<?<*
I
W Iff "P T "fj1 ^P ^P "P "D
ON
KNOW-NOTHINGISM
ONLY, NEAR ONANCOCK, VA. Sept. 18th, 1854.
To
Dear Sir,
I now proceed to give you the reasons for the opinions I expressed in my letter of the 2d instant, as fully as rny leisure will permit :
I said that I did not " think that the present state of affairs in this country is such as to justify the formation, by the people, of any Secret Political Society."
The laws of the United States — -federal and state laws— declare and defend the liberties of our people. They are free in every sense — -free in the sense of Magna Charta and beyond Magna Charta ; free by the surpassing franchise of American Charters, which makes them Sovereign and their icills the sources of constitutions and laws.
If the archbishop might say to King John,
"Let every Briton, as his mind, be free; His person safe ; his property secure ; His house as sacred as the fano of Heaven ; Watching, unseen, his ever open door, Watching the realm, the spirit of the laws; His fate determined hy the rules of right, His voice enacted in the common voice And general suffrage of the assembled realm, No hand invisible to write his doom ;
No demon starting at the midnight hour, To draw his curtain, or to drag him down To mansions of despair. Wide to the world Disclose the secrets of the prison walls, And bid the groanings of the dungeon strike The public ear — Inviolable preserve The sacred shield that covers all the land. The Heaven-conferr'd palladium of the isle, To Briton's sons, the judgment of their peers, On these great pillars: freedom of the mind, Freedom of speech, and freedom of the pen, Forever changing, yet forever sure, The base of Briton rests."
— we may say that our American Charters have more than con- firmed these laws of the Confessor, and our people have given to them " as free, as full, and as sovereign a consent" as was ever given by John to the bishops and the barons, " at Runnimede, the field of freedom," to which it was said —
" Britain's sons shall come, Shall tread where heroes and where patriots trod, To worship as they walk !''
In this country, at this time, does any man think any thing? Would he think aloud? Would he speak anything? Would he write any thing ? His mind is free, his person is safe, his property is secure, his house is his castle, the spirit of the laws is his body- guard and his house-guard ; the fate of one is the fate of all mea- sured by the same common rule of right ; his voice is heard and felt in the general suffrage of freemen ; his trial is in open court, con- fronted by witnesses and accusers ; his prison house has no secrets, and he has the judgment of his peers; and there is nought to make him afraid, so long as he respects the rights of his equals in the eye of the law. Would he propagate Truth ? — Truth is free to combat Error. Would he propagate Error ? — Error itself may stalk abroad and do her mischief and make night itself grow darker, provided Truth is left free to follow, however slowly, with her torches to light up the wreck! Why, then, should any portion of the people desire to retire in secret, and by secret means to propagate a politi- cal thought, or word, or deed, by stealth ? Why band together, exclusive of others, to do something which all may not know of, towards some political end? If it be good, why not make the good known ? Why not think it, speak it, write it, act it out openly and aloud? Or, is it evil, which loveth darkness rather than light?
When there is no necessity to justify a secret association for 'political ends, what else can justify it? A caucus may sit in secret to con- sult on the general policy of a great public party. That may be necessary or convenient; but that even is reprehensible, if carried too far. But here is proposed a great primary, national organiza- tion, in its inception — What? Nobody knows. To do what? No- body knows. How organized ? Nobody knows. Governed by whom ? Nobody knows. How bound ? By what rites ? By what test oaths ? With what limitations and restraints? Nobody, nobody knows! ! ! All we know is, that persons of foreign birth and of Catholic faith are proscribed, and so are all others who don't proscribe them at the polls. This is certainly against the spirit of Magna Charta.
Such is our condition of freedom at home, showing no necessity for such a secret organization and its antagonism to the very basis of American rights. And our comparative native and Protestant strength at home repels the plea of such necessity still more. The statistics of immigration show that from 1820 to 1st January, 1853, inclusive, for 32 years and more, 3,204,848 foreigners arrived in the United States, at the average rate of 100,151 per annum; that the number of persons of foreign birth now in the United States is 2,210,839 ; that the number of natives, whites, is 17,737,578, and of persons whose nativity is " unknown" is 39,154. (Quere, by the by: — What will "Know-Nothings" do with the "unknown?") The number of natives to persons of foreign birth in the United States, is as 8 to 1, and the most of the latter, of course, are naturalized. In Virginia the whole number of white natives is 813,891, of per- sons born out of the State and in the United States, 57,502, ma- king a total of natives of 871,393; and the number of persons born in foreign countries, is 22,953. So that in Virginia the number of natives is to the number of persons born in foreign countries, nearly as 38 to 1.
Again : — the churches of the United States provide accommoda- tions for 14,234,825 votaries ; the Roman Catholics for but 667,823 ; the number of votaries in the ProtestanMo the number in the Ro- man Catholic in the United States, as 21 to 1. In Virginia the whole number is 856,436, the Roman Catholics 7,930, or 108 to 1.
The number of churches in the United States is 38,061, of Catho- lic churches 1,221 : more than 31 to 1 are Protestant.^ In Virginia the number of churches is 2,383, of Catholic churches is 17 : more than 140 to 1.
The whole value of church property in the United States is $87,328,801, of Catholic church property is $9,256,758, or 9 to 1. In Virginia the whole value of church property is $ 2,856,076 ; of Catholic church property, $ 126,100, or 22 to 1.
In the United States there are four Protestant sects, either of which is larger than the Catholics :
The Baptists provide accommodations for - - 3,247,029
The Methodists for - - - - 4,343,579
The Presbyterians for - - - 2,079,690
The Congregationalists for - - - 801,835
Aggregate of four Protestant sects, - - 10,472,073
The Catholics for .... 667,823
Majority of only four Protestant sects, - - 9,804,250
Add the Episcopalians for ... 643,598
Majority of only five Protestant sects, - - 10,447,848
In Virginia there are five Protestant sects, either of which is larger than the number of Catholics in the State.
Baptists, .... 247,589
Episcopal, .-■--■- 79,684
Lutheran, - - - - 18,750
Methodists, .... 323,708
Presbyterians, .... 103,625
773,356 Catholics, .... 7,930
Majority of five Protestant sects in Virginia, - 765,426 Or nearly 98 to 1.
Thus natives are to persons of foreign birth
In the United States, as - - - 8 to 1
In Virginia, as - - - 38 to 1
The Protestant church accommodations are to the Catholic
In the United States, as - - - 21 to 1
In Virginia, as - - - - 108 to 1
The number of Protestant churches is to the number of Catholic
In the United States, as - - - 31 to 1
In Virginia, as - - - - 140 to 1
The value of Protestant church property is to the value of Cath- olic church property
In the United States, as - - - 9 to 1
In Virginia, as - - - - 22 to 1
There are four Protestant sects, each of which is larger than the Catholic, in the United States, and the aggregate of which exceeds the Catholic by a majority of 9,804,250 votaries, and, adding one sect smaller, by a majority of 10,447,848.
In Virginia there are five Protestant sects, each larger than the number of Catholics in the state, and the aggregate of which ex- ceeds the Catholics by a majority of 765,426 votaries.
Now, what has such a majority of numbers, and of wealth of na- tives and of Protestants, to fear from such minorities of Catholics and naturalized citizens? What is the necessity for this master majority to resort to secret organization against such a minority? I put it fairly : Would they organize at all against the Catholics and naturalized citizens, if the Catholics and naturalized citizens were in the like majority of numbers and of wealth, or if majorities and minorities were reversed ? To retire in secret with such a majority, does it not confess to something which dares not subject itself to the scrutiny of knowledge, and would have discussion know nothing of its designs and operations and ends? Cannot the Know-Nothings trust to the leading Protestant churches to defend themselves and the souls of all the saints* and sinners too, against the influence of Catholics? Can't they trust to the patriotism and fraternity of na- tives to guard the land against immigrants? In defence of the great American Protestant churches, I venture to say in their be- half, that the Pope, and all his priests combined, are not more zealous and watchful in their master's work, or in the work for the mastery, than are our Episcopal, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and Congregational clergy. They are, as a whole church militant, with their armor bright ; they are zealous, they are jealous, they are watchful, they are organized, embodied, however divided by sectarianism, yet banded together against Papacy, and learned, and active, and politic too as any brotherhood of monks. They need no such political organization to defend the faith. Are they uni- ted in it? Do they favor or countenance it among their flocks? To what end? In the name of their religion, I ask — Why not rely on God? And do the Know-Nothings imagine that the pride and love of country are so dead in native hearts, that secret organizations are necessary to beget a new-born patriotism to protect us from foreign influence ? Now, in defence of our people, I say for them that no people upon earth are more possessed with nationality as a strong passion than the freemen of the United States of North America.
Nowhere is the filial and domestic tie stronger, nowhere is the tie of kinship more binding, nowhere is there more amor loci — the love of home, which is the surest foundation of the love of country — nowhere is any country's romance of history more felt, nowhere are the social relations on a better moral foundation, nowhere is there as clear identity of parentage and offspring, nowhere are sons and daughters so " educated to liberty," nowhere have any people such certainty of the knowledge of the reward of vigilance, nowhere have they such freedom of self-government, nowhere is there such trained hatred of kings, lords and aristocracies, nowhere is there more self-independence, or more independence of the Old World or its traditions— in a word, nowhere is there a country whose people have, by birthright, a tithe of what our people have to make them love that land which is their country, and that spot which is their home! I am an American, a Virginian ! Prouder than ever to have said, "I am a Roman citizen!" So far from Brother Jonathan wanting a national feeling, he is justly suspected abroad of a little too much pride and bigotry of country. The revolution and the last war with Great Britain, tried us, and the late conquest of Mexico found us not wanting in the sentimentality of nationalism. Though so young, we have already a dialect and a mannerism, and our customs and our costume. A city dandy may have his coat cut in Paris, but he would fight a Frenchman in the cloth of his country as quick to- day as a Marion man ever pulled the trigger of a Tower musket against a red-coat Englishman in '76. And peace has tried our pa- triotism more than war. What people have more reason to love a country from the labor they have bestowed upon its development by the arts of industry ? No : as long as the memory of George Wash- ington lives, as long as there shall be a 22d of February and a 4th of July, as long as the everlasting mountains of this continent stand, and our Father of Waters flows, there will be fathers to hand down the stories which make our hearts to glow, and mothers to sing " Hail Columbia" to their babes— and that song is not yet stale. There is no need to revive a sinking patriotism in the hearts of our people. And who would have them be selfish in their freedom? Freedom! Liberty! selfish and exclusive ! Never; for it consumeth not in its use, but is like fire in magnifying, by imparting its sparks and its rays of light and of heat. Is there any necessity from abroad for such secret political organizations? Against whom, and against what, is it levelled? Against foreigners by birth.
When we were as weak as three millions, we relied largely on foreigners by birth to defend us and aid us in securing independence. Now that we are twenty-two millions strong, how is it we have be- come so weak in our fears as to apprehend we are to be deprived of our liberties by foreigners? Verily, this seemeth as if Know- Nothings were reversing the order of things, or that there is another and a different feeling from that of the fear arising from a sense of weakness. It conies rather from a proud consciousness of over- weening strength. They wax strong rather, and would kick, like the proud grown fat. It is an exclusive, if not an aristocratic feeling in the true sense, which would say to the friends of freedom born abroad : " We had need of you and were glad of your aid when we were weak, but we are now so independent of you that we are not compelled to allow you to enjoy our Kepublican privileges. We desire the exclusive use of human rights, though to deprive you of their common enjoyment will not enrich us the more and will make you c poor indeed !' " But not only is it levelled against foreigners by birth, but against the Pope of Rome.
There was once a time when the very name of Papa frightened us as the children of a nursery. But, now, now! who can be frightened by the temporal or ecclesiastical authority of Pius IX? Has he got back to Rome from his late excursion? Who are his body-guard there? Have the lips of a crowned head kissed his big toe for a century? Are any so poor as to do his Italian crown any reverence? Do not two Catholic powers, France and Austria, hold all his dominions in a detestable dependency ? What army, what revenue, what diplomacy, what church domination in even the Catholic countries of the old or the new world has he? Why, the idea of the Pope's influence at this day is as preposterous as that of a gun-powder plot. I would as soon think of dreading the ghost of Guy Fawkes.
No, there is no necessity, from either oppression or weakness of Protestants or natives. They are both free and strong ; and do they now, because they are rich in civil and religious freedom, wish, in turn, to persecute, and exclude the fallen and the down-trodden of the earth ?— God forbid !
2d. But there is not only no necessity for this secret political or- ganization, but it is against the spirit of our laivs and the facts of our history. Some families in this Republic render themselves ridicu- lous, and offensive, too, by the vain pretensions to the exalting acci-
8
dents of birth. We, in Virginia, are not seldom pointed at for our F. F. V.'s of ancestral arrogance. But, who ever thought that pre- tension of this sort was so soon to be set up by exclusives for the Republic itself? Some of the ancient European people may boast of their "protoplasts," and of their being themselves "autoch- thones"— that they had fathers and mothers from near Adam, whom they can name as their first formers, and that they are of the same unmixed blood, original inhabitants of their country. But who were our protoplasts? English, Irish, Scotch, German, Dutch, Swedes, French, Swiss, Spanish, Italian, Ethiopian — all people of all na- tions, tribes, complexions, languages and religions ! And who alone are "autochthones" here in North America? — Why, the Indians! They are the only true natives. One thing we have, and that more distinctly than any other nation : we have our " eponymas" We can name the very hour of our birth as a people. We need recur to no fable of a wolf to whelp us into existence. It may be hard to fix Anno Mundi, or the year of Noah's flood, or the building of Rome. Rome may have her Julian epocha, the Ethiopian their epocha of the Abyssines, the Arabians theirs of the flight of Ma- homet, the Persians theirs of the coronation of Jesdegerdis ; but ours dates from the Declaration of Independence among the nations of the earth, the 4th day of July, A. D. 1776. As a nation we are but 78 years of age. Many a person is now living who was alive before this nation was born. And the ancestors of this people, about two centuries only ago, were foreigners, every one of them coming to the shores of this country, to take it away from the Aborigines, the "autochthones," and to take possession of it by au- thority, either directly or derivatively, of Papal Power? His holi- ness the Pope was the great grantor of all the new countries of North America. This fiction was a fact of the history of all our first discoveries and settlements. Foreigners, in the name of the Pope and Mother Church, took possession of North America, to have and to hold the same to their heirs against the heathen for- ever ! — and now already their descendants are for excluding foreigners and the Pope's followers from an equal enjoyment of the privileges of this same possession ! So strange is human history. Christo- pher Columbus ! Ferdinand and Isabella! What would they have thought of this had they foreseen it when they touched a continent and called it theirs in the name of the Holy Trinity, by authority of the keeper of the keys of heaven, and of the great grantor of
9
the empire and domain of earth ? What would have become of our national titles to north-eastern and north-western boundaries, but for the plea of this authority, valid of old among all Christian Powers ?
