called up proud emotions, though their associations were sad. He could
not reply to a compliment paid to the gallantry of his comrades in the
war with Mexico, without remembering how many of them now mingle with
the dust of a foreign land, and how many of them have sunk after the
day of toil was done by reason of the exposure endured in the service
of their country. The land has mourned, and still mourns, the fall of
its bravest and best, and truly are our laurels mingled with the
cypress, ’tis well, and ’tis wise, ’tis natural and ’tis proper, that
in looking on the laurels of our glory we should pause to pay a tribute
to the cypress which weeps over them, and having paid this tribute to
the gallant dead, the memory of whose service can never die, we pass to
the consideration of their acts, and the beneficial results which their
sacrifices have secured. When that war begun, our history recorded
evidence only of the power of our people for defence. The Fabian policy
of Washington, admirably adapted to the condition of the Colonies,
achieved so much in proportion to the means, that he would be rash
indeed who should attempt to criticise it. The prudent, though daring
course of Jackson, fruitful as it was of the end to be attained, did
not yet serve to illustrate the capacity of our people for the trials
and the struggles attendant on the operations of an invasive war. Hence
it was commonly asserted that the American people, though they might
resist attack, were powerless to redress aggression which was not
connected with the invasion of their territory. The idea of reliance
upon undisciplined militia was treated with contempt and derision. To
borrow a simile from the pit, we were regarded as dung-hill soldiers,
who would only fight at home. In the war with Mexico our armies carried
their banners over routes hitherto unknown, through mountain passes
where nature had almost completed the work of defence, and penetrated
further into the enemy’s country than any European army has ever
marched from the source of its supplies. Not to prolong the comparison
by a reference to events of a remote period, he would only refer to the
last campaign in European war. The combined armies of France and
England, after preparation worthy of their great military power,
advanced through friendly territory to the outer verge of the country,
against which they directed a war of invasion, and after a prolonged
siege by sea and by land, finally captured a seaport town which they
could not hold. Before them lay the country they had come to invade,
but there, at the outer gate, their march was arrested, and in sight of
the ships which brought them supplies and reinforcements, they
terminated a campaign, the scale and proclaimed objects of which had
caused the world to look on in expectation of achievements the like of
which man had not seen. Why was it so? was it not that they were unable
to move from the depot of supplies, though a distance less than half of
that over which our army passed before reaching a productive region
would have brought the allied forces to a country filled with all the
supplies necessary for the support of an army. Is it boastful to say
that American troops, and an American treasury, would have encountered
and have overcome such an obstacle? He did not forget the complaints
which had been made on account of the vast expenditures which had been
made in the prosecution of the war with Mexico; but he remembered with
pride the capacity which the country had exhibited to bear such
expenditure, and believed that our people had no money standard by
which to measure the duty of their government, and the honor of their
flag. We bear with us from the wars in which we have been engaged no
other memory of their cost than the loss of the gallant dead. To the
printed reports and tabular statements we must go when we desire to
know how many dollars were expended. The successful soldier when he
returns from the field is met by a welcome proportionate to the leaves
which he has added to the wreath of his country’s glory. Each has his
reward; to one, the admiring listener at the hearthstone; to another,
the triumphal reception; to all, the respect which patriotism renders
to patriotic service. To the soldier who, in the early part of the
Mexican war, set the seal of invincibility upon American arms, and
subsequently by a signal victory dispersed and disorganized the regular
army of Mexico, his countrymen voted the highest reward known to our
government. Twice before have the people in like manner manifested
their approbation and esteem. Thus has the military spirit of the
country been nursed; to-day it needs not the monarchial bundles of
ribbons, orders and titles to sustain it. Thus has the American citizen
been made to realize that it is sweet and honorable to die for one’s
country; and to feel proudest among his family memories of the names of
those who successfully fought or bravely died in defence of the
national flag. Often he had had occasion to feel, and to mark the
mingled sensation of pride and of sorrow with which friends revert to
those who gallantly died in the field. Even at this now remote day he
could not travel in Mississippi without having the recollection of his
fallen comrades painfully revived by meeting a mother who mourns her
son with the agony of a mother’s grief; a father, whose stern nature
vainly struggles to conceal the involuntary pang, or tender children
who know not the extent of their deprivation, though it is indeed the
sorest of all. Let none then be surprised that he could not see thee
laurel save through the solemn shade of the cypress. Time, however,
softened the shadow long before it withers the leaf. On his way to this
place he learned that it was possible, and he seized the occasion to
visit the residence of Gen. Knox, of revolutionary memory. His own
desire to see something which had been identified with a patriot
soldier who had so largely contributed to the success of the
revolution, and the establishment of the institutions we inherited, was
