gentlemen whom I find to have been imposed upon by it. There are men, who, it is constantly asserted, are notoriously leaders among those having this purpose, whom I have happened to meet often, under circumstances favorable to a free expression of their political views and intentions. I have heard from them never the slightest suggestion of a desire to interfere by force, or any action of the central government, with the constitutional rights of the state governments to maintain slavery.

Since the attempt to extend slavery in Kansas, by the repeal of our old compromise with you, I have heard one man express the conviction, to which others may be approaching, that we shall never have done with this constantly recurring agitation, till we place ourselves in an offensive position towards the South, threatening the root of the national nuisance. This man, however, was not one of those who are considered the special enemies of the South, nor a politician by profession, but an honest, directminded old farmer, who has heretofore been numbered among those the South chooses to deem its friends; a man, too, who, as it happens, has seen the South, knows its condition, and maintains friendly communication with slaveholders.

This indicates, in my opinion, the only way in which the people of the North can be tempted to use the control they already actually possess, and by their numbers are justly entitled to, in the confederate government, in the unconstitutional and revolutionary manner these lying political speculators are so ready to anticipate.

The chief object of this false accusation, is to excite the ignorant masses of your own citizens to act, with blindly-zealous concert, in favor of measures to which, if honestly presented, they would be equally opposed with the intelligent people of the

This feeling,

the whole South against Northern men or Northern measures. always carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political machine. It moves vast bodies, and gives to them one and the saine direction. But it is without adequate cause; and the suspicion which exists is wholly groundless.'

North. Its danger is now made sufficiently obvious by the conspiracies, among the slaves, which, since the election, have been discovered in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas-perhaps elsewhere.

These are the first general and formidable insurrectionary movements since 1820, when, as your rumor is, the machinations of the abolitionists commenced. Many general and formidable insurrections are matters of history previous to 1820. The improbability that the abolitionists have been engaged in stimulating insurrections, between 1820 and the present time, is apparent. When you consider that, in all the districts wherein these conspiracies are now discovered, there have been large and excited public meetings, harangued by loud-voiced speakers, whose principal topic was the imminent danger of an interference by Frémont, and the people of the North, in behalf of the slaves against their masters-Frémont's name being already familiar in their ears as that of a brave and noble man-remembering this-how can you doubt whether the abolitionists, or your own recklessly ambitious politicians, are most responsible for your present danger?

The late message of President Pierce to Congress has been distributed in the government publication and the newspapers by hundreds of thousands in the Slave States, and has fallen directly into the hands of half your house-servants, or may have been given to any slave who purchases a plug of tobacco at a gro cery. This message, or almost any of the speeches made by Southern members in the debate upon it, which have, in like manner, been freely scattered, will give the confident impression to any man, not otherwise better informed, who reads it, or hears it read or talked of, that a formidable proportion of the white people of the North are determined" to effect a change in the relative condition of the white and the black race in the Slaveholding States;" that they are prepared to accomplish this "through burning cities, and ravaged fields, and slaughtered populatious, and all that is terrible in foreign, complicated with

* If he

civil and servile war, devastation, and fratricidal carnage.' have any disposition to obtain his liberty, it will at once be suggested to him that he and his fellows should be prepared to take advantage of the suggestions thus made-the encouragement to fight their way northward, thus published to them by a thoughtless Northern ally of their masters. Is it the abolitionists or the politicians you have most reason to fear?

Be assured, all attempts to extend slavery can only increase the very danger which it is pretended they are made to avert.

