There is no weapon in the celestial armory of Truth, no sweet influence from the skies, no generous word from human lips, which may not be employed. Ours, too, is the argument alike of the Conservative and the Reformer; for our cause stands on the truest conservatism and the truest reform. It seeks the conservation of Freedom itself, and of kindred historic principles; it seeks also the reform of Slavery, and of the kindred tyranny by which it is upheld. Religion, morals, justice, economy, the Constitution, each and all, may be invoked; and one person is touched by one argument, while another person is touched by another. You do not forget how Christopher Columbus won Isabella of Spain to his enterprise of discovery. He began with the temptation of extending her dominions; but she hearkened not. Next he promised the dazzling wealth of the Indies; and still she hearkened not. When, at last, to her pious imagination were pictured poor heathen with souls to be saved, then the youthful Queen poured her royal jewels into the lap of the Genoese adventurer, and at her expense went forth that small fleet which gave to Spain and to mankind a New World.

As in this Enterprise there is a place for every argument, so also is there a place for every man. Even as on the broad shield of Achilles, sculptured by divine art, was wrought every form of human activity, so in this cause, which is the very shield of Freedom, whatever man can do by deed or speech will find its place. One may act in one way, and another in another way; but all must act. Providence is felt through individuals; the dropping of water wears away the rock; and no man can be too humble or poor for this work, while to all the happy in genius, fortune, or fame it makes a special appeal. Here is room for the strength of Luther and the sweetness of Melancthon, for the wisdom of age and the ardor of youth, for the judgment of the statesman and the eloquence of the orator, for the grace of the scholar and the aspiration of the poet, for the learning of the professor and the skill of the lawyer, for the exhortation of the preacher and the persuasion of the press, for the various energy of man and the abounding sympathy of woman.

And still one thing more is needed, without which Liberty-loving men, and their arguments, will fail in power,—even as without charity all graces of knowledge, speech, and faith are said to profit nothing. I mean that Unity of Spirit—in itself a fountain of strength—which, filling the people of the North, shall make them tread under foot past antipathies, decayed dissensions, and those irritating names which now exist only as tattered ensigns of ancient strife. It is right to be taught by the enemy; and with their example before us, and their power brandished in our very faces, we cannot hesitate. With them Slavery is the mainspring of political life, and the absorbing centre of political activity; with them all differences are swallowed up by this one idea, as all other rods were swallowed up by the rod of Aaron; with them all unite to keep the National Government under the control of slave-masters: and surely we should not do less for Freedom than they do for Slavery. We, too, must be united. Among us at last mutual criticism, crimination, and feud must give place to mutual sympathy, trust, and alliance. Face to face against the Slave Oligarchy must be rallied the UNITED MASSES of the North, in compact political association,—planted on the everlasting base of justice,—knit together by instincts of a common danger and holy sympathies of humanity,—enkindled by love of Freedom, not only for themselves, but for others,—determined to enfranchise the National Government from degrading thraldom,—and constituting the BACKBONE PARTY, powerful in numbers, wealth, and intelligence, but more powerful still in an inspiring cause. Let this be done, and victory will be ours.

NEW OUTRAGE FOR THE SAKE OF SLAVERY.

Lake Superior, On Board the North Star,
Saturday, August 11, 1855.

MY DEAR SIR,—With astonishment and indignation I have learned the story of your imprisonment; and now, from this distant retreat, where I am for the moment, make haste to send you my sympathy.

From beginning to end, from side to side, and in every aspect, this transaction can be regarded only as a clear, indubitable, and utterly unmitigated outrage. The new-fangled doctrine, that a slave-master can voluntarily import his alleged slave—of course with all the revolting incidents of Slavery—into the Free States, is not more odious than preposterous. It is scouted by reason, and disowned by universal jurisprudence. You were right in disregarding it. In stepping forward to remind persons claimed as slaves on this pretext that all such claim is baseless, you did a good work. It was this knowledge which filled them with confidence to regain their God-given liberty. And for this it appears that you have been brought before a man, “dressed in a little brief authority,” who has cast you into prison.