Following the discovery and the possession of the country by foreigners, in virtue of Catholic majesty, came the settlements of the country by force and constraint of religious intolerance and per- secution. Puritans, Huguenots, Cavaliers, Catholics, Quakers, all came to Western wilds, each in turn persecuted and persecuting for opinion's sake. Oppression of opinion was the most odious of the abominations of the Old World's despotism — its only glory and grace is that it made thousands of martyrs. It deluged every country and tainted the air of every clime, and stained the robes of righteousness of every sect with blood, with the blood of every human sacrifice, which was honest and earnest in its faith, the hypocrites and hinds of profession alone escaping the swords or the flames of persecution. The colonies were blackened by the burnings of the stake, and were died red with the blood of intolerance. The American revolution made a new era of liberty to dawn — the era of the liberty of con- science. If there is any essence in Americanism, the very salt where- with it is savored is the freedom of opinion and the liberty of con- science. Is it now proposed that we shall go back to the deeds of the dark ages of despotism? That this broad land, still unoccupied in more than half of its virgin soil, shall no longer be an asylum for the oppressed ? That here, as elsewhere, and again, as of old, men shall be burthened by their births and chained for their opinions? I trust that a design of that intent will remain a secret buried forever. I have said this organization was against the spirit of our laws. Our laws sprang from the necessity of the condition of our early set- tlers. They brought with them from England their Penates, the household gods of an Anglo-Saxon race, the liberties of Magna Charta, the trial by jury, the judgment of the peers, and the other muni- ments of human dignity and human rights secured by the first English Charta. These, foreigners brought with them from Europe. Here they found the virtues to extend these rights and their muniments. The neglect of the mother country left them self-dependent and self- reliant until they were thoroughly taught the lesson of self govern- ment— that they could be their own sovereigns — and the very experi- ence of despotism they had once tasted made them hate tyrants, either elective or hereditary. Their destitute and exposed condition 2
10
trained them to hardy habits and cultivated in them every sterner virtue. They knew privation, fatigue, endurance, self-denial, forti- tude, and were made men at arms — cautious, courageous, generous, just and trusting in God. They had to fight Indians, from Philip, on Massachusetts Bay, to Powhatan, on the river of Swans. And they had an unexplored continent to subdue, with its teeming soil, its majestic forest, its towering mountains, and its unequalled rivers. Above all things, they needed population, more fellow-settlers, more foreigners to immigrate, and to aid them in the task of founders of empire set before them, to open the forests, to level the hills, and to raise up the valleys of a giant new country. Well, these foreigners did their task like men. Such a work ! who can exaggerate it ? They did it against all odds and in spite of European oppression. They grew and thrived, until they were rich enough to be taxed. They were told taxation was no tyranny. But these foreigners gave the world a new truth of freedom. Taxation without representation was tyranny. The attempt to impose it upon them, the least mite of it, made them resolve, "that they would give millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute." That resolve drove them to the neces- sity of war, and they, foreigners, Protestants, Catholics and all, took the dire alternative, united as a band of brothers, and declared their dependence upon God alone. And they entered to the world a complaint of grievances— a Declaration of Independence! This was pretty well to show whether foreigners, of any and all religions, just fresh from Europe, could be trusted on the side of America and liberty. One of the first of their complaints was :
" He (George III.) has endeavored to prevent the population of these states, for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their emigration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of land."
There is the proof that they valued the naturalization of foreigners and the immigration of foreigners hither, and they desired appropria- tions, new appropriations of land, for immigrants.
Another complant was, that they had appealed in vain to " British brethren." They said :
"We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disa- vow these usurpations, &c. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as wo hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends."
11
There is proof, too, that Nativism can't always be relied on to help one's own countrymen, and that brethren, and kindred, and consanguinity, will fail a whole people in trouble, just as kinship too often fails families and individuals in the trials of life.
" And," lastly, "for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
There was tolerance, there was firm reliance on the same one God ; there was mutuality of pledge, each to the other, at one altar, and there was a common stake of sacrifice — "lives, fortunes and honor." And who were they? There were Hancock the Puritan, Penn the Quaker, Kutledge the Huguenot, Carroll the Catholic, Lee the Cavalier, Jefferson the Free Thinker. These, representa- tives of all the signers, and the signers, representatives of all the people of all the colonies.
Oh! my countrymen, did not that "pledge" bind them and bind us, their heirs, forever to faith and hope in God and to charity for each other — to tolerance in religion, and to " mutuality" in political freedom? Down, down with any organization, then, which "de- nounces" a "separation" between Protestant Virginia and Catholic Maryland — between the children of Catholic Carroll and Protestant George Wythe. Their names stand together among " the signa- tures," and I will redeem their "mutual" pledges with my "life," my " fortune," and my " sacred honor," " so far as in me lies — so help me,vAlmighty God !"
I think that here is proof enough that " foreigners" and Catholics both entered as material elements into our Americanism. But be- fore the 4th day of July there were laws passed of the highest au- thority, to which this secret organization is opposed.
On the 12th of June, '76, the Convention of Virginia passed a "Declaration of Eights." Its 4th section declares: "that no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services ; which not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator or judge to be hereditary."
Now, does the Know-Nothing organization not claim for the "native born" "set of men'''' to be entitled to exclusive privileges from the community as against naturalized and Catholic citizens; and thus, by virtue of birth, to inherit the right of election to the offices of magistrates, legislator or judge, which are not descendible?
12
They set up no such claim for the individual person native born, but they do set up a quality for nativity, to which, and to which alone, they claim, pertains the privileges of eligibility to offices.
Again :— Does this organization not violate the 7th section of this declaration of rights, which forbids " all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority without consent of the representatives of the people, as injurious to their rights, and which ought not to be exercised ?" When the laws say, and the repre- sentatives of the people say, that Catholics and naturalized citizens shall be tolerated and allowed to enjoy the privileges of citizenship, and eligibility to office, have they not organized a secret power to suspend these laws and to prevent the execution of them, by their sole authority, without consent of the representatives of the people? This declaration denounces it as injurious to the rights of the peo- ple and as a power which ought not to be exercised.
Again : — Does not this organization annul that part of the 8th section of this declaration, which says : " That no man shall be de- prived of his liberty, except by the law of the land, or the judg- ment of his peers?" This don't apply alone to personal liberty, the freedom of the body from prison, but no man shall be deprived of his franchises of any sort, of his liberty in its largest sense, ex- cept by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers, the trial by jury. Has, then, a private and secret tribunal a right to impose qualifications for office, and to enforce their laws by test oaths, so as to deprive any man of his liberty to be elected ?
Again : — Is this organization not an Imperium in Imperio against the 14th section of this declaration, which says : " That the people have a right to uniform government, and, therefore, that no govern- ment separate from or independent of the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof" It is not a government, but does it not, will it not, politically govern the por- tion of the people belonging to it, differently from what the portion of the people not belonging to it, are governed by the laws of Virginia?
Again : — It does not adhere to the "justice and moderation'''' incul- cated in the 15th section of the declaration. And lastly, it avow- edly opposes the 16th section, which declares, " that religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence ; and, therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free ex-
13
ercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience ; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity towards each other."
But this organization not only contravenes the rules of our Decla- ration of Independence and Eights, but it is in the face of a positive and perpetual statute, now made a part of our organic law by the new Constitution — the Act of Keligious Freedom, passed the 16th of December, 1785. Against this law, this Know-Nothing order attacks the freedom of the mind, by imposing " civil incapacita- tions ;" it " attempts to punish one religion and to propagate another by coercion on both body and mind ;" it " sets up its own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible ;" it makes our "civil rights to have a dependence on our religious opinions ;" it " deprives citizens of their natural rights, by proscribing them as unwTorthy the public confidence, by laying upon them an incapa- city of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless they profess or renounce this or that religious opinion ;" " it tends to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it;" it lacks confidence in Truth, which "is great and will prevail," if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to Error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate ; it withdraws errors from free argument and debate, and hides them in secret, where they become dangerous, because it is not permitted freely to con- tradict them.
Let it not be said that this is a restraining statute upon govern- ment, and is a prohibition to " legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical." If they even are restrained by this law, a fortiori every private, organization, or order, or individual, is restrained. The Know-Nothings will hardly pretend to do what the government itself, and legislators, and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, dare not do. If such be their pretensions they claim to be above the law, or to set up a higher law — then, sic volo, to compel a man to frequent or support any religious worship, and to enforce, restrain, molest, or burthen him, or " to make him suffer" on account of his religious opinions or belief; or to deprive men of their freedom to profess, and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of re- ligion, and to make the same diminish, enlarge or affect their civil
14
capacities. No, when our Constitutions forbid the legislators to exercise a power, they intend that no such power shall be exercised by any one.
Not only is the law of Virginia thus liberal as to religion, but also as to naturalization.
So far as " Know-Nothingism" opposes our naturalization laws, it is not only against our statute policy, but against Americanism itself. In this it is especially anti-American. One of the best fruits of the American Revolution was to establish, for the first time in the world, the human right of expatriation. Prior to our separate existence as a nation of the earth, the despotisms of the old world had made a law unto themselves, whereby they could hold forever in chains those of mankind who were so unfortunate as to be bom their subjects. In respect to birthright and the right of expatriation, and the duty of allegiance and protection, and the law of treason, crowned heads held to the ancient dogma : " Once a citizen, always a citizen." If a man was so miserable as to be born the slave of a tyrant, he must remain his slave forever. He could never renounce his ill-fated birthright — could never expatriate himself to seek for a better country — and could never forswear the allegiance which bound him to his chains. He might emigrate, might take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, might cross seas and continents, and put oceans, and rivers, and lakes, and mountains, between him and the throne in the shadow of which he was born, and he would still " but drag a lengthening chain." Still the despotism might pursue him, find and bind him as a subject slave. If America beckoned to him to fly to her for freedom, and to give her the cunning and the strength of his right arm to help ameliorate her huge proportions and to work out her grand destiny, the tyrant had to be asked for passports and permission to expatriate. But they came — lo ! they came ! Our laws encouraged them to come. Before '76, Virginia and all the colonies encouraged immigration. It was a necessity as well as a policy of the whole country. Early in the revolution, the king's forces hung some of the best blood of the colonies under the maxim, " Once a citizen, always a citizen." They were traitors if found fighting for us, because they were once subjects. Washington was obliged to hold hostages, to prevent the application of this barba- rous doctrine of tyranny. At last our struggle ended, and our in- dependence was recognized. George III. was compelled to re-
15
•
nounce our allegiance to him, though we ivcrc born his subjects. But still, when we came to our separate existence, we were called on to recognize the same odious maxim, still adhered to by the des- pots of Europe : " Once a citizen, always a citizen." Subjects were still told that they should not expatriate themselves, and America was warned that she should not naturalize them without the consent of their monarch masters. Spurning this dogma, and the tyrants who boasted the power to enforce it, the 4th power which the Con- vention of 1787, that formed our blessed Constitution, enumerated, is: "The Congress shall have power 'to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.' "
The meaning of this was, to say by public law to all Europe and her combined courts, "Your dogma, 'once a citizen, always a citi- zen,' shall cease forever as to the United States of North America. We need population to smooth our rough places, and to make our crooked places straight; but, above and beyond that policy, we are, with the help of God, resolved that this new and giant land shall be one vast asylum for the oppressed of every other land, now and forever!" That is my reading of our law of liberty. Those born in bondage might raise their eyes up in hope of a better country! They might, and should if they would, expatriate themselves, fly from slavery and chains, and come! — Ho, every one of them, come to our country and be free with us ! They might forswear their allegiance to despots, and should be allowed here to take an oath to liberty and her flag, and her freedom, and they should not be pur- sued and punished as traitors. When they came and swore that our country should be their country, we would swear to protect them as if in the country born, as if natives — i. e., as naturalized citizens, and they should be our citizens and be entitled to our pro- tection. And this was in conformity to the only true idea of " Natu- ralization f" which, according to its legal as wTell as its etymological sense, means, " when one who is an alien is made a natural subject by act of law and consent of the sovereign power of the state." The consent of our sovereign power is written in the Constitution of the United States, and Congress, at an early day after its adop- tion, passed the acts of naturalization. The leading statute is that of April 14th, 1802. It provided that any alien, being a free white person, may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States, or any of them, on the following conditions, and not otherwise :
1st. That he shall have declared on oath or affirmation before the
16
supreme, superior, district or circuit court of some one of the states, or of the territorial districts of the United States, or a circuit or dis- trict court of the United States, three years {two years by act of May 26th, 1824,) at least before. his admission, that it was his bona fide intention to become a citizen of the United States, and to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, whereof such alien may at the time be a citi- zen or subject.
2d. That he shall, at the time of his application to be admitted, declare on oath or affirmation before some one of the courts afore- said, that he will support the Constitution of the United States, and that he doth absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all alle- giance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, state or sove- reignty whatever, and particularly, by name, the prince, potentate, state or sovereignty whereof he was before a citizen or subject; which proceedings shall be recorded by the clerk of the court.
3rd. That the court admitting such alien shall be satisfied that he has resided within the United States five years at least, and within the state or territory where such court is at the time held, one year at least; and it shall further appear to their satisfaction, that during that time he has behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same: Provided, That the oath of the applicant shall in no case be allowed to prove his residence.
4th. That in case the alien applying to be admitted to citizenship shall have borne any hereditary title or been of any of the orders of nobility in the kingdom or state from which he came, he shall, in addition to the above requisites, make an express renunciation of his title or order of nobility in the court to which his application shall be made, which renunciation shall be recorded in the said court: Provided, That no alien who shall be a native, citizen, denizen, or subject, of any country, state, or sovereign, with whom the United States shall be at war at the time of his application, shall then be admitted to be a citizen of the United States.
The act has other provisions, and has since been modified from time to time. This statute had not operated a legal life time before Great Britain again asserted the dogma: " Once a citizen, always a citizen !" The base and cowardly attack of the Leopard on the Chesapeake, at the mouth of this very bay, in sight of the Virginia
shore, was made upon the claim of right to seize British born sub- jects from on board our man-of-war. The star-spangled banner was struck that clay for the last time to the detestable maxim of tyranny : "Once a citizen, always a citizen." It must not be forgotten that it was upon this doctrine of despots that the Right of Search was founded. They arrogated to themselves the prerogative to search our decks on the high seas, and to seize those of our crews who were born in British dominions. In 1812, we declared the last war. For what? For "Free Trade, and Sailors' Rights." That is, for the right of our naturalized citizen-sailors to sail on the high seas, and to trade abroad free from search and seizure. They had been required to "renounce and abjure" all "allegiance and fidelity" to any other country, state, or sovereignty, and particularly to the country, state, or sovereignty under which they have been natives or citizens, and we had reciprocally undertaken to protect them in consideration of their oaths of allegiance and fidelity to the United States. How protect them ? By enabling them to fulfil their obli- gations to us of allegiance and fidelity, by making them free to fight for our flag, and free in every sense, just as if they had been born in our country. Fight for us they did; naturalized, and those not naturalized, were of our crews. They fought in every sea for the flag which threw protection over them, from the first gun of the Constitution frigate to the last gun of the boats on Lake Pontchar- train, in every battle where
44 Cannons' mouths were each other greeting, And yard arm was with yard arm meeting."
That war sealed in the blood of dead and living heroes the eternal, American principle: — "The right of expatriation, the right and duty of naturalization — the right to fly from tyranny to the flag of freedom, and the reciprocal duties of allegiance and protection." And does a party— an order or what not, calling itself an American party, now oppose and call upon me to oppose these great Ameri- can truths, and to put America in the wrong for declaring and fight- ing the last war of independence against Great Britain? Never! I would as soon go back to wallowing in the mire of European serfdom. I won't do it. I can't do it. No; I will lie down and rise up a Native American, for and not against these imperishable American truths. Nor will any true American, who understands what Americanism is, do otherwise. I put a case : 3
18
A Prussian born subject came to this country. He complied with our naturalization laws in all respects of notice of intention, resi- dence, oath of allegiance, and proof of good moral character. He remained continuously in the United States the full period of five years. When he had fully filled the measure of his probation and was consummately a naturalized citizen of the United States, he then, and not until then, returned to Prussia to visit an aged father. He was immediately, on his return, seized and forced into the Land- wehr, or militia system of Prussia, under the maxim : " Once a citi- zen, always a citizen !" There he is forced to do service to the king of Prussia at this very hour. He applies for protection to the United States. Would the Know-Nothings interpose in his behalf or not? Look at the principles involved. We, by our laws, en- couraged him to come to our country, and here he was allowed to become naturalized, and to that end required to renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to the king of Prussia, and to swear alle- giance and fidelity to the United States. The king of Prussia now claims no legal forfeiture from him — he punishes him for no crime — he claims of him no legal debt — he claims alone that very allegiance and fidelity which we required the man to abjure and renounce. Not only so, but he hinders the man from returning to the United States, and from discharging the allegiance and fidelity we required him to swear to the United States. The king of Prussia says he should do him service for seven years, for this was what he was born to per- form ; his obligations were due to him first, and his laws were first binding him. The United States say — true, he was born under your laws, but he had a right to expatriate himself; he owed allegiance first to you, but he had a right to forswear it and to swear allegiance to us; your laws first applied, but this is a case of political obliga- tion, not of legal obligation; it is not for any crime or debt you claim to bind him, but it is for allegiance; and the claim you set up to his services on the ground of .his political obligation, his alle- giance to you, which we allow him to abjure and renounce, is incon- sistent with his political obligation, his allegiance, which we required him to swear to the United States; he has sworn fidelity to us, and we have, by our laws, pledged protection to him.
