A TKIBUTE 
 
 TO 
 
 3 THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 / * 
 
 DAVIDC.RRODERICK: 
 
 I 
 
 BY WALTER G. SHERWIN, 
 
 OF THE CINCINNATI BAR. 
 
 
 There is Romance in Reality, and Reality in Romance. 
 
 " Slavery is old, decrepit, and consumptive; Freedom is young, and 
 strong, and vigorous." 
 
 Broderick's Speech, March 22d, 1853. 
 
 "THEY HAVE KILLED ME BECAUSE I WAS OPPOSED TO THE EXTENSION OF 
 SLAVERY AND A CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION." 
 
 Spoken after the Duel, Sept. 13th, 1859. 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 
 GAZETTE COMPANY STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. 
 I860. 
 
THIS TRIBUTE was written on account of the sincere regard 
 the Author felt for the heroism and manly worth of the 
 departed Senator; and is published in obedience to the 
 earnest solicitations of many friends. It is dedicated to the 
 Citizens of the Republic. W. G. S . 
 
 CINCINNATI, June, 1860. 
 
 Entered according to the Act of Congress, on the 15th day of June, 1860, 
 in the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. 
 
 Address the Author, 
 
 Box 525, 
 
 CINCINNATI, OHIO. 
 
A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 DAVID C. BRODERICK 
 
 It was winter in the Capital City of the new Republic. 
 The afternoon sun shone dimly. Frosty pictures, in mimic 
 silver, were painted on the window panes. Snow carpeted 
 the streets, and cushioned the pavements, and lay in silence 
 upon the roofs, like the hovering wing of the protecting 
 angel. The year 1819 was drawing to a close. The biting- 
 cold air of December, from the far North- West, was passing 
 by on its journey to the sea. Congress was in session in 
 those Halls that were held to be sacred to liberty. The 
 fathers of the Republic were fast passing away, but their 
 immediate sons had met to legislate for the weal of the nation. 
 James Monroe was then President ; Daniel D. Tompkins was 
 President of the Senate, and Henry Clay was Speaker of the 
 Lower House. 
 
 A question arose for their deliberation a question of por- 
 tentous moment, which called for great ability which wrought 
 up, intensely, the earnestness of the members, and filled the 
 galleries with anxious listeners. That question had been 
 introduced near the close of the last session. It was this : 
 " Shall any more slave States be admitted into this Union ? " 
 
 Jonathan Roberts was there, holding in his hand a set of 
 resolutions passed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, 
 against the admission of more slave States. Here is a part 
 
of the preamble, and one of the resolutions, which deserve 
 to be immortal in history : 
 
 "A measure was ardently supported in the last Congress of the United 
 States, and will probably be as earnestly urged during the existing session 
 of that body, which has a palpable tendency to impair the political relations 
 of the several States ; which is calculated to mar the social happiness of 
 the present and future generations ; which, if adopted, would impede the 
 march of humanity and freedom through the world, and would affix and 
 perpetuate an odious stain upon the present race ; a measure, in brief, 
 ivhich proposes to spread tJie crimes and cruelties of slavery from the banks of 
 tlie Mississippi to tlie sJiores of the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 " When measures of this kind are seriously advocated in the Rebublican 
 Congress of America, in the nineteenth century, the several States are 
 invoked, by the duty which they owe to the Diety, by the veneration which 
 they entertain for the memory of the Founders of the Republic, and by a 
 tender regard for posterity, to protest against its adoption ; to refuse to cove- 
 nant with crime ; and to limit the range of an evil that already hangs in 
 awful boding over so large a portion of the Union ; Therefore, 
 
 " JResolved, That the Senators and Representatives of this State in the 
 Congress of the United States, be and they are hereby requested to vote 
 against the admission of any Territory as a State in the Union, unless the 
 
 FURTHER INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY OR INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE except 
 
 for punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
 victed, SHALL BE PROHIBITED; and all children born within the said 
 Territory, after the admission into the Union as a State, SHALL BE FREE ; 
 but may be held to service until the age of twenty-five years. " 
 
 Thus spoke the voice of Pennsylvania on the floor of the 
 United States Senate, in 1819. It was a proud day for that 
 rising nation of miners and hardy mountaineers. 
 