This outrage is rendered more outrageous by the way in which it was done. It was perpetrated through perversion of the great writ of Habeas Corpus. This writ of freedom and deliverance, which in England is often styled the Palladium of the Constitution, which is recognized as a distinctive feature of Constitutional Government, which finds no place in despotism, and which is the very master-key appointed to unlock prison-doors and let the oppressed go free, has been made in your case, by a hocus-pocus without precedent, the instrument of imprisonment and oppression.

Strange and disgraceful as all this is, it must be considered the natural fruit of Slavery. Any person, whosoever he may be, whether simple citizen or magistrate, who undertakes to uphold this wrong, seems forthwith to lose his reason. He may be just, humane, and decent in other things, but in the support of Slavery he becomes unjust, inhuman, and indecent,—often in obvious unconsciousness of his degradation. The blindness which makes him insensible to wrong so transcendent naturally makes him insensible to the lesser wrong by which it is maintained. What is the writ of Habeas Corpus, the trial by jury, the privilege of debate, or your liberty or mine, in the estimation of a person who has already screwed himself to the pitch of injustice necessary for the vindication of an institution which separates parent and child, which stamps woman as a concubine, which shuts the gates of knowledge, and which snatches from the weak all the hard-earned fruits of incessant toil?

But there must be an end to these things; and as Shakespeare found a jewel in the toad’s head, so do I find a cheering omen even in the injustice which has made you its victim. There is an old saying, handed down from distant antiquity, that “whoso the gods wish to destroy they first make mad”; and I have often of late been impressed by its truth. The Slave Oligarchy is mad, and their overflowing madness runs through every agent and tool. In all that they do—especially in the Fugitive Slave Bill and its cruel enforcement, the Nebraska Bill and its felonious administration, and now in the imprisonment of an unoffending citizen—I rejoice to believe that there is unmistakable evidence of that madness which precedes a fall. Verily the day is at hand when returning justice will once more bear sway; then, among the triumphs of Freedom, will be a reckoning with unjust judges.

Meanwhile accept my congratulations on the portion of responsibility and dignity which is yours. It is a privilege to suffer for truth; and I envy not the meanness of that soul which would hesitate to prefer your place within the stone walls of a prison to the cushioned bench of the magistrate by whose irrational and tyrannical edict you have been condemned.

Believe me, my dear Sir, with much regard,

Very faithfully yours,

Charles Sumner.

Passmore Williamson, Esq., Moyamensing Prison, Philadelphia.

THE PEN BETTER THAN THE SWORD.

At your table there will be an aggregation of various genius and talent constituting a true Witenagemote, which may justly gratify an honest pride of country. Grateful as this may be as a token of power, it will be more grateful still as a token of that concord growing among men in all the relations of life. The traditional feud between Authors and Publishers promises to lose itself in your Festival, even as the traditional feud between England and France is absorbed in the welcome of Victoria by Louis Napoleon. This is beautiful. And the whole scene, where differing Authors commingle under auspices of differing Publishers, will be an augury of that permanent coöperation and harmony which will secure to the pen its mightiest triumphs.

It is in honor of the pen that the company will be gathered together. If any word of mine be expected, please let me offer the following sentiment.

Believe me, dear Sir,

Very faithfully yours,

Charles Sumner.

G. P. Putnam, Esq.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN NEW YORK.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OFFSPRING OF THE
AROUSED CONSCIENCE OF THE COUNTRY.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND OUR FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION.

Fellow-citizens of Boston:—

Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? This is the question which you are to answer at the coming election. Above all other questions, national or local, it lifts itself directly in the path of every voter. There it is. It cannot be avoided. It cannot be banished away. It cannot be silenced. Forever sounding in our ears, it has a mood for every hour,—stirring us at times as with the blast of a trumpet, then visiting us in solemn tones, like the bell which calls to prayer, and then again awaking us to unmistakable duty, like the same bell, when at midnight it summons all to stay the raging conflagration.

