Fellow Citizens: I am profoundly grateful for this manifestation of your kindness.  On many occasions I have confessed before you the depths to which my heart had been penetrated by your partiality.  But the presence of this multitude, and the cordiality of its greeting, so overwhelms me, that I can neither attempt to express my gratitude nor describe the emotions which swell my bosom.  If I have been a faithful exponent of your principles in the past, I offer you that as the best guarantee that I will be so in the future.  It has been my good fortune to have retained your confidence for a long series of years, and to you, I think, I may appeal with safety, if I ever resorted to the arts of the demagogue, or failed to speak out my sentiments when called on.

To-day, having no favors to ask, and no responsibility to shun, I am more than ever resolved to speak plainly.  It would be a libel on my past life to disguise my real sentiments; and besides now, more than at any other time, there is need for every patriot wearing his heart upon his sleeve.

You will naturally expect of me, just returned as I am, from the theatre of the late stirring scenes in Congress, some account of what was said and done, and some intimation of my opinions as to the bearing which present events are to have on the future of our country, and especially on your future.  I shall proceed calmly to fulfil that expectation.

When Congress met in December, it was apparent to every one that the slavery question was to be the great issue of the session.  True, we had settled it—we had compromised it—we had fixed its finality—we had taken it out of Congress.  But like an evil spirit it had come back upon us.

To say nothing of the compromises of 1850, and other kindred legislation before and since, Congress, in 1854, had passed the bill commonly called the Kansas act.  In this act it was solemnly stipulated that Congress would, in future, abstain from all interference with domestic slavery in the states or territories; and it was as solemnly affirmed, that for ever thereafter the people were to be left perfectly free to regulate that institution for themselves, and in their own way.  This Kansas act was amazingly popular in the South at the time of its passage, and why, I certainly could never tell.  With me it was never a favorite measure, and if I had been “left perfectly free” to do as I pleased, my vote would, in all probability, have been cast against it.  One feature it had which strongly recommended it to my favor.  It proposed the repeal of the Missouri restriction.  That measure I had always regarded as unconstitutional.  If my speeches, in the congressional canvass of 1839, had been preserved, they would have shown that I so regarded it then.  In 1848, soon after my return to Congress in that year, and on the first opportunity, I thus characterized this restriction:

“It was a ‘fungus and excrescence, a political monstrosity.’ It was the first, greatest, and most fatal error in our legislation on the subject of slavery.  It violated at once the rights of one-half the Union, and flagrantly outraged the Federal Constitution,”

With these opinions long cherished, well settled, and firmly fixed in my own mind, I could not well vote against any bill which proposed a repeal of this odious measure; and yet, as my friends know, I was near voting against the Kansas bill.  There was that in it which never met my approbation.  There was that left out which ought to have been put in, if it was designed to work fairly and justly on the diversified interests of the whole country.

The feature which most commended it to the favor of other people only tended to make it the more obnoxious to me.  I allude to what is commonly called the popular sovereignty feature.  I have so often expressed my opinion of this doctrine of popular sovereignty, both in and out of Congress, that I shall not pause to do it here.  I have always regarded it as a wicked cheat, or a mischievous humbug.  If it only means that the people have the right to govern themselves in their own way, subordinate to the Constitution and written laws, then it is a cheat, for there is nothing new in that doctrine.  The people have had that right ever since the Declaration of Independence.  If it means that the people may govern themselves in their own way, in disregard of the Constitution, and in contempt of the written law, then it is a mischievous humbug.  The people can have no such right.  Believing at the time, that the enunciation of a new doctrine like this was fraught with mischief, I denounced it.  I predicted that it would lead to open disregard of law, violation of the Constitution, and contempt of the legally constituted authorities of the country.  You have seen an army sent to put down rebellion, run mad, in Utah; you have seen Kansas trample the federal authority under foot; you have seen the authority of the President defied, and the decision of the Supreme Court disregarded in almost every Northern State.  And all for why?  The people had been told that of this new doctrine, and in its name they acted.  It was useless to tell them that popular sovereignty meant only that they might vote as they pleased, and through the proper channels, change their laws, and even abolish one constitution and substitute another in its stead, if they would go through the proper form—all that they could do before, and they knew it; therefore they rationally concluded that popular sovereignty meant something more.  It never occurred to them that great men would teach, as new, a doctrine which was as old as the Declaration of Independence, and just as familiar to every school-boy as his A B C’s.  They, therefore, concluded that they had only to declare for or against any measure, and in any mode that suited them, and their will, so expressed, became the supreme law.  Brigham Young, and his saintly Followers, declared in favor of popular sovereignty—set up their own laws, and the acts of Congress and the Constitution vanished from Utah.  Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, and their followers, declared against the fugitive slave law and the Dred Scott decision, and they fell.  How could they stand?  The popular sovereigns decreed against them.  Jim Lane and his robber gang, in Kansas, set all law, order, and decency, at defiance, and in the name of popular sovereignty murdered the people, pillaged their houses, and drove their defenceless families into the wilderness, or without the limits of the territory.  This is but a leaf from the history of this new doctrine, and it does not impress me favorably with its working.  It inclines me to stand firmly where I stood at first, and declare now, as I declared then, that it is a wicked cheat, or a mischievous humbug.

