charged that he lost the nomination through fraud. In making that charge they forget that 1,327,325 freemen voted for what they called a fradulent nominee, when only 763,587 votes were cast for Mr. Van Buren in 1836. If it is fraud for the majority of the people of the United States to elect the man of their choice, then was Mr. Van Buren a victim. The truth would appear to be, however, that the time for reform had arrived; the whole system of New-York corruption had fallen through; the safety fund system was down forever; the corruptions of the old constitution had disgusted the people, and a new organization was necessary. To give stability to a new organization, the government was appealed to, to place in office all those who had enjoyed public emoluments as matter of right under the regency system. This demand was not complied with. In this position, chagrined at the loss of popular favor, maddened at the failure of political intrigue, and thirsting for revenge against those whom they supposed the cause of their defeat, the conspirators dragged the slavery question for the first time in the history of the country into the arena, and made it a rallying point for a discomfited faction.

The hypocritical cry of "free soil," no more "slave territory," is that on which this northern party has organized its schemes of disunion, and it pretends to base this upon constitutional right.

The

The evil of slavery has been deplored by all parties, north and south, since the formation of the government; and those states where negroes, either free or in servitude, do not exist, have one and all sought to prevent them settling within their borders. Where hardy pioneers and enterprising settlers have overcome the wilderness, and made prairies smile with the blessings of cultivation, they have one and all sought to prevent the blacks from following, to blight with their presence the new homes of the immigrants. As all the old free states have imposed disabilities upon the free blacks, so have the new free states sought to prevent blacks from coming within their borders. The blacks are upon this continent not by their own fault. The cupidity of England in forcing them upon the United States was the cause of their presence here; and it is a matter of equal regret with both free states or slave states. whites of the former are not dependent upon the blacks for service, and they have shown a determination that the blacks shall not be dependent upon them for bread. In the south the nature of the industry has thus far kept the blacks employed. But the same anxiety to get clear of negroes which prompted the south to resist the imperial government, prompts the north and west to prevent negroes from occupying the lands at all. Hence, even before the formation of the constitution in 1787, an ordinance was passed, preventing the introduction of slaves into territory north of the Ohio. On that territory now exist the states of Ohio and Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin; and as this ordinance adopted by Congress in 1787 sought to prevent slavery from being introduced there, so have those states in their constitutions, sought to prevent free blacks from settling there.

The people of Illinois, by an immense majority, last year adopted the following clause of the new constitution :

"ARTICLE XIV. The general assembly shall, at its first session under the amended constitution, pass such laws as will effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state; and to effectually prevent the owners of slaves from bringing them into this state, for the purpose of setting them free."

This desire to exclude blacks from new territory, north and south, has always been strong on the part of the north, which has sought to keep free blacks out of its own states, as well as slaves out of southern states. Since the formation of the government, 17 new states have been admitted into

the Union. These give 60 electoral votes from slave states, and 63 from free States. The population admitted as slave states increased from 1,136,332 to 4,442,000, and in free states it rose from 1,443,256 to 5,372,000. The increase has been the largest from free states. At each new accession of territory, this question, in relation to the admission of slaves into the territory, has been renewed in Congressional debates, but it has never before been stirred up as an electioneering instrument. The excitement upon this subject ran highest in 1820, on the occasion of the admission of Missouri into the Union. The state of feeling then, together with the consequences that were apprehended to flow from it, are best expressed in the following letter of the immortal Jefferson :

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, dated April 22nd, 1820.

I thank you, dear sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. It is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. But the momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment, but this is a reprieve only, not the final sentence.

A geographical line coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated, and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would, to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property (for it is misnamed) is a bagatelle which would not cost me a single thought, if in that way a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected gradually; and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionately facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burden on a greater number of coadju tors. An abstinence, too, from this act of power, would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing the state.

This certainly is the exclusive right of every state, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them and given to the general government. Could Congress. for example, say that the non-freemen of Connecticut should be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other state.

I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their coun

Slave.

*

NEW STATES

First

Votes

First

Pop. Rep' Date. Census. 1847. Elec. Vote.