And yet there are persons among us who seek to put this great question aside. Some clamor for financial reform, and hold up a tax-bill; others clamor for a modification of the elective franchise, and they hold up the Pope; some speak in the name of old parties, calling themselves Democrats or Whigs; others in the name of a new party, which shall be nameless at present. Surely the people of Massachusetts will not be diverted from the true issue, involving Freedom for broad territories and Freedom for themselves, by holding up a tax-bill or by holding up the Pope. The people of Massachusetts are intelligent and humane.

…

But above all these is heard the great question, which will not be postponed, Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? “Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!” Are you for Freedom, with its priceless blessings, or are you for Slavery, with its countless wrongs and woes? Are you for God, or are you for the Devil?

Fellow-Citizens, I speak plainly; nor can words exhibiting the enormity of Slavery be too plain, whether it be regarded simply in the legislative and judicial decisions by which it is upheld, or in the unquestionable facts by which its character is revealed. It has been my fortune latterly to see Slavery face to face in its own home, in the Slave States; and I take this early opportunity to offer my testimony to the open barbarism which it sanctions. I have seen a human being knocked off at auction on the steps of a court-house, and, as the sale went on, compelled to open his mouth and show his teeth, like a horse; I have been detained in a stage-coach, that our driver might, in the phrase of the country, “help lick a nigger”; and I have been constrained, at public table, to witness the revolting spectacle of a poor slave, yet a child, almost felled to the floor by a blow on the head from a clenched fist. Such incidents were not calculated to shake my original convictions. The distant slaveholder, who, in generous solicitude for that truth which makes for Freedom, feared, that, like a certain Doctor of Divinity, I might, under influence of personal kindness, be hastily swayed from these convictions, may be assured that I saw nothing to change them one tittle, but much to confirm them,—while I was entirely satisfied that here in Massachusetts, where all read, the true character of Slavery is better known than in the Slave States themselves, where ignorance and prejudice close the avenues of knowledge.

And now, grateful for the attention with which you honor me, I venture to hope that you are assembled honestly to hear the truth,—not to gratify prejudice, to appease personal antipathies, or to indulge a morbid appetite for excitement, but with candor and your best discrimination to weigh facts and arguments in order to determine the course of duty. I address myself particularly to the friends of Freedom, Republicans, on whose invitation I appear to-night; but I make bold to ask you of other parties, who now listen, to divest yourselves, for the time, of partisan constraint,—to forget, for the moment, that you are Whigs or Democrats, or however called, and to remember only that you are men, with hearts to feel, with heads to understand, and with consciences to guide. Then only will you be in condition to receive the truth. “If men are not aware of the probable influence of party over them, they are so much the more likely to be blindly governed by it.” Such is the wise remark of Wilberforce.[25] And I fear that among us there are too many unconsciously governed by such bias. There are men, who, while professing candor, yet show that the bitterness of party has entered into their whole character and lives, as the bitterness of the soil in Sardinia is said to appear even in its honey.

…

There are honorable responsibilities belonging to Massachusetts, as an early and constant vindicator of Freedom, which she cannot renounce. “If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” The distant emigrant, the whole country, awaits the voice of our beloved Commonwealth in answer to the question, Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? So transcendent, so exclusive, so all-absorbing at the present juncture is this question, that it is vain to speak of the position of candidates on other things. To be doubtful on this is to be wrong, and to be wrong on this is to be wholly wrong. Passing strange it is that here in Massachusetts, in this nineteenth century, we should be constrained to put this question; passing strange, that, when it is put, there should be any hesitation to answer it, by voice and vote, in such way as to speak the loudest for Freedom.

…

But, without exposing the game of political sweepstakes which the Slave Oligarchy has perpetually played,—interesting as it would be,—I prefer to hold up for one moment the assumptions, aggressions, and usurpations by which, in defiance of the Constitution, it has made Slavery national, when it is in reality sectional. Here is a brief catalogue.

