know-nothing legislature of Massachusetts,
in 1855, passed an act denominated the personal liberty bill, nullifying
thereby an act of Congress, which, by the constitution, is a part of the
supreme law of the land.

This " personal liberty bill," as has been well said, " menaces with
disfranchisement any lawyer who appears for the claimant of the fugi
tive slave ; menaces with impeachment any judge who issues a warrant
or certificate, or holds even the office of commissioner under the federal
law ; and menaces with infamous punishment, any ministerial officer or
officer of militia who aids in its execution." And although Governor
Gaidner vetoed the bill because of its conflict with the constitution ol
the United States, yet this Black Republican and Know-nothing legis
lature passed it over the veto, and it became a law.

The legislature of Ohio, composed of the same material as the legis
lature of Massachusetts, at their session in 1856, passed laws nullifying
the same acts of Congress.

Judge Spaulding, one of the leaders in the Black Republican con
vention from Ohio, said:

" In the case of the alternative being presented of the continuance cf slavery or a dissolu
tion of the Union, 1 am for dissolution, and I care not how quick it comes."

John P. Hale addressed the convention as follows :

" You have assembled, not to say whether this Union shall be preserved, but to say whether
it shall be a blessing or a scorn and hissing among the nations."

Senator Wilsun, on the 12th of June, 1855, in the Philadelphia
Know-nothing convention, said:

" I am in favor of relieving the federal government from all connexion with, and responsi
bility for, the existence of slavery. To effect this objeci, I am in favor of the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia, and the prohibition of slavery in all the Territories."

Mr. Wilson, by abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia,
would perpetrate an act of bad faith, highly injurious to the peace and
quietness of the States of Virginia and Maryland, from whom the ces
sion was made to the general government. He would demand of a
Congress, composed ol members from all the States, to denounce and
abolish an institution recognised and protected by fifteen States of this
Union ; yet what cares he for the peace and harmony of the Union, or
the great wrong that he would inflict upon the South, so that his morbid
appetite should be gratified ? But the abolishment of slavery in the

District of Columbia, and the prohibition of slavery in the Territories,
Mr. Clay said, were " but so many masked batteries, concealing the
real and ultimate point of attack. That point of attack is the institu
tion of slavery as it exists in the States. Their purpose is abolition
universal abolition peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must."

Mr. Banks, the present Abolition-know-nothing Speaker of the House
of Representatives, and who declined the nomination of the New York
Know-nothing convention in favor of Mr. Fremont, said:

" I am not one of that class of men who cry for the perpetuation of the Union, though I
am willing, in a certain state of circumstances, to let it slide."

Mr. Josiah Quincy, of Boston, in a speech in August, 1854, said:

" The obligation incumbent upon the free States to deliver uo fugitive slaves is that burden,
and it must be obliterated from that constitution at every hazard."

General James Watson Webb, a Black Republican leader, said, in
the Philadelphia convention :

" Our people come together from all parts of the Union and ask us to give them a nomina
tion which, when fairly put before the people, will unite public sentiment, and, through the
ballot-box, will restrain and repel this pro-slavery extension and this aggression of the slave-
ocracy. What else are they doing? They tell you that they are willing to abide by the bal
lot-box, and willing to make that the last appfal. If we fail there, what then? WE WILL
DRIVE IT BACK, SWORD IN HANP, and, so help me God .' believing that to be rightj I am with them.'*
[Loud and prolonged applause.]

Let the ballot-box fail to elect Fremont, and the cartridge-box is
threatened against the American people. The idiosyncracies of the
Black Republican party must prevail, or the fire and sword must fol
low. They are truly a constitution Union-loving party.

Mr. Burlingame, in the House of Representatives, in 1856, said :

" The times demand, and we must have, an ANTI- SLAVERY CONSTITUTION, AN ANTI-SLAYERI
BIBLE, AND AN ANTI-SLAVERY GOD."

The following extract is from the " Boston Liberator," a paper now
warmly supporting Mr. Fremont :

"Justice and liberty, God and man, demand the dissolution of ihia slaveholdinff Union and
the formation of a NORTHERN CONFEDERACY, in which slaveholders shall stanl before the law
as/e/ons and be treated as pirates. God and humanity demand a ballot-box in which the
slaveholders shall never cast a ballot. In this, what State so prepared to lead as the Old
Bay State ? She has already made it a penal offence to help to execute a law of the Tfnion. I
want to see the officers of the State brought into collision with those of the Union.' 1

These benevolent and patriotic sentiments meet with a hearty re
sponse from the leaders of this Union- loving-Fremont party.