It was in the pursuit of this idea of letting the people govern themselves in their own way, regardless of law, and the guarantees and the requirements of the Constitution, that the Topeka, Leavenworth, and other constitutions, were gotten up in Kansas, and thrust into Congress in antagonism to the Lecompton constitution.  There was no pretence that every requirement of the law and the Constitution had not been complied with in the formation of the Lecompton Constitution.  The law and the Constitution had been pursued to a punctilio.  But it was said more people had participated in the formation of some other constitution than in that at Lecompton, and therefore “popular sovereignty” required us to reject the one that had the stamp of law and order upon it, and take the one offered by the multitude.  For one I refused to do it.  I reverence law and revere the Constitution, and I respect the will of the people when expressed in obedience to the one and the other.  But I have no respect for the public will when it comes to me over laws prostrated and constitutions violated.

The point made against the Lecompton constitution was, that it had never been submitted to the people for their ratification or rejection.  This complaint came from the enemies, not the friends of that constitution.  Of all those who had part or lot in framing it, not one made complaint.  They had the power and the right to support it, if they chose.  They did not choose to do it, and with me their action was final.  The enemies of the constitution insisted on its submission.  They wanted another chance to kill it.  I had early learned, from the horn-books of the law, that a child is not to be put to nurse with those who are interested in its death, and I therefore refused obedience to the demands of those who sought another opportunity to slaughter the Lecompton constitution.

It amazed me that the friends par excellence of popular sovereignty should be the first to insist on the submission of this constitution.  It was in vain that we showed them the people who made the constitution did not ask its submission.  They only became the more clamorous.  The truth was, it was a pro-slavery constitution.  If it had been an anti-slavery constitution, like the constitution of California, it would have been accepted, no odds what irregularities had marked its formation.  It is true, when I made this point in the debate, Senators Douglas and Stuart both denied that they were governed by any such consideration.  No denial came from Senators Seward, Wilson, Wade, or any of their peculiar friends.  The denial of senators upon their honor precluded then, as it precludes now, any question as to the motives which governed them.  But I did not fail to note that both Douglas and Stuart voted for California—a free state—though in no single particular was there the slightest pretence that her constitution had been regularly formed.

And now, fellow-citizens, having mentioned the name of Douglas, allow me to digress so far as to say my sympathies are not with those who indulge in wholesale denunciation of him.  He is more honest, more consistent, more the friend to the Constitution and the rights of the states, and a better Democrat than nine-tenths of those in the free states who abuse him.  He is a giant in intellect, a giant in will, a giant in eloquence, a giant in everything that makes up the characteristics of a great man, and I hope he may thrash Abolition Lincoln out of his boots.

I need not say that I differed with Douglas on the Kansas-Lccompton question.  We met in debate—we discussed the question, I hope, like senators—we differed in the end, as we had differed in the beginning; but we parted as we had met, friends.

If I could get a man of my own faith, I would gladly take him.  But God forbid that I should discard a great man like Douglas, who differs with me on one point, and take a small man like Lincoln, who agrees with me in nothing.

But to the question.  After a long and tedious debate in both houses of Congress, it became apparent that it was impossible to admit Kansas as a state under the Lecompton constitution.  Wo had, therefore, to abandon the contest, and give the enemy the only victory they had sought—the exclusion of pro-slavery Kansas—or we had to resort to some other expedient.  Mr. Montgomery, a representative from Pennsylvania, and Mr. Crittenden, the venerable and distinguished senator from Kentucky, each brought forward a project.  The time may come when their propositions, and especially Mr. Crittenden’s, may have to be discussed before the people.  For the present, it is sufficient to say they were both rejected, no friend of the Lecompton (pro-slavery) constitution, in either House of Congress, giving to either of them the slightest countenance or support, so far as I know or believe.