…

Fellow-citizens, I have said enough to stir you; but this humiliating tale is not yet finished. An oligarchy seeking to maintain an outrage like Slavery, and drawing its inspirations from this fountain of wickedness, is naturally base, false, and heedless of justice. It is vain to expect that men who have brought themselves to become propagandists of this enormity will be constrained by any compromise, compact, bargain, or plighted faith. As the less is contained in the greater, so there is no vileness of dishonesty, no denial of human rights, that is not plainly involved in the support of an enormity which begins by changing man, created in the image of God, into a chattel, and consigns little children to the auction-block. A power which Heaven never gave can be maintained only by means which Heaven can never sanction. And this conclusion of reason is confirmed by late experience.

And here I approach the special question under which the country now shakes from side to side. The protracted struggle of 1820, known as the Missouri Question, ended with the admission of Missouri as a slaveholding State, and the prohibition of Slavery in all the remaining territory west of the Mississippi and north of 36° 30´. Here was a solemn act of legislation, called at the time a compromise, a covenant, a compact, first brought forward by the Slave Oligarchy, vindicated by it in debate, finally sanctioned by its votes,—also upheld at the time by a slaveholding President, James Monroe, and his cabinet, of whom a majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Calhoun himself,—and made the condition of the admission of Missouri, without which that State could not have been received into the Union. Suddenly, during the last year, without any notice in the public press or the prayer of a single petition, after an acquiescence of thirty-four years, and the irreclaimable possession by the Slave Oligarchy of its special share in the provisions of this Compromise, in violation of every obligation of honor, compact, and good neighborhood, and in contemptuous disregard of the outgushing sentiments of an aroused North, this time-honored Prohibition, in itself a Landmark of Freedom, was overturned, and the vast region now known as Kansas and Nebraska was opened to Slavery: and this was done under the disgraceful lead of Northern politicians, and with the undisguised complicity of a Northern President, forgetful of Freedom, forgetful also of his reiterated pledges that during his administration the repose of the country should receive no shock.

And all this was perpetrated under pretences of popular rights. Freedom was betrayed by a kiss. In defiance of uninterrupted prescription down to our day, early sustained at the South as well as the North, leaning at once on Jefferson and Washington, sanctioned by all the authoritative names of our history, and beginning with the great Ordinance by which Slavery was prohibited in the Northwest,—it was pretended that the people of the United States, who are the proprietors of the national domain, and who, according to the Constitution, may “make all needful rules and regulations” for its government, nevertheless were not its sovereigns, that they had no power to interdict Slavery there, but that this eminent dominion resided in the few settlers, called squatters, whom chance or a desire to better their fortunes first hurried into these places. To this precarious handful, sprinkled over immense spaces, it was left, without any constraint from Congress, to decide whether into these vast unsettled lands, as into the veins of an infant, should be poured the festering poison of Slavery, destined, as time advances, to show itself in cancers and leprous disease, or whether they should be filled with all the glowing life of Freedom. And this great power, transferred from Congress to these few settlers, was hailed by the new-fangled name of Squatter Sovereignty.

It was fit that the original outrage perpetrated under such pretences should be followed by other outrages perpetrated in defiance of these pretences. In the race of emigration the Freedom-loving citizens of the North promised to obtain the ascendency, and, in the exercise of the conceded sovereignty of the settlers, to prohibit Slavery. The Slave Oligarchy was aroused to other efforts. Of course it stuck at nothing. On the day of election, when this vaunted popular sovereignty was first invoked, hirelings from Missouri, having no home in the Territory, entered it in bands of fifties and hundreds, and, assuming an electoral franchise to which they had no claim, trampled under foot the Constitution and laws. Violently, ruthlessly, the polls were possessed by these invaders. The same Northern President, who did not shrink from unblushing complicity in the original outrage, now assumed another complicity. Though prompt to lavish the Treasury, the Army, and the Navy of the Republic in hunting a single slave through the streets of Boston, he could see the Constitution and laws which he was sworn to protect, and those popular rights which he had affected to promote, all struck down in Kansas,—and then give new scope to these invaders by the removal of the faithful Governor, who had become obnoxious to the Slave Oligarchy because he would not become its tool, and the substitution of another, who vindicated the dishonest choice by making haste, on his first arrival there, to embrace the partisans of Slavery. The Legislature, which was constituted by the overthrow of the electoral franchise, proceeded to overthrow every safeguard of Freedom. At one swoop it adopted all the legislation of Missouri, including its Slave Code; by another act it imposed unprecedented conditions upon the exercise of the electoral franchise; and by still another act it denounced the punishment of death no less than five times against as many different forms of interference with the alleged property in human flesh, while all who but write or speak against Slavery are adjudged to be felons. Yes, fellow-citizens, should any person there presume to print or circulate the speech in which I now express my abhorrence of Slavery, and deny its constitutional existence anywhere within the national jurisdiction, he would become liable under this act as a felon. And this overthrow of all popular rights is done in the name of Popular Sovereignty. Surely its authors follow well the example of the earliest Squatter Sovereign,—none other than Satan,—who, stealing into Eden, was there discovered by the celestial messengers just beginning his work: as Milton tells us,—