But of all the damnable sentiments that have ever met the public
gaze were those uttered by that prince of Black Republicans, WIL
LIAM LLOYD GARRISON, who, in a speech made in New York on the
1st day of August, 1855, spoke thus :

" The issue is this : God Almighty has made it impossible from the beginning for liberty
and slavery to mingle together, or a union to be founded between abolitionists and slavehold
ers between those who oppress and those who are oppressed. THIS UNION is A LIE ; THE
AMERICAN UNION is A SHAM, AN IMPOSTURE, A COVENANT WITH DEATH, AN AGREEMENT WITH

HELL, AND IT IS OUR BUSINESS TO CALL FOR A DISSOLUTION. L.ET THAT UNION BE ACCURSED
WHEREIN THREE MILLIONS AND A HALF OF SLAVES CAN BE DRIVEN TO UNREQUITED TOIL BY THEIR
MASTERS.

" I will continue to experiment no longer it is all madness. LET THE SLAVEHOLDIVG UNION

GO, AND SLAVERY WILL GO WITH THE UNION DOWN INTO THE DUST. If the church is agdinst dis-

union, and not on the side of the s'ave, then I pronounce it as of the devil.

" I SAY LET US CEASE STRIKING HANDS WITH THIEVES AND ADULTERERS, and give to the winds

the rallying cry, 'No UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS, SOCIALLY OR RELIGIOUSLY, AND UP WITH

THE FLAG OF DISUNION.' "

This party, with these leaders and this record, ask the Americau
people to vote for their candidate for the presidency, John C. Fremont.
Are you prepared to endorse the doctrine that, for our civil govern
ment, there is a " higher law" than the constitution? Are you pre
pared to say you owe no allegiance to that government which gives
you protection in your person and property? that you " are not a law-
abiding people ?" Can yo u find it in your hearts to utter that this
Union "is accursed," and that the great compact (.f your fathers is
"a covenant with hell?" If you can deliberately do all this, then, in
deed, are you a Black Republican, and you ought to cast your vote for
John C. Fremont. But truly might you ask, "Is thy servant a dog,
that he shall do this thing?"

For two years past the opponents of the Democratic party through
out the United States have waged a cruel and relentless war upon
foreigners and members of the Roman Catholic church. These classes
have been proscribed commercial rights and political equality have
been refused them their fitness to participate in the affairs of govern
ment has been denied. They have been driven from the ballot-boxes,
beaten and murdered in the streets, their homes sacked, their houses
burned, and their wives and children cruelly murdered. That was the
work of superstition, proscription, and bigotry. And whilst the rights
of man were thus being crushed, and human blood nude to flow,
Abolitionism and Know-nothingism were allies brothers in the field.
Against them was arrayed the National Democracy. True to its
mission, that party fought for the rights of man, and the freedom of
religion. It has defeated and scattered the oath-bound forces of Know-
nothingism. Democrats have fought the battle, and the foreigner is
made secure in his social and political rights and privileges; and,
strange to tell, the Abolitionists now ask him to turn against his friends.

His sympathies are invoked in behalf of the negro, and he is told that
the war which they had waged for two years against him has ceased.
Were not the legislatures of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire,
and Connecticut, in 1855, composed almost entirely of Abolition-Know-
nothings? Those legislatures passed laws to elevate, socially and po
litically, the negro, whilst they denied social or political equality to the
adopted citizen. They denied their State courts to a foreigner, who
should apply for naturalization ; they hampered their law with condi
tions, so as to prevent the adopted citizen from exercising the elective
franchise ; they elevated the negro, and degraded the naturalized citi
zen; they are of the leaders of Fremont, and still shout "Down with
the foreigners," "Up with the negroes," and "Americans must rule
America." They are still of the Abolition party, and still against the
Democracy; they hate the adopted citizen; they trample upon the
constitution; they accurse the Union, and sing paeans of praise and love
to the negro. Such is the Abolition-Know-nothing party of those States,
and such are the supporters of John C. Fremont for the Presidency.