In this state of affairs the two Houses of Congress, through their respective committees, met for consultation.  The result was the production of the “English conference bill,” and of that I come now to speak.  It figured conspicuously in the last act of the drama, and deserves a passing notice.

By this bill the friends of the Lecompton constitution proposed to admit Kansas as a state, and then leave the people of the territory free to decide for themselves whether they would accept the act of admission or not.  There was some propriety in this, growing out of the fact that Congress had already determined to reject certain conditions proposed by Kansas in regard to the public lands and other important interests.

I, for one, never believed that Congress had the right to take a territory by the ears and drag her into the Union nolens volens.  And while I would not listen to a proposition to remand the constitution tendered by the people of a territory asking admission, and require them to vote on it whether they desired to do so or not, I thought it proper in the case of Kansas to allow her people to decide for themselves whether they were in the Union as a state after we had rejected a portion of their proposition and materially altered other parts of it.  If Kansas refused to accept the act of admission, and thus determined for herself that she was not in the Union, then it was stipulated in the “English conference bill” that she remain out until she had the requisite federal population to entitle her to one representative in Congress, that being, according to the existing ratio, 93,420.  Against this bill the whole power that had defeated the original Senate bill arrayed itself, with the exception of some six or eight members of the House of Representatives, and these gave the friends of the measure barely votes enough to carry it.  For the bill every southern senator and representative voted, except Gen. Quitman, and Mr. Bonham of South Carolina.  That Gen. Quitman voted against it was never a matter of serious regret to me, and certainly I never dreamed of reproaching him for it.  If he could speak from the grave to-day, he would bear me willing testimony that I said to him more than once, if he was censured for his vote, I would stand by him and defend him.  It was one of those points on which gentlemen entertaining similar views on most questions might well differ.  Gen. Quitman differed with the great body of his southern friends, and following the dictates of his conscience, he voted against the bill.  In that act, standing alone, or with but a single ally, against all his southern friends, he showed a moral heroism worthy of a Spartan.  It was a heroism before which the sublime history written by him on the walls of Mexico might pale and hide its head.  To oppose the enemies of one’s country on the field of battle, requires courage, but to oppose one’s friends united, on the floors of Congress, and on a vital question, requires heroism such as few men possess.  Quitman was equal to the task.

It is not certain that Gen. Quitman was wrong.  Kansas has refused the terms of admission, and already we hear it proposed to disregard the stipulation in respect to population, and admit her as a free state.  It was this stipulation that commanded my vote; I know it commanded other votes.  Many of us thought it best, all things considered, that Kansas should remain out of the Union for some time to come.  And though we went for her admission under the Lecompton constitution—if that failed, we felt quite willing to see her excluded until she had population enough to give her at least one member of Congress.  We entered into that bargain.  We enacted our agreement into a law; and, for one, I shall insist on carrying it out in good faith.  When Kansas presents herself, with a census fairly taken, showing that she has the representative population required, I shall vote to admit her, and I shall not do it before.

I observe that the New York Herald, the Richmond Enquirer, and other kindred sheets, are urging the abandonment of the English bill, and the speedy admission of Kansas, as the only means of saving the Democratic party in 1860.  If the Democratic party can only be saved by means like this, then the sooner it sinks the better.  And I have this farther to say, that whenever the Democratic party consents to be led by such men as edit the New York Herald and Richmond Enquirer, it is time for the old guard to strike their colors.

We have had quite enough of sacrificing principle to expediency.  I want no more of it, and I will have no more.  For the National Democratic party I entertain profound respect.  It is the last bulwark of the Union; when it falls the Union will fall with it.  But if it requires another compromise, and another sacrifice of southern rights, to save it, it may go.

The original Kansas bill was never a favorite measure of mine, and the last one was still less to my notion.  But I had seen the South give up California and content herself with but a feeble foothold in Utah and in New Mexico.  I have seen men stricken down for insisting on the extreme measure of justice, and I did not feel quite certain that I should be sustained if I demanded more than these bills contained.  Let it not be supposed that I am in the habit of looking home for instructions as to how I shall cast my votes.  But I have served long enough in Congress to know how utterly powerless a representative becomes, and especially on those sectional issues, the instant he is not sustained by his people.  For this reason, I confess I have felt very great anxiety to have your approval in what I did.  I tell you now what I am going to do for the future, and I hope you will give me your countenance and support.  In all the opposition I may wage against the premature admission of Kansas, I know I shall be sustaining the well-settled views of the President.  Mr. Buchanan is sound on this point.