Such is the issue. Now, with which will the Know-Nothings take sides? With the king of Prussia against our naturalized citizen and against America, or with America and our naturalized citizen? Mark, now, Know-Nothingism is opposed to all foreign influence —
19
against American institutions. The king of Prussia is a pretty po- tent foreign influence — he was one of the holy alliance of crowned heads. Will they take part with him, and not protect the citizen? Then they will aid a foreign influence against our laws ! Will they take sides with our naturalized citizen? If so, then upon what grounds? Now, they must have a good cause of interposition to justify us against all the received dogmas of European despotism.
Don't they see, can't they perceive, that they have no other grounds than those I have urged? He is our citizen, nationalized, owing us allegiance and we owing him protection. And if we owe him protection abroad, because of his sworn allegiance to us as a naturalized citizen, what then can deprive him of his privilege at home among us wften he returns? If he be a citizen at all, he must be allowed the privileges of citizenship, or he will not be the equal of his fellow-citizens. And must not Know-Nothingism strike at the very equality of citizenship, or allow him to enjoy all its lawful pri- vileges? If Catholics and naturalized citizens are to be citizens and yet to be proscribed from office, they must be rated as an inferior class — an excluded class of citizens. Will it be said that the law will not make this distinction ? Then are we to understand that Know-Nothings would not make them equal by law? If not by law, how can they pretend to make them unequal, by their secret order, without law and against law? For them, by secret combination, to make them unequal, to impose a burthen or restriction upon their privileges which the law does not, is to set themselves up above the law, and to supersede by private and secret authority, intangible and irresponsible, the rule of public, political right. Indeed, is this not the very essence of the " Higher Law" doctrine ? It cannot be said to be legitimate public sentiment and the action of its autho- rity. Public sentiment, proper, is a concurrence of the common mind in some conclusion, conviction, opinion, taste or action in respect to persons or things subject to its public notice. It will and must control the minds and actions of men, by public and conven- tional opinion. Count Mole said that in France it was stronger than statutes. It is so here. That it is which should decide at the polls of a Republic. But, here is a secret sentiment, which may be so organized as to contradict the public sentiment. Candidate A may be a native and a Protestant, and may concur with the community, if it be a Know-Nothing community, on every other subject except that of proscribing Catholics and naturalized citizens ; and candidate
20
B may concur with the community on the subject of this proscrip- tion alone, and upon no other subject ; and yet the Know-Nothings might elect B by their secret sentiment against the public sentiment. Thus it attacks not only American doctrines of expatriation, alle- giance and protection, but the equality of citizenship, and the autho- rity of public sentiment. In the affair of Koszta, how did our blood rush to his rescue ? Did the Know-Nothings side with him and Mr. Marcy, or with Hulseman and Austria ? If with Koszta, why ? Let them ask themselves for the rationale, and see if it can in reason abide with their orders. There is no middle ground in respect to naturalization. We must either have naturalization laws and let foreigners become citizens, on equal terms of capacities and privi- leges, or we must exclude them altogether. If we abolish naturali- zation laws, we return to the European dogma: " Once a citizen, always a citizen." If we let foreigners be naturalized and don't ex- tend to them equality of privileges, we set up classes and distinc- tions of persons wholly opposed to Kepublicanism. We will, as Rome did, have citizens who may be scourged. The three alterna- tives are presented— Our present policy, liberal, and just, and tole- rant, and equal; or the European policy of holding the noses of native born slaves to the grind-stone of tyranny all their lives: or, odious distinctions of citizenship tending to social and political aris- tocracy. I am for the present laws of naturalization.
As to religion, the Constitution of the United States, art. 6th, sec. 3, especially provides that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. The state of Virginia has, from her earliest history, passed the most liberal laws, not only towards naturalization, but towards foreigners. But I have said enough to show the spirit of American laws and the true sense of American maxims.
3rd. Know Nothingism is against the spirit of the Reformation and of Protestanism.
What was there to Reform ?
Let the most bigoted Protestant enumerate what he defines to have been the abominations of the Church of Rome. What would he say were the worst? The secrets of Jesuitism, of the Auto da fe, of the Monasteries and of the Nunneries. The private penalties of the Inquisition's Scavenger's daughter. Proscription, Persecu- tion, Bigotry, Intolerance, Shutting up the Book of the Word. And do Protestants now mean to out-Jesuit the Jesuits? Do they mean
21
to strike and not be seen ? To be felt and not to be heard ? To put a shudder upon humanity by the Mask of Mutes? Will they wear the Monkish cowls? Will they inflict penalties at the polls without reasoning together with their fellows at the hustings? Will they proscribe? Persecute? Will they bloat up themselves into that bigotry which wTould burn non-conformists? Will they not tolerate freedom of conscience, but doom dissenters, in secret conclave, to a forfeiture of civil privileges for a religious difference? Will they not translate the scripture of their faith ? Will they visit us with dark lanterns and execute us by signs, and test oaths, and in secresy?
Protestanism ! forbid it !
If any thing was ever open, fair and free — if any thing was ever blatant even — it wTas the Keformation. To quote from a mighty British pen : "It gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and enquiry, agitated the inert mass of accumulated preju- dices throughout Europe. The effect of the concussion was general, but the shock was greatest in this country [England]. It toppled down the full grown intolerable abuses of centuries at a blow; heaved the ground from under the feet of bigoted faith and slavish obedience ; and the roar and dashing of opinions, loosened from their accustomed hold, might be heard like the noise of an angry sea, and has never yet subsided. Germany first broke the spell of misbe- gotten fear, and gave the watchword ; but England joined the shout, and echoed it back, with her island voice, from her thousand cliffs and craggy shores, in a longer and a louder strain. With that cry the genius of Great Britain rose, and threw down the gauntlet to the nations. There was a mighty fermentation ; the waters were out; public opinion was in a state of projection ; Liberty was held out to all to think and speak the truth; men's brains were busy; their spirits stirring; their hearts full; and their hands not idle. Their eyes wrere opened to expect the greatest things, and their ears burned with curiosity and zeal to know the truth, that the truth might make them free. The death blow which had been struck at scarlet vice and bloated hypocrisy, loosened tongues, and made the talismans and love tokens of Popish superstitions with which she had beguiled her followers, and committed abominations with the people, fall harmless from their necks.
" The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work. It threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of reli- gion and morality, which had then been locked up as in a shrine.
22
It revealed the visions of the Prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers to the meanest of the people. It gave them a common interest in a common cause. Their hearts burnt within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, by giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. It cemented their union of character and sentiment ; it created endless diversity and colli- sion of opinion. They found objects to employ their faculties, and a motive in the magnitude of the consequences attached to them, to exert the utmost eagerness in the pursuit of truth, and the most daring intrepidity in maintaining it. Religious controversy sharpens the understanding by the subtlety and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and braces the will by their infinite importance. We perceive in the history of this period a nervous, masculine intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or, if there were, it is a relaxation from the intense activity which gives a tone to its general character. But there is a gravity approaching to piety, a serious- ness of impression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervor of enthusiasm in their method of handling almost every sub- ject. The debates of the schoolmen were sharp and subtle enough; but they wanted interest and grandeur, and were besides confined to a few. They did not affect the general mass of the community. But the Bible was thrown open to all ranks and conditions 'to own and read,' with its wonderful table of contents, from Genesis to the Revelations. Every village in England would present the scene so well described in Burns' 'Cotter's Saturday Night.' "
How unlike this agitation, this shock, this angry sea, this fermenta- tion, this shout and its echoes, this impulse and activity, this concus- sion, this general effect, this blow, this earthquake, this roar and dash- ing, this longer and louder strain, this public opinion, this liberty to all to think and speak the truth, this stirring of spirits, this opening of eyes, this zeal to know — not nothing — but the truth, that the truth might make them free; how unlike to this is Know-Nothingism, sitting and brooding in secret to proscribe Catholics and naturalized citizens! Protestantism protested against secresy, it protested against shutting out the light of truth, it protested against proscrip- tion, bigotry and intolerance. It loosened all tongues and fought the owls and bats of night with the light of meridian day. The argument of Know-Nothings is the argument of silence. The order ignores all knowledge. And its proscription can't arrest itself within the limit of excluding Catholics and naturalized citizens. It
23
must proscribe natives and Protestants both, who will not consent to unite in proscribing Catholics and naturalized citizens. Nor is that all ; it must not only apply to birth and religion, it must ne- cessarily extend itself to the business of life as well as to political preferments. The instances have already occurred. Schoolmis- tresses have been dismissed from schools in Philadelphia, and car- penters from a building in Cincinnati.
4th. It is not only opposed to the Reformation and Protestant- ism, but it is opposed to the faith, hope and charity of the gospel. Never was any triumph more complete than that of the open con- flict of Protestants against the Pope and priestcraft. They did not oppose proscription because it was a policy of Catholics; but they opposed Catholics because they employed proscription. Proscrip- tion, not Catholics, was the odium to them. Here, now, is Know- Nothingism combatting proscription and exclusiveness with pro- scription and exclusiveness, secresy with secresy, Jesuitism with Jesuitism. Toleration, by American example, had begun its march throughout the earth. It trusted in the power of truth, had faith in Christian love and charity, and in the certainty that God wTould decide the contest. Here, now, is an order proposing to destroy the effect of our moral example. The Pope himself would soon be obliged, by our moral suasion, to yield to Protestants in Catholic countries their privileges of worship and rites of burial. But, no, the proposition now is, " to fight the devil with fire," and to pro- scribe and exclude because they proscribe and exclude. And they take up the weapons of Popery without knowing how to wield them half so cunningly as the Catholics do. The Popish priests are rejoiced to see them giving countenance to their example, and ex- pect to make capital and will make capital out of this step back- wards from the progress of the reformation. Protestantism has lost nothing by toleration, but may lose much by proscription.
5th. It is against the peace and purity of the Protestant churches and in aid of priestcraft within their folds, to secretly organize or- ders for religious combined with political ends. The world— I mean the sinner's world — will be set at war with the sects who unite in this crusade against tolerance and freedom of conscience and of speech. Christ's kingdom is not of this world, and freemen will not submit to have the Protestant any more than the Catholic churches attempt to influence political elections, without a struggle from without. And the churches from within must reach a point
24
when they must struggle among themselves and with each other. Peace is the fruit of righteousness, and righteousness and peace must flee away together from a fierce worldly war for secular power. And the churches must be corrupted, too, as evil passions, hatred, and jealousy, and ambition, and envy, and revenge, and strife arise and temptations steal away the hearts of votaries from the humble service of the " meek and lowly Jesus." Protestant priestcraft is cousin german to Catholic ; and where is this to end but in giving to our Protestant priests — the worst of them, I mean — such as will " put on the livery of heaven to serve the devil in"— a control of political power, and thus to bring about the worst union which could be devised, of church and state ! The state will prostitute and corrupt any church, and any church will enslave any state. Corrupt our Protestant priests as the Catholics have been, with tem- poral and political power, and they will be of the same "old lea- ven"— the same old beast — -the same old ox going about with straw in his mouth ! And where will the war of sects end ? When the Protestant priests have gotten the power, which of their sects is to prevail? The Catholics proscribed, which denomination next is to fall? The Episcopal church, my mother church, is denounced by some as the bastard daughter of the whore of Rome. Is she next to be put upon the list of proscription ? And when she is excluded, how are the Predestinarians and Armenians to agree among them- selves? Which is to put up the Governor for Virginia or the Presi- dent for the United States? Which is to have the offices, and how is division to be made of the spoils? Sir, this secret association, founded on proscription and intolerance, must end in nothing short of corruption and persecution of all sects, and in a civil war against the domination of priestcraft, Protestant or Catholic. Indeed, it is so, already, that a real reason for this secresy is that the priests, who have a zeal without knowledge against the Pope, are unwilling to be seen in their union with this dark-lantern movement! Woe, woe, woe ! to the hypocrite who leaves the work of his Master, the Prince of Peace, the Great High Priest after the order of Melchise- deck, for a wordly work like this !
6th. It is against free civil government, by instituting a secret oligarchy, beyond the reach of popular and public scrutiny, and supported by blind instruments of tyranny, bound by test oaths. If the oaths and proceedings of induction of members published be true, they bind the noviciates from the start to a passive obedience
25
but to one law, the order of intolerance and proscription. Men are led to them by a burning curiosity to know that they are to know nothing! The novelty of admission beguiles them into adherence. They assemble to take oaths and promise to obey. To obey whom ? Do the masses, will the masses, is it intended that the masses of their members shall know whom ? Where is the central seat of the Veiled Prophet ? In New York ? New England ? or Old England ? Who knows that Know-Nothingism is not influenced by a cabal abroad — by a foreign influence? Whence passes the sign? — Of course from a common centre somewhere. Is that centre in Vir- ginia, for the orders here? If not, is it not alarming that our peo- ple in this state are to be swerved by a sign from somewhere, any- where else, to go for this or that side of a cause, for this or that candidate for election? Those orders must have degrees; the de- grees are higher and lower, of course, and the higher must prescribe the rule to govern. Each degree must have its higher officers, and all the orders must be subject to some one. Now, how many per- sons constitute the select few of the highest functionaries, nobody knows. Nobody knows who they are, where they are, or how many of them there are. They exist somewhere in the dark. Their blows can't be guarded against, for they strike, not like freemen, bold, bravely for rights, but unseen, and to make conquest of rights. Their adherents are sworn to secrecy and to obey. They magnify their numbers and influence by the very mystery of their organiza- tion, and the timid and time-serving fly to them for fear of proscrip- tion or for hope of reward. They quietly warn friends not to stand in the way of their axe, and friends begin to apprehend that it is time to save themselves by knowing nothing. They threaten their enemies, and some of their enemies skulk from fear of offending them. They alarm a nation, and a nation, with its political and church parties, gives them at once consideration and respect as a power to be dreaded or courted. Thus, in a night, as it were, has an oligarchy grown up in secret to control our liberties, to dictate to parties, to guide elections, and to pass laws. They are establish- ing presses, too, but we cannot define from their positions a single principle which we can say Know-Nothings may not disown and disavow. The Prophet of Khorassan never gave out words more cabalistic — words to catch by sounds, and sounding the very oppo- site of what they really mean. When they have men's fears, curi- osity, hopes, the people's voices, the ballot boxes, the press, at their 4
2(5
command, how long will our minds be free, or persons safe, or pro- perty secure ? How long will stand the pillars of freedom of speech and of the pen, when liberty of conscience is gone and birth is made to " make the man?" He is a dastard, indeed, who fears to oppose an oligarchy or secret cabal like this, and loves not human rights well enough to protect them.
7th. It is opposed to our progress as a nation. No new acquisi- tion can ever be made by purchase or conquest, if foreigners or Ca- tholics are in the boundaries of the acquired countries; for surely we would not seek to take jurisdiction over them; to make them slaves; to raise up a distinct class of persons to be excluded from the privileges of a Republic. If not for their own sakes, for the sake of the Republic we would save ourselves from this example.
As early as 1787, we established a great land ordinance — the most perfect system of eminent domain, of proprietary titles, and of territorial settlements, which the world had ever beheld to bless the homeless children of men. It had the very housewarming of hospitality in it. It wielded the logwood axe, and cleared a conti- nent of forests. It made an exodus in the old world, and dotted the new with log-cabins, around the hearths of which the tears of the aged and the oppressed were wiped away, and cherub children were born to liberty, and sang its songs, and have grown up in its strength and might and majesty. It brought together foreigners of every country and clime — immigrants from Europe of every lan- guage and religion, and its most wonderful effect has been to assimi- late all races. Irish and German, English and French, Scotch and Spaniard, have met on the western prairies, in the western woods, and have peopled villages and towns and cities — queen cities, rival- ing the marts of eastern commerce; and the Teutonic and Celtic and Anglo-Saxon races have in a day mingled into one undistin- guishable mass — and that one is "American !" — American in every sense and in every feeling, in every instinct, and in every impulse of American patriotism. The raw German's ambition is first to ac- quire land enough upon which to send word back to the Baron he left behind him, that he does not envy him his principality !
