EXTRACT.

A PICTURE OF DISUNION.

FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED AT A MASS MEETING OF THE DEMOCRACY OF INDIANA. HELD ON THE BATTLE GROUND OF TIPPECANOE, September, 1856.

"Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,

Bring with thee airs from Heaven or blasts from Hell,

Be thy intent wicked or charitable,

Thou comest in such a questionable shape,

That I will speak to thee."

THE spirit of sectional hate which is being inculcated by the votaries of a rude and impracticable Abolitionism; by bigots, zealots, fanatics, and demagogues; in desecrated pulpits, in ribald songs, in the productions of an incendiary press, and in strife-stirring orations from the political rostrum, has already promoted a feeling of irritation which should fill the patriotic mind with apprehension and alarm.

No feud is so bitter as that which exists between brethren, no persecutions so relentless as that which pursues an estranged friend, no war so ruthless as one of domestic strife; and yet its evil genius, disguised with the garb of superior sanctity-the blear-eyed miscreant, Disunion-is walking up and down the earth like Satan loosed from his bondage of a thousand years, endeavoring to array one section of the Union against the other upon a question which was wisely disposed of by those who laid the broad and deep foundations of our government. With one hand it essays to tear out from the Constitution the pages upon which are written its solemn guaranties, and with the other to erase from the nation's flag fifteen of the stars which join to compose the pride and hope and joy of every American. It would, in pursuit of its miserable abstractions, array man against man, brother against brother, and State

against State, until it covered our fair land with anarchy and blood, and filled it with mourning and lamentation; until every field should be a field of battle, every hill-side be drenched in blood, every plain become a Golgotha, every valley a valley of dry bones;-until fire should blast every field, consume every dwelling, destroy every temple, and leave every town black with ashes and desolation;-until this fiendish spirit, compounding all the elements of fury and horror, should sweep over this now happy portion of God's heritage, leaving it blasted and desolate ;—a monument of worse than barbarian vengeance. This pestilent spirit of disunion, the poisonous tree of Java in the political world, is taking root in our soil, and stings, as with a serpent's venom, all who fall within reach of its deadly malaria. No plant or herb can grow near it, no animated existence can repose under its shadow or rest in its branches, no bird can fly over it, and under and about it is appalling death.

More ferocious than the decree of Herod, it will spare children of no age, nor sturdy manhood, nor woman's beauty, nor the gray hairs of age. More fearful than the destroying angel of Egypt, it will pass over no one's dwelling, though the blood be sprinkled on the door-posts. I arraign it for trial and judgment in the holy name of humanity; by the blood and tears in which our liberties were achieved;-by the great memories of the patriots of the Revolution, and the sacred compact of our fathers; in the name of the oppressed children of earth, who would flee to this asylum of hope, and whose footsteps we hear in the mighty distance;-by the blood which cries from the ground of this great battle-field.

The ruthless savages who mangled the remains of the brave soldier upon this field, whose tomahawk and scalping-knife reeked with the blood of women and children in the valley of the Wabash, in the great day of final account will draw near to the judgment-seat and extenuate their crimes in comparison with him who imperils this Union. They were, according to their ferocious instincts, warring upon the enemies of their race. He is at strife with friends and brethren-those who surrounded the same home-hearth, and knelt at the same altar. They were born amid deeds of blood and educated in slaughter. He was taught the gentle precepts of the Saviour of men, and baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the

Holy Ghost. They fought for their rude homes-for the banks of the stream where their childhood had sported, where their council-fires had been kindled, and where repose the remains of their beloved dead. He would make homes of friends and kindred desolate, and quench the altar-lights of civilization and Christianity. They were true to the integrity of their people, and sought to uphold and enforce the principles of their bloody compact. He would subvert and destroy the Constitution under which he lives, and the government which shelters and protects him.

SPEECH

DELIVERED AT A DEMOCRATIC MASS MEETING, HELD AT THE UNION CABIN, IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN, ON THE EVENING OF October 21, 1856.

IN every department of human life, Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens, there is a continual conflict between the great principles of truth and falsehood, good and evil; and this is nowhere better demonstrated and illustrated than in matters of political opinion. In the policy and affairs of our government, there always have been, since the day of its organization, there always will be, two great principles striving for the mastery; and both cannot be right. One must be true and the other false; one just, the other unjust; one tending to the elevation and advancement of the best interests of the people, the other to their depression and defeat. They are represented, in the political arena, by the two great parties into which the people have been divided.

The Democratic principle which I advocate and which we believe, is no mere partisan principle; it has no party catchwords, and no relation to mere office-seeking or spoils-hunting politics; it relates not to the elevation of this man to place or the rejection of that. Its mission is that justice, truth, and equity may prevail in matters of government; that the encroachments of the few upon the rights of the many may be prevented; that the strong shall not oppress the weak. The spirit of Democracy is the idea of the people, the mind and common sense of the masses, the reason and judgment of the majority. The Democratic principle seeks to preserve power in the hands of the people, that they may themselves exercise it in every department of government, in the choice of rulers (not rulers, either, in the proper signification of the word, for the

people themselves are the rulers), whether it relate to those who are to make or those who are to administer the laws. It intends that the people shall reserve that power to themselves, and exercise it according to their own good sense and pleasure. It asserts the capacity of the people for self-government; but as they are engaged in the various pursuits of life, taking thought "what they shall eat, what they shall drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed," it undertakes that error shall not steal upon and mislead them, on pretence that it can administer to them better than they can to themselves, or by promises to give them by circuity,-by some roundabout, patent right system of governmental gratuities, what it would filch from them by political jugglery or deny to them as an inherent right.

The grand idea of Democracy is equality-equality in every sense of the word. Providence, it is true, has given to some men more physical power and higher mental capacity than to others, and in these respects, as the poet expresses it,

"Some are and must be greater than the rest."

But political rights can be equal as the golden light of heaven that falls upon all God's children alike. And this Democracy claims and teaches. As in the natural world we see the elements spread out for all-to bask in the warm sunlight, and drink together at the sparkling fountain, or look alike upon the beauteous sky and bright earth, rejoicing in its sunny slopes and lovely valleys, its grand hills and rushing streamsso in the moral world a beneficent Providence has not designed that its excellencies shall be monopolized by the few while the many grovel in spiritual bondage. Democracy therefore maintains that every one should enjoy liberty of conscience, to worship God according to the dictates of his own heart, and therefore be held accountable to no one but his Maker; and it does not reject any one because he believes or does not believe in this doctrine or that, or in this form or the other in relation to the worship of Deity. It inquires not whether a man was born on this side or the other of the Atlantic, in respect to his enjoyment of the blessings of our institutions, but whether he is honest, faithful, and has an American heart. It intends that he