LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

of all Old-Line Whigs who will assist us in carrying out these resolutions."

      Now, the charge is here made that the Know-Nothings of the South are the allies of the Black Republicans of the North. This is the impression intended to be made, first by these concealed calumniators at Knoxville, and afterwards by the open and avowed slanderers of the same party at Somerville! With such wholesale lying as is displayed in both of these cases, we have but little patience: we only give their language, to show their recklessness in making such an issue. And although this Foreign party claim to be the guardians of Southern interests, we propose to show, before we conclude this chapter, that they are themselves the "allies of the Black Republicans of the North," and are giving them more "aid and comfort" than all the other parties in the country!

      FRANCIS P. BLAIR, former editor of Gen. Jackson's organ at Washington, was the President of the Black Republican Convention at Pittsburg, in February last! John M. Niles; Democratic Senator in Congress, was President of the Black Republican Convention held in Connecticut! In the Pittsburg Convention, over which Blair presided, PRESTON KING, ABIJAH MANN, DAVID WILMOT, and JACOB BRINKERHOFF, Old-Line Democrats, figured conspicuously.

      For two long and cold winter months, the Democrats, both North and South, voted for Richardson, of Illinois, for Speaker, a violent anti-slavery man, whose speeches against slavery, and in favor of Abolitionism, were matters of record in the Congressional Globe, and were delivered on the floor of Congress so late as 1850! The immortal 75 Democrats did not cease to vote for this man Richardson, until Gen. Zollicoffer, of Tennessee, read his speeches upon him, in the presence of his friends!

      On the 2d of February, SAMUEL A. SMITH, of Tennessee, a Democratic Representative in Congress, renewed his motion to adopt the plurality rule. His proposition, which it was evident would elect Banks, was carried by Black Republican votes, who went for it in a body. This would still not have elected Banks, but for the fact that the following Democrats voted for the odious plurality rule: Clingman, Herbert, Hickman, Jewett, Kelley, Barclay, Bayard, Wells, Williams, and Samuel A. Smith! Mr. Clarke was the only American who voted for the odious rule!

      Mr. Carlile, a national American, of Virginia, before the vote was taken upon this plurality rule, offered the following substitute for it:

      "Resolved, That the Hon. Wm. Aiken, a Representative from the State of South Carolina, be, and he is hereby declared Speaker of the Thirty-Fourth Congress."

      Gov. Aiken is a sound Southern Democrat – never was any thing else – but Col. Smith objected, and demanded the previous question, which cut off Mr. Carlile's resolution, and which was to prevent its adoption! The candidate of the Democratic party, at that time, Mr. Orr, immediately withdrew in favor of Gov. Aiken, upon the introduction of Mr. Carlile's resolution; and to prevent Aiken's election, SAMUEL A. SMITH cut off said resolution by a call of the previous question!

      Banks was elected by one vote, and this could not be accomplished until SEVEN DEMOCRATS got behind the bar, and refused to vote at all! These were HICKMAN, PARKER, and BARCLAY, of Pennsylvania; CRAIG, of North Carolina; TAYLOR, of Louisiana; RICHARDSON, of Illinois; and SEWARD, of Georgia! Any two of these Southern Democrats could have made Aiken Speaker, but they did not want him – they knew Banks to be a Democrat, if he were a Black Republican – and to elect him, they believed would give them the strength of that odious party in the coming contest.

      We have before us the Washington Union of Sept. 27th, 1853, giving, editorially, a glowing account of the Massachusetts Democratic State Convention, reporting the speech of Nathaniel P. Banks, of Waltham, concluding that report in these words:

      "Mr. Banks emphatically and decidedly, on his own part, and on that of the Democrats of Massachusetts, disclaimed the truth of the rumors in certain newspapers that an arrangement had been entered into with another political party in the Commonwealth concerning the distribution of State offices. It was his and this Convention's and all true Democrats' desire, belief, and determination, that Henry W. Bishop should be elected governor of Massachusetts, and that the other Democratic State officers should also be elected. He was not afraid of defeat, and less afraid of Whig success, which, to judge by its recent effects, was simply equivalent to a defeat. [Applause.]"