The Irishman no longer hurras for " my Lord" or " my Lady," but exclaims in his heart of hearts that " this is a free country." The children of all are crossed in blood, in the first generation, so that ethnology can't tell of what parentage they are — they all be- come brother and sister Jonathans — Jonathans to sow and plant
27
grain — Jonathans to raise and drive stock — Jonathans to organize townships and counties and states of free election — Jonathans to establish schools and colleges and rear orators, sages and statesmen for the senate — Jonathans to take a true heart aim with the rifle at any foe who dares invade a common country — Jonathans to carry conquest of liberty to other lands, until the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of Americanism ! As in the colonies, as in the revolution, as in the last war, so have foreigners and immigrants of every religion and tongue, contributed to build up the temple of American law and liberty, until its spire reaches to heaven, whilst its shadow rests on earth ! ! If there has been a turnpike road to be beaten out of the rocky metal, or a canal to be dug, foreigners and immigrants have been armed with the mattock and the spade ; and, if a battle on sea or land had to be fought, foreigners and im- migrants have been armed with the musket and the blade. So have foreigners and immigrants proved that their influence has not im- paired the genius, or the grace, or gladness, or glory of American institutions. At no time have they warred upon our religion in the west, and they have been at peace among themselves. The Pope has lost more than he has gained of proselytes by the Catholics coming here. No proscription but one has ever disturbed the reli- gious tolerance of the west, and that one was to drive out the reli- gion of an impostor which struck at every social relation surround- ing it. If Know-Nothings may tolerate Mormons, I can't see why they leave them to their religious liberty and select the very mother church of Protestantism itself for persecution and proscription. But the west, I repeat, made up of foreigners and immigrants of every religion and tongue, the west is as purely patriotic, as truly American, as genuinely Jonathan, as any people who can claim our nationality. Now, is not here proof in war and in peace that the apprehension of foreign influence, brought here by immigrants, is not only groundless but contradicted by the facts of our settlements and developments? Did a nation ever so grow as we have done under land ordinances and our laws of naturalization? They have not made aristocracies, but sovereigns and sovereignties of the peo- ple of the west. They have strengthened the stakes of our domi- nion, and multiplied the sons and daughters of America so that now she can muster an army, and maintain it, too, outnumbering the strength of any invaders, and making " a host of freedom which is the host of God!"
28
Now, shall all this policy and its proud and happy fruits be cast aside for a contracted and selfish scheme of intolerance and exclu- sion ? Shall the unnumbered sections of our public lands be fenced in against immigrants? Shall hospitality be denied to foreign set- tlers? Shall no asylum be left open to the poor and the oppressed of Europe? Shall the clearing of our lands be stopped? Shall population be arrested? Shall progress be made to stand still? Are we surfeited with prosperity? Shall no more territory be ac- quired? Shall Bermuda be left a marc clausum of the Gulf of Mexico, and Jamaica, a key of South American conquest and acqui- sition, in the hands of England ; Cuba, a depot of domination over the mouth of the Mississippi, in the hands of Spain, just strong enough to keep it from us for some strong maritime power to seize, whenever they will conquer or force a purchase, Central America, in the gate-way of commerce between our Atlantic and Pacific pos- sessions— lest foreigners be let in among us, and Catholics come to participate in our privileges? Verily, this is a strange way to help American institutions and to promote American progress. No, we have institutions which can embrace a world, all mankind with all their opinions, prejudices and passions, however diverse and clashing, provided we adhere to the law of Christian charity and of free tole- ration. But the moment we dispense with these laws, the pride and progress, and glory, and good of American institutions will cease forever, and the memory of them will but goad the affections of their mourners. Selfishness, utter selfishness alone, can enjoy these American blessings, without desiring that all mankind shall participate in their glorious privileges. Nothing, nothing is so dan- gerous to them, nothing can destroy them so soon and so certainly, as secret societies, formed for political and religious ends combined, founded on proscription and intolerance, without necessity, against law, against the spirit of the Christian Reformation, against the whole scope of Protestantism, against the faith, hope, and charity of the Bible, against the peace and purity of the churches; against free government by leading to oligarchy and a union of church and state; against human progress, against national acquisitions, against American hospitality and comity, against American maxims of ex- patriation, and allegiance and protection, against American settle- ments and land ordinances, against Americanism in every sense and shape !
Lastly. What are the evils complained of, to make a pretext for
29
these innovations against American policy, as heretofore practiced with so much success and such exceeding triumph?
1st. The first cause, most prominent, is that the native and Pro- testant feeling has been exasperated by the course pursued by both political parties, in the last several Presidential campaigns; they have cajoled and " honey-fuggled" with both Catholics and foreigners by birth, naturalized and unnaturalized, ad nauseam.
Foreigners and Catholics were not so much to blame for that as both parties. And take these election toys from them, and does any one suppose that they would not resort to some other' humbug? Is not another hobby now arising to put down both of these pets of party ? Is not the donkey of Know-Nothingism now kicking its heels at the lap-dogs of the " rich Irish brogue" and the " sweet German accent," for the fondlings and pettings of political parties?
2d. Both parties have violated the election laws and laws of na- turalization, in rushing green emigrants, just from on ship-board, up to the polls to vote.
This, again, is the fault of both parties. And this is confined chiefly, if not entirely, to the cities. It don't reach to the ballot boxes of the country at large, and is not a drop in the ocean of our political influence. In New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincin- nati and New Orleans, the abuse, I venture to say, don't number, in fact, 500 votes. It is nothing everywhere else, in a country of uni- versal suffrage and of twenty millions of free people. And would perjury and fraud in elections be arrested by the attempt to exclude Catholics and foreigners by birth from office? — or, by extending the limitation of time for naturalization? — or, by repealing the natu- ralization laws? Either of these remedies for the error would mul- tiply the perjuries and the frauds and the foreign votes. Then there would be a pretext for obtaining by fraud and force what was denied under law. By making naturalization rather to follow immediately upon the oath of allegiance, and that to depend on the will and the good character of the^ applicant, fraud and perjury would rather be stripped of their pretexts. The foreigners would be at once exalted in their self-respect and dignity of deportment, right would enable them to exercise the elective franchise in peace, and the country would escape the demoralization resulting from a violation of the laws, and from the means employed to set at nought their force and effect.
3d. Foreigners have abused the protection of the United States abroad.
30
If they have, it was a violation of law. They cannot well do it, without the want of care and vigilance in our consular and diplo- matic functionaries abroad. Citizens at home abuse our protection, and they are not always punished for their crimes.
4th. Catholics, it is urged, have been combined and obeyed the signs of their bishops and priests in elections, and have been in- fluenced in their votes to a great extent by religious and exclusive considerations.
If they have, that is one of the best reasons why Protestants should not follow their example. It is evil, and the less there is of it the better for all. Let bigotry and proscription belong to any sect rather than to Protestants. When they follow alleged Catholic examples, which they arraign, as dangerous and mischievous, then they themselves become as Catholics, according to their own opi- nions, dangerous and mischievous.
5th. Catholics and Catholic governments, it is urged, have always excluded Protestant from religious and social privileges in their countries.
And how much have we gained upon them by following the op- posite policy? By tolerance we have grown so great as now to make them feel the necessity to respect our title to comity and right to a separate enjoyment of the privileges of Protestants. Our go- vernment is interposing in that behalf, and I fear it will not be assisted any in its negotiations by the attempt here to proscribe Catholics and strangers by birth.
6th. It is complained that in some instances, in New York par- ticularly, the Catholics have been arrogant, exclusive and anti- republican in their attempts to control the public schools, and to exclude from them the free and open study of the word of God.
How can this bigotry be subdued by bigotry, which retires itself in secresy and proscribes all who don't proscribe Catholics? There is no homeopathy in moral disease. Proscription and bigotry and secresy must not be prescribed for the maladies of proscription, bigotry, and hiding of the word ! The diseases would then be epi- demic among Protestants, Catholics, and all. The open and lawful and liberal means for either prevention or correction of this evil are simple and efficacious if righteously applied.
7th. It is urged that Catholics recognize the supremacy of the Pope and submission to priestcraft, which might, under circum- stances, be destructive of our free government.
Suppose that to be so, there are worse sects among us, whom
3L
Know-Nothings pretend not to assail. There are the Mormon po- lygamists; there are the necromancers of Spiritual Rappings ; and there is a sect which aspires not only to destroy free government, but the great globe and all that it inhabit — the millennial Millerites. And, it is about as likely that Millerites will set the world on fire in one day, as that Popery will ever be able to break up or bow down this republic. The prophecies must all fail, and Christ's dominion upon earth must cease, and printing presses and telegraphs and steam must be lost to the arts, and revolutions must go backwards, and the sky must fall and catch Know-Nothings, before the times of Reve- lations are out, and the Pope catches " Uncle Sam."
No, no, no — there is not a reason in ail these complaints, which is not satisfied by our laws as they exist, and not an error, which may not be corrected by the proper application of the lawful autho- rity at our command, without resorting to the extraordinary, extra- judicial, revolutionary, and anti-American plan of a secret society of intolerance and proscription.
I belong to a secret society, but for no political purpose. I am a native Virginian intus el in cute, a Virginian; my ancestors on both sides for two hundred years were citizens of this country and this state — half English, half Scotch. I am a Protestant by birth, by baptism, by intellectual belief and by education and by adoption. I am an American, in every fibre and in every feeling an American; yet in every character, in every relation, in every sense, with all my head, and all my heart, and all my might, I protest against this secret organization of native Americans, and of Protestants to pro- scribe Roman Catholic and naturalized citizens !
Now, will they proscribe me?
That question weighs not a feather with
Your obedient servant,
HENRY A. WISE.
THE
SPEECH AT ALEXANDRIA.
Mr. Wise's introductory remarks were not reported, as the reporter did not get in in time to take notes on his commencement, and the following is but a sketch, correcting Hambleton's very erroneous publication :
I appear before you to-nigh't, citizens of Alexandria, not upon my own account, but as the standard bearer of the Democratic party of this state, regularly nominated in accordance with the time-honored usage of the party. I come as endorsed and twice en- dorsed by the Democratic party, named as I was to be its elector in 1848, and in 1852; twice elector for the people, and now nominated for the governorship of the state of Virginia. If any Democrat in this assembly recollects that, in times past, I did not always regard regularly organized nominations, and chooses to vote against me on that account, let him do so, provided he will stand where I have ever stood — upon principle, acting bona Jide, as an earnest, honest man; let him then, I say, vote against me. When he does it, let him re- member that he then does the very act for which he is condemning me — he will be voting against the regular nominee. If there be any Whig in this assembly who will vote against me because I am not what he calls consistent, and because I have chosen to use party as a servant and not as a master, I would not ask him for his vote. But I would ask him not to be like me, whom he chooses to deem inconsistent. (Applause.) I ask him, when he comes to the polls, to be true and clear in act and conscience ; not carrying before him the dark lantern of a secret association and gripping a Democrat with one hand and a Whig with the other. If he is the jewel of consistency, which he would have me be, let him be himself guilt-
34
less. But, gentlemen, though I have come before you a man nomi- nated by a party, the standard bearer of a party, doing battle for its principles, still I come not here to-night to address party. I appear before the people, without distinction of party, to address myself to a republican people charged with the sacred and holy trust of self-government. I come to address myself to a people whose only means of self-government is by election. I come to ad- dress myself to the reason, and the conscience, and the judgment, and the will of the people, whose reason, and conscience, and judg- ment, and will, must be exercised in the election, and let me ask you — every considerate, every conscientious man, every man with a stake in hand, either of capital or of labor — let me ask you what are the considerations which ought to govern a republican people charged with the trust assigned to you of worthily bestowing on a man the highest office in the gift of the people? Gentlemen, you have great, momentous, deeply interesting topics of domestic policy for your consideration. There is your public credit, your public works, your commerce, your agriculture, your mining and manu- facturing, and the great subject of popular instruction. At this moment causes are operating, not only affecting your national cre- dit, your state credit, but touching the nerves, the tender nerves of your private purses. All Europe is in arms, and the labor of Eu- rope is abstracted from the world of commerce. The most power- ful sovereigns of the earth are in battle array. Each crowned head of Europe is calling for gold — incessantly demanding gold, in quan- tities which Australia, and California, and Siberia cannot supply. And this demand for gold affects your national credit, your state credit, and your private credit. I mean not to create any alarm ; I mean not to cause any excitement or distrust in your minds in rela- tion to the condition of your credit ; but I mean to say that, at no moment of my life have I seen the time when there was more ne- cessity than there is at present for prudence in government, and prudence in private affairs. But there is a salvo, thank God ! We live on a continent long enough and broad enough to feed the world. We have wheat, we have corn, we have pork and beef. One little port, which has grown up like Jonah's gourd in a single night, on .the lakes, can send more wheat to market than any four ports of Eussia; and that city which is called the Queen City of the West, is haunted by the ghosts of slaughtered swine. (Laughter.) One single power of Europe now at war, has hung up in London the
)
35
barometer of exchange for all the world; still, we have the pro- ducing power of provisions and munitions of war. (Cheers.) While they are fighting, thank God, we can be feeding. (Laughter.) This, this is the salvo. Where the almighty dollar is made so much of, human food has, by the adventitious aid of causes now existing, advanced in value; wheat has doubled its price. I make these re- marks in order to bring your attention to the subject of the public credit of the state of Virginia, whose bonds have already touched the zero of 85 cents in the dollar. How long that war may last, what accidents may happen from it, what collisions may be produced by it, no human foresight can now see. But let us be prepared, and then come what may, I pledge myself — if elected Governor of Virginia — that, though direst necessity may come, come what will, at all hazards, the public credit of the state of Virginia shall be preserved. (Enthusiastic applause.) Private honor is precious ; but, as infinitely higher than an individual is the state, so infinitely higher than private honor is the honor of the state. Reproach Vir- ginia who will, reproach her whoever is so inclined, no man can say that her honor has yet been stained. (Vociferous applause.) If I be elected governor of Virginia, then, I tell you bluntly and briefly, if it be necessary to tax you to defend her honor, I shall commend taxation, though it make us groan. (Sensation.) Next to public credit, next to the honor of the state, are her great public works, in the high march of prosperity. You have never yet had — it is unfortunate you never have had— a system of public works. Your works have been begun without regard to their relative im- portance. You have not completed one before you have begun another and another. Your public works are without termini. Your canals and your railroads are like ditches dug in the middle of a plantation, without outlet at either end. You appropriate for them to-day, neglect them to-morrow, and leave the appropriation of the day after to-morrow to repair decay. It is time that some one or two, or as many as you can, of the public works of the state of Virginia should be completed, in order to ease the taxation of the public. It is time they should be completed, in order to render some profit to the state. All that the state of Virginia has been wanting has been to reach out her arms- to the great West — to tap the Ohio river — to join the Big Bend of the Ohio river with your rivers in the East. You have reversed, in times past, the order of true policy. You have said, " Let us have capital — let us
36
have population, and then we will have a city." But you never will have capital — you never will have population, until you have the internal improvements to build up a city. You want com- merce. You have bays, quays, roadsteads, which would float the navies of the world ; but you have no seat of commerce — no centre of trade has yet pointed its spires to the heavens on the soil of Vir- ginia. That is because you have completed none of your public works. Whatever difference of opinion, then, may have been as to the commencement of your works of state improvement, now that they are begun — now that millions have been spent and wasted upon them — now that you are obliged to be taxed in order to com- plete them, the sooner you submit to the taxation to complete your primary works the better. And the most expeditious and certainly the most profitable way of completing your works of secondary im- portance is, to complete those of primary importance. If, then, elected governor of the state of Virginia, I shall use all the influ- ence which I can wield consistently with the public credit, and with the condition of the people, to expedite the completion of all the works of primary importance in the state. Next to your public works and your commerce, your agriculture is the most important. The four great cardinal sources of production — the four great pow- ers of production of national wealth are commerce, agriculture, manufacturing and mining. We have 64,000 square miles as rich in every element of commerce — in every element of agriculture, of manufacturing and mining, as any other 64,000 square miles on the face of the globe ; and yet with all four powers in her hand, Virginia has, thus far in her history, relied upon one source alone.