but an indication of the military sentiment which lives in the American
heart. It turns the step of the traveller from his direct path, it
attracts the boy in his first reading, it fires the ambition of the
youth, and encircles the veteran with the kindness of his neighbors,
and swells the train which follows his bier when, his duty to his
country performed, he answers the summons of his God, and is translated
to a better sphere. It is that same military enthusiasm which calls you
from the avocations and the pleasures of home to the duties and
discomforts of the camp, that you may prepare yourselves whenever your
country needs it to render her efficient service. On the militia of the
country the rights of its citizens, and the honor of its flag, must
mainly depend in the event of a war; they only need to be organized and
instructed to render them a secure reliance. Mingled with the great
body of the people, identified with their feelings and their interests,
proud of the prowess of their fathers and jealousy careful of the
country’s honor, if properly instructed and prepared, the first trumpet
call should bring from plain and from mountain a citizen soldiery who
would encircle the land and check the invader with a wall of fire. Your
plan of encampment seems best suited to the purposes of practical
instruction. A pilgrim in search of health, his steps had been
fortunately directed to Maine, the courtesy of the commander of this
encampment had induced him to visit it and to review the troops. In all
respects it had been to him most gratifying. The appointments, the
movements, the stern faces, and stalwart forms of the men, spoke of the
power to do, and the will to dare whatever it was needful and proper to
perform. This day to manifest respect to a citizen of a distant State,
whose only claim upon them is that he has been an American soldier, and
is an American citizen, they had cheerfully marched through heavy mire.
So much had they given to so small a demand on their natural sentiment,
he could not doubt they would with equal alacrity, and with the same
firm step, march over a field miry with the blood of comrade and of
foe, where opposing causes make to men a common fate.
Among the objects which were of interest to him and which he had hoped
to visit, was the fortification at the narrows of the Penobscot. During
the last session of congress he had endeavored to obtain an
appropriation for the completion of the work which had advanced to the
point which made it effective against shipping, but left still liable
to be carried by land attack. He was not of those who thought it
necessary to raise walls wherever an enemy might land and march, for he
would say that henceforward there would remain to an invading army but
to choose between captivity and a grave. To protect commercial ports
against naval assault forts are needful and should be completed so as
to render them defensible by small garrisons, and to save those
garrisons as far as possible from the sacrifice of life. Our people
require no wall to separate them from other countries, unless it be
needful for our own restraint. Our policy is peace, and the fact shines
brightly on the pages of our history that not one acre of its extensive
acquisitions have been claimed as the spoil of the sword. Unpeopled
deserts have been purchased, and on its own application a community has
been admitted to our family of states. But we have offered to the world
the singular example of conquered territory returned to the vanquished.
Permit me in this connection, whilst ever mindful of the just relation
and necessity for concurrent action between the civil and military
departments of government, to bear testimony to the value of the
militia for the purposes of peace. The principle of self-government and
the spirit of independence are so deep rooted in the American mind that
our people would illy brook the enforcement of law by any extraneous
power, and it is to be hoped we never will see a case in which the
people of a State will not be able to maintain the civil authority, and
vindicate offended law against all opposers whomsoever. To give energy
and activity to such popular action the organization of the militia
will be most convenient whenever force shall be needful. It is not a
little remarkable that though the first Presidents in emphatic language
from time to time recommended a thorough organization of the militia as
one of the most important duties of the government, but little more has
yet been done than to make provisions for supplying them with arms, and
for calling them out when required for federal purposes. There is a
moral effect arising from the spectacle of each State possessed of a
body of instructed militia, ready not only to maintain its government
at home, but to unite with the militia of other States and to form an
army upon which all can rely whenever a common danger calls for a
common defence. It has been thus that from time to time the fraternity
of our revolutionary fathers has been renewed among their sons, and
additional assurance has been given that the sentiment of nationality
on which our Union was founded could never die. That the expansion of
the circle did not weaken its cohesive power, nor the piling of arch
upon arch endanger the foundation on which our political temple was
built. It was not a structure of expediency; master workmen cleared
away the surface where the errors and prejudices of ages had
accumulated, dug deep down to the unmutable rock of truth, and with
unchanging principles constructed the walls to stand till time should
become eternity. Who is there, then, forgetful of his revolutionary
descent, insensible to the pride which the name of the United States
justly inspires, faithless to the duty which the bond of his fathers
imposes, and reckless of all which the honorable discharge of that duty
ensures, would unite with impious purpose to destroy that foundation,
and strive, with sacrilegious hand to tear the flag under which we had
marched from colonial dependence to our present national greatness.