The national administration is as sound on the slavery question, and as true to the South, as any national administration will ever be.  While Mr. Buchanan desires to do justice to us, and protect us in our rights, his judgment is swayed by that power at the North which is resolutely bent on taking possession of the government.  It is the force of public opinion and not the want of good will on the part of leading statesmen at the North, that constantly drives the government into acts of hostility to the South.  Selfish politicians at first tampered with a mawkish sentimentality, and now, instead of controlling it, they are controlled by it.  Mr. Buchanan is sounder at this time than many southern statesmen, mainly because he is old, has nothing more to ask, and nothing to do but his duty.  If northern and southern demagogues would let him alone, he would generally do right.  But they scare him with hobgoblin stories about breaking up the Democratic party in 1860 and the election of an Abolitionist, and the final downfall of the Union, and all that, and then right away he does something wrong.

I never doubted that Mr. Buchanan was right on the Nicaragua question on the start, and I have just as little doubt that he is all wrong now.  That Walker had the sympathy of the President when he set out for Central America, I think is certain; that he ought to have retained it is just as certain.  I am not saying that Walker is the man of destiny his friends have claimed him to be.  I think he is not.  I do not say he is the most proper man to conduct an expedition such as he set on foot.  It is very likely he is not.  But he was doing us a good service, and he ought to have been let alone.  Under his lead, before this, Nicaragua would have been a thriving and prosperous state out of the Union.  But in an evil hour the President listened to evil councils, and Walker's expedition was broken up, and himself brought back a prisoner of state.  I expressed myself pretty freely about this transaction at the time, and I shall not now repeat what I said then; but there is a branch of the subject to which I want to call your special attention.

About the time Walker was fitting out his expedition, and while he felt very certain, if he did not violate the laws, he would not be molested, the Secretary of State entered into a treaty with a Mr. Irissari, the stipulations of which I assume, for I do not pretend in this connection to have seen the treaty, were inconsistent with any continued sympathy or countenance to Walker on the part of the government.
This brings me to consider, first, what interest we had in the Nicaragua question; and next, which plan, the Walker plan or the Cass-Irissari plan, is most likely to subserve our purposes.  First, I assume that we are directly interested, and to a deep extent, in planting a slaveholding state in Nicaragua.  We are so, because slavery must go South, if it goes at all.  If Walker had been allowed to succeed, he would have planted such a state, and the Southern States would have populated it.  It is against our interest to have an anti-slave state planted in our front.  We all know that such a state must, sooner or later, come into the Union, and help to swell that hostile power at the North which has already given us so much trouble.  And that being in our front, it will stand ready at all times to arrest our progress.  The plan for colonizing Central America, as foreshadowed in the Cass-Irissari treaty, is through the agency of the American Transit Company.  That company has its headquarters in Wall street and State street.  If Central America is ever colonized through its agency, it will, at the same time, be Abolitionized.  Of this I have no doubt.  I was for Walker, because I thought he was giving us a slaveholding state.  I was against Cass and Irissari, because they were giving us an Abolition state.

It may seem strange to you that I thus talk of taking possession of Central America, or any part of it, seeing, as you suppose you do, that it belongs to some one else.  Yes, it belonged to some one else, just as this country once belonged to the Choctaws.  When we wanted this country we came and took it.  If we want Central America, or any part of it, I would go and take that.  If the inhabitants were willing to live under a good government, such as we would give them, I would have them protected; and if they were not, they might go somewhere else.  I suppose sentiments like these will startle all fogydom, and I shall be set down as a regular fire-eating filibuster.  Very well; I have heard people whine over the white man's cruelty to Indians before, but American statesmen did not heed it, and the result is that stately mansions have taken the place of Indian wigwams, and railroads have obliterated the Indian war-path.  It is said, I know, that these Central American semibarbarians, conglomerate of Indian, negro, and Celt, have been recognised by some of the powers of Europe as independent states.  Well, suppose they have.  Would not the same powers have recognised the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and every other Indian tribe, as independent, if our government had not interposed to prevent it?  We have treaties ourselves with the Central American States.  So we have with the Indian tribes.  But these treaties, no odds how worded, have never stood in the way of our taking their land when the expansion of our people and the spread of civilization required us to have it.  No, no; this is all fudge and fustian, signifying nothing.  If we want Central America, the cheapest, easiest, and quickest way to get it is to go and take it, and if France and England interfere, read the Monroe doctrine to them.

