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great city of political refuge for the oppressed, here to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The scene furnished a volume full of interest and instruction, and replete with poetry and eloquence. It was a picture more vivid than was ever portrayed by human pencil. I gazed upon its painful, pleasing features, until its image still lingers in my sight. I wished that every American citizen might look upon it as I did, and feel the emotions which my heart experienced. But a few days since, availing myself of the hospitality of a Senatorial friend, I spent two days at Annapolis, and visited the hall where the immortal Washington, after carving out the liberty which we, in common with twenty-five millions of our fellow-beings this day enjoy, with a victorious yet unpaid army who adored him under his command, surrendered his commission and his sword voluntarily to the representatives of a few exhausted colonies. That sublime occasion yet imparts its sacred influences to the place, and there is eloquence in its silent walls. But where, said I, are the brave and patriotic spirits who here fostered the germ of this mighty empire? Alas! they have gone to their rewards, and the clods of the valley lie heavily on their hearts; while we, their ungrateful children, with every element of good before us, forgetting the mighty sacrifices they made for their descendants, trifle with the rich blessings we inherited, and are ready, with sacrilegious hands, to despoil the temple of liberty which they reared by years of toil and trial, and cemented in blood and tears. O, could we not defer this inhuman struggle, until the departure from amongst us of the revolutionary soldier, with his bowed and tottering frame, and his once bright but now dimmed eye! Ask him the cost of liberty, and he will "shoulder his crutch and show how fields were won," and tell you of its priceless value. And yet we are shamelessly struggling in his sight, like mercenary children, for the patrimony, around the death-bed of a common parent, by whose industry and exertion it was accumulated, before the heart of him who gave them existence has ceased to pulsate.

Amid all these conflicts it has been my policy to give peace and stability to the Union; to silence agitation; to restore fraternal relations to an estranged brotherhood, and to lend my feeble aid in enabling our common country to march onward to the glorious fruition which awaits her. I have opposed, and

will hereafter oppose, the hydra monster disunion and its snaky influences, in any and every form, and however disguised, or in whatever condition-whether in the creeping larvæ, or upon its attractive wings of gossamer; whether in the egg, or the fullfledged bird of evil omen; whether in the germ, or the stately upas with its wide-spread branches; whether it comes from the North or the South, or the East or the West, and whether it consists in denying the South her just rights, or in her demanding that to which she is not entitled. The Union of these States, in the true spirit of the Constitution, is a sentiment of my life. It was the dream of my early days; it has been the pride and joy of manhood, and, if it shall please Heaven to spare me to age, I pray that its abiding beauty may beguile my vacant and solitary hours. I do not expect a sudden disruption of the political bonds which unite the States of this confederacy; but I greatly fear a growing spirit of jealousy and discontent and sectional hate, which must, if permitted to fester, finally destroy the beauty and harmony of the fabric, if it does not raze it to its foundation. It was not founded upon the principle of force, and majorities should be admonished to use their power justly. A chafed spirit, whether of a community or an individual, may be goaded beyond endurance, and the history of the world has proved that the season of desperation which succeeds is awfully reckless of consequences. But wo be to him by whom the

offence of disunion comes! He will be held accursed when the bloody mandates of Herod and Nero shall be forgiven; will be regarded as a monster in this world; and, in the next,

"The common damned will shun his company

And look upon themselves as fiends less foul."

And now, amid this mad and bootless crusade of sectionalism, where should stand the Empire State of the confederacy, and the commercial Emporium of the Western hemisphere-where two-thirds of the commercial business of the Union is transacted, and two-thirds of the public revenues collected-which, in a few years, will be the centre of the commercial world, when a bill payable in Wall street will command a premium throughout the habitable globe, and whose mint, about to be established, will coin the money for half of Christendom; a state composed

of three millions of free and happy people which has founded a system of internal improvements and of universal education the pride and glory of the age; a city whose munificence has given ears to the deaf, tongues to the dumb, and eyes to the blind; which has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and founded in stitutions of religion and charity, the admiration of philanthropists throughout the world, and caused her sons at home and abroad to point to her and exclaim with gratification,

"This is my own, my native land.'