 Nathan Sanford and Rufus King, of New York, were 
 there to assist in transforming the spirit of those Pennsyl- 
 vania resolutions into the law of the land. Prentiss Mellen 
 was there to cast the eloquence and vote of Massachusetts 
 against the further extension of slavery. James J. Wilson, 
 of New Jersey, and Benjamin Ruggles, of Ohio, were there, 
 and many other great and honorable men, who were proud 
 to raise their voices in favor of " limiting the range of the 
 evil. " Several other States had sent in similar preambles 
 and similar resolutions. In the Lower House there were 
 James Strong, and John W. Taylor, and Henry E. Storris, 
 
and others, of New York, their souls all full of honest oppo- 
 sition to slavery extension. There were John Sergeant and 
 Joseph Hemphill, of Pennsylvania, together with John Holmes 
 and Ezekiel Whitman, from Massachusetts, and Samuel Foot, 
 of Connecticut, and many more with similar views. 
 
 But let us leave the Halls of Congress to notice another 
 event which was then transpiring : 
 
 Half a mile from the Capital, and near the waters of the 
 Potomac, in a plain, one-story house, a child was just then 
 born. A child of obscure parentage ; the heir of poverty ; 
 the son of a stone-cutter ; the fore-doomed companion of 
 toil. His father a plain, rough, but thoughtful man, with 
 the leather apron, the chisel and the mallet was a model of 
 industry, hardy, active and honest. Finding that it was too 
 cold to cut stone that day, he had gone a while to the galleries 
 of the Halls of Congress, and then returned to welcome his 
 new-born boy. 
 
 The mother was a lady of more than usual intelligence, 
 amiable and active. The birth of the boy was an event of 
 small importance, but it was the beginning of a bright career. 
 Let us trace it. When the fleeting winter of Washington 
 had passed away, and the opening buds of the returned spring 
 were nodding in the sun, the plain stone-cutter went again to 
 the Halls of Congress, to hear again the "Debates on Slavery 
 Extension," and bore the new-born boy in his arms. I see 
 them now : the honest, hardy father, the intelligent mother, 
 and the boy. They are seated in the gallery of the Lower 
 House, now crowded more densely than ever. 
 
 Mr. King, of New Jersey, has the floor, and these are the 
 first words that fall upon the ear : 
 
 jjt * * "We have arrived at an awful period in, the 
 history of our empire, when it behooves every member of 
 this House now to pause and consider, that on the next step 
 we take, depends the fate of unborn millions. Now, sir, it 
 is to be tested, whether this grand and hitherto successful 
 
experiment of free governments is to continue, or break 
 asunder on a dispute concerning the division of territory." * * 
 
 Mr. Stevens, of Connecticut, followed, and spoke of the 
 sectional hatred, and danger of dissolution, that had grown 
 out of this question of Slavery Extension. Here is one 
 remark : 
 
 * * # n j (j on 't pretend to say that in just five calender 
 months your Union will be at an end ; your Constitution de- 
 stroyed ; your proud trophies, won in the most gallant combat, 
 profaned ; and the glories of half a century gained by 
 yourselves and your departed friends made the sport of an 
 envying world. But I do say, that the result of a failure to 
 compromise at this time, would be to create ruthless hatred 
 and irradicable jealousy. " * * * * 
 
 Mr. Mercer, of Virginia, followed with great earnestness. 
 
 And then the vote was taken on the motion to strike out 
 the clause which prohibited the extension of slavery. It was 
 carried by a MAJORITY OF THREE ! Ninety in favor of striking 
 it out, and eighty-seven opposed! The whole bill prohibitory 
 clause and all had actually PASSED in the Lower House 
 during the previous week ; but when the Senate refused to 
 concur, a Compromise was the only alternative by which to 
 escape the threatened dissolution. So that the vote above 
 mentioned, was to strike out a clause that had ALREADY 
 PASSED, for the sake of modifying it so as to secure the con- 
 currence of the Senate ! And even then, with the positive 
 refusal of the Senate, and the threatened and almost certain 
 dissolution of the Union before them, (more certain then than 
 it can be now,) the bold patriots of that day lost the prohibi- 
 tory clause only by THREE MAJORITY ! 
 
 A similar clause, prohibiting the extension of slavey, was 
 lost in the Senate, two days before, by only TWO MAJORITY ! 
 There were twenty-one in favor of the clause, and twenty- 
 three against it ! Thus the advocates of slavery extension 
 succeeded by threatening Disunion and War. And the grand 
 sum of their majorities, in both Houses, was TWO VOTES M 
 
THREE VOTES == FIVE VOTES ! ! And this in the spring of 
 1820 just forty years ago ! 
 