If any one desires to know why I want a foothold in Central America, I avow frankly it is because I want to plant slavery there; I think slavery is a good thing per se; I believe it to be a great moral, social, and political blessing—a blessing to the master and a blessing to the slave, and I believe, moreover, that it is of Divine origin, I said so in the House of Representatives at Washington, on the 30th of January, 1850, and I say so now—I said so then, because I thought so then— I say so now, because I think so yet.

That slavery is a blessing to the master, is shown by simply contrasting a southern gentleman with a northern abolitionist.  One is courageous, high-bred, and manly.  The other is cowardly, low flung, and sneaking.  The slave is blessed with a sound health, a sleek skin, and Christian instruction—the free African is dwarfed by disease, scrofulous from hunger, and is a barbarian and a cannibal.  That it is of divine origin is proven by the Bible; in no line of that blessed book is slavery reprobated; in many places it is directly sanctioned.  The angel of the Lord, we are told, captured Hagar and took her home to her mistress.  Onesimus was a fugitive when captured by Paul, and though slavery existed in the time of the Saviour, neither he nor the disciples preached against it.  What God has ordained, cannot be wrong.  What omnipotence sustains, fanaticism cannot throw down.  But to the point.

I want a footing in Central America for other reasons, or rather for a continuation of the reasons already given.  I want Cuba, and I know that sooner or later we must have it.  If the worm-eaten throne of Spain is willing to give it up for a fair equivalent, well—if not, we must take it.  I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican States; and I want them all for the same reason—for the planting or spreading of slavery.  And a footing in Central America will powerfully aid us in acquiring those other states.  It will render them less valuable to the other powers of the earth, and thereby diminish competition with us.  Yes, I want these countries for the spread of slavery.  I would spread the blessings of slavery, like the religion of our Divine Master, to the uttermost ends of the earth, and rebellious and wicked as the Yankees have been, I would even extend it to them.  I would not force it upon them, as I would not force religion upon them, but I would preach it to them, as I would preach the gospel.  They are a stiff-necked and rebellious race, and I have little hope that they will receive the blessing, and I would therefore prepare for its spread to other more favored lands.

I may be asked if I am in favor of reopening the African slave-trade.  Not yet.  I think it not practicable; and as yet it would not be wise, if it were practicable.  We can never reopen that trade while the Union lasts, unless we can multiply the number of slaveholding states.  This we can never do, unless we acquire more territory.  Whether we can obtain the territory while the Union lasts, I do not know; I fear we cannot.  But I would make an honest effort, and if we failed, I would go out of the Union and try it there.  I speak plainly.  I would make a refusal to acquire territory because it was to be slave territory, a cause for disunion, just as I would make the refusal to admit a new state because it was to be a slave state, a cause for disunion.

I have said it would not be wise, if it were practicable, to reopen the slave-trade now.  The South wants a large white population, and this she wants worse than she does cheap slave labor.  I doubt the economy of cheap labor in the cotton states, under the present organization of society.  Its first effect would be to check white immigration, and to drive away a valuable and reliable part of our present population.  With a greater expansion of territory and wider fields for the great staples, sugar and tobacco, as well as cotton, to say nothing of fruits and vegetables, we should need an importation of black laborers; and in that case I should be willing to take them from Africa.  At present their introduction here would reduce our white population, and thus diminish our chances for acquiring Central America, Cuba, and the northern states of Mexico.

If we mean to increase our white population, and thereby our weight in the Union, or if we mean to retain our present population and thereby retain our present weight, the way to do it is to keep up the wages of labor.  This cannot be done by the introduction of cheap laborers.

It is clear to my mind that if we have more land than laborers, then we ought not to acquire any more territory, at least for the present, and therefore the acquisition of Cuba, the colonization of Central America, and all kindred questions, must be postponed.  If, on the other hand, labor is trenching, is close upon the lands—I mean lands worth cultivation-—then we ought to get more land before we get more labor, since labor without land will be a burthen rather than a profit.