Shall she lend her mighty influences to the cause of sectionalism? She has once saved the honor and integrity of the Union, and enabled it to outride the storm, when all other resources failed; and let her again put forth her potential voice, and calm a convulsed country. In the second war of independence, when our ports where blockaded by hostile fleets;while the tomahawk and scalping-knife, stimulated by foreign gold, were working their hellish deeds upon the women and children of our frontiers; when the very federal Capitol was a smouldering ruin, and the arm of the national government fell paralyzed, too feeble for the herculean task, it was the New York merchants and bankers who stepped forward with their money and their credit, and inspired new life and energy, and secured for the arms of the bleeding country victory and honor. The shouts which then went up from a patriotic people, and were echoed back, have scarcely died away in my imagination from the distant hills. Let the same patriotic spirit again stand forth, and, by the commanding influence of their great moral power, cast oil upon the troubled waters of domestic dissension, calm the fears of the timid, subdue the spirit of the factious by their indignant frowns, and expel all selfish and sectional feeling from our borders.

And, especially, where shall stand the Democratic party of the Empire State, and the bulwark of her strength, in the city of her pride; that party which, with the great national Democratic party of the Union, has administered the government from its foundation, with the exception of two or three brief intervals, and those in consequence of reverses produced by dissensions in its own ranks-whose principles of progress have

brought the country to a state of prosperity unexampled in the history of men; that party whose creed is simple and catholic -which inculcates the capacity of man for self-government, without reservations or provisos-which professes to adhere to a strict construction of the Constitution-to preserve inviolate the rights of the States, and to abstain from all officious intermeddlings in the domestic affairs of communities-which resists the accumulation of power by the general government, whether in the executive or Congress, and seeks to leave it as far as practicable in the hands of the people immediately interested; and which, above all, eschews all sickly sentimentality and spurious benevolence, and all temporary and hobby-riding issues, that it may the better advance its great principles of human regeneration-of freedom and good will-and the amelioration of the condition of man? I will not now recount the history of its triumphs, which this course of policy has given; but are they not written upon every page of our country's history as with a pencil of light? Let then the Democratic party of New York unite, one and all, upon the ground of its early cherished principles; let it evince its faith in the capacity of man for selfgovernment by its works, and not seek to enforce the legislation of Congress over the domestic policy of political communities which have no vote or voice in its councils, but regard man practically, as well as in the abstract, as wise as his neighbor, leave the States and Territories to such rights and such privileges as the Constitution gives them-to their own choice and responsibility respectively, and peace and friendship will again be restored to all sections, and the success of sound principles be speedy and enduring. I give you, in conclusion, as a sentiment, Mr. President,

The Democratic party of New York, and its principles- freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, and freedom of self-government.

SPEECH,

DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF LITCHFIELD

COUNTY, CONN., August 14, 1851.

[Upon the invitation of the citizens of Litchfield, a large number of the natives of the county assembled, and celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of its organization, on the 13th and 14th days of August, 1851. The ceremonies were conducted under a large pavilion, erected for the purpose in the West Park, and were inaugurated and interspersed with solemn religious services. On the 13th, an Address was delivered by Hon. Samuel Church, LL.D., Chief Justice of the State, and a Poem read by Rev. John Pierpont. The 14th opened with a discourse from Rev. Horace Bushnell, D. D., which was followed by numerous letters, speeches, poems, &c., and closed with appropriate religious services. All who participated in the proceedings were natives of the sturdy old county. Altogether, the occasion was one of rare and heartfelt interest.

Mr. Dickinson, on being introduced by the President, Gen. Brinsmade, spoke briefly as follows:]

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: Few recollections, indeed, are of deeper or holier interest than those associated with the home of our childhood. When the mind, like the Patriarch's dove, seeks repose from its wanderings, and returns to the place of its nativity, how many emotions rise up-how many pleasing, painful memories struggle for the empire of the heart! How is the perilous journey of life, from its cloudless morning, with its joys and sorrows, its lights and shadows, its smiles and tears, made to pass in rapid yet serene review before us. The parts we have severally been called to act upon the great theatre of life,—the relations we have formed and the bereavements we have experienced, all rush in with their attending joys and sorrows and swell the heart too full for utterance. I am proud to boast myself

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