[At this period of the oration the noise and confusion became so great from the press of people in the hall, that Mr. Wise halted in his speech, and invited persons immediately in front of the speaker to take places on the platform, so as to make room for the crowd behind- — a movement which procured your reporters seats in a more eligible location. Mr. Wise, resuming said : — ]
I was saying when interrupted, that the state of Virginia has every element of commerce, of agriculture, of mining and of manu- facturing. On Chesapeake bay, from the mouth of the Potomac to the capes of the Chesapeake, you have roadsteads and har- bors sufficient to float the navies of the world. From the river of Swans, on whose margin we are, down to the line of North Caro- lina, you have the Potomac, the Kappahannock, the Piankatank, the
37
rivers of Mob jack bay, James river and the Elizabeth river — all meeting in the most beautiful sheet of water of all the seas of the earth. You have the bowels of your Western mountains rich in iron, in copper, in coal, in salt, in gypsum, and the very earth is so rich in oil that it sets the rivers in flame. You have the line of the Alleghany, that beautiful Blue Ilidge which stands placed there by the Almighty, not to obstruct the way of the people to market, but placed there in the very bounty of Providence to milk, the clouds, to make the sweet springs which are the sources of your rivers. (Great applause.) And at the head of every stream is the waterfall murmuring the very music of your power to put spindles in motion. (Applause.) And yet commerce has long ago spread her sails and sailed away from you ; you have not as yet dug more than coal enough to warm yourselves at your own hearths ; you have set no tilt hammer of Vulcan to strike blows worthy of gods in the iron foundries. You have not yet spun more than coarse cotton enough, in the way of manufacture, to clothe your own slaves. You have had no commerce, no mining, no manufactures. You have re- lied alone on the single power of agriculture : and such agriculture ! (Great laughter.) Your sedge patches outshine the sun. Your inat- tention to your only source of wealth has scarred the very bosom of mother earth. (Laughter.) Instead of having to feed cattle on a thou- sand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed steer through the sedge patches to procure a tough beef-steak. (Laughter.) And yet, while your trust has been in the hands of the old negroes of the plantation; while the master knows as little as his slave about the science, applied science of agriculture, while commerce and manu- factures, and mining, have been hardly known, and agriculture has been neglected — notwithstanding all that, and notwithstanding the effect of this has been that you have parted with as much popula- tion as you have retained ; notwithstanding all this, I say, Old Vir- ginia still has a million and a half of population left within her limits. She still has her iron, her coal, her gypsum, her salt, her copper. She still has her harbors and rivers, and her water power, and every source of wealth which thinking men, active men, enter- prising men, need apply to.
What boast like that can be made for any other state on the earth? What, then, is our duty as Virginians, as patriots, as men worthy of our fathers — worthy to be the husbands of our wives? What is our duty? Come to the polls and vote against me in
38
welcome. I am nothing. Eecord your votes under the influence of any blind prejudice that you please. Record your votes against me. You strike down but an humble man when you strike me down, and though you strike down a man who is too proud to beg you to vote for him, yet he would kneel as a little child and implore you to come to the polls, to do something to put forth your strength to raise up this blessed old commonwealth. (Great cheering.) Her head is in the dust. With all this plenitude of power, she has been dwarfed in the Union; but^by her gods! I say that she has the power now, the energy, the resources — may I say the men? to be put upon the line of progress to the eminence of prosperity, to pass New York yet faster in the Union than ever New York has passed her. (Cheers.) You have been called the " Old Dominion." Let us as Virginians, I implore you, this night resolve that a new era shall dawn, and that henceforth she shall be called the New Domi- nion. (Cheering.)
Give her commerce, and she will have capital and population ; she will have agriculture, mining and manufacturing; and then she will want but one thing more — the enlightenment of her people. (Cheers.) She wants her popular instruction. I do not mean to recommend to you, or to any people within the limits of Virginia, any little day school, night school, common school, a b c, single rule of three, or Peter Parley yankee system of instruction. (Laughter.) I want Mr. Jefferson's policy, that he originally recommended to the state, to be consummated — an enlarged system of science, of literature, of learning, to be given to all classes of our people, to leaven the whole lump. (Applause.) I care not how blue a Fede- ralist that man may be who curses his red waistcoat, but Thomas Jefferson has three things recorded upon his tomb — that he was the writer of the Declaration of the Independence of our country, the founder of the University of Virginia, and the author of the act of religious freedom. (Cheers.) For these three good works alone, every man — Democrat or Federalist — may kneel, patriotically kneel, at his grave. (Cheers.) The great apostle of Democracy never in- tended that the University of Virginia should be like Michael An- gelo's dome in the heavens, without scaffolding or support — never. He intended that it should be a dome over roof and cornice, and walls of colleges and academies, and of common schools; that it should be a dome indeed, but the dome of a grand structure for the whole people. He intended that the University should superintend the col-
39
leges, and that there should be a college for every centre of acade- mies; that the colleges should superintend the academies, and that there should be an academy for every centre of schools ; that the academies should superintend the common schools, and that there should be a common school for every neighborhood. He knew what equality was. He knew what Democracy was. He knew that the republican institutions of this land were based upon no other, no surer foundation than intelligence and virtue. His Democracy did not drag men down from their elevation into the mire; but his De- mocracy levelled upwards. He knew that if this man's son had all the means of education, of common school, of academy, of col- lege and of university, and then might travel abroad for his learn- ing, he could not be the equal of the son of the father who had to work for his daily food. He knew that if it was inhuman for the parent to starve the body of a child, it was much more inhuman to starve the mind of a child. (Cheers.) He knew that if you could afford to raise taxes for alms-houses and pauper-houses, to feed the bodies of the poor, it was much more the duty of the state mother to furnish mental food to her children. His Democracy was like the principle of Christian charity — like the great virtue of Christian charity — it raised men up to the highest platform of ele- vation— high as kings' heads; made them sovereigns indeed, to stand equal foot, equal head, uncontradicted, except by the laws of God — with equal opportunities for all. It reached down, to raise men up to the common level of the highest. He knew that pro- perty— property which must be taxed for instruction — had no other muniment, no other defence, no other safe reliance for its protection, but intelligence among the people. (Applause.) Is there a rich man, then, in this assembly that loves a dollar better than the in- telligence of the people? Is there any old bachelor among you, who has no child of his own, who is too mean to support some poor man's daughter as his wife, or to be rich in having some rich man's daughter to support him ? (Laughter.) Is there a man in the state who has already educated his sons, who is now unwilling to be taxed in order that his poor neighbor's children may be educated — educated not only in the common school, but in the academy, the college, the university? If there be, let him remember that before he dies his title to his property may have to be tried by a jury to say whether that property be his own or not, and if God shall let him live till he dies (laughter), and he can keep what property he
40
has, let him remember that there is such a thing as what lawyers call devisavit vel non, that a jury may have to decide whether or not he had sense enough to make his will when he died. An ad valo- rem tax upon property is the appropriate tax for the education of the children of the people. Property owes its defence to the virtue and intelligence of the people, and property ought, therefore, to be taxed for the education of the people. (Cheers.) We want one school for this state that will revive our agriculture. We want a school like the Maeglin Institute of Prussia — -an institute of applied science- — an institute not to teach political economy and send young gentlemen to the legislature before they are hardly pipped in their tuition ; but an institute that will teach them domestic economy, the proper relation between floating and fixed capital at home — how much money a man must have to bu}~ — how much land, how much stock, and how many implements; an institute that will teach the physiology of animals and plants; an institute that will teach natural philosophy and the diseases of animals and plants. Then, gentlemen, the father who has spent his life in ac- quiring real estate, in spreading out his broad acres, in adding family to family of slaves, may die with a son instructed how to manage the estate. You will then have, or it will be your oppor- tunity to have, the same privilege that the German baron has, of sending your son for his two, or three, or four, or five years' appren- ticeship to an institute of that kind that will teach him agricultural chemistry and every other science necessary to enable him to ma- nage an estate of lands and negroes. The present condition of things has existed too long in Virginia. The landlord has skinned the tenant, and the tenant has skinned the land, until all have grown poor together. (Laughter.) I have heard a story — I will not locate it here or there — about the condition of the prosperity of our agri- culture. I was told by a gentleman in Washington, not long ago, that he was traveling in a county not a hundred miles from this place, and overtook one of our citizens on horseback, with perhaps a bag of hay for a saddle, without stirrups, and the leading line for a bridle; and he said, "Stranger, whose house is that?" "It is mine," was the reply. They came to another. " Whose house is that?" "Mine, too, stranger." To a third : "And whose house is that?" "That's mine, too, stranger; but don't suppose that I am so darned poor as to own all the land about here." (Laughter.) We may own land, we may own slaves, we may own roadsteads and
41
mines, we may have all the elements of wealth, but unless we ap- ply intelligence, unless we adopt a thorough system of instruction, it is utterly impossible that we can develop as we ought to develop, and as Virginia is prepared now to do, and to take the line of march towards the very eminence of prosperity. She is in the anomalous condition of an old state that has all the capacities of a new one— of a new state that has all the capacities of an old one. Unite with me, I implore you; unite with each other; let us as Virginians resolve that there shall be a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull alto- gether, without distinction of party, without prejudice of party— that there shall be a united brotherhood of Virginians to rear the head of the old mother commonwealth out of the dust. (Cheers.) If I am elected governor of the state of Virginia, it shall be my de- votion, my earnest endeavor, in season and out of season, to promote her public credit, her internal improvements, her commerce, her agri- culture, her mining and manufacturing, and her popular instruction. Well, now, gentlemen, is not that enough ! Are these topics not sufficient for an election for chief magistrate for the state of Virginia? Is there any thing else worth considering ? With conscientious, with considerate men — with men determined to cast aside minor things, mere prejudices, whether personal or political— is there not enough in these six cardinal points to guide your votes and to govern this election? What more do you want? Why, you are in the habit of discussing federal politics; and permit me to say to you, very hon- estly and very openly, that next to brandy, next to card-playing, next to horse-racing, 4the thing that has done more harm to Virginia than any other in the course of her past history, has been her insatiable appetite for federal politics. (Cheers and laughter.) She has given all her great men to the Union. Her Washington, her Jefferson, her Madison, her Marshall, her galaxy of great men, she has given to the Union. When and where have her best sons been at work, devoting their best energies to her service at home? Richmond, instead of attending to Richmond's business, has been too much in the habit of attending to the affairs of Washington city, when there are plenty there, God knows, to attend to them themselves. (Laughter.) If you want my opinions upon federal politics, though, I shall not skulk from uttering them. The most prominent subject is that of the foreign war. It is said that this administration is a "do nothing administration." To its honor I can claim of every fair-minded man of you — to its honor I can claim that it is at least preserving 6
42
our neutrality in the foreign war. (Loud and prolonged cheers.) I concur with them in that policy, and here let me say, that, so far as I am concerned, my sentiments are utterly opposed to any filli- bustering in any part of the world. (Cheers.)
Then you have the question of the public lands. We are told, now-a-days, that all the old issues are dead. It is not so. If there has been one thing next to the Constitution of the United States more than another among our institutions which has been grand, and great, and good, it has been the operation of the great land or- dinance of 1787. It came, like most of the institutions of North America, by inspiration from Heaven. There is no prototype of the land system of the United States in ancient or modern times. There is nothing like it in the feudal system. There is nothing like it in any of the examples of modern Europe: Its very beauty is its sim- plicity. An eminent domain ; a virgin soil, richer than any that God's sun ever shone upon, or Heaven's dews ever watered ; the simple system of sectioning the public lands by north and south, east and west lines, making them the homes of the brave and of the free, clear of all litigation — selling them at the lowest price, at a mini- mum that is within the reach of the poorest man, and graduating the price before exposed to sale at the minimum by an infinitesimal graduation— those who have been denouncing the graduation of the public lands ought to remember that there never has been a time when the price of the public lands was not graduated; that they have ever been exposed first to public sale before they have been exposed to sale at the minimum price of a dollar and a quarter per acre. You had an eminent domain, which was a sacred trust, for the common use and benefit of all the states of the Union. You had that eminent domain under your own care, to which the poorest man, the forlornest man of the east, might go for a home in the west. You had room there for the frontierman, for the actual settler, armed w7ith the simple implement of the logwood axe to hew out unto himself a home for settlement, to strike the light of the log cabin, and to invite the oppressed of every land to our land for an asylum, with a soil rich enough to grow a vine luxuriant enough to shade him and his dwelling all over, where there were none to make him afraid. (Cheers.) If you ask me for my opinion in rela- tion to the public lands, I will tell you that first and foremost, next at least to preserving the sacred trust as a source of revenue to ease taxation by customs, I would protect, by all the protective' policy
43
in my power, the actual settlers upon our public lands. (Cries of "good, good.";
I have been in the west ; I have seen the frontierman ; I have broken his bread; I have drunk of his cup; I know his enterprise; I know his manhood; I know his privations; I know his courage; I know his endurance ; and I know that he is the best of the right arm of the power of his country. (Cheers.) I know that with his logwood axe alone, he has laid the empires of no less than seventeen sovereignties in our confederacy. I would protect him, while at the same time I would conserve the public domain of this country, as a source of revenue to be held as sacred as the revenue by customs. I would protect it from all partial legislation by Con- gress, and from becoming the prey and plunder of land-jobbers and politicians. I would prev&nt it from becoming a source of cor- ruption to Congress, thereby destroying our state rights and our state sovereignty. (Loud cheers.) I would protect it from the electioneering of parties; and any bill that has these ends in view has my concurrence. The President of the United States tells us that 23,000,000 of acres of the public lands have been disposed of during the past year, and that only 7,000,000 have been sold. Thus, without law, while 7,000,000 have been sold, 16,000,000 have been given away; and the price of the public lands, without changing the minimum, has been reduced and graduated with a vengeance.
As to the subject of internal improvements, that, too, is alive and kicking. That part of " the American system" is not a dead issue. Congress has been passing harbor and river bills. It is a part of the system of the light-houses of the skies of 1828. It is a part of " the American system," and I thank God that not only has there been a Hickory and a Tyler, but that now there is found a Pierce to thun- der his veto against such measures. (Great cheering.)
You are told that the tariff is a dead issue. That, too, is alive. Such are the energies and resources of this country, that we have paid the debt of the war of the Revolution, we have paid the debt of the second war of Independence, and we have paid the debt of the war with Mexico ; and now there is a proposition for a reduc- tion of the revenue. A question arises, shall that reduction be made upon the protected or the unprotected class of articles? On that subject, I stand where I have ever stood — a free trade man. (Loud cheers.)