 How tender the tie that bound the Union then ! How 
 evenly the balances were poised ! In one scale was placed 
 the extension of slavery, union and peace, and in the other, 
 limitation of slavery, and probable disunion and war. The 
 former balance weighed the heaviest by only FIVE VOTES. 
 Both Houses together stood thus : 
 
 For extension, union and peace - - 113 
 
 For limitation, (disunion and war) - 108 
 
 And this only after it was found to be IMPOSSIBLE to pass 
 the latter ticket in the Senate. Before the Compromise was 
 talked of, there was, in the Lower House, a clear majority of 
 THREE for LIMITATION ! And the united Houses stood thus : 
 
 For extension, union and peace - 110 
 
 For limitation, (disunion and war) - - 111 
 
 The conflict was irrepressible forty-five years ago ; it has 
 been irrepressible ever since. 
 
 The stone-cutter and his bride, filled with sorrow and with 
 gloom, on account of the unfortunate termination of the 
 struggle for ^ the supremacy of liberty, turned away, and 
 sought their plain, quiet house, on the bank of the Potomac. 
 
 Time rolls on ; and the father is carving stones which are 
 placed in the new wings of the Capitol. The babe becomes 
 the playful boy. Do you not see him yonder, throwing 
 pebbles into the Potomac ? Do you not see his tangled, 
 flaxen hair, and his deep blue eye ? How gracefully the 
 pebbles curve, and how far they go ! Stout boy the son of 
 a man who chisels stone. Now he wades in the edge of the 
 water the water of the Potomac, sacred to the memory of 
 Washington ! Now he tries to swim in the bayou of the 
 stream, and the elder boys show him how. Now he climbs 
 over the stones where his father is at work. And now he 
 wanders far along the stream, beyond the confines of the 
 city. He picks the laughing flowers, and brings them to his 
 
8 
 
 mother with a bounding step. The devoted mother returns 
 his hearty laughter, kisses his happy lips, smells and admires 
 his bunch of Potomac flowers, and talks to him of liberty. 
 
 " How happy they who are free to wander where they will ! 
 How happy they, of the bounding footstep, who fear no 
 master! who are free to gather flowers on the sunny banks, 
 and bring them to their mother ! All boys are not so free, 
 my son, all boys are not so free ! Some as white as you 
 are slaves, and dare not call their life their own ! The 
 great men of the nation, in yonder Capitol, were debating 
 about slavery on the day that you were born. And when 
 you were scarcely three months old, they voted to put slavery 
 into another new State ! The contest was close : the speeches 
 on both sides were earnest and eloquent ; but slavery was a 
 little the strongest. Your father and I were there ; and you 
 were there in your father's arms ! It was the first debate 
 that ever fell upon your ear ; the first vote in Congress you 
 ever witnessed. You were too young to understand it, my 
 son, but your father and I thought, how sorry we would be, 
 if ever our darling David should vote for extending slavery 
 into the free countries of the West !" 
 
 Little David looked earnestly at his flowers a moment, and 
 then at his mother, and said : "Mother, I don't want them to 
 extend slavery into any more new States." 
 
 The truly noble mother kissed -her boy again and again, 
 with transports of delight ! She had moulded his little heart 
 to the love of liberty ! A thrill of joy lit up her face, and 
 quickened the beating of her heart ! A tear was on her 
 handsome cheek a tear of joy, a tear of triumph, a tear of 
 accomplished hope when she went into another room, and 
 left young David with his flowers. He was a little more than 
 five years old, bright as the silvery waters, gay as the flowers 
 he had gathered, happy as the birds that sung in the bower, 
 and as free as they! 
 
 Soon the parents removed to New York, at the mouth of 
 the Hudson, on the margin (3f r the-sea. Here little David 
 
9 
 
 went to school. He became the pride of his playmates, and 
 the pride of his parents, as time rolled away. Another boy 
 was born the image of himself. The brothers played on the 
 banks of the Hudson, and ripped its waves with their little 
 skiff. They loved the water, and were proud of the dripping 
 oars ? Suddenly the father died, and the boys inherited the 
 mallets and the chisels. But little other property was left. 
 The widow and the two orphans had to maintain themselves. 
 They were poor ; poor laborers, poor stone-cutters, in the 
 crowded city of New York. But they were not ashamed of 
 poverty, nor ashamed of labor, nor ashamed of obscurity, for 
 it was the greater part of their inheritance. 
 
 David was bound out to a stone-cutter, a friend of his 
 father. For five years he toiled to learn the laborious trade 
 the trade of his departed father. Five years among the 
 mallets, the chisels and the stones ! Five years with the 
 leather apron on ! His evenings were spent in reading Poetry 
 and Eloquence ; and books of Practical Science were by no 
 means unfamiliar. He was active, and energetic, and reso- 
 lute, and manly. His ambition was of the loftier kind, that 
 wishes to deserve all it obtains ; and his pride was the pride 
 which accompanies him only, who is conscious of his power. 
 Selfishness and vanity had no part in his composition. The 
 mother also died ; died poor, died happy ; saying, with her 
 latest accents : "Farewell, David ; be true to the principles 
 that your parents have taught you." 
 
