Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1859 — Political. [ARTICLE]

Political.

—[Correspondence of the Philadelphia Press. SPEECH OF HON. JOHN HICKMAN. [The following are the most interesting portions of the speech of Mr. Hickman, delivered before the Democratic State Convention, at Harrisburg, Penn., April 13.] By the action of the Thirty-fourth Congress. t. kp - Complaints made by the residents oflvand 's wei ? ascertained to be true. Although the South, by ;he legislation of 1854, was pledged to maintain the u°niesticsovereignty of the Territories, fl portion C. f their people from Missouri entered upon the so., of Kansas, and ly force and fraud seized tnC law-niaking power, stilled the voice of the majority, and enacted statutes digraceful to the age and nation. This fact, when legally revealed, made a deep impression upon the public mired, and Mr. Buchanan found it necessary, in order ta carry the election in his own State, to” pledge himself distinctly to the mainlenance of the doctrine of popular sovereignty, and to defend the rights of those who had been thus ruthlessly despoiled. f will wet pretend to indicate the, particular weakness in his nature that induced hi n to turn the hand of the suicide against his own fame,' as it matters little whether it arose from timidity, a fear of bis • I enemies outweighing a love of his friends, a j careless disregard of fair dealing, or a weak ' and puerile vanity. It is enough to know that he deceived all our hopes, turned with blackest ingratitude upon the self-sacrificing friendship by which he reached the goal of his feverish ambition, and sought, by all the means within the reach of drunken and staggering authority, to disgrace every man whom he could not debauch. Suddenly, and as by the touch of the wand of the magician, he became transformed from the sympathzer with down-trodden Freedom, to the open and shameless defender of aggressive and law-defying Slavery. The halls of the National Legislature were turned into marts for conscience. He published his interpretation of the party principles and platforms with the arrogance of a dictator, and commanded his subordinates in office, and his coward slaves, to reiterate and proclaim his bulls of party excommunication against all who were rash enough to follow an independent judgment. These acts of themselves are enough to sever allegiance. It would be an ill-shapen manhood which could tolerate them in silence. But because we denounce them, we are anathematized as rebellious. Sir, we will see where the ’•ebellion will end. It will end in the supremacy of the laws; in the integrity of the Constitution; in the purification of parties; in the sworn loyalty of Executives; and the vigorous growth, material greatness, and eternal dominance of the North. This is where it will end. Popular sovereignty, invoked by the South, will be defended by us, and it shall unfold the veiled yet dimly discovered destiny of this great Republic. We are battling lor the right, for the spirit of the instiWtions our fathers established. Let us feel that we are doing this, and will accomplish the victory of our century; not a mere naked triumph nt the polls, but the great success afterward—the untrammelled selfgovernment of man; the dedication of a continent to a consistent liberty. Those who stop to talk of conciliation and compromises between us and the self-con-stituted oracles of the Democratic party can have but a feeble appreciation, of the real

condition of things. When you canharmon- 1 ize light and darkness, integrity and corruption, the patriotic devotion of the private j citizen to the principles of our Government,’ with a tyranny worse than that of the mid- j die ages, it will be time enough to cry ‘peace? Let this truth be made prominent —that there is an eternal antagonism between Freedom and Slavery. The constitution of the human mind and the human heart makes it inevitable; and the one or the other must eventually gain the ascendency. The struggle between them, but just begun, is now going on in our midst, and he is but a superficial observer who does not discover it. We have acted honorably—benevolently. For long, long years, we have defended the chartered rights of our Southern brethern; we have even conceded their exactions; we have given them all the advantages springing from unequal legislation; we have changed policy to suit their notions of interest; until, having grown fat, they demand as a prerogative what we granted as a davor, and having found a President without affections, a sworn officer not afraid of perjury, willing to back their pretensions, they would now treat us as a common enemy, and brand our names with indelible infamy. They have done more—they have gone further; they have come amongst us, and bribed cupidity with gold, ambition with promotion, and vanity with temporary consequence, to do violence to justice. Longer forbearance not only ceases to be virtuohs, but it becomes cowardly and base. The North has rights, long in abeyance truly, yet not lost; we will save them; by walls, and fire, and blood, if need be, we will save them. In what I have just said, I would not be misunderstood. I know I cannot escape misrepresentation. I would resist aggression on the part of tW»South, not her constitutional guarantees; and I would force a plain, distinct, unequivocal recognition of the rightful drums of the North; nothing more, nothing less. Who can safely complairi of this! J wish u’-it I could stop here. If this were all of the accusation, we might forget the past in the exercise of a profuse charity, but unfortunately we a,"O not allowed to do so. A usurpation has been A?comp!ifeb c( l> which saps the very foundation of our political structure. Mr. Buchanan has demanded an absorption of the powers of Congress in those of the Executive. To carry out h : s treachery to us, he has assailed the Representatives of the people. He has bribed the venal, rewarded the aspiring, alarmed the timid and deceived the honest. By such means was the Lecompton Constitution carried into a provisional law, in contemptuous disregard of the. known will of the people upon whom it was imposed, and in direct contravention of the letter and spirit of the organic act itself. The reason which prompted the commission of the outrage is too manifest to be doubted. It was to purchase flattery jf the South; to force Slavery upon the soil of the North; and to strengthen and aggrandize one section of the Union, at the expense and hazard of the other. Thin, compliance with Executive behests was the test of Democracy, and to disregard them was apostacy.