But, gentlemen, I am hurrying over all these topics to get at one
44
which is the subject of the day — the fatal subject of discussion. I mean the interstate relations of this Union on the subject of slavery. I have had a very severe training in collision with the acutest, the astutest, the archest, enemy of Southern slavery that ever existed. I mean the "Old Man Eloquent," John Quincy Adams. I^must have been a dull boy indeed if I had not learned my lessons tho- roughly on that subject. And let me tell you that, again and again, I had reason to know and to feel the wisdom and the sagacity of that departed man. Again and again, in the lobby, on the floor, he told me, told me vauntingly, that the pulpit would preach, and the school would teach, and the press would print, among the peo- ple who had no tie and no association with slavery, until, would not only be reached the slave trade between the states, the slave trade in the District of Columbia, slavery in the District, slavery in the territories, but slavery in the states. Again and again, he said that he would not abolish slavery in the District of Columbia if he could ; for he would retain it as a bone of contention, a fulcrum of the lever for agitation, agitation, agitation, until slavery in the states was shaken from its base. And his prophecies have been ful- filled— fulfilled far faster, and more fearfully, certainly, than ever he anticipated before he died. When I left the House of Representa- tives at that capitol, ten years ago, had I said to Mr. Adams, "Sir, to me it seems that the Congress of the United States can carve out a piece of slave-state territory and make it free soil," he would have said, "No, sir; Congress will not dare to attempt such a thing; it would be a casus belli if they did." And yet, have you not seen that Congress has carved out, in round numbers, 44,000 square miles from the slave state of Texas? Have you not seen a briga- dier general (Riley) of the United States army, with his epaulettes on his shoulders, cocked hat upon his head, and sword at his side, in full panoply of uniform, acting as a brigadier general of the standing army of the United States, go into the territory of Cali- fornia, and there, with the right arm and the left arm of executive power — the army and navy — at his command; have you not seen him, I say, under the pretext that the army and navy could not protect persons and property, proclaim from the camp a territorial Legislature, a territorial judiciary, from tribunales sitperiores down to the alcalde! Have you not seen him constitute himself chief ex- ecutive— territorial executive? How dared a brigadier general of the United States standing army thus to assume the power of usurp-
45
ing territorial government? Had he been court martialed he would have produced his order from a Delaware secretary of state (Mr. Clayton), and he would have replied that the salus populi — the safety of the people — required this territorial usurpation by a brigadier general of the United States army. Well, if it did require the civil power — as well as the army and navy — why, the plea of necessity was met. There was the Legislature, there was the judiciary, there was the civil executive, as well as the brigadier general, who had at his command the navy and the army — -all power as then necessary for protection. How dared he then, to go further, after the plea of ne- cessity was sufficiently met, and after the safety of the people was se- cured ? How dared he go forth and proclaim the time, place and man- ner of holding elections ? Elections, for what ? Elections for a con- vention. Convention, for what ? To form a constitution. A constitu- tion, for what ? To create a state — a sovereignty. Yes, by proclama- tion from the camp of the brigadier general of the standing army of the United States, elective franchise was created. He gave it to Chi- lean, to Chinese, to Patagonian, to Peruvian, and — last, though not least — to a Georgia representative in Congress (Thomas Butler King). And after creating suffrage to create a convention — the highest act of the people — convention to create a constitution, con- stitution to create a state, a sovereign state — the highest act of creation that can be performed by human power — an act next only to those of Deity — no higher act can the people themselves exert — he inducted California a free soil state into the Union. Thus free soilism has been proclaimed from the camp of the standing army. And what has been the result? "Acquiesce" was the word; "ac- quiesce." They have traded on the pious attachment of the people of the United States to that palladium of liberty, the Union of the states. They have traded upon the feeling of alarm for the Union which was never in danger — never, never. They made " acquiesce" the pass-word for the people. And what did we get in return? We got a free soil law. (Derisive cheers.) We got the grant of the constitution itself — the glorious privilege of catching runaway niggers. For that, for that we have submitted to 44,000 square miles of slave state territory being taken and converted into free soil territory. For that wTe have acquiesced in the proclamation of free soil California from the camp of the standing army of the United States, without authority of Congress. Aye, but they tell me it
46
was all sanctioned by the people. The people ! The word people has two significations. It is either a mere aggregate of human be- ings, or it is an organized aggregate of human beings. Nothing short of an organized aggregate of human beings in California could ever have sanctioned this usurpation ; there was no organized ag- gregate of human beings, either to permit the usurpation or to sanction the usurpation. But we got the fugitive slave act. But how execute it? Can we execute it? A master from the state of Maryland, directly after the act was passed, went to Pennsylvania to recover his property; he was murdered; and judge and jury could not be found to execute the law, to render a verdict or pass judgment upon the crime of murder itself, in that case. At last a Virginia master, from this town, I believe, went to Boston to have the law executed, and to execute it the marshal had to call on the President of the United States — and thank God, there was a Demo- cratic New Hampshire President of the United States, who was ready to obey the call. (Cheers.) The army and navy were or- dered to protect the marshal in the performance of his duty. He did perform his duty, at an expense of $ 13,000 to the city of Bos- ton, and of more than $ 100,000 to the government and to indivi- duals ; and the captive was brought back by reclamation to Vir- ginia. And what has been the consequence? Now we come to the dragon's teeth. Mr. Adams' prediction has been fulfilled. The preachers have begun. The three thousand preachers of Christian politics opened their battery from the press. I have here a speci- men of one of their sermons, which I beg leave to read to you. I hold in my hand a discourse called " The Rendition of Anthony Burns, its causes and consequences; a discourse on Christian poli- tics, delivered in Williams' Hall, Boston, Whitsunday, June 4, 1854." — I beg you, gentlemen, to remember that date — 4th of June, 1854 — because some prophecies are made in that sermon which are wonderful prophecies, if this preacher did not know something — (laughter) — " by James Freeman Clarke, minister of the church of the Disciples," published by request — second edition of two thou- sand— printed at Boston. It commences with introductory services. There is — first the reading the psalms — (laughter) — second, a hymn; third, selections from the prophets; fourth, prayer; fifth, reading of Scripture — selections from the lamentations of Jeremiah — (great laughter) — sixth, a hymn: —
47
" Men, whose boast it is that ye Come from fathers brave and free — If there breathes on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave?
They are slaves who dare not speak For the fallen and the weak. They are slaves who will not choose, Hatred, scoffing and abuse,
Eather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think —
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three." (Great laughter.) «
These are cabilistic terms, gentlemen, — "Two or three." Then comes seventhly, the sermon : —
" Is this the city, which men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? Her gates are sunk into the ground. He hath destroyed and broken her bars. Her kings and princes are among Gentiles. The law is no more. Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord."
That is the text. The preacher says :
"I have invited you here this morning to meditate on the facts of the week — the phenomenon which has occurred in the streets of Boston. The slave power which has triumphed in Congress over the rights of the north, which has violated sacred compacts, and broken contracts, has * * * come north to Boston, taken possession of the court-house, so as to govern our whole police force, our whole military force, and suspend and interrupt the business of our citi- zens, until its demands can be satisfied.. * * # The slave power drove the Indians out of Georgia, brings on a Florida war, and, at last grown bolder, proposes to annex Texas as a slave state, and after a struggle carries the main feature of that transaction. It was done avowedly to prevent the abolition of slavery and to strengthen the slave power. Not only was this purpose declared in Congress by Mr. Henry A. Wise and others, but also by Mr. Calhoun, Secre- tary of State, in diplomatic correspondence with Mr. Pakenham, the British Minister. * * * A blind adherence to party is another cause of our present position. The mere names of Whig, Demo- crat, or Free Soiler are now worth nothing."
Do you not hear some talk like that now ?
" We must have men to vote for — upright, downright and out- spoken. In that is your last hope — your only security."
48
Again —
" The sibyl, each time we reject her offer, demands a higher price. What she would have done in 1850 she will not do now. What she will do now she will not do five years hence. * * The country is at last awaking. The great west is awaking. Ohio is wheeling into line, and will be perhaps the leader in the coming struggle."
What coming struggle? How did this preacher know that Ohio was wheeling into line as eatly as the 4th of June 1854? Again —
"Northern enthusiasm, when fully aroused, has always been more than a match for southern organization — northern conscience."
Oh! gods! (Great laughter.) Northern conscience! Take a shark skin, and let it dry to shagreen — skin the rhinoceros — go then and get the silver steel and grind it, and when you have ground it, then take the hone and whet it till it would split a hair, and with it prick the shagreen or the shark skin, and then go and try it on northern consciences ! ! (Cheers and laughter.)
"Northern conscience, slow but stubborn, more than a match for southern impetuosity ! So may it be still. If right is very apt to be overthrown at first, it is sure of victory in the end- Careless seems the great avenger,
History's pages but record, One death struggle in the darkness,
'Tvvixt old systems and the " word ;" Truth forever or the scaffold,
Wrong forever or the throne, Yet that scaffold sways a future, And behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above his own."
And this is the first time that this preacher of Christian politics has named God in the whole sermon :—
"May to-day, he continues, be a Pentecost to the cause of hu- manity ; to-day may the servants of Christ be every where speaking with one tongue, as the Spirit gives them utterance. May ail our devotions and aspirations be—"
This is fusion.
44 That all true lovers of liberty— whether they call themselves Whig, Democrat, Free Soiler or Abolitionist — be united in one calm and honest purpose, that once again all may be of one speech and one tongue. We must be united; we must sacrifice every thing to
49
unite in one great northern party all the friends of freedom and hu- manity. Let us forget the past, and gladly receive help from all. Let us reproach none, because those who come in at the eleventh hour — whoever repent and do deeds meet to repentance, even if he has been a servant of kidnappers, a United States Commissioner or Marshal, the editor of a sham Democratic paper, or worse than all, a lower law Doctor of Divinity. Whoever will repent let him be welcome. Let us be calm."
And " calm," there, means not only composed but silent and secret.
"Let us put the calmest, coolest man in front to lead us; let the most cautious advise and tell us what to do ; let those of us who for years have been speaking, now listen for words from those whose turn has come to speak. The anti-slavery platform welcomes its new orators from State street and Long wharf. Let us not by any rashness lose the opportunity of uniting all men. As regards the southern threat of dissolving the Union, that has now lost its terror. If we had disregarded it ten years ago we should not have been in such danger of dissolution of the Union as we are to-day. The ma- jority of the north to-day have no objection to a dissolution of the Union. In this community, where one man was opposed to the Union a week ago, a hundred men are opposed to it to-day. The danger of dissolution of the Union now is from the north, not from the south, if some effective measures are not taken to prevent the rendition of another fugitive from the northern states. We can all determine to support no man hereafter for any public office in the federal or state governments who is not openly pledged for five things; first, the abolition of the obnoxious clause of the Nebraska bill ; second, the right of trial by jury for fugitives; third, the ex- clusion of slavery from the territory; fourth, the admission of no more slave states; fifth, the abolition of the Union, if these things cannot be obtained."
That is what they call " Christian politics" in Boston. (Laughter.)
What is the result of such preaching, such teaching, such print- ing? What has been the result of the pulpit, the school-houses and the press at the north upon this subject? Gentlemen, but a short time back, New England — Massachusetts especially — had but one uism" within her limits, and that was Puritanism, the religion of the good old Covenanters and Congregationalists — Puritanism, full of vitality, full of spirituality — Puritanism that made even the barren 7
50
rock of Plymouth to fructify, that made the New Englanders a strong people, that made them a rich people, that made them a learned people. But since they have waxed fat, since they have begun to build churches by lottery, begun to moralize mankind by legislation, begun to play petty providences for the people, begun to be Protestant Popes over the consciences of men, begun to preach *' Christian politics," such as you have heard, Puritanism has disap- peared, and we have in place of it Unitarianism, Universalism, Fou- rierism, Millerism, Mormonism — all the odds and ends of isms — until at last you have a grand fusion of all those odds and ends of isms in the omnium gatherum of isms, called Know-Nothingism. (Cheers, laughter, and hisses.) What is it? Now I wish not to offend any man in this assembly, because I would fain believe of our Virginians who are uniting themselves with this association, that their motives and their acts are as innocent as mine. I would fain believe that no man in the state of Virginia means more than simply some political end by uniting himself with this association, and to such men — con- scientious, thinking men, who mean no more than to pick up a stick with which to bruise the head of democracy — I will only say, beware! my friends; you may be picking up a serpent that will sting you as deadly as it will democracy. (Cheers and stamping of feet.) I assail no motives here. You may be, according to that passage of Scripture which we sometimes read — that 11th verse of the 15th chapter of 2d Samuel, which tells us that two hundred men went out from Jerusalem with Absalom, when he left his father ; that they "went out in their simplicity, and that they knew not anything." (Laughter.) And Bishop Hall most emphatically com- ments upon that, by saying that the two hundred went out in their simplicity, not knowing anything, and they were merely loyal re- bels; but Absalom knew what he was about; he knew something; he knew that when the trumpet blew behind, it should be under- stood by the people that Absalom reigneth in Hebron; and I tell you that there is an Absalom at work with Know-Nothingism. (Great cheering and some hisses.)
"What is it? Where did it come from ? What can it be? Did it fall from the sky? Did it rise from the sea? I tell you that there is no wonder about it. I tell you that I know it from A to Z. I know where it came from. I know where it was engen- dered. I know what it has done, and I can exchange with you, my friend, every sign, every grip, every pass word. (Laughter.)
51
I know its white triangles and its red triangles, its red arrowtips and its white arrowtips. I know your odd numerals and your even numerals. I know your odds from A to M inclusive, and I know your evens from N to Z inclusive. (Laughter.) Now, where did it come from ? It is no new thing. It is no strange thing. Al- though it is a wonder here, it has been operating for years and years in Old England. You that will go to a bookstore and buy Dickens' novel of "Hard Times" will see a portraiture of the thing, and how it has operated in a country with an aristocracy and a queen, with lord proprietors of factories and of lands, which they rent to middle men who grind down the operatives and terre-tenants. There, in England, the secret association of the operatives against grinding capital, I grant you, has done much good. There, there is some necessity for it ; there, where men's noses are held to the grindstone by oppression ; there*, where all the luxuries are free, and all the necessaries of life are taxed ; there, where the opera- tive is made to bear all the burdens of society; there, where there is a crowned head and an aristocracy — there, dark-lantern, secret association, and test oaths have brought forth some reforms. Well, seeing its effect in that country — Exeter Hall — the abolitionists of England sent it over to the preachers of " Christian politics" in Boston and New York, to apply its machinery to the north and the non-slaveholding states. (Cheers and hisses.) They brought it over. They have tried it, and they had it organized as early as June 4th, 1854. They knew its potency. They knew its effect. Therefore it was that Mr. Freeman Clarke could tell you that he knew that Ohio was wheeling into line. This thing was all planned — all organized — and it did sweep Massachusetts, and New York, and Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and Delaware, and Ohio, and Indiana, and Illinois, and Michigan, and Iowa. It has swept them with the besom of destruction. (Cheers and laughter.)
Go now to Massachusetts, and you find among her hundreds of legislators but one friend of the Constitution left. Sixty-two of these preachers of "Christian politics" have been returned to sit in the seats once filled by such men as John Hancock. There, in the neighborhood of Faneuil Hall, in the land of steady habits — in the land of the Puritans — Theodore Parker, but the other day, received 122 votes to be a chaplain. A man anti-Christ, so much devil in- carnate that he can hide neither tail nor hoofs, receives in a Massa- chusetts legislature 122 votes to be a chaplain. Massachusetts !
52
Massachusetts ! the elder sister of Virginia, who in the night of the revolution gave her pass-word for pass- word, sign for sign, cheer for cheer, in the midst of our gloom ! Massachusetts has thrown aside her Puritanism, her Christian religion, her Bible, her constitution, and has given herself up to Know-Nothingism and anti-slavery. (Tremen- dous cheering.) Let us see the working of Know-Nothingism in Massachusetts. I hold in my hand the official address of his Excel- lency Henry J. Gardner to the two branches of the legislature of Massachusetts. You see here upon one page of it, " not through a glass darkly,*' but plainly, an intimation of amalgamation itself. "It is a great problem," he says, "in statesmanship wisely to con- trol the mingling of races into one nationality." Can you give that the grip? (Roars of laughter.) Another specimen of Know- Nothingism is a recommendation in this message that the right of suffrage shall be limited to those who can read and write. Do the Know-Nothings of Virginia give that the grip too? The only illus- trious painting that this country has given to the fine arts has been the picture of the Saviour of mankind healing the sick. This mes- sage recommends that the sick foreigner shall be tumbled out of the hospital bed into the Calcutta hole of the emigrant ship, and sent back again to Liverpool ! This, then, is a sample of the charitable- ness and religion of Know-Nothingism. But, gentlemen, here is the governor's doctrine in relation to the Nebraska bill.
