Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1858 — SPEECH OF HENRY S. FITCH. [ARTICLE]

SPEECH OF HENRY S. FITCH.

An enthusiastic mass meeting of the Lecompton wing of the Democratic party was held at Chicago last Friday night, at which Colonel Carpenter and Henry S. Fitch made speeches. The papers say that the Douglas men disgraced themselves by their disorderly conduct at the meeting. The following is the speech of Mr. Fich, who, by the way, is son of Senator Fitch. He gives the Little Giant some hard raps over the .knuckles: It is not pay intention, gentlemen, at this late hour, to detain you more than a very few minutes- We are on the eve of an exciting, important, trenchant campaign in' Illinois; for the election of State Officers, "State Legislature apd Congressmen. The people are divided into three distinct parties, and present for the suffrage of electors three distinct tickets —'the Republican, the Douglas and the National Democratic. This meeting has been called to ratify and indorse the latter, and to present to the public a few of our reasons for so doing. I say reasons, plain, solid, .earnest reasons. Our appeal is to your judgment. We have not the taste, nor the training, nor the trickery, to substitute for the merits of this controversy a melange of fireworks and sophistry. The rhetoric of rockets and the logic of Roman lights are the political patents of Douglas. We leave hjm to the enjoyment of his persuasive pyrotechnics. [Cheers] We are opposed to the Republican party, as being only one of the protean shapes of the old hereditary enemy that Democracy has fought for half a century. We are opposed to their principles as repugnant t > the peace, welfare and good will of the Republic. We are opposed to its leaders, as being the lawless, vulpine, and unscrupulous devotees of sectional fanaticism. We are opposed to its entire organization, from core to circumference, as being the political embodiment of a pharasaical philanthropy, without a single Christian or patriot trust. As an affiiiator of this party and as a disorganizer of the Democracy, we are opposed to Judge Douglas and his partisans. I shall not attempt,: on this occasion, to enumerate the achievements of Mr. Douglas; distinguished Senator has himself given so many masterly elucidations of this subject, that it would be lolly in a less enthusiastic admirer to essay so exhausted a topic. That the Judge is one of the greatest of living men, is a fact within his own Knowledge, and the gallant frankness w ilh which he imparts this information to his auditors cannot be too highly commended. [Applause, and cries of “Good.”] An}' one who has had the pleasure of hearing one of his late speeches, has heard a far finer autobiography of the orator than any I could give. As to his patriotic virtues, even the Times —-'the Judge is not the idol of himself alone—though happiest in fictions, has failed to do him justice. ’ The simple,question for us is, what is the Judge’s position, what its merits as discussed in his opening speech of this campaign? I cannot approach this speech without involuntarily admiring the delicate modesty with which he barely alludes to his own gigantic services, in defending this “great principle, that underlies our free institutions.” The entire absence of all egotistical and complacent allusions to self, of all boastful platitudes £nd personal vanities which characterized th* speech, is exceedingly refreshing, and reftiinds us of the best efforts of the late Mr.TOnton. . ‘-This Duncan, Bath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office. that his virtues Will plead tike angels, trumpet-tongued against The deep damnation of his taking ufT.’'’ [Applause.] From the Democratic Articles of Faith, he culls-out sain) pleasant points for parade. He sustains trie Dred Scott decision; a citizen of the United States : could not conveniently do less than uphold the calm, convincing judgment of so august a tribunal. Secondly, he maintains that this is not a government lor negroes. We have yet to see thfe Republican, or even negro, who asserts what Mr. Douglas so laboriously denies. The point for us is, how stands Douglas on the leading measures of the Administration and Democratic party, and especially on the compromise of the English bill. I do not propose to rehearse the arguments of the Lecompton issue. The public is familiar with them. The President held, and the Democracy agreed with him, that there was nothing in the Kansas bill requiring a direct vote of the people on the Constitution; that that measure did not deprive them of the right enjoyed by the people of every other Territory, the right to delegate; that it did not deprive a legally elected and unrestricted delegation from using their delegated powers in convention as they deemed most expedient; that the right conferred of regulating their domestic institutions in their own way could scarcely be interpreted to suit the convenience of Judge Douglas, into a prohibition to manage their domestic institutions in any other manner than that suggested by the author of the bill; thut having formed a constitution with all the formulas and legal requisites, in conformity with the act of ’54 they were entitled to admission under it. Douglas, upon the other hand, contended that Popular Sovereignly was a very limited sovereignty, without the power of appointing authorized representatives to act as their agents in constituting their State Government; that his great Popular Sovereignty was a very lame and impotent Sovereignty, requiring an Enabling Act to enable them to do anything;[kughter and applause] that the-grand,» fundamental principle which underlies our free institutions, of which the Judge is the original discoverer, and to which he has devoted his past life and pledges his future, practically clothed the people of a Territory only with those humble rights now inherent in them by the Constitution of the United States to petition tor redress of grievances. A very prayerful and supplicating sort of Sovereignty, for which the people of Kansas ought to be very thankful! [Laughter.] The contest upon this issue ended in the compromises of the English bill, which Mr.