ADMITTED INTO THE AMERICAN UNION. Pop. Rep. Date. Census. 1847. Elec. Free. Kentucky,....1792...220,955a...855,000..15 Vermont, ....1791...154,465....302,000.. 7 Tennessee,.. 1793...105,602....950,000..15 Ohio,... 1802...230,760..1,860,000..21 Iowa,.... 1812...153,407....470,000.. 5 Indiana, 1825...147,179....960,000.. 9 Mississippi,.. 1816... 75,448....600,009.. 4 Illinois,... 1818... 55,211....735.000.. 5 Alabama,.... 1819...127,901.. ....600 000.. 7 Maine,....... 1820...298,335....600,000..10 Missouri, 1821...140,445....600,000.. 4 Michigan,.... 1835...212,267....370,000.. 3 Arkansas,.... 1836... 97,574....152,000.. 3 Iowa,........ 1846...130.000....130,000.. 4 Texas,...... 1845...140,000....140.000.. 4 Wisconsin,...1848...215,000....215,000.. 4 Florida,..... 1845... 75,000.... 75,000.. 3 1,443,256 5,372,000 63

1,136,332 44,42,000 60

a The population for 1847, is from the estimate of Edmund Burke, Esq., Commissioner of Patents.

try, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to be. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by the union than by scission, they would pause before they perpetrated this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high respect and esteem.

TH. JEFFERSON.

The question was settled at that time by the "Missouri compromise," which provided that in the territory of Louisiana, there should, except in the state of Missouri, be no slavery north of the 36° 30' of north latitude, running to the ocean. This, of course, left open the territory south of that line to southern institutions. On the admission of Texas, that solemn compromise was sought to be violated, but truth and justice prevailed.

The position of Mr. Van Buren has now, as we have seen, induced him to adopt this notion of" free soil," as that on which to form a sectional or northern faction, in order to defeat the Democratic party. That we may properly estimate the entire change which the sentiments of that personage have undergone since his rejection by the people of the Union, we compare two letters, one dated March, 1836, and addressed to Aimes and others of North Carolina, in reply to questions as to his views; the other dated June 16th, 1848, and addressed to a meeting of his agents at Utica:

MARCH, 1836.

"With only a generous confidence on the part of the south, in their brethren of the north, and a firm determination on the part of each to visit, with their severest displeasure, any attempt to connect the subject with party politics, those sentiments cannot be overthrown. All future attempts on the part of the abolitionists to do so, will then only serve to accumulate and concentrate public odium on themselves. That there are persons at the north who are far from concurring in the prevailing sentiments I have described, is certainly true; but their numbers, when compared with the rest of the community, are very inconsiderable; and if the condition of things be not greatly aggravated by imprudence, many of them I have no doubt, will ultimately adopt sounder views of the subject; and the efforts of those who may persist in the work of agitation may be overcome by reason, or rendered inoperative by constitutional remedies.

*

*

"In every view of the subject, therefore, it does appear to me, that, although there certainly is, in the present condition of the country in relation to it, sufficient to excite the most serious attention, there is nothing in the state of public opinion in the United States to justify that panic in the public mind, which invariably disqualifies those who partake of it, from our dealing wisely or successfully with the circumstances by which

JUNE, 1848.

"Our ancestors signalized the commencement of this glorious government of ours, by rescuing from subjection to slavery, a territory which is now covered by five great states and peopled by more than four millions of freemen, in the full enjoyment of every blessing which industry and good institutions can confer. They did this when the opinions and conduct of the world in regard to the institution of slavery were very different from what it is now. They did so before Great Britain had even commenced those gigantic efforts for the suppression of slavery, by which she has so greatly distinguished herself. After seventyfour year's enjoyment of the sacred and invaluable rights of self-government, obtained for us by the valor and discretion of our ancestors, we their descendants are called upon to doom, or if that is too strong a word, to expose to the inroad of slavery a territory capable of sustaining an equal number of new states to be admitted to our confederacy-a territory in a great part of which slavery has never existed, in fact, and from the residue of which it has been expressly abolished by the existing government. We are called upon to do this at a period when the minds of nearly all mankind have been penetrated by a conviction of the evils of slavery, and are united in efforts for its suppression-at a moment, too, when the spirit of freedom and reform is every

it is produced. From abroad we have, I think, some right to expect less interference than heretofore. We shall, I am confident, for some time at least, have no more foreign agents to enlighten on the subject, Recent results here, and the discussions with which they have been attended, cannot fail to attract the attention of the reading and reflecting portion of the foreign public. By these means they will be made to understand our real condition in this respect; and they will know that the unchangeable law of that condition is, that the slave question must be left to the control of the slaveholding states themselves, without molestation or interference from any quarter; that foreign interference of every description can only be injurious to the slave, without benefit to any interest, and will not be endured by any section of our country; and that any interference, coming from the non-slaveholding portions of our own territory, is calculated to endanger the perpetuity, and, if s inctioned by the general government, would inevitably occasion the dissolution of our happy Union."