 He joined Fire Company No. 36, and became its Engineer. 
 He was the pride of the Company, bold, intelligent and daring. 
 The Ninth Ward honored him and loved him as it can honor and 
 love only its dearest friend. By-and-by, the brother died also, 
 in the bloom of his youth and beauty, leaving only the recollec- 
 tion of a noble heart, and his share in the skiff and the dripping 
 oars. And now David is alone in the world the last of his 
 race ! No father, no mother, no brother, no sister, no wife, 
 no children, no kindred in all the wide world! No relatives 
 to welcome his coming footsteps ! No kindred to weep at his 
 misfortune, or rejoice at his success ! He has nothing to live 
 
10 
 
 for now but Truth, and Intelligence, and Liberty. He medi- 
 tates, while he rides in the old skiff on the silvery Hudson, 
 dipping and pulling the treasured oars. 
 
 They tell us he sometimes mingled in rough company. So 
 he did. He moved among the firemen, and the mechanics, 
 and the laborers, and the politicians of New York. He 
 moved in that company because there was among them less 
 ostentation, less mock-dignity, less cold selfishness, less of 
 that barren family pride, which too often follows, like a 
 prowling demon, the pathway of the wealthy, intelligent, and 
 otherwise noble aristocracy. But Broderick's nature did not 
 absorb the vices of his company, did not adopt them. If he 
 did not condemn them by his conduct, he at least refused to 
 imitate them, and scorned to encourage them. His presence 
 among his associates, with his manly demeanor and affable 
 manners, often prevented an.d repressed coarseness and vul- 
 garity. They learned of him, not he of them. Would you 
 have the man of talent and ability shun the cottage of the 
 peasant, and the workshop of the mechanic, and refuse to 
 extend the hand of brotherly friendship and encouragement 
 to the honest, faithful, but neglected laboring man ? If you 
 would, you are no friend of the human race, and your heart 
 is a stranger to real democracy. Go among the unfortunate 
 and the neglected, and the lowly. Let your light shine 
 among them as Broderick did. Respect always your fellow- 
 inen. Honor them when they are right, instruct them when 
 they are wrong. Restrain them when they are fanatical, 
 and encourage them when they despond. This Broderick 
 did, and did it out of the spontaneous promptings of a noble 
 heart. 
 
 He reaches the age of manhood. The flaxen locks have 
 changed to a glossy chestnut brown, and 'his happy face is 
 saddened by the shade of loneliness and care. He plunged 
 deeper into Literature ; becomes more and more devoted to 
 Science, and studies, with diligence, the art of Legislation. 
 Among his associates he becomes a star of intelligence, and 
 a star of unusual brilliancy, but he shines alone. No rela- 
 
11 
 
 tives hail him as the genius of their name. At twenty-seven 
 years of age, he becomes a candidate for Congress. He goes 
 into the contest with his armor on, but he goes alone. No 
 blood-bound champions to advocate his cause, no friendly 
 tongue to defend his honor. Like some fabulous warrior in 
 the legends of mythology, he battled with them single-handed. 
 But he belongs to the Democratic party, in a Democratic 
 city, and that alone should insure his success. But no ! He 
 is too true to the sentiment he gave his mother twenty-two 
 years ago, when he held in his hand the bunch of Potomac 
 flowers ! Too true to the dying request of his mother! His 
 speeches have too much independence and too much liberty 
 in them ! And they are filled with too much Truth and teem 
 with too much Intelligence ! He is beaten in a district where 
 his own party has the majority ! What is the reason ? The 
 reason is because while his party is drifting away from its 
 ancient landmarks, and fast becoming a Slavery Extending 
 Party, he remains a bulwark of Liberty. He stands where 
 Nathan Sanford, and Rufus King, and Jonathan Roberts, and 
 Prentiss Mellen, and James J. Wilson, and Benjamin Ruggles, 
 and James Strong, and John W. Taylor, and Henry R. Storris ? 
 and many other great and noble patriots stood, on the day 
 that he was born ! He is beaten, because he is too good a 
 patriot, and too ivise a man, for the wandering Democratic 
 party to hold fellowship with ! While the Mexican War is in 
 progress, and the Democratic party makes new, and desperate 
 and successful efforts to extend the dominion of slavery, the 
 defeated candidate, in retirement, plunges deeper into liter- 
 ature and learning, poetry and eloquence. 
 
