protection of a government of laws, and endure, as best they may, the innumerable evil consequences and demoralizing influences which must ensue. The responsibility will rest where it belongs; and let those who have contributed to produce it prepare to settle an account of no ordinary magnitude.

But we yet have it in our power to organize a government in Oregon; and though this Territory needs an organization by Congress the least of the three, we should not withhold it, even though the provisions of the bill may be in some respects objectionable. I have endeavored from the beginning to secure a government to all. That hope is gone, I repeat, and I will now endeavor, so far as I am concerned, to secure it to one, and shall act accordingly. The compromise line, so far as relates. to this Territory alone, since the others are beyond hope, is an abstract question, and has no practical application to the bill. Some Senators who resist the motion to recede, speak of it, I regret to say, as a sectional question, and as though it was to be a test between the northern and southern States. This I say, with all due respect, cannot be so. In all the discussions and questions relating to territorial governments which have engaged the attention of the Senate during this session-while a decided majority of those from the North have acted together, and so of the South-fortunately there has not been a single vote entirely sectional. The Missouri line was inserted against the votes of southern Senators; and the very motion to recede, now under consideration, is made and insisted on, to the exclusion of a motion for a Committee of Conference, by a southern Senator; and his motion has been urged, and is evidently to be voted for, by others from the same section.

I beg all those who indulge in gloomy forebodings over results which they apprehend from the mere abstract action of Congress, or its neglect to act upon this troublesome element, to calin, if they cannot dismiss, their fears. The abolition feeling of the North is far less rife and mischievous than it was in 1835; and the tone of opinion of the great mass of the people upon the subject is sound and healthy. The influence of federal legislation upon it is vastly overrated, both for good and for evil, as will be seen and acknowledged by any one who will subject the laws which govern it to the analysis of careful examination. It may have a partial and temporary influence,

but the question, in its leading features, is controlled by laws stronger than the laws of Congress. These Territories will soon be sovereign States, and, upon this disturbing question, be entitled to speak for themselves; and will perchance be as wise, as patriotic and discreet, as their senior sisters. It has been my fortune to be intimately associated with the various efforts to organize these territorial governments. The subject has been beset with embarrassment, and our efforts have been nearly unsuccessful. I have carefully reviewed the positions I have taken, and would not essentially change them, were the efforts to be repeated. I have the gratification of believing, that, when the storm has blown over, my course will be approved by all honest men. I ask not the approbation of others; and I appeal for the rectitude of my intentions to the records of that tribunal above, where the hearts and the motives are fully laid open to view.

SPEECH

UPON THE ISSUES AND CANDIDATES OF THE PRESIDENTIAL

CAMPAIGN.

DELIVERED IN TAMMANY HALL, NEW YORK, August 19, 1848.

I THANK you, fellow-citizens, for this cordial and flattering reception, and am grateful for this opportunity to address you and to render an account of my stewardship. I have been, for the last nine months, acting as one of the agents of our State in transacting the business of the general government; and having discharged my duties under a due sense of a republican legislator's responsibility to his constituents, I am now, as always, ready to stand or fall by their judgment. I am proud to believe that my course has been open and direct, and I would say in regard to it, as a distinguished Senator said of his public career, "There it is;-judge of it for yourselves." But I came not here to discourse of myself. I have a higher and more grateful duty to perform-to explain, inculcate, and defend democratic principles, and the course, position, and purposes of the Democratic party.

The political history of the country proves that the great leading feature of the policy of the Democratic party has been, to establish and maintain equality in the government between the States, as also to secure it to every citizen. It has struggled to cause the burdens and the blessings of the Union to fall, like the dews of heaven, upon all alike. By the labors and wise care of the noble spirits who achieved our independence, the foundations of our national edifice were laid broad and deep in the principles of Democratic liberty; and under the guidance of Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, the sages and exemplars of the Democratic faith, the temple has risen in

beauty and strength to its present stately and admirable pro portions,

But in all the efforts of all these years, the friends of Democratic principles have been opposed by a wily and powerful antagonist. At the very outset, Federalism, deriving its ideas of the political and social fabric from the hereditary aristocracies of the old world, looked with longing eyes toward a government recognizing class privileges; and the same spirit, in later times, sought the same end through the various forms of monopoly, and governmental protection of special interests, by which the labor of the many should be made subservient and tributary to the capital of the few, and a system of inequality, in hostility to the theory of the government and the best interests of the people, be practically established.

But all these schemes, whether in the shape of national banks of overshadowing dimensions, high protective tariff combinations, or in whatever form they have appeared, have been met and overthrown by the Democracy of the Union, whose triumphs number the popular condemnation and abrogation of the alien and sedition laws; the vindication of the national honor, character, and interests, in the war of 1812; the acquisition of Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California, adding thereby, incalculably, to our resources and our geographical and national importance; the overthrow of the United States Bank, and the establishment of a constitutional plan of governmental finance, including a system of duties upon imports upon a revenue basis, and many others. Nor is the Democratic party, because opposed to monopoly, the foe, as has been charged, of capital. Associated wealth has, in numerous instances, been of great public service, in furnishing profitable employment to labor; in constructing works of internal improvement of immense national and individual advantage, and in aiding enterprise in numberless ways in developing the resources of the country; and that it has had its due share of the protection of a Democratic government, the success which has rewarded its employment in all the avenues of business bears ample testimony. Acting upon the maxim that "power always inclines to steal from the many to the few," the Democracy have striven to protect the interests of the people at large from the tendencies of aggregated wealth to encroach

upon the rights of the masses; to keep labor and capital independent of each other, giving to cach the equal protection of the government, by which means the country could best reap the benefits that should grow from the proper application of these great agents of American progress.

To see that the Democratic principle, which has so essentially prevailed in the conduct of our national affairs, is not merely a high-sounding theory,-that the mission of the Democratic party, to which the American people have so constantly committed their destinies, has not been fruitless, look abroad upon our country;-contrast its present position with its beginnings; follow its history year by year, and you will see such progress in wealth, in population, in extent of territory, in means of education, in the arts and sciences, in improved facilities of communication and carriage, and, in short, in all that goes to make up advancement in civilization, as never before attended the career of any people. And while merely intent upon the pursuits of peace, we have gained a prominent rank among the leading powers of the earth, among those which have attained their standing as such only after hundreds of wars. All this we can justly claim as the triumph of Democratic principles developed in Democratic practice.

In selecting its candidates for the approaching Presidential election, the Democratic party has still kept in view its great purpose, only to be accomplished by perpetuating its doctrines and policy in the administration of the government; and to that end has chosen for its standard bearers, LEWIS CASS of Michigan and WILLIAM O. BUTLER of Kentucky; - names synonymous with Democracy and inscribed high on the scroll of the nation's honor. Lewis Cass, the soldier, the statesman, the diplomatist, the American in heart, in feeling, and in action; who stood forth and asserted his country's rights, dignity, and honor, alike on the foughten field and in the face of European diplomacy, with equal credit to himself and advantage to the cause he so ably served; whose career is but an epitome of the country's history, and his character and position an examplification of the principles of free government and popular institutions; who to years of laborious service on the frontier, in the pacification and organization of the great Northwest, preparing it for the occupancy of civili