David Kilgore, in the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1850, in
speaking of our adopted citizens, said :

" A man, then, who has no feeling in common with us, who never felt the pulse oflibarty
till he set foot upon our soil, such a man is to enjoy the opportunity and the right to vote

amongst us, whilst these rights are to be denied to the unfortunate black man, who has ten
times more intelligence, and who has lived in the State of Indiana from his birth." [See debates
in the Convention, vol. 1, p. 25.1] ^

And at the Black Republican State Convention in 1856, he said :

"NO NOMINATION SHOULD BE MADE WHICH WOULD TREAD UPON THE TOES OF THE KNOW-
NOTHINGS neither should a nomination be made which would tread upon the toes of the Free-
soi'ers even the nvst ultra anti-slavery man. *

He was opposed to foreigners. They should be permitted to come to this country to buy
lands here to till the soil, but they should be the horses, not the drivers. The Americans
would hold the lines the foreigners could draw the burdens. [This infamous sentiment was
applauded.] The foreigner should not be allowed to make our laws. He might live under
them and must obey them, but he should have no voice in the making of them."

This man is now the Know-nothing- Abolition candidate for Congress
in the fifth Congressional district in the State of Indiana, regularly nom
inated by what they termed a "Republican Convention," and if elected,
he is pledged to labor in Congress for the principles of his party the
elevation of the negro, and the degradation of the unfortunate victims
of European oppression, who have sought an asylum in free America.
To this work of self-debasement the foreigner himself is asked to e:ive his

C? *

influence and vote. Will he give his vote to such men, and prove to
them and the world that what his enemies have asserted is true that
he cannot appreciate a free government that he is unfit to be a freeman?
Let the adopted citizen ponder well before he casts his vole for his
enemies, lest they may hereafter point to this very act, as evidence of
a want of intelligence and capacity to vindicate the rights of a freeman.

On the 19th day of June, 1856, John C. Fremont was nominated for
the Presidency by a grand council of Know-nothings, in the city of New
York, representing all the Know-nothings of the northern and some of
the southern States. On the 30th day of June he accepted that nomi
nation, and in his letter of acceptance he speaks of it as an honor con
ferred upon him, and tenders his "grateful acknowledgment" to the
members of that council, and to " their respective constituencies," for
the " distinguished expression of their confidence" The constituencies
represented were the Know-nothing lodges and wigwams all over the
country, in which, for two years before, the destruction or degradation
of foreigners was planned and plotted in which companies of men
were armed, organized, and sworn to attack, beat, and murder the
foreign- born citizen. From them Fremont accepts the nomination as
an honor ; and if he accepts their services to secure his election, must
he not represent their sentiments, and give himself up to their work of
hatred and destruction?

On the day after Fremont received this Know-nothing nomination,
the New York Herald, a Fremont paper, marie the following announce
ment:

" The sudden change which has taken place in the sentiments of the convention in regard to
Mr. Fremont is y.Ur butable to the fact th^t that gentleman was waited on last night by a dele
gation from this party, with whom he had a long and earnest confabulation, extending into the
small hours of the morning; that he then and there declared himself unreserve Uy in favor of
the principles of the Know-nothing party, and would give them his entire and cordial adher
ence, and that he was perfectly convinced that if he did not receive the support of the American
party throughout the Union, he had not the slightest prospect of being elected."

When Senate bill No. 343, making temporary provision for working
the mines in California, was under consideration, Mr. Seward, of New

York, moved to extend to all persons "who shall have, in pursuance
oflaw, declared their intention to become citizens," the same benefits
and privileges conferred upon citizens of thlf United States relative to
working the gold mines. Mr. Fremont voted against the proposition,
(Sen. Jour., 1st ses. 31st Cong., p. 671.) The most bitter and prescriptive
Know-nothings have conceded that the foreigner might come to our land
and enjoy the profits of his labor, demanding only that he be socially and
politically degraded. But Mr. Fremont would go further : by his vote
in the Senate, he said, that among the thousands of adventurers in Cali
fornia the foreigner shall not mingle. Although he may hale declared
his intention to become a citizen of the United States, he shall not be
allowed the only profitable labor in California, but shall stand by until
his full term of five years shall have expired the mines in the mean
time being exhausted or wholly occupied. The labor was profitable,
and therefore he should be excluded from it. That principle, thus
supported by Mr. Fremont, goes further: it excludes the foreigner from
our rich lands, where his labor would secure him a rich return in plen
tiful harvests, and says to him, social and political inferiority shall be
your condition, and poor lands and unprofitable labor your portion in
this land of plenty. The Know-nothing council of New York could
well afford to nominate a man who has shown so unmistakably his
sympathy with that order in its hostility towards the foreigner.