Douglas claims as a surrender on the part of Mr. Buchanan and a victory for himself, and yet he .denounces its provisions and refuses to abide by its results. If Lecompton is accepted by the people of Kansas, Douglas will generously accept it also, for the satisfactory reason, he can’t help it. But if Lecompton is voted down, he is not for keeping Kansas under a Free-State Constitution out of the Union, until she has the ratio which by the English bill will entitle her to a representation. Everybody who differed from Mr. Douglas in his interpretation of the Kansas bill were conspirators against the liberties ot Kansas; Congress was endeavoring to consummate a fraud, and the President was ignorant of the very ordinary language of the Senator’s bill; and now, everybody who proposes in good faith to abide by the fruits of the English compromise, are attempting to coerce the inhabitants of Kansas by a bribe and a threat. ALLthose who failed to support him in his rebellious opposition to this bill, in defiance of the express will of a Democratic Congress and a Democratic Administration are bolters and renegades. It was the misfortune of Mr. Douglas not to distinguish between himself and the party he had the honor to represent. Blindly lie applied to the “Little Giant” the'devotion due to Democracy. [CheeriandTaisses.] He had seen the Whigs and he believed the Democrats livecl in Douglas. [Cries of “that’s so.”] He fed on this fancy till it became his cardinal article; that when Senator Douglas buttons his coat about his sinewy chest, the whole vital fold ot the Democracy was warmed and cared for. [Laughter.] In this humor he talked freely of “my party” and “my principles.” Illinois is his vassal, and conventions that will not work his will is his scoff. Sections veered at his word. State platforms were his property. In his unbridlpd lust of power and vanity, he dared gainsay-the decision of the National party; attempted to control the Cabinet and command the President, and erect his own opinion as the one only standard of political morality. In point of effrontery his party is worthy of their leader. The bastard of Democracy, it claimed the heritage of. the true heir—a puny, political heresy, it yet assumed the part and tone of the true Democratic Church militant—the parasite of a single man, it yet prates.of principle and mimics the unity and allegiance it has dishonorably forsaken—a fragment of Illinois, it yet assumes the harlequin in its pretences to the sympathy and association of the party' controlling the U nion. It is an anomaly. It tries to elect Mr, Douglas. Elected, it dies; defeated it dies. It is the hope only of men who cannot or will not see the strength and majesty of a National Party. It begins, continues and ends in Mr. Douglas. The truth is, that Dougherty and Reynolds are the regular j nominees of the only legitimate organization. of the Democratic party in Illinois. Our delegates from this and other counties were properly elected. They met in pursuance of the order of the State Democratic Committee—they met at the time and place specified in that order—they adopted a platform in accordance with the principles enunciated and supported in and out of Congress by an overwhelming Democratic majority throughout the Union. At an »d-----journeu meeting they nominated their candidates, and intend to support them. The Douglas delegates to the April Convention refused to acquiesce in our measures, but formed a separate Convention for themselves, repudiating the measures of the Administration and the National Democratic Representatives in Congress assembled. They adopted a platform in open rebellion to the known will of the Democratic party and its highest authorized opponents. They and they alone are properly the bolters. The vassals of a man who refuses to submit to the usages of his party, and deserted it in an hour of,great peril; a man who did do, and is still doing more to distract the Democratic organization, than any other -leader since the days of Van Biyen, they yet have the graceless assurance to talk about the friends ot the Administration I within this State being bolters. The DemI ocratic party is not confined to this State, but belongs to the whole Union, and a majority of its members in the Union regulate the character of its creed. Its orthodoxy ia not embodied in\Mr. Douglas, nor its principles dependent upon his whims, grieviously as that gentleman may labor under the delusion. Mr. Douglas has the right to pursue such course as pleases him, and adopt such views as please him; but he has no. right to claim that his pleasure is Democracy, [Applause-and cries