The star of the West : or, national men and national measures

Front matter

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Contents

THE UNION OF THE STATES, .

CENTRAL AMERICA, ....

REVIEW OF ADMINISTRATIONS,.

Chapter I

** What God in his mercy and wisdom designed, And armed with his weapons of thunder, Not all the earth's despots and factions combined Have the power to conquer or sunder ! "

Americans, let us see how the first stones were gathered, and the foundation of this Union laid. It began under great tribulation ; but God overruled its origin, and has been its great support.

A reformed church of "poor people," or those in moderate circumstances, called Puritans, dwelt in England at the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and lived in the villages of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire.

These people, under their pastor, John Eobinson, were assailed day and night by the ministers of the ecclesiastical tyranny which governed and swayed England.

At great suffering and peril, they resolved to seek safety by exile, in Holland. In 1607, their first attempt to leave England was arrested, under King James, and some of the Puritans were imprisoned ; hut they had an unfrequented heath in Lincolnshire, where they continued to worship ; and, on procuring the release of their wives and children, in 1608, they were successful in making their escape to Amsterdam.

From Amsterdam, these Puritans went to Leyden, under the guidance of Eohinson and Brewster, and there betook themselves to industrial pursuits of all kinds, which fitted them for their future but unsuspected destiny. The desire to advance the Gospel in the New World, the cherished idea of their minds, finally induced them to turn their thoughts to the settlements in America. Still, the Pilgrims loved their native soil, their native language, and their Anglo-Saxon liberty ; and so deep was the love of country yet implanted in their affections, that they sought the protection of the English government for the colony they projected in the western world.

John Carver and William Bradford repaired to London, and succeeded, after a negotiation of two years, in obtaining a patent for the Plymouth Company. After an absence of twelve years from their native land, these exiles made ready for embarking across the ocean. They sold their estates, and used their money in fitting out two vessels for the purpose ; but these could accommodate only a part of the congregation.

These Pilgrims sailed from Delfthaven, near Leyden, via Southampton, for America, after being a fortnight in England. But the Speedwell proved not to be seaworthy, and they returned to Dartmouth for repairs. Finding, however, that this vessel could not be trusted for such a voyage, they left Dartmouth for Plymouth, where, with one hundred souls, they embarked, on the 17th of September, 1620, for America. Their small vessel, the Mayflower, consisted of only one hundred and eighty tons ; and after a passage of sixty-three days, it reached the harbor of Cape Cod, and this precious cargo of human souls was landed on the Rock of Plymouth Dec. 22cl, 1620.

While the Mayflower was at anchor, the form

of government to which they should conform, as

one people, was seriously discussed ; and, after

prayer and thanksgiving to almighty God, an instru-

1* ment or compact was drawn, to which forty-one of the crew subscribed their names ; the rest of the one hundred being the wives and children of these men.

This, Americans, was the first republic erected in America, and is the most remarkable instance of the true spirit of liberty upon the record of history. Think of a colony, under the sanction of a royal charter, from an English monarch, coming, under the inspiration of God and liberty, to plant upon American soil republican freedom !

Here is the document :

PLYMOUTH COMPACT.

"In the name of God, amen! We, whose names are underwritten, the royal subjects of our dread Sovereign, King James, having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern part of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation ; and, in furtherance of the ends aforesaid, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall "be thought most convenient for the good of the colony.

' ' Unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. "

Signed by John Carver, William Brewster, Edward Winslow, and forty-one in all.

For five thousand years this vast continent lay upon the bosom of the deep, occupied by untutored man, of the manner and the date of whose origin here we have no account ; but a passage is supposed to have been effected across Behring's Straits, where Asia and America are separated by only forty miles. This continent, nearly as large as Europe and Africa united, extending on both sides of the equator, lying between the western shore of Europe and Africa, and the east of Asia, surrounded by groups of islands on either ocean, presented an impenetrable mystery to the eastern world.

Not less remarkable has been the unparalleled development of liberty, growing out of the desire for a retreat for freedom to worship God. The Huguenots of the South came to this land under the same inspiration, and suffered even more by persecution. Americans, can the conviction that these were the men whose views were carried out in founding this republic now be slighted ? We are the only people strong, courageous, and free — the only nation which has the element of durability. When the flag of our country was borne to Mexico, after so long a period of profound peace, it was prophesied by all the world we were to meet an ignominious defeat ; but when the first flash was seen, and the first thunder of cannon heard, American men, who had lived only to protect their homes and firesides, rushed to the scene of action, and fought so gloriously and so triumphantly that the world was lost in admiration at their victories. With our little army of eight or ten thousand opposed to eight or ten millions of Mexicans, added to barriers which nature had made seemingly insurmountable, Americans, under the free spirit which formed the republic on the Mayflower, fought like soldiers, and died like freemen !

The same God which had taken the English Pilgrim and set him on Plymouth Eock led the French Huguenot to the South. It was the genius, the heroism, the instinct, of liberty. So have the

North and South, when great principles were at stake, commingled as one spirit and one blood ! From the days of '76, to the day Gen. Scott, at the head of the American army, caused Santa Anna to lay down the sword and bow to the supremacy of American arms, the North and the South knew no section, divided no interest, when a common danger perilled our existence as a free people.