Would you know the secret of this unprecedented endeavor, beginning with the repeal of the Prohibition of Slavery, down to the latest atrocity? The answer is at hand. It is not merely to provide new markets for slaves, or even to guard Slavery in Missouri, but to build another Slave State, and thus, by the presence of two additional Slaveholding Senators, to give increased preponderance to the Slave Oligarchy in the National Government. As men are murdered for the sake of their money, so is this Territory blasted in peace and prosperity in order to wrest its political influence to the side of Slavery.

But a single usurpation is not enough to employ the rapacious energies of our Oligarchy. At this moment, while the country is pained by the heartless conspiracy against Freedom in Kansas, we are startled by another effort, which contemplates not merely the political subjugation of the National Government, but the actual introduction of Slavery into the Free States. The vaunt is made that slaves will yet be counted in the shadow of the monument on Bunker Hill, and more than one step has been taken towards this effrontery. A person of Virginia has asserted his right to hold slaves in New York on the way to Texas; and this claim is still pending before the highest judicial tribunal of the land. A similar claim has been asserted in Pennsylvania, and thus far been sustained by the court. A blameless citizen, who, in obedience to generous impulses, and in harmony with received law, merely gave notice to a person held as a slave in a Free State that she was in reality free, has been thrust into jail, and now, after the lapse of months, still languishes there, the victim of this pretension; while—that no excess might be wanting in the madness of this tyranny—the great writ of Habeas Corpus, proudly known as the writ of deliverance, has been made the instrument of his imprisonment.[26] Outrage treads upon outrage, and great rights pass away to perish. Alas! the needful tool for such work is too easily found in places low and high,—in the lanes and cellars of Boston, on the bench of the judge, in the chair of the President. But it is the power behind which I impeach. The Slave Oligarchy does it; the Slave Oligarchy does it all.

To the prostration of this Oligarchy we are bound by a threefold cord of duty: first, as we would secure Freedom for ourselves; secondly, as we would uphold Freedom in distant Kansas; and, thirdly, as we would preserve the Union in its early strength and integrity. The people of Kansas are, many of them, from Massachusetts,—bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh; but as fellow-citizens under the Constitution they are bound to us by ties which we cannot disown; nay, more,—by the subtile cord which connects this embryo settlement with the Republic, they are made part of us. The outrage which touches them touches us. What galls them galls us. The fetter which binds the slave in Kansas binds every citizen in Massachusetts. Thus are we prompted to their rescue, not only to save them, but also to save ourselves. The tyranny which now treads them down has already trampled on us, and only awaits an opportunity to do it again. In its complete overthrow is the only way of safety. Indeed, this must be done before anything else can be done.

…

In the choice of men we are driven to the organization of parties; and here occurs the practical question on which hinges immediate duty,—By what political party can our desire be accomplished? There are individuals in all parties, even the Democratic, who hate Slavery, and say so; but a political party cannot be judged by the private opinions of some of its members. Something else, more solid and tangible, must appear. The party that we select to bear the burden and honor of our great controversy should be adapted to the work. It must be a perfect machine. Wedded to Freedom for better or for worse, and clinging to it with a grasp never to be unloosed, it must be clear, open, and unequivocal in its declarations, and should admit no other question to divert its energies. It must be all for Freedom, and, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. But besides this character which it should sustain in Massachusetts, it must be prepared to take its place in close phalanx with the united masses of the North, now organizing through all the Free States, junctæque umbone phalanges, for the protection of Freedom and the overthrow of the Slave Oligarchy.

