A SPEECH DELIVERED IN FANEUIL HALL, OCT. 19, 1841. -PARTY SUBJECTS.

I AM not used to scenes of this kind. My life has been spent rather in courts of law, in senates, and the secluded labors of the cabinet. But why should I hesitate or fear to face my friends, warm-hearted and kind friends,- asking my presence at so favored a spot, in a great crisis and a great cause, when I never feared to face even enemies in any place or manner the most inquisitorial? What is the reason of this? Nothing in the humble individual before you, but everything in the cause. It is the character of the cause in which we are all embarked, the progress of human improvement and popular rights, which sustains and animates us, and is, indeed, the last hope of oppressed humanity in every quarter of the globe.

If it be asked why such a charm and magnitude should be attached to it, I answer, because, though intermingled, at times, with transient and local questions, this cause enters deep and wide into all the important movements in society. It is the same which, under different names, forms, and aspects, has been convulsing the social system since the origin of our race. Its principles have often been developed,-not always, to be sure, but often,-in the struggles between the few and the many in every age; between the ambitious and the lowly; avarice and honest industry; office and private life; rank and the masses; exclusive privileges and monopolies against equal rights, liberty, and free trade: strength against dependence; combination and coalition against individual weakness; and, in fine, aristocracy of all kinds, whether of birth, money or power, against the unpretending democracy of numbers. Exceptions, without doubt, will always exist. Yet disguise, and gloss over, or pervert facts and principles, as has been done in all countries, some of the interests involved in such conflicts have been alike in their essence, and, amidst all sects and schisms, have contended for supremacy, like the fabled deities of Darkness and Light, in some systems of philosophy, struggling constantly for the government of the

universe.

But, thanks to God, we, or most of us who are assembled in this place consecrated to struggles for liberty in by-gone days, stand arrayed on the liberal side,-in fine, on the glorious side of the greatest good to the greatest number. And if our efforts in the contest now waging among and around us are proportioned to the excellence of our cause, we shall behold the greatest number espousing it,—not only in our sister republics, under the second sober thought of this victorious autumn, but in Massachusetts herself, whose democratic sons, under all reverses, have in this noble cause proved themselves unterrified and renowned.

It is vain to attempt to separate State parties and State contests from the influence of great general principles, or from the solicitude and coöperation of others engaged in their support. Those principles are interwoven with everything, inseparably as light and heat. It is equally vain to seek to disunite them, and be isolated from the politics of the General Government,-that government which controls the most vital interests of the whole, and, in its operations and character, is the chief exponent of all to the rest of the civilized world. To talk of such solitary grandeur is to mistake weakness for strength, and to lose the sympathies which make us one and all aid one and all in every important struggle. Separation or disunion from the others, in a State that has been among the foremost, by flood and field, no less than in the public councils, on questions affecting the whole continent, would also be treason to the memory of the illustrious dead, whose memorials around us would waken almost the stones of your streets to exertion. Indeed, much more, in one view, exists to animate you than roused your fathers in a like formidable contest, under names and principles only in some respects different, but closely similar in tendency. The same harbor, but now crowded with masts and commerce, spreads its waves before you which witnessed their intrepid patriotism in the general cause,- -in the cause of the whole continent,to destroy all means of collecting a tax on tea, which they deemed unlawful as well as odious. The same immortal heights, but fuller with population, surround your city, where they poured out their blood like water to defend the general cause- the rights of all the colonies against usurped power and perfidious legislation across the Atlantic. The same Cradle of Liberty-though guarded with much greater wealth and numbers, as well as improved laws and freer institutions-can again rock with exhortations against general as well as local misrule, and against an army of venal office-holders quartered upon the people, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, to eat up their substance; or, in the fervid eloquence of your own Hancock, to dragoon them into submission.

Nor are you men, any less than they, formed selfishly to hold back in a national crisis; with less of mind, soul or heart, to face peril; or with less at stake of wives, children, friends and homes,-or, in fine, of "lives, fortunes and sacred honors." No; democracy is a unit: and democrats will, with fraternal confidence and with martyr zeal, unite their efforts, till they can unite their rejoicings in one common triumph through the Union.

But, beyond and above all which actuated your fathers to take an interest in their elections, and discussions as to what concerned the whole, you have a wider and greater whole to cooperate with:-at home, twenty-six States instead of thirteen colonies; seventeen millions instead of only three millions of people ;*—and abroad, new coad

* In 1851, 81 States, and a population of 23,847,884.

jutors; a more enlightened age; systems and principles, if not new, yet resuscitated with new energy, and agitating all society, and the foundation of many of its best interests, in both hemispheres. They struggled chiefly against particular despots, tyrants, or aristocrats: you contend against despotism itself, tyranny itself, and aristocracy itself, in all shapes, plans and designs. This, in some degree, has produced a new era, in which both Americas have been revolutionized and Europe reformed. The progress of civilization everywhere, as well as in the United States, has become involved in the crisis. Your war is not only against bad men, but bad systems, bad legislation, bad usages, bad education, bad opinions; not, as some have misrepresented, against constitutional laws, honest contracts, really vested rights, sound morals, order, property, or religion,-but, in fine, against abuses and errors as to all of them.

In this warfare, unfortunately, our own citizens became early divided, and have since presented two leading parties. The contest is, therefore, going on nominally between their respective men and their immediate measures, but really between the great principles, tendencies, and results, which each favors, in their general mode of thinking and

action.