In 1792, we were thirteen poor and comparatively feeble states. The whole cotton crop did not exceed three hundred and fifty-seven bales. After Whitney's cotton-gin machine was invented, in 1794, there was an increase in its growth, and in 1795 it amounted to three thousand seven hundred and fifty bales. Now, we are a people counting thirty millions, with thirty-one states, and an expansive territory, out of which many others will ultimately be made. The constitutions of most of the old states have been altered. Vast resources are being developed, and our cotton-bales count annually nearly four millions.

The United States are yet only in their infancy. The growth of their marketable staples, their agricultural resources, and their annual incomes, is beyond all present calculations, as well as the benefits of commerce and art, which we cannot even conjecture.

Our representative government, our religious freedom, our trial by jury, our free press, and other attributes of Anglo-American liberty, urge this people to extend themselves under peaceful arts, and to cherish perpetually the compact of the Union, as the only bond, the everlasting bond, of our national life, and faith, and action.

Ancient Eome excited glorious patriotism by heaping bright garlands upon her living sons ; but her nationality and pride forbade her stopping there. She looked behind, and forgot not the founders of her political edifice. How much more than Romans should we Americans cherish the sacred ashes of our dead, who gave the Union its fair proportions, and taught the lesson of self-denial and conciliation by which it must be preserved !

Josiah Quincy went from Boston to Charleston, South Carolina, to enlist the Huguenots with the descendants of the Puritans for our independence, — the descendants of men who were answered in their last prayer, and shown by God the way to this their promised land.

THE UNION OP THE STATES. 11

When the Union was endangered for the third time, in 1850, J. C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, discoursed upon this bond of attachment which bound together Massachusetts and Carolina, and declared, with rapture, shortly before he died, that it was as indissoluble as ever.

Webster, too, who first read the constitution on a cotton handkerchief, wanted that constitution to give its rights to all parts of the Union. When warned, in 1850, that his course on the compromise would endanger his hopes for the presidency, the triumph of the Union over selfish ambition showed itself, as he exclaimed, "I would not swerve a hair to be president."

Henry Clay, clear to the hearts of millions, from this same love of the Union, was warned in 1839, in the Senate, by William C. Preston, of South Carolina, against unnecessarily exciting the abolitionists, as it might interfere with the aspirations he then enjoyed for the presidency. The great American's prompt response is above all Greek or Eoman fame — "I had rather be right than be president!" The abolitionists became ever after his unrelenting foes, and, in connection with Mr. Buchanan's false charge of bribery, of which Buchanan himself was the sole author, and the Romish hierarchy, defeated his prospects and blighted the hopes of his friends forever.

Americans, for the fourth time our national existence is in peril ! Its first danger was under Madison ; second, under Jackson ; third, under Taylor and Millard Fillmore ; and lastly, under Franklin Pierce, our present chief magistrate.

Under the administration of Gen. Taylor, three Southern States of the Union submitted the question to the people whether they should remain in the Union. Officers of the army and navy were then sounded, to see if they would declare for a Southern republic. They declared for the Union as it is, under the American flag. All the Southern States but one did likewise. It was the Roman firmness of Mr. Fillmore, after the death of Taylor, that saved the Union in 1850.

The treaty of peace, which acknowledged our national independence, in 1783, was not only highly honorable to us, but England made far greater concessions to us than she did at that time to Spain or France. In 1785, Congress elected John Adams, by ballot, as the first minister to Great Britain ; and on the 25th of May of that year, the King of

England, who had waged war upon us as subjects, and attempted to brow-heat us as menials, was humiliated to a public reception of our national ambassador, who represented the new republic. Keenly did England feel the blow which had forced her, before mankind, to recognize our power and dignity among the nations of the earth. George the Third, the king, received Mr. Adams by a speech, to which Mr. Adams replied. He was afterwards presented to the queen, who also had a kind word to say of "America and Americans.' ' "You are jiot," said the king to Mr. Adams, "like the most of your countrymen, attached to France.' ' "I have no attachment but to my native country," said Mr. Adams. "An honest man will have no other," said the king. And this was the feeling under which we were baptized a free people.

Messrs. Jay, Adams, and Franklin, were sent to Paris to obtain formal protection to our commerce. But while other European nations entered readily into treaties of commerce, England refused to do so, and during the six years of our confederacy after peace, no minister was sent to America. Mr. Adams, failing to induce Great Britain to 9 send a minister, or to form a treaty of commerce, returned home in 1787.

After the Union was organized, the strength and dignity of the government were felt by all foreign nations, and respected. Gen. Washington requested Governeur Morris, who was in Europe, to see if England would then send a minister ; to which she readily acceded, and George Hammond presented his credentials from that court in August, 1791.

The strength and dignity obtained for the government by the Union of the States were at once felt and manifested by foreign powers. In 1793, when France declared war against England, Gen. Washington issued his celebrated proclamation for neutrality, and recommended to Congress that a special messenger be sent to England, to aid Mr. Pinckney, of South Carolina, already our accredited minister to that court. General Washington determined to save the Union, but just formed ; and, in defiance of the unpopularity of this measure, to preserve the policy of neutrality. He therefore immediately nominated John Jay, and hence the treaty which laid the foundation of this Union's commercial prosperity, and made its basis still more impregnable.