Bearing these conditions in mind, there are three parties which we may dismiss, one by one, as they pass in review. Men do not gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles; nor do they expect patriotism from Benedict Arnold. A party which sustains the tyrannies and perfidies of the Slave Oligarchy, and is represented by the President, through whom has come so much of all our woe, need not occupy our time; and such is the Democratic party. If there be within the sound of my voice a single person, professing sympathy with Freedom, who still votes with this party, to him I would say: The name of Democrat is a tower of strength; let it not be the bulwark of Slavery; for the sake of a name do not sacrifice the thing; for the sake of party do not surrender Freedom.

According to familiar rule, handed down from distant antiquity, we are to say nothing but good of the dead. How, then, shall I speak of the late powerful Whig party, by whose giant contests the whole country was once upheaved, but which has now ceased to exist, except as the shadow of a name? Here in Massachusetts, a few who do not yet know that it is dead have met together and proffered the old allegiance. They are the Rip Van Winkles of our politics. This respectable character, falling asleep in the mountains, drowsed undisturbed throughout the war of the Revolution, and then, returning to his native village, ignorant of all that had passed, made haste to declare himself “a loyal subject of the King, God bless him!” But our Whigs are less tolerant and urbane than this awakened sleeper. In petulant and irrational assumption they are like the unfortunate judge, who, being aroused from slumber on the bench by a sudden crash of thunder, exclaimed, “Mr. Crier, stop the noise in Court!” The thunder would not be hushed; nor will the voice of Freedom, now reverberating throughout the land. Some there are among these who openly espouse the part of Slavery, while others, by indifference, place themselves in the same unhappy company. If their position at this moment were of sufficient importance to justify grave remark, they should be exhibited as kindred in spirit and isolation to the Tories of our Revolution, or at least as the Bourbons of Massachusetts,—always claiming everything, learning nothing, forgetting nothing, and at last condemned by an aroused people for disloyalty to Freedom. Let no person who truly loves Freedom join this company, tempted by its name and old associations.

There is still another party claiming your votes, but permit me to say, at this crisis, with little reason. I am at a loss to determine the name by which it may be called. It is sometimes styled the Know Nothing party, sometimes the American party; but it cannot be entitled to these designations,—if they be of any value,—for it does not claim to belong to the organization which first assumed and still retains them. It is an isolated combination, peculiar to Massachusetts, which, while professing certain political sentiments, is bound together by the support of one of the candidates for Governor.[27] At this moment this is its controlling idea. It is therefore a personal party; and I trust that I shall not be considered as departing from that courtesy which is with me a law, if I say, that, in the absence of any appropriate name, expressive of principles, it may properly take its designation from the candidate it supports.

Of course such a party wants the first essential condition of the organization which we seek. It is a personal party, whose controlling idea is predilection for a man, and not a principle. Whatever may be the private sentiments of some of its members, clearly it is not a party wedded to Freedom for better and for worse, and clinging to it with a grasp never to be unloosed. While professing opposition to Slavery, it also arraigns Catholics and foreigners, and allows the question of their privileges to disturb its energies. It is not all for Freedom; nor is it, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. Besides, even as party of Freedom, it is powerless from its isolation; for it stands by itself, and is in no way associated with that great phalanx now rallying throughout the North. In this condition should it continue to exist, it will, in the coming Presidential contest, from natural affinity, lapse back into the American party of the country, which is ranged on the side of Slavery. Of course, as a separate party, it is necessarily short-lived. Cut off from the main body, it may show a brief vitality, as the head of a tortoise still bites for some days after it is severed from the neck; but it can have no permanent existence. Surely this is not the party of Freedom which we seek.