From the first, we had the misfortune to possess statesmen among us who aspired more to independence than republicanism. Rebels, if you please, against George III., but not rebels against monarchy. Converts, if you please, to revolution, but not to democracy. They remained the worshippers of old systems, and wedded to ancient forms, and distrusted the capacity of man for self-government. It is not to be concealed that some were still monarchists,-doubtless honest monarchists, but still monarchists. Some aristocrats, and honest, but still aristocrats. Some disciples in all things of Alexander Hamilton,— not only in his United States Bank and funding system, but in his high-toned notions of government and society; content with what existed, rather than seeking more; with what was established, rather than urging improvement; with what was literary, fashionable, or savoring of good society, rather than aiming to instruct better and elevate higher the masses; advocates of more power to the executive and stronger government, instead of the governed being more intelligent and privileged; in fine, federalists in principle,-honest federalists often, but still federalists. They were not the apostate, bastard, corrupt recreants who have frequently, for the loaves and fishes of office, -mere plunder and pelf,-joined, and controlled, and disgraced federalism of late years. No! They were sincere followers of the old school; and highly respectable in private as well as in public life, for talents and virtue, however misled and dangerous in their political opinions in a republican government.

The democratic party, on the other hand, have felt bound from the outset, and still do, to oppose such unjust theories, and such a stationary policy, as well as measures so unequal. In short, they con

sider them hostile to our form of government, and the true spirit of our constitutions, no less than the most vital interests of the citizens at large; and also as behind the progress of the age, as false to the rights of man, as opposed to the spread of civilization, and, more than this, as illiberal and anti-Christian in all their tendencies. Such, then, is our general cause; such, theirs. Such is that of our liberal co-laborers throughout the world, against the antagonist party under every protean shape which power and deception can devise.

Formidable even here as our opponents are,-by talents and wealth, -their greater success elsewhere renders this peculiarly the asylum and the citadel of free principles for all countries. How strongly, then, does it behoove us at all times, occasions, and points, to be armed in its defence, and much more on the approach of our elections! If the elections do not, in each case, involve all of the points of difference, and settle for any great length of time many of the momentous questions which agitate society, they always operate on some of them. However local or temporary some of their immediate objects, yet the leading men infuse into them forever much of evil or good, both by example and precept, as well as opinion.

The great cause to which I have alluded is retarded or advanced, to the injury or benefit of untold millions, by every victory or defeat of its friends at the polls, on a scale however limited. The elections, also, though not exactly the warfare itself, furnish the great occasion for ascertaining its results. The warfare is indeed here to-night; it is everywhere, and during the whole year. It is in the countingroom, the street, the workshop, the field, on the vessel's deck; but the elections are the places and the times for a final reckoning. They are the great day of account, if they are not the battle-fields; and if ballots are there used instead of bayonets, they give us the numbers on each side, and the killed, and wounded, and missing, from the mental disputations and contests which have preceded. They show what has been effected by useful hints here, by exposing misrepresentation there; by intrepid appeals to duty in one place, intelligent books and independent presses in another; by misrule developed, or the detection of confidence betrayed, everywhere. Before they take place, we contend with open doors, open hearts, and open principles; while our enemies have fought in ambush, and still rely on power more than right, and are already appalled at the prospect. Notwithstanding this, it becomes us all, in season and out of season, to keep our lamps trimmed and burning; and though, in a righteous cause, always trusting in Providence, yet, at the same time, always taking special care to keep our powder dry for the fight. Use no measures but arguments,-no influence but reason. With a desperate foe, never sleep but on your arms. Eternal vigilance has more than once been justly called the price of liberty; and well have you illustrated it in former elections, when, after years of hope deferred, you persevered under the most fearful odds, till you triumphed by a

single vote. All you need now is the same resolute perseverance and undiminished ardor, with the same steady, inflexible, trustworthy spirit, to insure another triumph for your chief candidate in the field. You do not belong to the party to stay beaten. Morton is the pilot, who, I trust, will again weather the storm. Why should he not? What is there in the present crisis, what in the agitating topics of the day, what in all that is daily happening around us, which is calculated to dishearten? On the contrary, we have quite as much in all these to encourage us, even in these local struggles, as we have in the great principles of public liberty, and public virtue, and public improvement, which distinguish our friends and their cause over the whole world.

Some twelve months ago, to be sure, we witnessed much to shake the confidence of the friends of equal rights in their security and further progress. This arose not merely from the temporary success of our opponents in the last presidential election, but from the success of such bad means; means so much worse than usual, and so discreditable to their authors, and, what was still more to be deplored, so degrading to the purity and stability of all free institutions.

The scenes of degradation and demoralization which preceded that election were not of American growth; they were basely foreign in character. They must have been imported by our opponents from countries where the lower ranks are ignorant and inexperienced, and accustomed to debauchery, and where votes are bought and sold like sheep in the shambles. Their influence must be short-lived, where intelligence and virtue among the electors are not utterly exterminated. Never can results thus produced, or results attempted to be perpetuated by means such as those proposed at the late extra session, triumph long here. Indeed, it is a part of the providence of God everywhere, that unlawful means can no more be used with safety or durable success than unlawful ends. Hence they have, in this instance, already proved the seeds of overthrow to those who used them. The profligate engineers have been blown sky-high by their own shells. The revulsion is not only begun, but advanced. people are not merely awaking, but awakened. And overwhelming ruin is written on the walls of the political palaces of our opponents, in warning as legible and deep as ever dismayed tyrants in days of miraculous interposition.

The

Let us devote a few moments to a consideration of some of their means and measures, as a memento for our children to shun, and as an excitement for us, and all who value virtue or liberty, to punish such outrages on them at the polls, in the eusuing election, by the most signal reprobation.

Look first at some of the reckless charges they trumped against their predecessors. In the front rank was a host of Ogle fabrications; and, what was worse, after being proved on the floor of Congress, by one of his own political friends, even by one of your own ex-governors