The change is palpable and marked.

where far more prevalent than it has ever been, and when our republic stands proudly forth as the great exemplar of the world in the science of free government.

66

Who can believe that a population like that which inhabits the non-slaveholding states, probably amounting to twelve millions, who, by their own acts, or by the foresight of others, have been exempted from the evils of slavery, can, at such a moment, be induced, by considerations of any description, to make a retrograde movement of a character so extraordinary and so painful? Such a movement would, in my view of the matter, and I say it with unfeigned deference to the conflicting opinions of others, bring a reproach upon the influence of free institutions, which would delight the hearts and excite the hopes of the advocates of arbitrary power throughout the world."

It is not to be disguised, that lust of power, the long-continuance in office of professed politicians, living upon the people's money, and claiming public emoluments as a matter of right, have been productive of fearful evils in our national progress; but never in our history has a more daring and reckless scheme of political intrigue been started, than that which has been set up as the frame-work of a northern party, based upon sectional views, and hostile to the general welfare. The framers of our constitution, and the organizers of the glorious Union under which we have prospered, were well aware of the sectional differences which had been finally compromised in the sacred instrument which they gave to the world. In knowing the evils which must necessarily result from disturbing those compromises, and also the proneness of unprincipled seekers after office to lay their worthless hands upon things most sacred to the people as well as to the cause of human liberty, reckless of all consequences, so that a mean and sordid lust for a meretricious notoriety can be temporarily satisfied the statesmen of that period were careful on every and all occasions to enjoin vigilance in guarding the constitution, and the most watchful anxiety for the preservation of the sacred instrument. Washington was peculiarly solicitous on this point. He has told us in his farewell address, that," While experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who, in any quarter, may endeavor to weaken its bonds." The mode most likely to be adopted for this object of "weakening bonds," was clearly perceived to be the formation of parties having "geographical" distinctions. To irritate and renew those heart-burnings, and that supposed incompatibility of interests between sections that had manifested themselves in the formation of the union, but which had finally been soothed, were by the actors in those scenes felt to be the most ready means by which unprincipled politi

cians would attempt new political combination with geographical distinctions. On this head the father of his country remarked:

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union. it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discrimination-northern and southern, atlantic and western, whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is, to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. This (party) spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which, in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is in itself a frightful despotism. The disorders and miseries which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later, the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this despotism to the purpose of his own elevation on the ruins of the public liberty.'

The fear expressed by Washington in relation to the operation of party rancour upon the compromises of the Constitution were not realized for more than fifty years. Under the administration of the late venerable Jackson, the deeds of the present faction, for which Mr. Van Buren has deserted the people that supported him and attacked the institutions which gave him wealth and honor, were germinating. The vigilant old hero soon detected the tendency of the treason which was manifesting itself, and did not scruple to denounce it in terms at once just and severe.

The fears of Andrew Jackson, as well as of other true patriots, were aroused from the consciousness that the system of political intrigue, organised in New-York under the constitution of 1825, by which the State was bound over to the power of a regency that successfully ruled for twenty years, could not last, and that despotic and unprincipled intriguers who, without personal merit or great public services, had contrived, through the skilful application of the spoils of office, to form a scaffold on which to climb to the highest offices, would not scruple when this system fell into decay to jeopardize the whole interests of the country, and even to sacrifice the glorious union, by laying hands upon the compromises of the constitution. The demon abolitionism introduced here by English emissaries, one of whom is now a member of Parliament, was even then forming materials from which the political traitors could construct their treason. This state of affairs did not fail to escape the sagacity of the great patriot, and in his farewell address, following the admonitions of Washington, he remarks:

"We behold systematic efforts made publicly to sow the seeds of discord between different parts of the United States, and to place party divisions directly upon geographical distinctions; to excite the north against the south, and to force into the controversy the most delicate and exciting topics upon which it is impossible that a large portion of the Union can speak without strong emotions. Appeals, too, are constantly made to sectional interests, in order to influence the elevation of the chief magistrate, as if it were desired that he should favor a particular quarter of the country, instead of fulfilling the duties of his station with impartial justice to all; and the possible dissolution of the Union has at length become an ordinary and familiar subject of discussion."

"Each state has the unquestionable right to regulate its own internal concerns according to its own pleasure. Every state must be sole judge of the means proper to secure the safety of its citizens, and promote their happiness; and all efforts on the part of the people of other states to cast odium upon the institution, and