 While thus engaged, gold is discovered in California. A 
 tide of emigrants begins to pour over the plains of the West, 
 and to drift around Cape Horn. All eyes are turned to 
 California ! The Eldorado of the West the virgin soil that 
 power and tyranny have never stained ; a romantic wilder- 
 ness, pure, unsullied and sweet as it could have been on 
 
creation's morn ! Thither goes the tide ! Some go for gold, 
 some for romance, some for passtime, and some with the 
 patriotic object of helping to mould the institutions of the 
 newly-settled wilderness. David C. Broderick leaves the 
 home of his youth, and goes with the tide. Do you not see 
 him yonder on the billow, floating around Cape Horn ? 
 Farewell, New York ! one of the proudest names that ever 
 adorned your annals, is leaving you forever ! He floats 
 away, over nine thousand miles of ocean, and lands in the 
 virgin wilderness, on the coast of the Pacific. The country 
 is too new to warrant the establishment of any government. 
 So the orphan son of the stone-cutter, the artizan, the scholar 
 and the politician, at the age of thirty-one years, turns his 
 attention to smelting gold. The yellow sands yield up to 
 him their stores of shining metal, as books and meditation 
 have yielded their treasures of thought. He builds a house 
 in San Francisco, collects a library of books, and seems to 
 feel at home. -.When a government is formed, he is elected 
 to the Legislature. His sentiments differing from the 
 majority of his party are always for Liberty. His influence 
 is felt. His voice is heard with respect. He is foremost in 
 the counsels of the Golden State. The Legislature assemble 
 to elect a man to represent them in the Senate of the United 
 States, and the son of the stone-cutter is a candidate ! He 
 is thirty-four years of age, and he has not forgotten the 
 dying wish of his mother. He is defeated again, and chiefly 
 by the influence of his own party leaders, who hate him, 
 because he will not be corrupt ! 
 
 He is a careful business man, and always promptly on the 
 spot at the appointed hour. His Legislative duties and his 
 own private affairs absorb his attention, while two more 
 years roll on. His nights are spent in pouring over volumes 
 of poetry and literature, and in making himself master of 
 legislation. This mental toil wears on his strength. His 
 cheeks grow paler, and his eyes grow brighter. Where now 
 is the skiff and the dripping oars ? They are away on the 
 shores of the rising sun. He sometimes feels the force of 
 
13 
 
 his lonely condition. He sometimes gives way to despond- 
 ency. And how can he help feeling it ? How can he avoid 
 giving way, when he knows and feels himself in the wide 
 world alone ? He is a stranger in a land of strangers. His 
 kindred are in their graves. The blood of the Broderick 
 family flows in no veins but his. He is alone alone ALONE ! 
 He has no fortune save his Integrity, his Talent, his Industry, 
 his Enterprise, and his Economy, and the little property these 
 qualities have won for him in the valleys of the rugged West. 
 
 Again he is a candidate for the United States Senate. This 
 time he is elected ! He is a Senator at thirty-seven years 
 of age ! There w T as a lull a very brief, one in the tem- 
 pestuous activity of the corrupt party in power, and that lull 
 allowed an honest man to take his place among them ! A 
 proud day for him, and a prouder day for the nation ! With 
 his credentials in his pocket, he embarks once more upon the 
 blue-waved sea. Welcome the returning hero ! Welcome 
 the bold Pioneer ! Along the briny Pacific, over the 
 Isthmus and across the Gulf, he hastens away toward the 
 land of his boyhood and the city of his birth. 
 
 He takes rooms next door to the Kirkwood House on 
 Pennsylvania Avenue. When not engaged in Legislation 
 you will find him there, for he mingles little in society. 
 What has he the last of his race to do with the gaities and 
 frivolities of Washington ? But his rooms are the resort of 
 many distinguished men. He receives them kindly, and they 
 are all proud to know him, and to take his hand in friendship. 
 He goes to the Senate, and his presence is an era in that 
 aristocratic chamber. The corruption of the "jobbers and 
 land-sharks " who are preying on the treasury and public 
 lands of the West, are by him exposed. Dishonesty and 
 chicanery tremble at his coming. Bribery and knavery fear 
 the glance of his dark blue eye, for he is a vigilant, active 
 and powerful opponent. Honest and noble men soon avow 
 their friendship for him, and skulking knaves soon learn to 
 tremble in his presence. For two years he sits a Senator. 
 For two years he deals out heavy blows against usurpation 
 
14 
 
 and trickery, and exposes the fell schemes of demagogues.- 
 For two years he opposes every attempt to fasten slavery on 
 the Territories scorning alike the Administration and its 
 pliable and hypocritical abettors ; self-styled Democrats, once 
 honest, perhaps, and faithful, but now tyrants and tyrants' 
 tools, in the Lecompton perfidy and its treacherous substitute, 
 the English swindle. For two years he re-echoes the senti- 
 ments in regard to the freedom of the West, and revives the 
 true principles of progress, as they had been first expounded 
 in those same halls, in the days of James Monroe. The 
 childish but noble wish he made when he brought to his 
 mother the little bunch of Potomac flowers, he now advocates 
 with manly eloquence ! 
 