The incompetency of this party, as organ of our cause, is enhanced by the uncongenial secrecy in which it had its origin and yet shrouds itself. For myself let me say, that on the floor of the Senate I have striven by vote and speech, in conjunction with my distinguished friend Mr. Chase, to limit the secret sessions of that body, under shelter of which so much of the public business is transacted; and I have there presented, as the fit model for American institutions, the example of that ancient Roman who bade his architect so construct his house that all that he did might be seen by the world.[28] What I urged there I now urge here. But the special aims which this party proposes are in harmony with the darkness in which it begins. Even if justifiable on any ground of public policy, they should not be associated with our cause: but I am unwilling to allude to them without expressing my frank dissent.

It is proposed to attaint men for religion, and also for birth. If this object can prevail, vain are the triumphs of Civil Freedom in its many hard-fought fields, vain is that religious toleration which we profess. The fires of Smithfield, the tortures of the Inquisition, the proscriptions of Non-Conformists may all be revived. Mainly to escape these outrages, dictated by a dominant religious sect, was our country early settled: in one place by Pilgrims, who sought independence; in another by Puritans, who disowned bishops; in another by Episcopalians, who take their name from bishops; in another by Quakers, who set at nought all forms; and in yet another by Catholics, who look to the Pope as spiritual father. Slowly among the struggling sects was evolved that great idea of the equality of all men before the law without regard to religious belief; nor can any party now organize a proscription merely for religious belief, without calling in question this well-established principle.

But Catholics are mostly foreigners, and on this account are condemned. Let us see if there be any reason in this; and here indulge me with one word on foreigners.

With the ancient Greeks a foreigner was a barbarian, and with the ancient Romans he was an enemy. In early modern times the austerity of this judgment was relaxed; but, under the influence of feudalism, different sovereignties, whether provinces or nations, were kept in a condition of isolation, from which they have gradually passed, until now provinces are merged in nations, and nations are giving signs that they too will yet combine in one. In our country a new example is already displayed. From all nations people commingle here. As in ancient Corinth, by accidental fusion of all metals, accumulated in the sacred temples, a peculiar metal was produced, better than any individual metal, even silver or gold,—so, perhaps, in the order of Providence, by fusion of all races here, there will be a better race than any individual race, even Saxon or Celt. Originally settled from England, the Republic has been strengthened and enriched by generous contributions of population from Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, France, and Germany; and the cry is, Still they come! At no time since the discovery of the New World has the army of emigrants pressed so strongly upon us. More than one quarter of a million are annually landed on our shores. The manner in which they shall be received is a problem of national policy.

All will admit that any influence which they bring, hostile to our institutions, calculated to substitute priestcraft for religion and bigotry for Christianity, must be deprecated and opposed. All will admit, too, that there must be some assurance of their purpose to become not merely consumers of the fruits of our soil, but useful, loyal, and permanent members of our community, upholders of the general welfare. With this simple explanation, I cannot place any check upon the welcome to foreigners. There are our broad lands, stretching towards the setting sun; let them come and take them. Ourselves children of the Pilgrims of a former generation, let us not turn from the Pilgrims of the present. Let the home founded by our emigrant fathers continue open in its many mansions to the emigrants of to-day.

The history of our country, in its humblest as well as most exalted spheres, testifies to the merit of foreigners. Their strong arms have helped furrow our broad territory with canals, and stretch in every direction the iron rail. They fill our workshops, navigate our ships, and even till our fields. Go where you will among the hardy sons of toil on land or sea, and there you find industrious and faithful foreigners bending their muscles to the work. At the bar and in the high places of commerce you find them. Enter the retreats of learning, and there too you find them, shedding upon our country the glory of science.[29] Nor can any reflection be cast upon foreigners, coming for hospitality now, which will not glance at once upon the distinguished living and the illustrious dead,—upon the Irish Montgomery, who perished for us at the gates of Quebec,—upon Pulaski the Pole, who perished for us at Savannah,—upon De Kalb and Steuben, the generous Germans, who aided our weakness by their military experience,—upon Paul Jones, the Scotchman, who lent his unsurpassed courage to the infant thunders of our navy,—also upon those great European liberators, Kosciusko of Poland, and Lafayette of France, each of whom paid his earliest vows to Liberty in our cause. Nor should this list be confined to military characters, so long as we gratefully cherish the name of Alexander Hamilton, who was born in the West Indies, and the name of Albert Gallatin, who was born in Switzerland, and never, to the close of his octogenarian career, lost the French accent of his boyhood,—both of whom rendered civic services to be commemorated among the victories of peace.