of good good.] Conscious that their position is untenable judged by the usages ot our party, or the Justice of the cause, they have resorted for lack of arguments to the most elaborate invectives, and to the lowest persona No insinuation is too bitter, no motive too corrupt, no act too abandoned, with which to charge us and the chiefs of our party. The members ol the Cabinet are denounced as “petty tyrants”—their appointeffsrwithin this State as “Lazzaroni,” and, it is even considered a mark of virtue and the sign of a Douglas follower, to assail that grand old man who now so bravely wears the sovereign dignity—a chieftain covered with an imperishable lustre, won in battles through half a century in the cause of Democracy—a leader who victoriously encountered the well-girded giants of Marshfield and Ashland when your “Little Giant’s” lame was hedged in by county lines—a man who has garnered up in the history of his country more of the splendors of statesmanship—more of the vivid charities and courtesies of the citizen—more of the unsullied features of the American character, than any other man within the Republic. Against this character, strong and honest, we leave their partisan malice to hurl in vain their frantic assaults. Judge Douglas, after taking up house with Seward, after making himself at home with Hale, fresh with the kiss of Giddings on his cheek, comes here, and through his magnificent gift of perversion and assurance, charges us with having formed an unholy alliance with the Republicans. With what peculiar grace nnd delicacy does this accusation fall so glibly from the tongue of the Senator! Who received the Senator with a congratulatory address? Who were the frontispieces of his recent oration! Republicans! Who have “sounded the loud trumpet o’er Egypt’s dark sea” on his recent visit to Springfield? Republicans. Who has composed arid daily

chants the Douglas litany in New York? Thurlow Weed! Who contests with Douglas himself the. title of a Douglas man! Horace Greeley, the god-father of every farce from free-love to Republicanism! Who ever heard the New York Evening Post damn us with its praise? When did the Springfield Register ever afflict the Administration withv professions of friendship? When was the National Democracy of Illinois ever blistered with an eulogy, from the New York Tribune? These are speculative questions for the consideration ot Douglas men. [Cheers and hisses,] And yet this man, buried up to the very chin in Republican sympathies, whom he has gathered around him, talks about the Republican allies of the Administration. The charge that the federal office-holders belong to the National Democratic party, is nonsensically true! Whom would the Judge have in office! Republicans! I hope not. Douglas men? Of course the Judge would not push his stainless followers into these dens of temptation! It must be gratifying to the Judge to know with what little labor he is able to save stainless from the earthly taint of Federal patronage his immaculate followers. There are a class of office-hold-ers, however, whom the Judge commands—men who have the happy temper and flexible principles to agree with both parties — who are so well stocked with opinions that they hive one set for the street and one for their office—[laughter]—who have that largeness of, soul, that they can cheer for Mr. Douglas and draw their salary from Mr. Buchanan —[great laughter]—men who can file affidavits of their devotion to the Administration, and grow profane in their seal for its enemies, [shouts of “Hit 'em again,”] and who can accliitf&te themselves with the utmost readiness alike to the atmosphere of Washington and Chicago—men who have not the courage to be rebels, so strong is their avarice, nor the honor to be Democrats', so violent is their tendency to apostacy. [Applause.] These are the few “honorable | men” alluded to by the Senator. [Laughter.] i One word more and lam done. We have I a'cguse strong iti the chivalry of politics—■ ripening up, despite of storm and treachery,to a proud and happy fruition. We have a. mission ennobled by its danger and purified > 'Tjy'fcbs isolation, to redeem Democracy from the Judas kiss within and the clenched hand i without. . - It is ours to set her apart from selfishness anti corruption —to make her grand and stern, asjin the day when Xackson worship-! ped her—to cast away from her the corrupt- . itig tenets of pretended apostles s —to restore her to the monumental truths of Jefferson —i to re-exalt her to her early faith, so strong ■ in. goodness, in honor, that no base ambition .1 ohall dare robe in her inantlj. Long-continued applause.