James Buchanan, the candidate of the democracy, proscribes no
man because of his religion or birth-place, but, adopting the republican
sentiment that each man shall be judged by his own conduct, he has
supported wise, just, and equal laws ; his political career has been a
long and useful one ; he has been tried, and proved himself an incor
ruptible patriot, qualified for all the high positions which he has filled;
he is against sectionalism, and will maintain the Union the whole
Union upon the firm basis of the constitution ; and, to use his own
language, he " will cultivate peace and friendship with all nations, be
lieving this to be our highest policy, as well as our most imperative
duty." With James Buchanan as the candidate of the national de
mocracy, opposed to John C. Fremont, the nominee of the sectional
Know-nothing and Black Republican conventions, can we doubt a
glorious triumph for the Democracy and James Buchanan, of Penn
sylvania? *

The Black Republican party allege that the great excitement, now
prevailing to such an alarming extent throughout the country, has le
gitimately resulted from the repeal of the so-called Missouri compro
mise ; and, in their denunciation of the Kansas-Nebraska act, they ap
peal to the fathers for the justification of their action in resisting the
passage of the bill ; they invoke the names of Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison, and James Monroe, to prove that the prohibition of
slavery in the Territories by Congress was the settled doctrine of the
early fathers. They would deceive you in the opinions entertained
by those great statesmen, and would mislead you as to the cause of
the excitement which is now almost wrecking this fair fabric. We
quote from the fathers that they would invoke, to show that this excite
ment, properly and legitimately, is the consequence of the legislation

of 1820 ; that the prohibition of slavery in the territory north of 36
30' was the first fire-brand to disturb the peace of the Union ; that we
are now realizing the almost prophetic language of that great states
man, Thomas Jefferson, when he said he considered the Missouri
question " as the knell of the Union," and that " every new irritation
would mark it deeper and deeper." But let these great men speak
for themselves. In reference to sectionalism and the Missouri ques
tion, Jefferson said :

"The question is a mere party trick. The leaders of federalism, defeated in their schemes
of obtaining power by rallying partisans to the principle of monarchisrn a principle of per
sonal, not of local division have changed their tact and thrown out another barrel to the
whale. They are taking advantage of the virtuous feeling; of the people to effect a division
of parties by a geographical line ; they expect that this will insure them, on Itecal principles,
the majoiity they could never obtain on principles of federalism ; but they are still putting
their shoulders to the wrong wheel ; they are wasting jeremiads on the miseries of slavery as
if we u-ere advocates of it. Sincerity in their declamations should direct their efforts to the
true point of difficulty, an^ unite their councils with ours in devising some reasonable and practi
cable plan of getting rid of it." Jefferson's Writings, vol- 7.

In a letter to Mr. Adams, dated January 22, 1821, he says :

" Our anxieties in this quarter are all concentrated in the question, What does the holy alli
ance, in and out of Congress, mean to do with us on the Missouri question? And this, by
the way, is but the name of (he case; it is only the John Doe or Richard R.oe of the eject
ment. The real question, as seen in the States afflicted with this unfortunate population, is,
Are our slaves to be presented with freedom and a dagger? For, if Congress has the power
to regulate the conditions of the inhabitants o Ithe States within the States, it will be but
another exercise of that power to declare that all shall be free. Are we, then, to see again
Athenian and Lacaedemonian confederacies? To wage another Pelopponesian war to settle
the ascendency between them? Or is this the tocsin of merely a servile war? THAT REMAINS
TO BE SEEN ; BUT 1 HOPE NOT BY YOU OR ME. SURELY THEY WILL PARLEY A.WHILE
AND GIVE US TIME TO GET OUT OF THE WAY. What a bedlamite is man!"