Nor is the experience of our Republic peculiar. Where is the country or power which does not inscribe the names of foreigners on its historic scroll? It was Christopher Columbus, of Genoa, who disclosed to Spain the New World; it was Magellan, of Portugal, sailing in the service of Spain, who first passed with adventurous keel through those distant Southern straits which now bear his name, and opened the way to the vast Pacific Sea; and it was Cabot, the Venetian, who first conducted English enterprise to this North American continent. As in triumphs of discovery, so also in other fields have foreigners excelled, while serving states to which they were bound by no tie of birth. The Dutch Grotius, author of the great work, “Laws of War and Peace,” an exile from his own country, became Ambassador of Sweden; and, in our own day, the Italian Pozzo di Borgo, turning his back upon his own country, reached the most exalted diplomatic trust in the jealous service of Russia. In the list of monarchs on the throne of England, not one has been more truly English than the Dutch William. In Holland no ruler has equalled in renown the German William, Prince of Orange. In Russia the German Catharine the Second takes place among the most commanding sovereigns. And who of Swedish monarchs was a better Swede than Bernadotte, the Frenchman? and what Frenchman was ever filled with aspiration for France more than the Italian Napoleon Bonaparte?

I pass from these things, which have occupied me too long. A party, which, beginning in secrecy, interferes with religious belief, and founds a discrimination on the accident of birth, is not the party for us.

“Where Liberty is, there is my country,” was the sentiment of that great Apostle of Freedom, Benjamin Franklin, uttered during the trials of the Revolution. In similar strain, I would say, “Where Liberty is, there is my party.” Such an organization is now happily constituted here in Massachusetts, and in all the Free States, under the name of Republican Party.

In assuming our place as a distinct party, we simply give form and direction, in harmony with the usage and genius of popular governments, to a movement which stirs the whole country, and does not find adequate and constant organ in either of the other existing parties. The early opposition to Slavery was simply a sentiment, outgushing from the hearts of the sensitive and humane. In the lapse of time it became a determined principle, inspiring larger numbers, and showing itself first in an organized endeavor to resist the annexation of slaveholding Texas; next, to prohibit Slavery in newly acquired territories; and now, alarmed by the overthrow of all rights in Kansas, and the domination of the Slave Oligarchy throughout the Republic, it breaks forth in a stronger effort, a wider union, and a deeper channel, inspiring yet larger numbers and firmer resolves, while opposite quarters contribute to its power,—even as the fountain, first outgushing from the weeping sides of its pure mountain home, trickles in the rill, leaps in the torrent, and flows in the river, till, at last, swollen with accumulated waters, it presses onward, in irresistible, beneficent current, fertilizing and uniting the spaces which it traverses, washing the feet of cities, and wooing states to repose upon its banks.

…

Our party has its origin in the exigencies of the hour. Vowing ourselves against Slavery, wherever it exists, whether enforced by Russian knout, Turkish bastinado, or lash of Carolina planter, we do not seek to interfere with it at Petersburg, Constantinople, or Charleston; nor does any such grave duty rest upon us. Political duties are properly limited by political responsibilities; and we are in no just sense responsible for the local law or usage by which human bondage in these places is upheld. But wherever we are responsible for the wrong, there our duty begins. The object to which, as a party, we are pledged, is all contained in acceptance of the issue which the Slave Oligarchy tenders. To its repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and its imperious demand that Kansas shall be surrendered to Slavery, we reply, that Freedom shall be made the universal law of all the national domain, without compromise, and that hereafter no Slave State shall be admitted into the Union. To its tyrannical assumption of supremacy in the National Government we reply, that the Slave Oligarchy shall be overthrown. Such is the practical purpose of the Republican Party.

ORIGINATION OF APPROPRIATION BILLS.