Away with speculative theories, and false philanthropy of abstractions,
which tend to destroy one half, one third, aye, or a single star of
that bright constellation which lights the pathway of our future
career, and sends a hopeful ray through the clouds of despotism which
hang over less favored lands.
Our mission is not that of propagandists—our principles forbid
interference with the institutions of other countries; but we may hope
that our example will be imitated, and should so live that this model
of representative liberty, community independence, and government
derived from the consent of the governed, and limited by a written
compact, should commend itself to the adoption of others. We now stand
isolated among the great nations of the earth; the opposition of
monarchial governments to the theory on which ours is founded, points
to the possibility of an alliance against us, by which what is termed
national law may be modified and warped to our prejudice if not to our
assailment. It needs the united power, harmonious action and
concentrated will of the people of all these States to roll the wheel
of progress to the end which our fathers contemplated, and which their
sons, if they are wise and true, may behold. May the kindness and
courtesy which have characterized the present occasion on which
Mississippi has been greeted by Maine, be a type of the feeling which
shall ever exist between the extremes of our common country. From
Florida to California, from Oregon to Maine, from the centre to the
remotest border, may the possessors of our constitutional heritage
appreciate its value, and faithfully, fraternally labor for its
thorough development, looking back to the original compact for the
purposes for which the Union was established, and forward to the
blessing which such union was designed and is competent to confer.
Speech at the Portland Meeting.
When it became known that Mr. Davis had arrived at the Hall, he was
loudly called for. Hon. Joseph Howard, chairman of the meeting, then
introduced Mr. Davis, who, on coming forward, was greeted with cheer
upon cheer from the vast audience. As soon as the prolonged and
enthusiastic applause with which he was welcomed had subsided, Mr.
Davis, addressing the audience as fellow citizens and Democratic
brethren, said that the invitation with which he had been favored to
address them, evinced a purpose to confer together for the common
good—for the maintenance of the constitution, the bond of union. He
would not be expected to discuss local questions; he would not in this
imitate the mischievous agitators who inflame the Northern mind against
the Southern States. He came among them, an invalid, advised by his
physician to resort to this clime for the restoration of his health; as
an American citizen, he had not expected that his right to come here
would be questioned; as a stranger, or if not entirely so, known mainly
by the detraction which the ardent advocacy of the rights of the South
had brought upon him, he had supposed that neither his coming nor his
going would attract attention. But his anticipations had proved
erroneous. The polite, the manly, elevated men, lifted above the
barbarism which makes stranger and enemy convertible terms, had chosen,
without political distinction, to welcome his coming, and by constant
acts of generous hospitality to make his sojourn as pleasant as his
physical condition would permit.
On the other hand, men who make a trade of politics, and whose capital
consists in the denunciation of the institutions of other States, had
erroneously judged him by themselves, and had regarded his coming as a
political mission; wherefore it was, he was led to suppose, that the
scavengers of that party had been employed in the publication of
falsehoods, both in relation to himself and his political friends at
the South.
So far as it affected him personally their attacks were no more than
the barking of a cur, which, by its clamor, indicates the inhospitable
character of the master who keeps him. If his friends and himself were,
as had been falsely charged, Disunionists and Nullifiers, they might
naturally have looked for kinder considerations from a party which
circulates petitions for a “prompt and peaceful dissolution of the
Union” on account of the incompatibility of the sections—from a party,
which, having proved faithless to the obligation of the constitution in
relation to the fugitive from service or labor, then declares null and
void the law which their dereliction made it necessary for Congress to
enact. The fealty of himself and friends to the constitution, and their
honorable discharge of its obligations was their rebuke to this party,
in whose hostility he found the highest commendation in their power to
bestow.