Mr. Wise then read a passage from the message in relation to the repeal of the compromise, which the governor characterises as " a violation of the plighted faith of the nation," and declares that " the ultimate effect will be to determine us manfully to demand the restoration of this broken compact, and to jealously guard each and every right that belongs to Massachusetts."
That is in exact correspondence with the preaching of Mr. Free- man Clarke. But the governor goes on :
"While we acknowledge our fealty to the Constitution and laws, the oft-repeated cry of disunion heralds no real danger to our ears."
Of those lights which Massachusetts is jealously to regard, it seems the two cardinal ones are the habeas corpus to take the fugitive slave out of the hands of the United States commissioner; and trial by jury, to have the title of the Virginia master subjected to the verdict of twelve abolitionists! "It is submitted," says the gover- nor, "whether additional legislation is required to secure either of these to our fellow-citizens."
53
Gentlemen, that is not all. This Know-Nothing legislature has just elected one of the most notorious, one of the most inveterate of their abolition leaders, to the senate of the United States, and I beg leave to rend to you a passage from a Boston paper which came to my hand this evening. It is the Boston Daily Chronicle, and I presume no one will say that it misrepresents the position of the Know-Nothings in the state of Massachusetts:
Mr. Wise then read a long report of a lecture on the "evils of and the remedy for slavery," delivered at the Tremont Temple, Boston, by Mr. Anson Burlingame, one of the Know-Nothings elected to Congress, in which he took ground in favor of the repeal of the Ne- braska bill, the repeal of the fugitive slave law, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and the prohibition of slavery in the territories of the United States.
Speaking of the Nebraska bill, this lecturer said :
" One of its fruits was the election of a senator at the state house yesterday (great applause and calls for Wilson, who was on the platform), one who would take the place of one who was false to freedom and not true to the slave (thus denouncing Edward Eve- rett). He himself, on going to Washington, should so endeavor to conduct himself as to truly represent his native place."
The report continues:
" After Mr. Burlingame had concluded, Mr. Wilson was called for most heartily, and came forward. He stated that everything Mr. Burlingame had uttered he would endorse. He intended, in ac- cepting his post, to yield nothing of his anti-slavery sentiment to anybody or for anything. He would comprehend in his action the whole country, of every color; but, in saying the whole country, he included Massachusetts and the north." Governor Gardner was called for, and amid loud cheers rose, but modestly declined to speak.
There is a Know-Nothing member elect from Massachusetts to the Congress of the United States. There is a United States senator elect of the Know-Nothings, who confesses the accusation which I make, that the new party of Know-Nothings was formed espe- cially for the sake of abolitionism. (Cheers and hisses.) And there is a Know-Nothing governor — one of the nine who are all ready to take the same ground. (Stamping of feet and some hissing.) Then, gentlemen, I have here an act of the Know-Nothing legisla-
54
ture of Pennsylvania, which proposes to give citizenship to the fugi- tive slaves of the south. I have here, also, an article which is too long for me to read, exhausted as I am, from the Worcester Even- ing Journal, an organ of Governor Gardner and Senator Wilson, which says to you boldly that the American Organ at Washington is a pro-slavery organ, that it is not a true Know-Nothing organ, and that they speak for the north when they claim that they have already one hundred and sixty votes of the non-slaveholding states organized, eleven more than sufficient to elect a president of the United States without a single electoral vote from the slaveholding states.
Now, gentlemen, having swept the northern and the northwestern non-slaveholding states of the Union, the next onset is on the soil of Virginia. This Worcester Journal boasts that Maryland and Virgi- nia are already almost northern states ; and pray, how do they pro- pose to operate on the south V Having swept the north — Massachu- setts, New York, Pennsylvania, and all those other states — the ques- tion was: How can this ism be wedged in in the south; and the devil was at the elbow of these preachers of "Christian politics," to tell them precisely how. (Cat-calls, derisive cheers, and other manifestations of the Know-Nothing element of the meeting.) There were three elements in the south, and in Virginia particu- larly, to which they might apply themselves. There is the religious element — the Protestant bigotry and fanaticism — for Protestants, gentlemen, have their religious zeal without knowledge, as well as the Catholics. (A voice, " True enough, sir.") It is an appeal to the 103,000 Presbyterians, to the 300,000 Baptists, to the 300,000 Methodists of Virginia. Well, how were they to reach them? Why, just by raising a hell of a fuss about the Pope! (Laughter.) The Pope ! The Pope, " now so poor that none can do him reve- rence," so poor that Louis Napoleon, who requires every soldier in his kingdom to be at Sebastopol, has to leave a guard of muskets at Rome! Once on a time, crowned heads could bow down and kiss his big toe; but now, who cares for a Pope in Italy? Gentlemen, the Pope is here. Priestcraft at home is what you have to dread more than all the Popes in the world. I believe, intellectually, and in my heart as well as in my head, in evangelical Christianity. I believe that there is no other certain foundation for this republic but the pure and undefiled religion of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
55
And the man of God who believes in the Father, in the divinity of the Son, and the Holy Ghost — the preacher in the pulpit, at the baptismal font, by the sick bed, at the grave, pointing
The way to Heaven and leading there,
I honor. No man honors him more than I do. But the priest who deserts the spiritual kingdom for the carnal kingdom, he is " of the earth, earthy,'''' whoever he be — Episcopalian, Baptist or Metho- dist— who leaves the pulpit to join a dark lantern, secret political society, in order that he may become a Protestant Pope by seizing on political power — he is a hypocrite, whoever he be. (Some ap- plause, and cries of " good.") Jesus Christ of Nazareth settled the question himself. I have his authority on this question. When the Jews expected him to put on a prince's crown and seat himself on the actual throne of David, he asked for a penny to be shown him. A penny was brought to him, a metal coin, assayed, clipped, stamped, with the image of the state, representative of the civil power, stamped with Caesar's image. "Whose image and super- scription is this?" "It is Caesar's." "Then, render unto Caesar the things that be Caesar's, and unto God the things that be God's." (Applause.) "My kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom is a spiritual kingdom." Caesar's kingdom is political, is a carnal king- dom. And I tell you that if I stood alone in the state of Virginia, and if priestcraft — if the priests of my own mother church dared to lay their hands on the political power of our people, or to use their churches to wield political influence, I would stand, in feeble imi- tation of, it may be, but I would stand, even if I stood alone, as Patrick Henry stood in the revolution, between the parsons and the people. (Applause and a cry of " I'm with you.") I want no Pope, either Catholic or Protestant. I will pay Peter's pence to no poniitf- — Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, or any other. (Applause, and cries of "good.") They not only appeal to the religious element, but they raise a cry about the Pope. These men, many of whom are neither Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Bap- tists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, or what not — who are men of no religion, who have no church, who do not say their prayers, who do not read their Bible, who live God-defying lives every day of their existence, are now seen with faces as long as their dark-lanterns, with the whites of their eyes turned up in holy fear lest the Bible should be shut up by the Pope! (Laugh-
55
ter, applause, and derisive cheers.) Men who were never known before, on the face of God's earth, to show any interest in religion, to take any part with Christ or his kingdom, who were the de- vil's own, belonging to the devil's church, are all of a sudden very deeply interested for the word of God and against the Pope! It would be well for them that they joined a church which does believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. (Good.) Let us see, my friends, what Know-Nothingism believes in. Do you know that, gentlemen? (Holding up a small pam- phlet, amid great laughter and excitement.) That is your formulary of the Grand Council of the United States of North America, from the press of Damerill & Moore, No. 10 Devonshire street, Boston, 1854.
A voice—" Is it January?"
Mr. Wise — Yes, it is January. It has been used by a lodge. Here is one of your charters (holding up a printed document), and now, if you can see it, you will perceive it has been used by one of your lodges. (Cries of "Read it — drive along, Old Virginny.") Yes I will read from your own book. But I am on the subject of your religion now — you want to put down one of the evangelical churches of the country, which does believe not only in the Father, but in the divi- nity of Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost— a Trinitarian chruch. I want to ask the Episcopalians, and the Presbyterians, and the Methodists, whether they are going to put down that Trinita- rian church by a secret association? Your c}^pher consists of the 26 letters of the alphabet. You number your letters from A to M inclusive, with the odd numerals down to 26. Thus, A 1, B 3, C 5, D 7, E 9, F 11, G 13, H 15, I 17, J 19, K 21, L 23, M 25. The last thirteen letters of the alphabet are numbered with even numbers. Thus, N 2, 0 4, P 6, Q 8, R 10, S 12, T 14, U 16, V 18, W 20, X 22, Y 24, Z 26. And now let us see how the books read. The first page of the cover of the blue book — and it is not only blue — real Boston blue, but it is a Mazarine blue, (lighter) — contains the following in tabular form. Now listen to Know-No- thing reading. (Manifestations of intense enjoyment among the Know-Nothings, and of interest among the uninitiated, and cries of "go it, old boy.") I will go it, if you will be patient and let me reason with you : 12 16 6 10 9 25 6, that reads " supreme," 4 10 7 9 10 means "order," 4 11, "of," 14 15 6, " the," 12 14 1 10, "star," 12 6 1 2 13 25 9 7, " spangled," 3 12 2 9 10," banner." That is
57
queer spelling and queer reading. "Supreme Order of the Star Spangled Banner." (Cheers, applause, hisses, and manifestations of all kinds.) The fourth page of the cover contains the following table— 12 6 17 10 17 14, "spirit," 4 11, "of," '76— "Spirit of 76." That is the title page and the formulary of the Grand Council of the United States of North America, from the press of Damerill & Moore, No. 16 Devonshire street, Boston. Next come the officers of the Grand Council. President (that is for the past year, but I believe it still continues), James W. Barker, of New York. (Cheers.) Vice President, W. W. Williamson, of Alexandria, Va. (Roars of laughter, cries of " here he is," and " three cheers for Williamson.'1) Corres- ponding Secretary, Charles D. Deschler, of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Recording Secretary, James M, Stevens, of Baltimore, Md. Treasurer, Henry Crane, of Cincinnati, Ohio. The Inside Sentinel is John P. Hilton, of Washington, D. C. (Laughter, and cheers from Washingtonians in the crowd.) Outside Sentinel, Henry Metz, of Detroit, Michigan. Chaplain, Samuel P. Crawford, of Indian- apolis, Indiana. Now, gentlemen, I wTant to show you their reli- gion. I read from the blue book —
" The organization shall be known by the name of the Grand Council of the United States of North America. Its jurisdiction and power shall extend to all states, districts, and territories of the United States of North America. A person, to become a member of any subordinate Council, must be twenty-one years of age. He must believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, as the Creator and Preserver of the universe."
No Christ, acknowledged ! No Saviour of mankind! No Holy Ghost! No heavenly Dove of Grace! Go, go, you Know-No- things, to the city of Baltimore, and in a certain street there you will see two churches— one is inscribed, "To Monos Theos" — "to the one God;" on the other is the inscription, "As for us, we preach Christ crucified — to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness." The one inscribed "To Monos Theos," is the Unitarian church; the other, inscribed, " WTe preach Christ cru- cified," is the Catholic church! (Cries of "good, good," and cheers.) Is it — I ask of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists — is it, I ask, for any orthodox Trinitarian Christian. church to join an association that is inscribed, like the Unitarian church at Baltimore, "To Monos Theos" — to the one God? Is it. S
58
for them to join or to countenance an association that so lays its religion as to catch men like Theodore Parker and James Freeman Clarke? I put it to all the religious societies— to the Presbyte- rians, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, and the Baptists — whether they mean to renounce the divinity of Christ and the operation of* the Holy Spirit when they give countenance to this secret society, which is inscribed to the one God?
But, gentlemen, these Know-Nothings appeal not only to the re- ligious element, but to the political element — not only to the po- litical element, but to the agrarian element. Not only do they appeal to Protestant bigotry — -not only do they ask Protestants to out-Herod Herod, to out-Catholic the Catholics, to out- Jesuit the Jesuits by adopting their Machiavelian creed, but they appeal to a forlorn party in the state of Virginia — a minority party, broken down at home and disorganized, because their associates have be- come abolitionized at the North— they appeal to them as affording them a house of refuge. [Cheers and laughter.] There is a paper published in this town by one of the most respectable gentlemen of the state, who some time ago published an article which, I must confess, I did not expect to see in print from his pen. The Alexan- dria Gazette, one of the most respectable of the Whig papers of the United States, edited by one of the most conservative and re- spectable gentlemen that I know of among my acquaintance, one who has been advocating the doctrines and practice of conservatism ever since I knew him, is now 'proposing a fusion between the Know-Nothings and the Whig part}7, simply for the reason that "the Whigs arc tired of standing at the rack witliout fodder." [Voice in the crowd " Oh, go along," and laughter.] One who used, as I well remember, to denounce corruption and the' spoils very sweepingiy, is now actually maintaining that the Whigs will not and cannot go upon principle any longer and adhere to conser- vatism, because they are tired of waiting for office. [Laughter and cheers.] Nut only that, but my friend, the editor, has lately pub- lished this short article: —
" We are pleased to see that with legar.d to Mr. Wise, the Demo- cratic candidate for governor, the opposition is generally conducted with entire respect to his character as a citizen and a man, ami with a full acknowledgment on all hands of his many excellent personal qualities. The opposition do not think he is the best qualified man
59
for the office of governor, but they admit his talents. In seeking his defeat, they mainly desire to defeat the political organization which lie upholds."
Remember that, ye Democrats, who have joined with Mr. Snow- den in upholding the Know-Nothing cause — that the very object of the Whigs in joining the Know-Nothing society is to break. up the organization to which you belong. [Cheers.] You Democrats have these gentlemen in a minority out of doors, but the moment they get you into a Know-Nothing lodge, they have you in a minority in doors. [Renewed cheers.] But t he article goes on :
11 They contend themselves, that, as a former violent opponent of the party, at whose head he is now placed, there is too much poli- tical inconsistency to entitle him to the position he seeks."
How, then, can Mr. Snowden — how can the conservative Whigs of Alexandria, to punish my inconsistency, join hands with Demo- crats and go over to them in Know-Nothing lodges? [Cheers.] They tell us they cannot give the grip in public to the Whigs of the North, because the Northern Whigs have become abolitionized. Here are two gentlemen who cannot shake hands with one another in our presence — one is a Whig of the North and the other a Whig of Alexandria. They cannot any longer keep up their Whig organi- zation ; but let the Whig of the North, abolitionized as he is, be- come a Know-Nothing, and let the Whig of the South, pro-slavery as he is, become a Know-Nothing, and then behind the curtain, these gentlemen can shake hands and honey-fuggle with one an- other. [Much laughter.] This is what is called conservatism. This is what is called consistency. The article continues:
"They are resolved to unite in a strong and determined effort to break up the present political organization, which directs the desti- nies and controls the action of the state in all its departments. Mr. Wise cannot expect the support of those who desire to see this change effected."
If Mr. Wise cannot expect the support of conservative Whigs, or of any Whig, because the desire of the Whig party in joining the Know-Nothings is to defeat the Democracy, how can they expect Democrats to join them*? But there is a last and worst element which they address, for which they can, as conservatives, offer me no excuse, and I come to it boldly. It is the most difficult and the hardest subject to deal with in public in a slave-holding community. Gentlemen, the last constitutional convention of Virginia betrayed
60
the important fact to the north, as well as to ourselves, that out of the 125,000 voters in the state of Virginia, but 25,000 or 30,000 are slave-holding voters. About 1 voter in 5 is a slaveholder. I say it boldly, and no man will dispute it who has been to Norfolk and Portsmouth, that the last and worst element that is appealed to is the agrarian element — appealing to the white laborers of the state against the black laborers of the state. (Cheers.) Go all over the state and tell me where Know-Nothingism is rankest and most vio- lent. [Voice in the crowd, " Down on the wharves," and great laughter.] I tell you that you'll not only find it down on the wharves in Alexandria, as has been said, and well said, in the crowd, but you will find it worse than any where else around the wharves of Portsmouth and in Portsmouth navy yard. The very men who, for ten years, have been petitioning the secretary of the navy to for- bid the employment of slave labor in Gosport navy yard — the very men who petitioned the last convention to frame a new constitution for Virginia, to make it a part of the organic lawT of the state that slaveholders should not allow their slaves to be taught the mechanic arts — these are the men who form the very hot-bed of Know-Noth- ingism.