 On the 22d day of March, 1858, when Bayard, and D.ouglas, 
 and Toombs, and Davis, and Pugh, were giving their opinions 
 to the world on the subject of extending slavery, the voice 
 of Broderick, still true to liberty, as the needle to the polar 
 star ; true to the last wish of his mother, true to the highest 
 interests of humanity, and free to proclaim, frankly, the 
 native promptings of his heart, was the most eloquent among 
 them all. A brief extract will show the manner in which 
 the mechanic the son of the Washington stone-cutter, the 
 lone orphan boy cf New York replied to the proud minions 
 of aristocratic power : 
 
 * * * >;<= j n t h e p a g sa g e O f that (Kansas-Nebraska) 
 bill, the people of the North felt that a great wrong had been 
 committed against their rights. This was a mistaken view. 
 The people of the North should have rejoiced and applauded 
 the Senator from Illinois, for having accepted Mr. Dixon's 
 amendment. The South should have mourned, the removal of 
 that barrier, the removal of which will let in upon her feeble 
 and decaying institutions, MILLIONS OF FREE LABORERS. In 
 the passage of that bill, the rampart that protected slavery in 
 the Southern Territories, WAS BROKEN DOWN. Northern 
 opinions, Northern ideas, and Northern institutions, were 
 invited to the contest for the possession of those Territories. 
 
15 
 
 How foolish for the South to hope to contend, with success, 
 in such an encounter ! SLAVERY is OLD, DECREPIT AND CON- 
 SUMPTIVE ; FREEDOM IS YOUNG, AND STRONG AND VIGOROUS. 
 
 The one is naturally STATIONERY, AND LOVES EASE ; the other 
 is MIGRATORY AND ENTERPRISING. There are six millions of 
 people interested in the extension of slavery ; and there are 
 twenty millions of freemen to contend for those Territories, 
 out of which to carve themselves homes where labor is 
 honored." 
 
 Bold words ! against the majority of his own party ! Mr. 
 Hammond had said : 
 
 " In all social systems, there must be a class to do the 
 menial duties, to perform the drudgeries of life. That is, a 
 class requiring but a low order of intellect, and but little skill. 
 Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you 
 must have, or you would not have that other class, which 
 leads progress, civilization and refinement. * * * It 
 constitutes the very mud-sills of society and political govern- 
 ment, and you might as well attempt to build a house in the 
 air, as to build either the one or the other, except on these 
 mud-sills. We use them for our purpose, and call them 
 slaves. * * * I will not characterize that class at the 
 North by that term; but you have it; it is there; it is 
 everywhere ; it is eternal. * * * Our slaves are Hack 
 of another and inferior race. # '* * Yours are wJiite 
 of your own race. You are brothers of one blood. Our 
 slaves do not vote ; we give them no political power. Yours 
 do vote, and being in the majority, they are the depositories 
 of all your political power." 
 
 "Sir," said Broderick, "I am glad the Senator has spoken 
 thus. It may have the effect of arousing, in the workingmen, 
 that spirit which has been lying dormant for centuries. It 
 may also have 'the effect of arousing the two hundred thousand 
 men, with pure skins, in South Carolina, who are now degraded 
 and despised by thirty thousand aristocratic slaveholders. * 
 * * I am, sir, with one exception, the youngest in years, 
 of the Senators upon this floor. It is not long since I served 
 