In a letter to Lafayette, dated November 4, 1823, Mr. Jefferson said:

'" On the eclipse of federalism with us, although not its extinction, its leaders got up the
Missouri question, under the false front of lessening the measure of slavery, but with the
real view of producing a geographical division of parties, which might insure them the next
President. The people of the North went blind'old into the snare, and fo!lov r ed their lead
ers for a while with a zeal truly moral and laudable, until they became sensible that they were
injuring instead of aiding the real interests of the slaves ; that they had been used merely as
tools for electioneering purposes, and that trick of hypocrisy then fell as quickly as it had
been got up." y

In a letter to Mr. Short, dated April 13, 1S20, Mr. Jefferson says :

"Although I had laid down as a law to myself never to write, talk, or even think of polities,
to know nothing of public affairs, and had therefore ceased to read newspapers, yet the Missouri
question aroused and filled me with alarm. The o d schism of federal andrepublican threatened
nothing, because it existed in every State, and united them together by the fraternism of party.
But the coincidence of a marked principle, moral and political, with a geographical line, once*
conceived, 1 feared would never more be obliterated from the mind ; that it would be recurring
on every occasion, and renewing irrigations, until it would kindle such mutual and mortal ha
tred as to render separation preferable to eternal discord. I have been among the most san
guine in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, arid see
the event at no great distance, and the direct consequence of this question ; not by the line
which has been so confidently counted on the laws of nature control this but by the Poto
mac, Ohio, and Missouri, or more probably the Mississippi, upwards to our northern bound
ary. My only comfort and consolation is, that I shall not live to see it ; and I envy not the
present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers' sacrifices of life
and fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment which was to decide ultimately
whether man is capable of self-government. This treason against human hope will signalize
their epoch in future history as the counterpart of the model of their predecessors."

" I thank you, my dear sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter
to your constituents on the Missouri question. * * * But this momerTtous question, like a
fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at onre as the knell
of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment ; but this is a reprieve only, not a final
sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once

conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated ; and every new
irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. * * * If they .would but dispassionately weigh
the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract princtple, mors likely to be effected by
union that by scission; they would pause before they could perpetrate, this act of suicide on
themselves and of treason against the hopes of the world." Letter to Jno. Holmes, dated Mon-
ticello, April 22, 1820.

" I am indebted to you for your two letters of February 7th and 19th. This Missouri ques
tion, by a geographical line of division, is the most portentous one I ever contemplated. * *
* * is ready to risk the Union for any chance of restoring his party to power, and wriggling
himself to the head of it; nor is * * * * without his hopes, nor scrupulous as to the means
of fulfilling them." Letter to Mr. Madison.

"The banks, bankrupt, law, manufactures, Spanish treaty, are nothing. These are occur
rence? which, like waves in a storm, will pass under the ship ; but the MISSOURI QUESTION is a
breaker on which we lose the Missouri country by revolt, and what more, God only knows.
From ihe battle, of .Bunker's Hill to the treaty of Paris, we never had so ominous a question.
It even damps the j.iy with which I hear of your high health, and welcomes to me the want of
it. I thank God I shall not live to witness its issue "Letter to John Adams, December 10, 1819.

"The line of division lately marked out between different portions of our confederacy, is
such as will never, I fear, be obliterated)and we are now trusting to those who are against ua
in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of our youth.
If, as has been estima'ed, we send three -hundred thousand dollars a year to the northern sem
inaries, for the instruction of our own sons, 'then we must have five hundred of our sons im
bibing opinions and principles in discord with those of their own country. This canker is
eating on the vitals of our existence, and, if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy."
Letter to General Breckenridge, February 11, 1321.

" The Missouri question is the most portentous one which ever yet threatened our Union.
In the gloomiest moment of the revolutionary war, I never ha*t any apprehension equal to that
I felt from this source." Letter to Mr. Monroe, March 3, 1820.

Mr. Madison said:

" On one side it naturally occurs, that the right being given from the necessity of the case,
and in suspension of the great principle of self-government, ought not to be extended further,
nor continued longer, than the occasion ni'ght fairly require.

" The questions to be decided seem to b<, first, whether a territorial restriction be an as
sumption of illegitimate power; or, second, a misuse of legitimate power; and if the latter
only, when the injury threatened to the nation from an acquiescence in the misuse, or from a
frustration of it, be the greater.