More recently, however, when the recommendations of the President were thought to favor thq manufacturing and agricultural States—when the propriety of a new tariff law was suggested—and when the so-called Democratic members of the Senate and House of Representatives, and even Cabinet officers, raised the voice of denunciatory opposition, it was all right, and rebellion became loyalty. And yet, Pennsylvanians see nothing wrong in this; nay, they commend it. Chains never clanked upon the limbs of beings more servile and debased. We might, perhaps, be able to open their eyes to the truth, and loosen their tongues to utter it, bj’ continuing them in office under a new Administration, governed by a more benign policy. If parties with such plastic notions shall be able to grasp the control of our Government, then must the strong empire of the North be dwarfed to barrenness, and eighteen millions of white slaves here, be added to the four millions of black slaves yonder. That is indeed a strange illustration of the advantages of free government, which proclaims a necessity for crushing out the inherent power of a people by fashioning their institution for them, requiring it to be sanctioned, and yet allows and encourages a denial of law alone a bankrupt Treasury can be replenished, and honest debts paid. * * * The indefensible and destructive management of the Post Office Department requires especially to be noticed. Within a very short period,for the mere purpose of enriching contractors, bestowing largesses upon sterile and uninhabited districts of the South,

and acquiring power, the expenditures have . been almost double—run up to the enormous | sum of twenty millions of dollars —and the mail system made a by-word and a reproach. J With new, extended, and expensive routes, ; without corresponding returns, sunk in fath- 1 omless debt; aye, paralyzed by burdens, its chief lustily cries for help, and piteously I begs the ‘inews of prolonged malfeasance. But, upon whom does he call? Upon those to whom the appeal is always made, when money, votes, soldiers, and other effective help, is required—upon the laboring thrifty —the “mud-sills” of the Eastern, Northern, Middle and Western States. It is consoling to know we are good enough to pay, if not to receive. We arc at least able, if not respectable. If we have not chivalry, we have fields and farms, and factories. Let us then, without whimpering, “split the difference.” The“F. F. V.’s,” or the “F. F. T.’s,” shall j take all the posts of patronage, and we will pay their debts. The plan proposed, by which we shall do this, is a very simple one. We haye only to pay five cents, instead of three, on each letter we write, abolish the j present “franking privilege,” and, consequently, eut off the distribution of all seeds, and agricultural, and mechanical, and political information from our people, and the thing is in a great measure accomplished. And why not do this! To be sure we more than pay now, for all our postal service, and these documents are highly prized by us; but. do we not know that "the domestic institution” is too poor to pay, and too ignorant to read. We seem to be prone eternally to forget that we were made for hewers of wood and drawers of water. If we would I remember this fact, 1 think we could cordi- ’ ally unite with those who met here on the 16th ult., and join them in pecans and praise to the new American Monarchy. * * * To blind our sight to its short- I comings, to cover up its disgraceful defeats, and to reconstruct its sinking fortunes, the Administration now proposes, bj’ virtue of a transferof the war-making powers to itself, to visit chastisement upon feeble States for imaginary wrongs, and by the acquisition of Cuba to extend the area of Freedom gluttonized on Slavery. A man self-made mad, and then self-destroyed—a Lear in rags, and not in robes—having lost the sceptre by the weakness of folly, clutches the flying air and seeks to mount again to power and influence. Vanity of vanities! there is no restitution for fallen greatness.A few material inquiries m a y possibly present themselves, when we come? to consider the propriety of the purchase of the vain and much praised “Queen of the Antilles,” and I of bringing her into pqr loving and lecher- j ous embrace. In what way, by what mys- | terious means, with what magic key, will you draw the thirty golden millions demanded by the President as'earnest money, and the millions afterward, from astrong box, empty as the heart of its keeper, and which is more secure in locking treasure out than locking it in! How far will a wellregulated prudence determine us to go on intrusting such vast amounts in the hands of one who has already deceived us—in whom we have no confidence! By what legal secret will we be able to consummate a purchase of Spain, who has determined not to sell! And how can we better secure ourselves against those who, in league with the I President, have sought to humiliate us, by adding to their power and extension, and by giving them the control of the Gulf of Mexico as they may have it over the Mississippi l I think I can school myself to love my enemies, but not better than myself. can ’ willingly admit my brother to an equal enjoyment of a common inheritance; but I j cannot, when he does me violence and injustice, strengthen his arm so as to enable him forcibly to take it all. So I can and will love my Southern neighbor. I will j freely allow him an equal participation of 1 all the fruits of our generous system. I will I divide with him the temple of Liberty. I ; will shield him from the evil-doer. But when he denies to me what I am willing to grant to him, and that which my title covers. I will not stultify myself, and place weapons in his hands for my destruction; and I will never pay tribute for either his kindness or forbearance. Cuba may be important to the Union; I will admit that it will be so when we have just and equal laws,, a nd honest officers; but before we acquire it, I desire to be informed whether any legislation can possibly be had as beneficial to Pennsylvania as the purchase would be to Tennessee or Georgia; and above all shall I seek to know how, thenceforward, we are to be’treated. i For if I am a traitor —an unconscious and unrewarded .one —to cither thirty-three or i fifteen States, I will not add to the enormity of my offence by extending the number of States against wKijCb, my guilt must opp^r,ate.