16 
 
 an apprenticeship of five years, at one of the most laborious 
 mechanical trades pursued by man a trade that, from its 
 nature, devotes its followers to thought, but debars him from 
 conversation. I would not have alluded to this, if it were 
 not for the remarks of the Senator of South Carolina, and the 
 thousands who know that I am the son of an artizan, and 
 have been a mechanic, would feel disappointed in me if I did 
 not reply to him. * * * The class of society to whose 
 toil I was born, under our form of government, will control 
 the destinies of this nation. If I were inclined to forget my 
 connection with them, or to deny that I sprang from them, 
 this chamber would not be the place in which I could do 
 either. While I hold a seat here, I have but to look up at the 
 beautiful capitals adorning the pilasters that support this 
 roof, to be reminded of my father's talent, and to see his 
 handiwork. * * * I made my new abode among 
 strangers where labor is honored. I had left without regret. 
 There remained to me no tie of blood to bind me to any being 
 in existence. If I fell in the struggle for reputation and 
 fortune, there was no relative on earth to mourn my fall. 
 But the people of California elevated me to the highest 
 office within their gift. *.'**-* Almost the entire partisan 
 press of the State was subsidized, by government money and 
 patronage, to oppose my election. I sincerely hope, sir, the 
 time will come, when such speeches as that from the Senator 
 of South Carolina, will be considered a lesson to the laborers 
 of the nation. " 
 
 Such was the response he gave to the haughty advocates 
 of the Extension of Slavery. Such was the bold and noble 
 answer a "mechanic" gave to the heartless despot who dared 
 to speak, with such contempt, about the laborers of the land ! 
 Let him not speak so lightly of the sons of industry, the 
 source whence flows our so great prosperity. 'How dares he 
 thus insult the people ? How dares he speak thus of the 
 industrious and hardy laborer, forgetful that he himself occu- 
 pies the position of pauper ? One who lives upon the earnings 
 of another is si pauper. And I am told that Hammond lives 
 
17 
 
 chiefly upon the earnings of his slaves and the federal 
 treasury. The industrious and honest mechanic is ten thou- 
 sand times more noble than the pauper, and especially one 
 who is, at the same time, an arrogant and impious tyrant ! 
 
 Broderick returns to the Golden State. Returns to engage 
 in one more campaign, and then afterwards to die ! Fare- 
 well, Washington ! farewell, Senate ! you have looked your 
 last upon the true representative of the nation's industrious 
 millions. Farewell Hammond, and Toombs, and Davis, your 
 torrent of vindictive arrogance may hereafter have full sweep, 
 for the chosen champion of labor, the defender of the 
 mechanic, the stone-cutter's son, who toiled for his passage 
 to eminence, is passing away for ever ! His noble words 
 have failed to soften your iron hearts. He is " the last of 
 his race, " but do not forget, I implore you, that he represents 
 the laboring millions of the land. They will avenge the 
 obloquy you would heap upon his memory. They will defend 
 his fame. 
 
 He fights tho battles of liberty in the Democratic ranks, 
 during one more campaign. But at its close, a combination 
 of assassins, composed of men who are wedded to slavery 
 extension, prepare to take his life. Among that banditti of 
 villians, Judge Terry is the best shot his the most deadly 
 aim ! He resigns his seat on the Supreme Bench of California 
 to commit murder ! He well knew that the hand that was 
 familiar with the Mallet and Chisel by day, and the volume of 
 Literature by night, could be no match for the practiced duelist, 
 the daytime gambler, and the midnight reveler. lie sent the 
 challenge Avith a demon's grin upon his face an easy prey ! 
 and the prospect of a President's reward ! No doubt it was 
 the money of James Buchanan, or the promise of Federal 
 patronage, that lured the assassin to the deed ! "No doubt?" 
 That supposition was fully confirmed, when James Buchanan 
 appointed Calhoun Benham, Judge Terry's second, to the 
 office of District Attorney for the State of California, a very 
 
18 
 
 responsible office, with a large salary. The aider and abettor 
 of murder is thus rewarded ! Broderick accepted the chal- 
 lenge the greatest mistake of his life, the mistake, on 
 account of which so many thousand hearts are pained. But 
 he well knew that the assassins, in terrible numbers, lurked 
 along his pathway, and waited for his coming. He had dared 
 to defend justice and the right, against the omnipotent will 
 of the slavery extending power ; and its skulking minions, 
 at once covetous and demoniac, were eaer for his blood. 
 
 I see him go the solitary valley. It is a lonely spot an 
 open space in a thicket of trees and bushes a glade in the 
 wild- wood, sacred to his memory for ever more. It is the 
 13th day of September. 1859. It is early morning and the 
 sun is brightly shining. It has just risen above the summit 
 of the Coast Range Mountains, fringing their rocky ledges 
 with a frost-work of silver. Its golden rays fall, laughingly 
 and gently, upon the lonely spot. Too bright a morning for 
 so dark a deed ! A soft autumnal breeze fans the faces of that 
 frenzied, sad, deluded group of men. The smallest zephyr, 
 just enough to make the leaves rustle on the slimest branches, 
 just enough to cause one poor leaf to fall upon Broderick's 
 shoulder, and then all is still. A few terror-stricken men 
 gather in breathless silence around them. 
 