      It may be said, and doubtless will be, that Banks has allied himself with the Republicans. But Banks says he has always been a Democrat, and that he was nominated as a Democrat in his district. And certain it is, that he was elected Speaker by DEMOCRATS, under the compulsion of an odious plurality rule, and the gag of the previous question!

      It will be said, and said truthfully too, that SIX AMERICANS FROM THE NORTH voted for Mr. Fuller, of Pennsylvania. So they did; and in doing so, they voted for a sound national and conservative man. But did this justify Southern Democrats in dodging the question, and thereby electing a Black Republican Speaker? Gov. Aiken was the candidate of the seven Democrats – he was not the candidate of the six Americans! Democracy, moreover, had refused to vote for an American under any circumstances, and had, on the first day of the meeting of Congress, passed a resolution insulting the whole American party, in caucus! We would have seen them banished to the farthest verge of astronomical imagination, before we would have voted for any man that favored that insulting resolution!

      In 1847, by a unanimous vote, both branches of the Legislature of New Hampshire adopted resolutions denunciatory of the institution of slavery, and approving of the Wilmot Proviso. These resolutions were reported to the House, by the Representative from Hillsboro, the native town of Gen. Pierce, and were in the handwriting of Pierce!

      On the 2d of October, 1847, the Democratic Soft-Shells, who are now the supporters of Pierce's administration, and fill the offices he has to dispose of in New York, held a State Convention, and declared their "uncompromising hostility to slavery" in a string of resolutions they adopted and ordered to be published.

      On the 16th of February, 1848, a Democratic State Convention for New York convened at Utica, to appoint Delegates to the National Convention to nominate candidates for President and Vice President, at which a string of anti-Southern resolutions were adopted, denouncing "slavery or involuntary servitude," as repugnant to the genius of Republicanism.

      On the 18th of July, 1848, the Democratic Soft-Shells held a mass-meeting in the park of New York, and, by way of making perfect their organization against General Cass, declared, by resolutions, their "uncompromising hostility to slavery or involuntary servitude!"

      On the 13th of September, 1848, a Democratic mass-meeting convened at Buffalo, in New York, and, in a general Abolition jubilee, adopted resolutions condemning and denouncing the institution of slavery!

      In 1852, while the contest was going on between Pierce and Scott, the Washington Union said, editorially:

      "THE FREE-SOIL DEMOCRATIC LEADERS OF THE NORTH, ARE A REGULAR PORTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY; AND GENERAL PIERCE, IF ELECTED, WILL MAKE NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM AND THE REST OF THE DEMOCRACY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICIAL PATRONAGE, AND IN THE SELECTION OF AGENTS FOR ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT!"

      The Black Republicans recently held a meeting in New York, at which Benjamin F. Butler, of "pious memory," and Van Buren Swartwout notoriety, presided! On his right hand sat, as Vice President of the meeting, Moses H. Grinnell, one of the Democratic "pipe-layers" of 1840, whom this Van Buren Attorney-General Butler made efforts to send to the State prison! Another Vice President, gravely looking on, and arranged in dignified grandeur upon the stand, was John W. Edmonds, ex-"blanket contractor" in a large swindle, and a practical spiritual-rapper! A third and last Vice President was the notorious Dr. Townsend, the sarsaparilla man, who has not yet wound up his controversy with a man of the same name, as to who is the greatest rascal in the way of manufacturing this medicine!

      Among the other officers, secretaries, and prominent men in the meeting, was C. A. Dana, of the Tribune office, a Fourierist, who, at a public meeting on a former occasion, toasted "Horace Greeley, Charles Fourier, and Jesus Christ!" Prominent

Скачать книгу