SPEECH

DELIVERED AT DEDHAM, NOVEMBER 6, 1850, BY SPECIAL ReQUEST OF A CONVENTION OF WHIG VOTERS OF THE EIGHTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT.

GENTLEMEN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS ;

Having been specially invited to appear before this meeting, and address it, my friend Mr. Russell has introduced me to you with many kind words; and he has emphatically announced me as "your old friend." By so doing, gentlemen, he has touched a living chord in my heart; for, as I look around me, I see many familiar and dear faces, and am reminded that, in this town, I spent some of the happiest years of my life. The sight of every object around me awakens remembrances of home. Right opposite to us is the court house, in whose forum my feeble voice was first raised, and where, I thank God, it was never raised in behalf of the oppressor, nor on the side of any cause which I believed to be wrong. Around this church in which we are assembled are the streets where I used to walk, there is the pew where I used to sit, and all around me are persons whom, for years, I saw daily and knew intimately, and knew them only to respect. I feel assured that I do meet "old friends," men, who carry their hearts in their hands, and whose lives are anchored to their convictions of duty.

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Gentlemen, it is not without embarrassment that I address you. Yet I might plead a high example for my course, if I were worthy, in any respect, to mention myself in connection with my venerated predecessor,

who has made the past history of his country so luminous with his wisdom and purity, and the name of this district which he represented so honored and memorable. Would to God I could carry you to some Pisgah height, and show you, under one view, the past, the present, and the future, as he was wont to do, when, as was his custom, he used to address you on those great topics which employed his energies, — on the principles by which you ought to be guided, and on the dangers to which you were exposed.

We have fallen, gentleman, on momentous times. Great events have occurred, in rapid succession, both in this and in the other hemisphere. There seems to have been a grand upheaving of the elements of society from its deep foundations. We have been so often astonished and amazed, by shock after shock, and convulsion after convulsion, that I fear we are beginning to lose our moral sensibility to political catastrophes, however grand or fatal they may be.

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You know there is a spot near the Mississippi River famous for the frequency of its earthquakes. A gentleman who visited there some years ago, told me that soon after entering a hotel, at a place called New Madrid, his attention was suddenly arrested by the rattling of the crockery, the jarring of the household furniture, and the shaking of the chair in which he sat. Starting up in trepidation, he sprang for the door. "O," said his landlord, "don't be alarmed. It is nothing but an earthquake." These phenomena, it seems, had become so common as to have lost their power of exciting alarm. So, I fear, it is in regard to the late commotions in Europe; and especially in regard to some of the marvellous doings of Congress in our own country. From their astounding character, and their rapid succession, I fear we are becoming insensible to their importance, like the inhabitants who dwell at the base of Mount Etna, whom neither

the rumbling of the mountain, nor the lava rivers which pour down its side, can awake from their stupor, until, like Pompeii or Herculaneum, they are buried in the ruins.

In the old world, things seem already to be settling back into their former condition, and hopes are darkening into fears. In this country, I still trust that we shall redeem something of the past, and secure the future. Yet the events of the last few months are of a disheartening character, if any thing could ever dishearten a true lover of his country. It has been my fortune and duty to be in the midst of these events. I have watched the tide of battle with sleepless eye; and when Liberty at last was stricken down, my heart bled with hers.

I believe I understand, gentlemen, what you wish me to do on this occasion; and therefore I shall endeavor to lay before you, briefly but impartially, the humble part which I, as your representative, have taken in those events which have filled the hearts of good men with alarm.

I would, however, premise a few words, in order to show how we have come, step by step, to the fearful position we now occupy.

Very early in our history, as a republic established to maintain the rights of man, an extent of territory was acquired equal to all we possessed before; and this addition accrued to the special advantage of those who maintain, as the first great article in their creed, the wrongs of man. The same European wars which enabled Mr. Jefferson's administration to purchase Louisiana with fifteen millions of dollars, mostly paid by the north, brought the commercial interests of the north also within the destructive sweep of those contests, and the non-intercourse act and the embargo were the consequence. These came upon New England at a time when commerce was her only

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resource. They brought as great a calamity upon the New England states as it would now be to the south if their whole cotton crop, or to the west if their whole grain crop, were to fail for a series of years. They palsied our industry; and, without industry, men, any where out of Paradise, will be poor. Upon the back of this calamity came the war of 1812, which we bore as well as we could, and performed our full share in carrying the country through it, though it cut off our very means of living. That war revealed a lamentable condition of things. It revealed the fact that, notwithstanding our political independence, we were, in a commercial sense, most deplorably dependent. It pointed to a new policy. It put the country upon achieving its second independence, its independence, at least for the necessaries of life, of foreign mechanics, manufacturers, and artisans, as it had already achieved its political independence of foreign kings, aristocracies, and ecclesiastics. It gave birth to the American system, in which Calhoun, Lowndes, Cheves, and Clay, all from the slave states, - took the lead. I mention the first three names, particularly, because they were from the state of South Carolina. So heartily did they enter into the new policy that they took their seats in Congress clad in homespun. They said they would exemplify their principles by their garments, and wear them outside as well as inside of their bodies. I am sorry their principles lasted but little longer than their clothes, one suit worn out, and all, both without and within, clean gone. Even Mr. Madison boasted that his coat was woven in an American loom. The south led off in this policy, and New England, whose capital had been wrecked on the ocean, was reluctantly compelled to follow their lead. This was the origin of the protective tariff, the child of South Carolina, though, at a later period, adopted by Massachusetts.

It was not, however, until 1824, that New England, and Massachusetts particularly, gave in her adhesion. to the protective policy. Then our people engaged in manufactures. The streams were dammed, and the mighty powers of nature were set to spinning and weaving, to dyeing and printing, under the guidance of that genius which had been kindled and nurtured in our schoolhouses. Those establishments were founded which have produced so marvellous a change in our household condition, surrounding all with so many comforts, and filling our dwellings with so vast a variety of the refinements and luxuries of life. Those of you who have arrived at my age, and are therefore acquainted with the condition of things throughout our country towns thirty years ago, know that the change is almost magical. Though opposed in its inception by the cities and the merchants, yet it has promoted their prosperity not less than that of the people.

In the year 1820, a national question of a great moral character arose. The south, whose policy had before secured a territory as large as that of the original thirteen, sought to extend slavery over its whole surface. Missouri applied to be admitted into the Union as a slave state. The morality and religion of the north thought the time had come to arrest the strides of slavery, and they opposed the application. Earnest resistance was made. The battle was obstinately fought; but at last, the north, or rather enough recreants of the north yielded, and the day was lost. The south bought or bullied a sufficient number of the invertebrate creatures whom we send to Congress, and triumphed over us. This was the first great surrender of principle on the part of the north, and a fatal surrender it was. We, and humanity, and all that is dearest to the heart and thoughts of man, might have achieved the victory but for a few cases of foul