" On the first point there is certainly room for difference of opinion ; though, for myself, I
must own that I have ilway* leaned to the belief the restriction was not within the true scope of
the constitution.'" Letter to Mr. Monroe in 1820.

" Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit to
gether as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of
the same family can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness can
no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. The kindred
blood which flows in the veins of American citizens the mingled blood which they have shed
in defence of their saered rights, consecrate their union, and excite horror at the idea of their
becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most
alarming of all novrlt : es the most wild of all projects the most rash of all attempts, is that
of rending us in pieces in order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness.'^

[The Federalist, p. 86.

" Should a state of parties arise, founded on geographical boundaries and other physical
distinctions which happen to coincide with them, what is to control those great repulsive
masses from awful shocks against each other?" Letter to Mr. Walsh, dated November 27, 1819.

General Harrison said :

" I am, and have been for many years, so much opposed to slavery, that I will never live
in. a State where it exists But I believe that the constitution has given no power to the gen
eral government to interfere in this matter, and that to have slaves or no slaves depends upon
the people in each Siate or Territory alone.

" But besides the constitutional objections, I am persuaded that the obvious tendency of such
interferences on the part of the States which have no slaves with the property of their fellow-
citizens of the others, is to produce a state of discord and jealousy that will in the end prove
fatal to the Union. I believe in no other State are such wild and dangerous sentiments enter
tained on this subject as in Ohio." General Harrison in a letter to President Monroe in 1821.

In reference to sectionalism, and ftie nullification of the acts of Con
gress, General Jackson said :

" The laws of the United Stales must be executed. * Those who told you that you

might peareably prevent their execution, deceived you; they c uld not have been deceived them
selves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws,
and they kr.ow that such opposiWon must be repelled. Their ol >ject is disunion ; but be not
deceived by names; disunion, by armed force, is TREASON." Message of General Jackson, in
1833, on Nullification.

" Appeals, too, are constantly made to sectional interests, in order to influence the election of
the Chief Magistrate, as if it were desired that he should favor a particular quarter of the coun
try, instead of fulfilling; the duties of his station with impartial justice to all ; and the possi
ble dissolution of ihe Union has at length become an ordinary and familiar subject of discus
sion. Has tde warning: voice of Washington been forgotten, or have designs already
been formed to dissolve the Union?" * * * * "Mutual suspicion and reproaches may
in time create mutual hostiliiy ; and artful and designing men will always be found who are
ready to foment these fatal divisions and inflame the natural jealousies of t ifferent sections of
the country. The history of the world is full of such examples, and especially the history of
republics."

"And no citizen who loves his country would, in any case whatever, resort to forcible re
sistance, unless he clearly saw that the time had r.ome when a freeman should prefer death to
submission." * * * * " Rest assured that men found busy in this work of discord are
not worthy of your confidence, arid deserve your strongest reprobation.

u In the legislation of Congress, also, and in every measure of the general government,
justice to every portion of the l nited states should be faithfully observed, fto free govern
ment can siand without virtue in the people and a lofty spirit of patriotism ; and if the sordid
feelings of me-e selfishness shall usurp the place which ought to be rilled by public spirit, the
legislation of Congress will soon be converted into a scramble for personal at d sectional ad
vantages. " Jackson.

" And solemnly proc'aim that the constitution and the laws are supreme, and the Union in
dissoluble." Jackson's Message, Jan 16, ibcJ3.

In relation to the very questions now agitating the country, the Sage
of Ashland said:

" Sir, I am not in the habit of speaking lightly of the possibility of dissolving th's happy
Union. The Senate know that I have deprecated allusions, on ordinary occasions, to ihat dire
ful event. The country will testify that, if there be anything in the history of rny public
career worthy of recollection, it is the truth and sincerity of my ardent devotion to its lasting*
preservation. But we should be false in our allegiance 10 it if we did not discriminate between
theimaginaiy and real dangers by which it may be assailed. Abolitionism should no longer
be regarded as an imaginary danger. The abolitionists, let me suppose, su<-cee'i in iheir pres
ent aim of uniting the inhabitants of the free Mates, as one man, against the inhabitants of the
slave States. Union on one side will beget union on the other, and this process of reciprocal
consolidation will be attended with all the violent prejudice, embittered passions, and implacable
animosities which ever degraded or deformed human nature. * * * One section will stand
in menacing and hostile array against the other. The collision of opinion will be quickly fol
lowed by ihe clash of arms. I will not attempt to describe ecrnes which now happily lie con
cealed from our view. Abolitionists themselves would shrink beck in dismay ar.d horror at
the contemplation of desolated fields, conflagrated cities, murdered inhabitants, and the over
throw of the fairest fabric of human government that ever rose to animate the hopes of civilized
man." Speech of Mr. Clay in the U. S. Senate on the 1th of February, 1839.