In denying that a formidable number of the citizens of the Free States are disposed to interfere between the slaves and the citizens in other States, I do not wish you to understand me to say that there is not a large number of abolitionists among us: using the word, as has lately become the custom, to mean those who have formed a distinct judgment, that slavery is an evil, the continuance of which it is proper, desirable, and possible for you to more or less distinctly limit; who also think it proper to express this opinion; who also think it their duty to prevent those who hold the opinion that slavery is wholly a good thing, desirable for indefinite perpetuation and extension, from exercising the influence they endeavor to do, in our common government, for the purpose of extending and perpetuating it. I suppose about one-half of all the people of the Free States are now distinctly and intelligently abolitionists, of this kind, and nine-tenths of the remaining number are as yet simply too little interested in the subject to have formed a judgment, by which they can be reliably classed. Out of a few localities, where a commercial sympathy with planters is very direct, there is no society in which an avowal of positive anti-abolition opinion I would not be considered eccentric.

Even of those voting at the late election for Mr. Buchanan, among my acquaintance, more than half have expressed opinions to me which would at once range them as abolitionists, and ex

Message of the President, December, 1856.

pose them to disagreeable treatment if uttered in Southern society. These voted as they did, not so much, I think, from fear that a division of the Union would result from Mr. Frémont's election, as because, being influential men in their party, and having been successful in obtaining the nomination of the candidate they deemed least dangerous of those advanced for the nomination, they felt bound in honor to sustain him.

Which way the progress of opinion tends, it is easy to see, and you need not trust my judgment. Examine the vote of the North in connection with statistics indicating the degree of intelligence and the means of transmitting and encouraging intelligence among-not the commercial or wealthy class, butthe general working people, and you will find Mr. Frémont's vote bears a remarkable correspondence to the advantage of any district or state in this particular. Now our means of improving education, of transmitting intelligence, and of stimulating reflection are very steadily increasing. The young men, attaining their majority in the next four years, will have enjoyed advantages, in these respects, superior to their predecessors. The effect of railroads, and cheaper postage-significantly resisted by those who are most violent partisans of the extension of slavery—and of cheaper books and newspapers, is, as to this question, almost all one way. It is our young men who are most sensitive to the insulting tone which the South thinks it proper to assume in all debates with those members of congress who are known to best represent the North. It is among those whose interest in public affairs is of recent date, that the old party terms of outcry are least expressive of evil.

It is not long since you yourself held in the highest respect and profoundest confidence as true citizens, such men as Chief Justice Parker and Judge Kent; Presidents Walker, Woolsey and King; James Hamilton, James S. Wadsworth, and John M. Read; Washington Irving, Longfellow and Bryant, and even Mr. Frémont all now strongly sympathizing and openly coöperating with the party of the "abolitionists." There are many

thousand young men who must still hold these honored names in as high respect as ever you did, who have lately acquired their first distinct political associations. Consider that, with these, the terms Abolitionist and Disunionist, Black Republican and Nigger-worshiper, must thus be hereafter irrevocably attached to names and characters once as familiar to the South as the North, and ever commanding, everywhere, the completest popular confidence, as the first gentlemen, the purest patriots, and the soundest thinkers in the land. Reflect, that at least nine out of ten of the clergy of every denomination, and of the lay-teachers, in the North, have been enrolled as "abolitionists," and probably a majority have thought it proper to publicly profess the faith now so denominated, and which the South has chosen to make the subject of the most violent, reckless, and relentless denunciation. and persecution.

Do you think we shall go backward? Consider, that in those States which gave the only Northern majorities to Mr. Buchanan, an efficient public-school system has been a creation entirely of the last fifteen years: that in Southern Illinois and Indiana, where the vote against Mr. Fremont was heavier than elsewhere, the majority of living voters were born and lived in their early life, subject only to such educational advantages as existed—and exist in the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee. That the proportion of citizens who were educated in those States themselves, since schools became conveniently frequent, and newspapers and books a common luxury, will now very rapidly increase.

Very many other considerations might be adduced, if you do not believe that the policy of forcing an extension of slavery is necessary to the honor of the people of the South, and a duty to be performed without flinching, whatever sad consequences it may involve, why you should join me in pleading for its imme diate and decisive abandonment.

I have said that already full one-half of the citizens of the North are decisively abolitionists in their convictions. You have