Voice in the Crowd — Send them to h — 11.
It is impossible to say what effect these three combined elements are to have upon us. I ask the Protestant church, to recur to this religious element, how they expect in future — if they think that Catholicism is not a pure and undefiled religion — to succeed in preaching against the Pope and Catholics? Where a preacher has risen in the pulpit, in times past, to arraign the Pope and the abomi- nations of the Church of Rome, he has been regarded as a vital spi- ritual preacher of Protestantism ; he has been regarded as one look- ing to the spiritual kingdom ; but let a preacher now rise and preach against the Pope and against Catholicism, and whether he is sincere or not, his congregation feels that he is preaching for Know-Nothing- ism. Why, the other day, in Isle of Wight, I saw a man from Ca- nada, or I heard of him there, who was distributing the Bible to the state of Virginia. Well, he may have been the very best col- porteur in the world ; he may have been a man of as honest inten- tions as Father Hudnall, who is your travelling distributer of the Bible; but he came all the way from Canada down to the Isle of Wight to distribute Bibles ! He was asked why he distributed Bibles among us? Did he take us to be heathen ? Our churches are distri-
61
buting the word. Our bishops are distributing the word. The Bible is found in every steam boat saloon, and in every chamber of every hotel in the state. Did he take us to be heathen? Oh, no ; he was glad to hear that we had the Bible here, but he thought that perhaps he would be doing us great service to bring the Bible to us, as the Pope and Bishop Hughes wanted to make it a sealed book. He was called upon to take his departure, as he was known at once to be a Know- Nothing agent. He pretended merely to visit to distribute the Bible, but the fellow was all the time carrying his dark lantern and lucifer match in his pocket to apply the test oath. (Laughter.) We gave him warning to go hence, and I hope he has gone. So it is with the preachers — your Protestant preachers. It is utterly impossible that they can make any inroads against the Pope and against Catholics, so long as they are suspected of political motives, so long as they are suspected of attempting to become Protestant popes; and to seize political power. What was it, I ask them — what was it that corrupted the Roman church? There was once a time when the Bishop of Rome was the head of a pure, primitive church — when he was armed only with eleemosynary, with spiritual, and with ecclesi- astical power. But the very moment he laid his hand upon the imperial purple and crown of the Caesars, that very moment the " whore of Babylon" put on her scarlet and began to. play her abomi- nations before the eyes of the nations. She played these abomi- nations till the times of Calvin, and Luther, and Melancthon, and Roger'Williams. These great reformers were men who did not go into secret places, who did not use dark lanterns, who did not speak in whispers, but who thundered as in the tones of Whitfield himself. The moment the Pope laid hold of political power — the moment he became part and head of the civil state — that very moment the state corrupted the church, and the church destroyed the liberties of fche state. So it will be here, if, under the pretext of defying the Pope, of proscribing Catholicism, you allow your priests — Protestant or other — to lay their hands upon political power, and put on the im- perial purple and the crown of the Cjesars — that very moment tiie state will corrupt the church, and the church will destroy the liber- ties of the state. As to the proscription of foreigners, let me ask the Know-Nothings themselves to return to that passage of the Bible to which I have already referred them. If they will take the fifteenth chapter of Second Samuel, and read not only the whole verse, but the whole history of Absalom, the traitor, they will find
62
that while Absalom — not only native born of the land, but native born o the loins of King David — -was turning traitor, while the sweet Psalmist of Israel was driven towards the wilderness with his followers, he turned and saw Ittai, the Gittite, and said to him : "Wherefore goest thou also with us? Return to thy place, and abide with thy king, for thou art a stranger and also an exile. Whereas, thou earnest but' yesterday, should I this day make thee go up and down with us? Seeing I go whither I may, return thou and take back thy brethren : Mercy and truth be with thee." And Ittai, the exile and stranger, who came but yesterday, answered the king, and said : " As the Lord iiveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be— whether in death or in life — even there also will thy servant be." And remember that the case of Absalom and of Ittai is but the prototype of an Arnold and a Lafayette. (Applause.) Who sent you alliance? You tell the people that Catholics never gave aid to civil liberty; that they never yet struck a blow for the freedom of mankind. Who gave you alli- ance against the crown of England ? Who, but that Catholic king, Louis XVI? He sent you, from the court of Versailles, the boy of Washington's camp, a foreigner who never was naturalized, but who bled at the redoubt of Yorktovvn. (Applause.) And not only did Lafayette bleed at the redoubt of Yorktovvn, when an Arnold, a native like Absalom, proved traitor, but when the German De- Kalb, fell at the field of Camden, on southern soil, with fourteen bayonet wounds transfixing his body, and, dying, praised the Mary- land militia — Gates, theyankee native, ran seventy-five miles without looking behind him. (Applause and laughter.) And not only that: In that intense moment when the declaration of our independence was brought into Carpenter's Hall by Rutledge, and Franklin, and Jefferson, and laid upon the table — that holy paper, which not only pledged life and honor, but fortune, too- — realize that moment of intense, of deep, of profound interest, when the independence of this land hung upon the acts of men — when, one by one, men rose from their seats and went to the table to pledge lives and fortunes and sacred honor; at length one spare, pale-faced man rose, and w7ent and dipped the pen into the ink, and signed " Charles Carroll," and when reminded that it might not be known what Charles Car- roll it was, that it might not be known that it was a Charles Carroll who was pledging a principality of fortune, he added the words " of Carrollton." (Cheers.) He was a Catholic representative from a
(i3
Catholic colony. (A voice in the crowd — " But he was a native born American.")
And, sir, before George Washington was born, before Lafayette wielded the sword or Charles Carroll' the pen for his country, six hundred and forty years ago, on the 16th of June, 1214, there was another scene enacted on the face of the globe, when the general charter of all charters of freedom was gained, when one man — a man called Stephen Langton — swore the barons of England, for the people, against the orders of the Popeand against the power of the kins — swore the barons on the high altar of the Catholic church at St. Edmundsbury, that they would have Magna Charta or die for it. The charter which secures to every one of you to-day trial by jury, freedom of the press, freedom of the pen, the confronting of wit- nesses with the accused, and the opening of secret dungeons — that charter was obtained by Stephen Langton against the Pope and against the king of England, and if you Know-Nothings don't know who Stephen Langton was, you know nothing sure enough. (Laugh- ter and cheers.) He was a Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury. (Renewed cheers.) I come here not to praise the Catholics, but I come here to acknowledge historical truths, and to ask of Protes- tants what has heretofore been the pride and boast of Protestants — tolerance of opinion in religious faith. (Applause.) All we ask is tolerance. All we ask is, that if you hate the Catholics because they have proscribed heretics, you won't out-proscribe proscription. If you hate the Catholics because they have nunneries and monas- teries, and Jesuitical secret orders, don't out-Jesuit the Jesuits by going into dark-lantern secret chambers to apply test oaths. If you hate the Catholics because you say they encourage the Machia- velian expediency of telling lies sometimes, don't swear yourselves not to tell the truth. (Cheers.) Here are the oaths — the oaths that bind you, under no circumstances to disclose who you are or what you are, and that bind you not only to political, but to social pro- scription. Here is your book — your Bible — which requires of you to stick up your notices between midnight and daybreak. (Laugh- ter.) I don't object to secresy. I am a member of a secret order, and I am proud to be a brother Mason ; (loud cheers;) and I am at liberty by my order to say, that as to its ends, its purposes, its de- signs, Masonry has no secrets. (Renewed cheering.) Its end, its purpose, its aim, is to make a brotherhood of charity amongst men. Its end is the end of the Christian law of religion. I know not how any Mason can be a Know-Nothing. Masonry binds its members
64
to respect and obey the laws of the land in which we live ; and when the Constitution of the United States declares that no reli- gious test shall be made a qualification for office, Masonry dare not interpose by conspiring, in a secret association, to attempt to make a religious test a qualification for office. When Virginia has an act of religious freedom— an act that is no longer a mere statute law, but is now a part of the organic law, and which says that no man shall be burdened for religious opinion's sake — Masonry dare not conspire to burden any man for opinion's sake. Masonry has no secrets but the simple tests by which it recognizes its brother- hood. It is bound to respect the law and to tolerate differences of opinion in religion and politics. I do not complain of secresy, but I complain of secresy for political objects. What is your object? It is to assail the Constitution of the United States, to conspire to contradict the Constitution and laws of the land ; it is to conspire against the Constitution and laws, and swear men by test oaths — the most odious instruments of tyranny that intolerance and pro- scription have ever devised. It is not only to proscribe Catholics and foreigners, but it is to proscribe Protestants and natives too, who will not unite with you in proscribing Catholics and foreigners. It goes further than that: It destroys all individuality in the man. You bring in your noviciate, you swear him to do — what? To give up his conscience, his judgment, his will, to the judgment and the conscience and the will of an association of men who are not wil- ling that others should enslave them, but by their test oath enslave themselves. And to what are they sworn ? They are sworn to passive obedience — -to non-resistance — to take sign and grip. Here is your organization. (Holding up a document.) I will not take time to read it ; but I will state the fact that your Grand National Council of the United States is organized by the appointment of thirteen men from each state, a council of thirteen, an oligarchy of thirteen from each state, who assemble outside of the state to form the Grand Council of the United States, with Mr. Barker, of Wall street, New York, as president. Power over individual judgment, power over appeal — all power — is concentrated in that National Council. And has it come to this? Has Virginia been so pro- vincialized in the Union that her sons will consent not to be guided by their own individual wills, by their own individual consciences, by their own individual judgments, but consent to be sworn by a test oat!?, to take a sign which comes from outside the state, and which may be passed to you from Mr. Barker, of New York.
65
When that is submitted to by the people of Virginia, no longer call yourselves a free, sovereign, and independent state. You are subdued — you "are conquered — you are provincialized — you have lost your individuality. And not only are these appliances brought to bear upon us, but, gentlemen, emissaries are everywhere at work. The New York Herald has taken up this election, and has proclaimed to the w7orld that it is arranged in New York already, whence the sign w7ill come, I suppose, that Mr. Wise is to be defeated in Vir- ginia. Bennett, the political Fagan, the cross-eyed, whining demon of politics, who has made himself a millionaire by black mail — Bennett, whose paper I never w7ould allow to come into my family — Bennett, who has fed the vultures with the very lambs of society — the man who has regarded no purity, no sanctity, nothing that was holy or sacred — Bennett has dogged me in this canvass, without an open competitor, with his reporter for his paper — sending here that instrument to catch the words of the Virginia stump — our own domestic stump — in order that he might travesty and misrepre- sent and belie. And, too, at this moment, I have to endure that the Whig presses of the state have forgotten what they owe to the state — not to me — so far as to publish, not only his reports, but his cards, which insult the state, as well as me. That is tole- rated. I care nothing about that minion of the Herald. I am looking at higher game. I am looking at the Absaloms, at the Arnolds, at the traitors of the north, who, wielding the power of the Herald, have thought to put the south and slavery down, by putting me down. And I suppose the Know-Nothings are very confident that they will succeed. Let me tell them that I would as soon die a martyr in this cause as in any other cause. Let me say to them, when you have fastened together Whigs and Know- Nothings and Democrats, when you get those who are blindly leav- ing their party to place themselves in the toils of your machinery — those who are either seeking office or are disappointed in not getting office — and wThen you have thus put me down, when you have crushed the slaveholding power in my election, why then follows a total revolution — a social and political revolution, not only in the state of Virginia, but in the whole south. Gentlemen, what is to follow from this? Where is it to end? They have swept the north. They have nine governors. They claim that they have got a majority elected to the next House of Representatives. They are now trying to obtain, by the end of the next three years, a majority 9
66
in the Senate of the United States ; but if I am elected governor of the state of Virginia, what will be the state of things? The next Congress will assemble on the first Monday in December next. If
I be elected governor of the state of Virginia, I shall be sworn in on the first of January next. And now I tell you what will be the consequence. When I take the oath to support the constitution of the state of Virginia, I will remember me that I will be invested with the militia power of the state of Virginia, to repel invasion and to suppress insurrection. No man loves and adores the Union of this land more than I do. I have been taught to venerate and to cherish the Union of these states. It is of the holiest of all earthly things. I would gladly give my life, my blood, as a sacrifice to save it if required. But I know that the main pillars of the Union, the main props and supporters of this palladium, are the pillars of state rights and state sovereignty. (Applause.) If you place me with your sword in hand by that great pillar of Virginia sovereignty, I promise you to bear and forbear to the last extremity. I will suffer much, suffer long, suffer almost any thing but dishonor. But it is, in my estimation, with the union of the states as it is with the union of matrimony. You may suffer almost any thing except dis- honor; but when honor is touched the Union must be dissolved. (Loud and prolonged cheering.) I will not say that. I take back the words. I will not allow myself to contemplate a dissolution of the Union. (Renewed cheering.) No, we will still try to save it. But when the worst comes to the worst, if compelled to draw the sword of Virginia, I will draw it ; and by the gods of the state and her holy altars, if I am compelled to draw it, I will flesh it or it shall pierce my body. (Enthusiastic cheering.) And I tell you more : we have got abolitionists in this state. (Voice in the crowd,
II D — n the Know-Nothings," and great laughter.) If I should have to move, some of the first, I fear, against whom I should have to act, would be some within our own limits. But if forced to fight, I will not confine myself to the state of Virginia. My motto will be —
Woe to the coward that ever he was born,
Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn. (Loud cheers.)
Gentlemen, I was in a very poor plight to speak to you to-night. Perhaps I have spoken already too long, although I have not said half what I would say to you, or produced half the evidence which I have with me. All I have to say to the Democracy is, that all
67
you want is active, earnest organisation. (Cheers.) Remember that if these Know-Nothings hold together, they are sworn, compact committees of vigilance. Go to work, then. Organize actively every where. Appoint your vigilance committees, but take especial care that no Know-Nothings are, secretly and unknown to you, upon them. (Cheers.) Be prepared. I have gone through most of east- ern Virginia, and in spite of their vaunting I defy them to defeat me. (Great cheering.) There are "Indians in the bushes," but I'll whack on the bayonet, and lunge at every shrub in the state, till I drive them out. (Renewed and enthusiastic cheering.) I tell them distinctly there shall be no compromise, no parley. I will come to no terms. They shall either crush me or I will crush them in this state. (Great applause.) Of the conscientious and considerate and conservative men of the Whig party, I would ask where can they find any thing in form, shape, tendency or result, that promises so much destructiveness as Know-Nothingism ! I challenge them to compare Know-Nothingism with Democracy, and to tell me what it is in Democracy that they cannot touch in comparison with Know- Nothingism. I will say that I do expect that the Democratic nomi- nations in this election will gain the support of some of the brightest jewels of the Whig party in this state. (Cheers and laughter.) I hail them and extend to them the right hand of fellowship ; and I believe that if Know-Nothingism can claim no other good deed, it will at least effect; a reorganization of the Democratic party of the state of Virginia upon higher ground, more affiliated, stronger and abler, better to serve itself and the country, than it has been for the last twenty-five years. Let them, then, boast of their 30,000 and 40,000 and 50,000 majorities. We will take our old and usual ma- jority— I will be satisfied with that. (Cheers and laughter.) And to obtain it, I would not flatter you, the people, "if you were Nep- tune, for his trident, or Jove for his power to thunder." I will de- ceive no man ; I will " honey-fuggle" no voter. (Laughter.) I will condescend to nothing unbecoming a gentleman. I will conduct this canvass throughout in such a manner as will command your re- spect and preserve my own self-respect. God grant that I may live through the campaign. If I continue to speak as I have been doing, I doubt very much, whether I can survive it. But, " sink or swim, live or die," I will do my duty; and "if Rome falls, I am innocent."
Mr. Wise then retired, amidst enthusiastic cheering, and the meet- ing at once dispersed.
7/ £00% OS*. 0$S£%