By reckless fabrication, by garbling and inserting new words into
extracts, they had attempted to deceive the people here as to his
opinions, and had crowned the fraud by the absurd announcement that his
was the creed on which the people of Maine must vote next Monday.
It was due to the hospitality which he had received at their hands that
he should not interfere in their domestic affairs, and he had not
failed to remember the obligation; when republicans had introduced the
subject of African slavery he had defended it, and answered pharisaical
pretensions by citing the Bible, the constitution of the United States
and the good of society in justification of the institutions of the
State of which he was a citizen; in this he but exercised the right of
a freeman and discharged the duty of a Southern citizen. Was it for
this cause that he had been signalized as a slavery propagandists? He
admitted in all its length and breadth the right of the people of Maine
to decide the question for themselves; he held that it would be an
indecent interference, on the part of a citizen of another State, if he
should arraign the propriety of the judgment they had rendered, and
that there was no rightful power in the federal government or in all
the States combined, to set aside the decision which the community had
made in relation to their domestic institutions. Should any attempt be
made thus to disturb their sovereign right, he would pledge himself in
advance, as a State-rights man, with his head, his heart and his hand,
if need be, to aid them in the defence of this right of community
independence, which the Union was formed to protect, and which it was
the duty of every American citizen to preserve and to guard as the
peculiar and prominent feature of our government.
Why, then, this accusation? Do they fear to allow Southern men to
converse with their philosophers, and seek thus to silence or exclude
them? He trusted others would contemn them as he did, and that many of
our brethren of the South would, like himself, learn by sojourn here,
to appreciate the true men of Maine, and to know how little are the
political abolitionists and the abolition papers the exponents of the
character and the purposes of the Democracy of this State.
And now having brushed away the cob-webs which lay in his path, he
would proceed to the consideration of subjects worthy of the audience
he had the honor to address.
Democrats, patriots, by whatever political name any of you may be
known, you have a sacred duty to perform to your ancestry and to
posterity. The time is at hand when for good or for evil, the questions
which have agitated the public mind are to be solved. Is it true as
asserted by northern agitators that there is such contrariety between
the North and the South that they cannot remain united! Or rather, is
it not true as our fathers deemed it, that diversity in the character
of the population, in the products and in the institutions of the
several States formed a reason for their union and tended to secure to
their posterity the liberty which was the common object of their love,
and by cultivating untrammeled intercourse and free trade between the
States, to duplicate the comforts of all?
There was a time when the test of patriotism was the readiness to sever
the bond which bound the colonies to the mother country. Recently our
people with joyous acclamation have welcomed the connection of the
United States with Great Britain, by the Atlantic cable. The one is not
inconsistent with the other. When the home government violated the
charters of the colonies, and assumed to control the private interests
of individuals, the love of political liberty, the determination at
whatever hazard to maintain their rights, led our fathers to enter on
the trial of revolution. Having achieved the separation, they did what
was in their power for the development of commerce. They secured free
trade between the States, without surrendering State independence.
Their sons, not only free, but beyond the possibility of future
interference in their domestic affairs, now seek the closest commercial
connection with the country from which their fathers achieved a
political separation.
Had the proposition been made to consolidate the States after their
independence had been achieved, all must know it would have been
rejected—yet there are those who now instigate you to sectional strife
for the purpose of sectional dominion and the destruction of the rights
of the minority. Do they mean treason to the Constitution and the
destruction of the Union? Or do they vilely practice on credulity and
passion for personal gain? The latter is suggested by the contradictory
course they pursue. At the same time they proclaim war upon the slave
property of the South, they ask for protection to the manufactures of
the staple which could not be produced if that property did not exist.
And while they assert themselves to be the peculiar friends of commerce
and navigation, they vaunt their purpose to destroy the labor which
gives vitality to both; whilst they proclaim themselves the peculiar
friends of laboring men at the North, they insist that the negroes are
their equals; and if they are sincere they would, by emancipation of
the blacks, bring them together and degrade the white man to the negro
level. They seek to influence the northern mind by sectional issues and
sectional organization, yet they profess to be the friends of the
Union. The Union voluntarily formed by free, equal, independent States.