I do not know that I understand the purpose of those who are urging this question of reopening the slave-trade.  If it be to agitate the public mind and still further prepare it for disunion, then I can only say to those engaged in it, they are defeating their own object.  The South was never so near united as now.  The introduction of this question will sow the seeds of discord, and create wide-spread divisions where there is now almost perfect harmony.

Of the constitutional power of Congress to repeal the laws prohibiting the slave-trade, there can be no question.  The language of the Constitution is permissive, not mandatory.  Congress shall not prohibit the introduction of African slaves prior to 1808, says the Constitution, thereby implying that it may, not that it shall, do it after that time.  In the exercise of the power, Congress went out of its way to denounce the traffic as piracy.  This was a gratuitous affront to the South.  It implied that the trade was inherently wrong, and involved the highest degree of moral turpitude.  No such thing is true.  If it be piracy to traffic in slaves between the coast of Africa and the United States, it will be difficult to show that it is anything less to carry on the trade between Virginia and Mississippi.  It is piracy simply because the law so denounces it; there is in it no inherent moral guilt.

This denunciation of the slave-trade as piracy has involved us in a long series of international disputes with Great Britain, which, thanks to the wisdom and moderation of Mr. Buchanan's administration, has just now been settled.  Great Britain has not relinquished the right of search, as some people have supposed.  She had no such right to relinquish.  But she has done at last what she ought to have done at first; she has said that, inasmuch as the laws—her own as well as ours—denounce the African slave-trade as piracy, she will search suspected vessels; if they turn out to be slavers, it is well—nobody will complain; if otherwise, she will make instant and ample reparation.  The objection to this, if objection there be, will be found in the law, and not in the course which Great Britain means in the future to pursue.  Pirates are the enemies of the whole human family, and all mankind are authorized, without special warrant, to destroy them.  If, however, in pursuing pirates, innocent and unoffending parties are molested, the offenders must pay damages.  Any one of you may pursue a thief or a murderer, and arrest him without a warrant.  If you get the right man, it is well; the law will not only sustain but applaud you.  But if you get the wrong man, it is bad; the law not only withdraws its countenance, but mulcts you in damages.

If the slave-trade is to be regarded as piracy, Great Britain's present position is right.  If it is not, then the law which so denounces it ought to be repealed.

I should be glad, if time permitted, to discuss the question of slavery in its local aspects, and show how it elevates the white man.  How, instead of degrading the non-slaveholder in the social scale, as has been asserted, it elevates him; and how, instead of reducing the wages of his labor, it increases them.  I should be glad to show how it is that in all non-slaveholding communities capital competes directly with labor, and why it is that exactly the reverse is true in all communities where slavery exists.  But all this I must reserve for some other occasion.

I have been asked to state my views as to the future of the Union, and I will do so with the utmost freedom and frankness.  In twenty years I have not changed my opinion as to the great fact, that you must give up the Union, or give up slavery.  That they can and ought to exist together in harmony, and be, as they have been, mutually beneficial, is certainly true; but that they will not, is, in my judgment, just as true.  The sentiment of hostility to the South and its institutions, is widening and deepening at the North every day.  Those who tell you otherwise are themselves deceived, or they willfully deceive you.  Twenty years ago, this sentiment was confined to a few fanatics; now it pervades all classes, ages, and sexes of society.  It is madness to suppose that this tide is ever to roll back.  To-day, Seward, the great arch spirit of Abolitionism, marshals his hosts.  In twenty years he has not changed his plan.  He means to bring the Union, with all its power and patronage, its prestige and its glory, into direct conflict with slavery.  The day of battle cannot much longer be delayed.  When it comes, when the power of the Union is turned against slavery, when its arm is raised to strike down the South, I know not where other men will stand, but for myself, I will stand where I have always stood, on the side of slavery and the South.

I was raised in awe, in almost superstitious reverence of the Union.  But if the Union is to be converted into a masked battery for assailing my property and my domestic peace, I will destroy it if I can; and if this cannot be done by a direct assault, I would resort to sapping and mining.  This is plain talk.  I mean that you should understand me, and that others shall know where I stand.  Now, as in 1850, I do not fear the consequences of disunion.  I do not court it, but I do not dread it.  On the 30th of January of that year I said: ——

“The South afraid to dissolve the Union—why should we fear?  Are we not able to take care of ourselves?  Shall eight millions of people, with more than one hundred millions of dollars in annual products, fear to take their position among the nations of the earth?  Neither Old England or New England will make war on us—our cotton bags are our bonds of peace.”

