My friends, my brethren, my countrymen—[applause]—I thank you for the patient attention you have given me. It is the first time it has been my fortune to address an audience here. It will probably be the last. Residing in a remote section of the country, with private as well as public duties to occupy the whole of my time, it would only be under some such necessity for a restoration of health as has brought me here this season, that I could ever expect to make more than a very hurried visit to any other portion of the Union than that of which I am a citizen.
I will say, then, on this occasion, that I am glad, truly glad, that it has been my fortune to stay long enough among the New Englanders to obtain a better acquaintance than one can who passes in the ordinary way through the country, at the speed of the railroad tourist. I have stayed long enough to feel that generous hospitality which evinces itself to-night, which has showed itself in every town and village of New England where I have gone—long enough to learn that though not represented in Congress, there is within the limits of New England a large mass of as true Democrats as are to be found in any portion of the Union. Their purposes, their construction of the Constitution, their hopes for the future, their respect for the past, is the same as that which exists among my beloved brethren in Mississippi. [Applause.]
It is not a great while since one who was endeavoring to pursue me with unfriendly criticism opened an article with my name and “gone to Boston!”—He seemed to think it a damaging reflection to say of me that I had gone to Boston—I wish he could have been here to look upon these Democratic faces to-night, and to listen to your resolutions and the words of your Massachusetts speakers, he might have been taught that a man might go and stay at Boston and learn better Democracy than many have acquired in other places.
I shall gratefully carry with me the recollections of this and of other meetings witnessed since I have been among you. In the hour of apprehension I will hopefully turn back to my observations here—here in this consecrated hall, where men so early devoted themselves to liberty and community independence; and will endeavor to impress upon others who know you only as you are misrepresented in the two Houses of Congress, [applause,] how true and how many are the hearts that beat for constitutional liberty, and with high resolve to respect every clause and guaranty which the Constitution contains, are pledged to faithfully uphold the rights of any and every portion of the States, and of the people. [Tremendous cheering.]
Speech in the City of New York,
Palace Garden Meeting, Oct. 19, 1858.
Countrymen, Democrats:—When I accepted this evening the invitation to meet you here, it was to see and to hear, not to speak. I have listened with pleasure to the language addressed to you by your candidate for the highest office in the State. It is the language of patriotism; it is an appeal to the common sense of the people in favor of that fraternity on which our Union was founded, and on which alone it can long continue to exist. I have rejoiced to hear the applause with which such sentiments, when he uttered them, have been received by those here convened, and trust it is but an indication of that onward progress of reaction which I believe has already commenced, and which is to sink to the lowest depths of forgetfulness the struggle which has so long agitated the country, and prompted an internecine war against your countrymen. [Applause.]
Truly has the distinguished gentleman pointed out to you the extreme absurdity of attempting to excite you upon the ground of southern aggression upon the north. We have nothing to aggress upon. We have not now, as he has told you, the power, though once we had, to interfere with your domestic institutions. We never had the will to do so. And if we had the power now, true to the instincts and history of our fathers, we would abstain from intermeddling in your domestic affairs. [Applause.] I have no purpose on this or any other occasion to mingle in the consideration of those questions which are local to you. I am not sufficiently learned in conchology to do it if I would, [laughter,] and I have too great a respect for community independence to do it if I could. My purpose then is, simply in answer to your call, to offer you a few reflections, such as may occur to me, as I progress, upon those questions which are common to us all, and which belong to the memories of our fathers, and are linked with the hopes of our children. [Applause.] If; then, without preparation, I do it in unvarnished phrase, if I cannot carry you along with me because of the want of that flowing diction which might catch the ear, still I ask you to hear me for my cause, for it is the cause of our country, it is the cause of democracy, it is the cause of human liberty. [Applause.]
Who now stand arrayed against the democratic party? The relations of parties and the issues upon which we have been divided have changed. What now is the basis of opposition to the democratic party? It is twofold—interference with the negroes of other people, and interference with the rights now secured to foreigners who expatriate themselves and come to our land. [“Hear, hear,” and applause.] To each community belongs the right to decide for itself what institutions it will have. To each people sovereign within their own sphere, belongs, and to them only belongs, the right to decide what shall be property. You have decided it for yourselves. Who shall gainsay your decision? Mississippi has decided it for herself; who has the right to gainsay her decision? The power of each people to rule over their domestic affairs lies at the foundation of that Declaration of Independence to which you owe your existence among the nations of the earth; that declaration which led your fathers into and through the war of the revolution. It is that which constitutes to-day the doctrine of State-rights, upon which it is my pride and pleasure to stand. [Applause.] Congress has no power to determine what shall be property anywhere. Congress has only such grants as are contained in the Constitution. And the Constitution confers upon it no power to rule with despotic hand over the inhabitants of the Territories. Within the limits of those Territories, the common property of the Union, you and I are equal; we are joint owners. Each of us has the right to go into those Territories, with whatever property is recognized by the Constitution of the United States. [Applause.] Congress has no power to limit or abridge that right. But the inhabitants of a Territory when as a people they come to form a State government, when they possess the power and jurisdiction which belongs to the people of New York, or any other State, have the right to decide that question, and no power upon earth has the right to decide it before that time. [Applause.]
[At this point the Young Men’s Democratic National Club, with banners and transparencies, entered the garden, and were received with enthusiastic cheers.]