We of the South, on a sectional division, are in the minority; and if
legislation is to be directed by geographical tests—if the constitution
is to be trampled in the dust, and the unbridled will of the majority
in Congress is to be supreme over the States; we should have the
problem which was presented to our Fathers when the Colonies declined
to be content with a mere representation in parliament.
If the constitution is to be sacredly observed, why should there be a
struggle for sectional ascendency? The instrument is the same in all
latitudes, and does not vary with the domestic institutions of the
several States. Hence it is that the Democracy, the party of the
constitution, have preserved their integrity, and are to-day the only
national party and the only hope for the preservation and perpetuation
of the Union of the States.
Mr. Jefferson denominated the Democracy of the North, the natural
allies of the South. It is in our generation doubly true; they are
still the party with whom labor is capital, and they are now the party
which stands by the barriers of the constitution, to protect them from
the waves of fanatical and sectional aggression. The use of the word
aggression reminded him that the people here have been daily harangued
about the aggressions of the slave power, and he had been curious to
learn what was so described. It is, if he had learned correctly, the
assertion of the right to migrate with slaves into the territories of
the United States. Is this aggression? If so, upon what? Not upon those
who desire close association with the negro; not upon territorial
rights, unless these self-styled lovers of the Union have already
dissolved it and have taken the territories to themselves. The
territory being the common property of States, equals in the Union, and
bound by the constitution which recognizes property in slaves, it is an
abuse of terms to call aggression the migration into that territory of
one of its joint owners, because carrying with him any species of
property recognized by the constitution of the United States. The
Federal government has no power to declare what is property anywhere.
The power of each State cannot extend beyond its own limits. As a
consequence, therefore, whatever is property in any of the States must
be so considered in any of the territories of the United States until
they reach to the dignity of community independence, when the subject
matter will be entirely under the control of the people and be
determined by their fundamental law. If the inhabitants of any
territory should refuse to enact such laws and police regulations as
would give security to their property or to his, it would be rendered
more or less valueless, in proportion to the difficulty of holding it
without such protection. In the case of property in the labor of man,
or what is usually called slave property, the insecurity would be so
great that the owner could not ordinarily retain it. Therefore, though
the right would remain, the remedy being withheld, it would follow that
the owner would be practically debarred by the circumstances of the
case, from taking slave property into a territory where the sense of
the inhabitants was opposed to its introduction. So much for the oft
repeated fallacy of forcing slavery upon any community.
If Congress had the power to prohibit the introduction of slave
property into the territories, what would be the purpose? Would it be
to promote emancipation? That could not be the effect. In the first
settlement of a territory the want of population and the consequent
difficulty of procuring hired labor, would induce emigrants to take
slaves with them; but if the climate and products of the country were
unsuited to African labor—as soon as white labor flowed in, the owners
of slaves would as a matter of interest, desire to get rid of them and
emancipation would result. The number would usually be so small that
this would be effected without injury to society or industrial
pursuits. Thus it was in Wisconsin, notwithstanding the ordinance of
’87; and other examples might be cited to show that this is not mere
theory.
Would it be to promote the civilization and progress of the negro race?
The tendency must be otherwise. By the dispersion of the slaves, their
labor would be rendered more productive and their comforts increased.
The number of owners would be multiplied, and by more immediate contact
and personal relation greater care and kindness would be engendered. In
every way it would conduce to the advancement and happiness of the
servile caste.
No—no—it is not these, but the same answer which comes to every inquiry
as to the cause of fanatical agitation. ’Tis for sectional power, and
political ascendency; to fan a sectional hostility, which must be, as
it has been, injurious to all, and beneficial to none. For what
patriotic purpose can the Northern mind be agitated in relation to
domestic institutions, for which they have no legal or moral
responsibility, and from the interference with which they are
restrained by their obligations as American citizens?
Is it in this mode that the spirit of mutual support and common effort
for the common good, is to be cultivated? Is it thus that confidence is
to be developed and the sense of security to grow with the growing
power of each and every State? Is it thus that we are to exemplify the
blessings of self-government by the free exercise in each independent
community of the power to regulate their domestic institutions as soil,
climate, and population may determine?