In the same speech Mr. Clay summed up what the abolitionists
wanted, as Ibllows :

" And"the third class are the real ultra abolitionists, who are resolved to persevere in the
pursuit of their object at all hazards. With this class the immediate abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia, the prohibition of the removal of slaves from State to State, and the
refusal to admit any new Mate comprising within its limits the institution of domestic slavery,
are but so many means conducing to- the accqmplishment of the ultimate but perilous end, at
which they Avowedly and boldly aim, are but so many short stages in the long and bloody
road to the distant goal at which they would finally arrive. Their purpose is abolition uni
versal abulition peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must,"

The Fremont party of 1856 has assumed a position identical with
the abolition party of 1839. How well the picture of abolitionism,
drawn by Mr. Clay in 1839, suits the Republican party of the present
day. They have but one common aim the dissolution of this Union.

Mr. Clay, in speaking of our Catholic citizens, said :

** With regard to their superstition, they worship the same God with us. Their prayers art
Offered up in their temples to the same Redeemer, whose intercession we expect to save us. NOR IS

14 *S , | |

THERE ANYTHING IN THE CATHOLIC RELIGION UNFAVORABLE TO FREE
DOM. All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All
separated from the government are compatible with liberty." Speech in Congress, March 24,
1818.

And in reference to our adopted citizens, he made use of the follow
ing language :

"The honest, patient, industrious GERMAN readily unites' ^ith our people, establishes him
self on some of our fat lands, fills his capacious barns, and enjoys in tranquillity the abundant
fruits which his diligence gathers around him, always ready to fly to the standard of his adopted
country, or of its laws, when called by duties of patriotism.

" The gay, the versatile, the philosophical FRENCHMAN, accommodating himself cheerfully to
all the vicissitudes of life, incorporates himself without difficulty in our society.

" But of all foreigners, none amalgamate themselves so quickly with .our people as the
NATIVES OF THE EMERALD ISLE. In some of the visions wh ch have passed through my im
agination, I have supposed that Ireland was originally patt and parcel of this continent, and
that by some extraordinary convulsion of nature it was torn from America, and, drifting across
the ocean, was placed in the unfortunate vicinity of Great Britain.

" The same open-hearted ness, the same generous hospitality, the same careless and uncal-
culatirtg indifference about human life, characterized the inhabitants of both countries. Ken
tucky has sometimes been called the Ireland of America. And I have no doubt that if the
current of emigration were reversed, and set from America upon the shores of Europe, every
American emigrant to Ireland would there find, as ev^ry Irish emigrant here finds, a hearty
welcome, and a happy home." Speech in the United States Senate in defence of the American
System.

The democracy now stand where Jefferson and Madison stood; they
have restored our territorial policy as it existed prior to that violent
and unconstitutional departure in 18^0. The exigencies demanded,
and the democracy, true to the rights of man and the equality of the
States, gave the country the compromise measures of 1850. These
were endorsed by the Baltimore convention, ratified by the people in
1852 by the election of Franklin Pierce, reaffirmed by the democracy
in the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854, re-endorsed by the Cincinnati
convention, and will stand confirmed by the American people in 1856
by the election of James Buchanan to the presidency.

This vindication of the right of the people to form their own domestic
institutions is a vindication of the instructions given by the colonies to
their delegates to form a confederation a vindication of the spirit and
letter of the immortal Declaration of Independence a vindication of
our glorious constitution, and a vindication f the inalienable rights of
an American citizen.