Nearly nine years have passed away, and the convictions of 1850 have been strengthened by each year's experience.

It is futile, if, indeed, it is not puerile, to attempt a compromise of the slavery question.  The difference between the North and South is radical and irreconcilable.  Discussion has only served to exasperate the feelings of the two sections, and every attempt to adjust their differences by congressional compromise, has but widened the breach between them.  In a much-abused speech, pronounced by me at Elwood Springs, near Port Gibson, on the 2d of November, 1850, I said:——

“We are told that our difficulties are at an end; that, unjust as we all know the late action of Congress to have been, it is better to submit, and especially is it better since this is to be the end of the slavery agitation.  If this were the end, fellow citizens, I might debate the question as to whether it would not be the better policy.  Such is my love of peace, such my almost superstitious reverence for the Union, that I might be willing to submit if this was to be the end of our troubles.  But I know it is not to be the end.*    *        *        *        *          *        *

“Look to the success of the Free-Soilers in the late elections.  Listen to the notes of preparation everywhere in the Northern States, and tell me if men do not willfully deceive you when they say that the slavery agitation is over.  I tell you, fellow citizens, it is not over.”

I then predicted that the compromise would be observed just so long as it suited the purposes of the North to observe it, and no longer.  Whether that prediction has been verified, I leave to the decision of all men of all parties.

What is there in the future to encourage the South?  The enemy is growing stronger every day, that is true.  But thanks to the good sense of our people, we are becoming more united.  The day is not far distant when we will stand in the breach as one man, determined to do or die in defence of our common heritage.  Never within my recollection has the South stood so closely united; and seeing this, I feel encouraged.  Still, I would now, as in 1850, give Cromwell's advice to his army: “Pray to the Lord, but keep your powder dry.”

I have undiminished confidence in the soundness of Democratic theories; and I believe now, as I have always believed, that the Democratic party is the only national party on which the country can rely.  Indeed, since the disruption of the old Whig party, it is the only one which has a decent claim to nationality.  But I will not so far stultify myself as to say that all who claim to be National Democrats are worthy of confidence.  I utterly repudiate the men of seven principles—the five loaves and two fishes men—the men who expect a great deal of bread for very little Democracy.  I will fellowship with no such Swiss guard.  They will be at Charleston, and if they carry the day, it will be time for honest men to retire.

It is expected of us, I suppose, that we are to go into the convention at Charleston for a presidential candidate for 1860.  I am not overhopeful of good results following from that convention, and yet I am willing to go in and try what can be done.  That we should get a sound platform and sound candidates, I do not question.  That we shall elect our candidate is probable—that we shall sustain him after he is elected, is not probable.  National Democracy has not the cohesive power it had in the days of Jackson, else General Pierce would not have been sacrificed at the North for doing his duty, and Mr. Buchanan would not now be abandoned for standing square on the platform of his party.  Still, so long as they give us sound platforms and sound candidates upon them, I do not see what better we can do than meet them in national convention.

A few partial friends have connected my humble name with the presidency; I thank them for their kindness, but I am not deceived as to my true position.  No man entertaining the sentiments I have expressed today, can be elected President of the United States.  I never doubted that a camel might go through the eye of a needle, but I am wholly incredulous as to any man who entertains sound views on the subject of Southern rights, ever being crowded into the presidential chair.  He may entertain sound views, and keep them to himself, or he may so disguise them in general verbiage, as to make them palatable.  But, if his views are sound, and he expresses them with the boldness of a freeman, and the independence of a man, he seals his prospects for ever.

No, no; I have no silly aspirations for the presidency, and, therefore, have no occasion to suspect that my judgment has been warped by ambition—I am ambitious, but my ambition does not lead me towards the presidency.  That is the road to apostacy; I would rather be the independent senator that I am, and speak for Mississippi, than be president, and be subject to the call of every demagogue, and compelled to speak for a heterogeneous mass, with as many opinions as the rainbow has hues.  Whenever the South can no longer rely on the National Democracy, and feels that the time has come for her to go it alone, I will stand for her, if she can find no son more worthy of her confidence.  But I will never consent to compromise my principles, or flatter Free-Soilers for their votes.  When it comes to that, I stand out.