 o 
 
 Why did he, alas ! why did he accept that challenge ? He 
 receives the proffered Derringer pistol, though he knows he 
 cannot use it ! Why, Oh ! why ? He brushes the little pink 
 leaf from his shoulder carelessly, and pulls the brim of his 
 Palo Alto hat down over his brow with a steady hand, as if 
 no anxious thought disturbed his peace. That leaf the 
 emblem of himself fallen before its time ; fallen before the 
 chilly frosts of autumn, or the rude winds of winter had come 
 with their destroying forces, to garner the harvest of the 
 summer that poor leaf fluttered to the ground and lay still 
 at his feet. One careless glance at that tiny pink leaf, and 
 then he turns his face eastward, to look his last upon the 
 
19 
 
 It hangs over Washington and New York, a 
 lamp in the lofty sky, casting its rays upon the home of his 
 childhood, and the city of his youth ! Thy hand, oh ! David, 
 shall never pluck the Potomac flowers again. The skiff and 
 the oars will be floating on the deep, but the orphan boy 
 will never behold them more. The Hudson and the ocean 
 like thy kindred, ah ! Broderick ! Broderick ! the land and 
 the sea are passing from thy view for ever ! 
 
 The shrill crack of the pistol echoes in the silent wood. A 
 deep, despairing groan arises from that assembly of pale and 
 trembling spectator*. He reels, he falls, the shades of 
 <leath are gathering around his brow ! His cheeks grow pale; 
 his pulse beats faintly ; his race is almost run. He speaks, 
 and these are his words words that should haunt the per- 
 petrators of this fell deed till the end of time words that 
 should arouse the slumbering millions of freemen, and bid 
 them arise and defend their endangered liberty and their 
 sacred honor : " THEY HAVE KILLED ME BECAUSE I WAS 
 
 OPPOSED TO THE EXTENSION' OF SLAVERY AXD A CORRUPT 
 
 ADMINISTRATION. " 
 
 He lingers awhile, talking brokenly to his attendants then 
 dies ! Multitudes, stricken wifa^terror and overwhelmed 
 with grief, silently gather round His bier. San Francisco is 
 in mourning. The news spreads over the nation, and the 
 nation is in mourning. Col. Baker's eloquent oration has 
 reached the hearts of millions. That mountain tomb will be 
 sacred in the memory of freemen. His career is ended ; his 
 voice is hushed; his tongue is silent. The stout hand is 
 powerless ; the faithful heart is sleeping its eternal sleep ; 
 and the daring spirit has gone to the land of rest. But is he 
 /lead V Is his bold example forgotten in the minds of men ? 
 Can his deeds be erased from the nation's history ? Can his 
 dying words remain unheeded ? Are they not before us ever, 
 a bright example for us all to emulate, an admonition to the 
 slumbering patriot, and a warning to the slavery extender, 
 who would even murder to retain their power ? 
 
 Let the devotees of industry, the freemen of the nation, 
 
y^t-lTO 
 
 remember that *' eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, '' 
 and that " activity is the only guarantee of success. " And 
 while the recollection of these sublime maxims are fresh in l 
 the memory, a<ftd fall upon the heart thrillingly, as the battle 
 blast of the bugle falls upon the soldier's ear, they will not 
 forget the noble Broderick, who was slain for having been 
 u opposed to the extension of Slavery and a corrupt Admin- 
 istration. " . 
 
 He worked his way from nothing, 
 
 With no friends', no wealth, no name ; 
 But alone alone he mounted 
 
 To the zenith of his fame. 
 He met the savage tyrants 
 
 And opposed them in their den, 
 And bled, because he honored 
 
 His lowly fellow-men ! 
 
 They have forged their cursed fetters, 
 
 And with fierce and bloody hands, 
 They would extend the Black Destroyer 
 
 O'er the sacred Western Lands, 
 But we trust in you, Republicans. 
 
 To check its onward flow ; 
 To stop that sum of villainies 
 
 That embodiment of woe. 
 
 Oh, defend the starry banner, 
 
 And be heroes in the fight, 
 Where the object is to battle 
 
 For Liberty and Right. 
 Swell, swell your mighty columns, 
 
 And let every man be strong, 
 Against the Hoard of Demons 
 
 Who would Murder for the Wrong. 
 
 Keep keep the Western Country 
 
 For the Honest and the Free ! 
 Untrammeled as the mountain winds ! 
 
 Unfettered as the sea ! 
 Give, give it to the Sons of Toil, 
 
 And the Daughters of the Brave ; 
 Who love the name of Laborer, 
 
 Brt scorn the name of Slave ! 
 
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