Our opponents have been uniform in their hatred and denunciation
of the Democratic party; they opposed the election of Jefferson, of
Madison, and of Jackson; they repudiated the Louisiana purchase ;
they denounced the war of 1812, and burnt ^blue-lights in their win
dows to light the enemys' ships into our harbors; they endeavored to
defeat the purchase of the Floridas and the annexation of Texas, and
would have welcomed our brave soldiers in Mexico " with bloody
hands to hospitable graves;" they forced upon the people the restric
tion oi 1850 by refusing to admit Missouri into the Union, and repu
diated it in 1848 by opposing its extension to the Pacific. The legiti-
mate consequence of such repudiation was the compromise of 1850,
the passage of which they resisted by every parliamentary expedient,
and by every appeal to a false and fanatical philanthropy. They coun
selled revolution on the floor of Congress, in resistance to the passage
of the Kansas-Nebraska act, because it carried out the great principles

embodied in the compromise of 1850. They would subvert, through
emigrant aid societies and other appliances, the practical development
ot non-intervention by Congress, and the right of the people to govern
themselves ; they would counsel the incendiary torch and the assas
sin's knife against the most sacred rights of American freemen in the
Territory of Kansas ; they have a deep and profound hatred against,
and denounce in unmeasured terms, the doctrine that the bona fide resi
dents of Kansas should adjtist their domestic affairs in their own way;
they have sought foreign aid, and have carried foreign assistance into
the Territory of Kansas for the express purpose of interfering in the do
mestic policy of the people of that Territory; they are the authors and
instigators ot, and before God and man are responsible for, all the out
rages, the arsons, and the murders in Kansas.

The democrac} r , true to the great doctrine of the early fathers, true
to the rights of the States, the constitution, the Union, and ever watch
ful of the peace, happiness, and prosperity of a free people, have
sought, by wise and pacific legislation, to rescue the people of Kansas
from the anarchy, the rapine, and murder brought upon them by the
Black Republican party.

The democratic Senate, on the 3d of July, 1856, after a continuous
session of twenty-one hours, passed, and sent to the Black Republican
House, a great pacific rheasure, declaring null and void those acts of
the Kansas Legislature repugnant to the bill of rights as embodied in
our great charter of liberty a measure which secures the freedom of
speech, the freedom of the press, and the writ of habeas corpus pro
hibits religious tests for office, or an established religion protects the
rights of conscience, the persons and property of the people, and their
right to hold and bear arms forbids excessive bail, excessive fines,
and cruel and unusual punishments declares that no test-oath, or
oath to support any act T)f Congress or other legislative act, shall be
required as a qualification for any office or trust, or for any employ
ment or profession, or to serve as a juror, or to vote at an election
and that no tax shall be imposed upon the exercise of the right of suf
frage, and guarantees to the people the free discussion of any law or
subject of legislation, and in a free expression of opinion upon all ques
tions whatever provides for the appointment of five commissioners
to arrange the preliminaries and superintend the election ; for the regis
tration of voters, and all other needful regulations necessary to a fair
and impartial expression at the ballot-box of the bona fide residents of
Kansas ; and pledges the entire military force of the government to a
pure and untrammelled ballot-box. If any resident shall have left the
Territory, he is protected in his rights, provided he shall return by the
1st day of October, 1856. If any person is imprisoned for a violation
of the obnoxious laws of Kansas, his prison-doors are opened, and he
is restored to all his rights. But it also provides that the people, the
bona fide residents of Kansas, shall regulate and form their domestic
institutions in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the
United States ; and they shall be admitted into the Union on a footing
with the original States whenever they shall present a constitution with
a republican form of government. Every Black Republican senator re-

sisted the bill at its Various stages, and voted against it on its passage.
Let it be proclaimed to the people, let it be known in every town and
hamlet, that the democracy have given a fair and honest bill one that
will restore peace to a distracted country, correct the outrages and
murders in ac unhappy Territory, vindicate the majesty of the law,
and protect the American citizen in an inalienable right that the de
mocracy have given such a bill to the Black Republican House of Rep
resentatives for their action. If they desire tranquillity in the States,
peace and happiness to Kansas, and a correction of the violent abuses
and outrages committed, they will immediately pass the Senate bill;
but if outrage upon outrage and blood upon blood is necessary to the
accomplishment of their political ends, necessary to the election of John
C. Fremont, then will they refuse to psss the bill or to give repose to
Kansas.