And now, Americans, it is the firmness of the Union, its celebrity, its prosperity, its past happiness, attained under our free and fair constitution, which has struck terror to Europern despots, and made them tremble on their thrones. This government is the only one upon earth which meets the wants of the masses, and embraces, as far as its limits extend, the entire continent under the shadow of its protecting wings. Under its wise laws and benign policy, nothing can stay our national progress, — nothing, nothing ! The bravest, the freest, the most energetic people on the face of the globe, have been born under the flag of the American States.

Look, my countrymen, at the resources of your mighty republic, and see how the Union has developed them ! Look at your territory, and see how the Union, in its triumphant march, has expanded its boundaries from a fragment to a continent ! Look at your inventive genius, your skilful artists, the busy hum of internal trade, the multiplied products of healthy sinews and free labor, and see how the Union has prospered you ! Look at your sublime mountains, your magnificent rivers, your luxuriant prairies, your vast and beautiful lakes, your exhaustless mines of gold and silver, and your rich and beneficent soil, and see why your population has swelled from two million five hundred thousand to thirty millions, in eighty years !

It is the Union of these States, under the greatest and best form of government human wisdom ever conceived, that has done it all. It is the cup of love and peace, which has been drunk from the fountain of the constitution, by the whole population. The nation, from all points of our compass, have met in the circling bond of the Union, and clasped the pillars of the constitution with united heart and hand ; and, under the inspiration of its proud stars and stripes, have exchanged the grateful and joyful tokens of faith and affection.

What should be the cry of all the inhabitants of this land, but "The Constitution and the Union ^forever ! " "With this glow of magnanimity, with this cry of patriotism, traitors and emissaries from without can as easily upturn the ocean from its bed, or tear the pillars of the Alleghany from their deep foundations, as to break up this government by the dissolution of this blessed, blood-bought, heaven-descended Union.

We know full well the jealousy of foreign despots. To arrest our "manifest destiny," by the destruction of republicanism, is the ceaseless aim of the despotisms of Europe, to favor their own self-preservation. Russia, England, France, Austria, Rome, Spain, and every other monarchical and despotic government, now swell with joy to witness internal dissensions which threaten a severance of the states ; but how much more would they exult in its actual occurrence ! Philip of Macedon, when he set about conquering Greece, did not invade it by an aggressive army, but by creating and cherishing dissensions among the states of Greece. So it is now with European governments. They feel the moral as well as the political reaction upon them of the United States. They know that the principles upon which the Union is founded are subversive of European aristocracies. They were aware of the sympathy of Americans with the struggling patriots of Greece, — with the struggling patriots of Italy, in the revolution of '48, — and the moral influence which ever reacts in favor of a people panting for freedoin. They behold, with secret wonder and envy, the rapid growth of the United States in power and greatness.

England — we speak of her government particularly— is jealous of us, because she is monarchical, and moves in the reciprocal sympathies of the other monarchies of Europe. But the great body of her people are strongly opposed to a war with the United States. When we speak of England, therefore, we more particularly speak of her government, which found, in 1812, that no thunder could be obtained by her arms in a contest with the Americans. Her oligarchy try a more quiet course of action, to sow dissension, and reap the benefit of contention, among the states, by favoring any symptoms of disaffection which may spring up to disturb our happy Union. In this unholy antagonism, the press of Europe has heaped its slanders upon us. But its praise or blame neither disturbs our sleep, nor intercepts our influence and onward march.

Our commercial marine, on the high seas, is greater than that of France or England, — perhaps both united ; and, in case of danger, our marine and fishermen would supply our navy. England

I*

fears our strength, while she feels our cotton and breadstuffs essential to her very existence. These motives constrain her to Jesuitical cautiousness in her attempts to divide the Union, by which she expects to treat with both North and South on her own terms.

Once let England, France, Austria, Eussia, and Prussia, send us representative men, — men of large ideas, who can understand the principles of our political machinery, and faithfully report the progress and development of our country at home, — then the value and the permanence of the Union can be appreciated, and much useless expenditure of money and time may be averted.

But who is it that now cries out, " Join us, to save the Union " ? Americans, it is the very party — the democratic party — who have shown the people, by their acts, that they are not competent to administer the government of our country. The Missouri Compromise law, which was framed to give peace and perpetuity to the Union, and the repeal of which was in all respects the most atrocious act ever perpetrated by the representatives of the people, was the achievement of the democratic party, under an imbecile democratic presi dent.

Americans, the day has come when you must not and will not be deceived by these specious pretences of loving the Union ; and it is idle for that party, which has more than once endangered it, longer to attempt to cheat the people. "What are the facts from the records of history ? At the time the government of the United States was formed under the constitution, there was a large tract of land lying north-west of the Ohio Eiver, called, on that account, the North-west Territory ; and, to have all those who participated in the battles of the Kevolution possess a common right to it, our fathers passed a law called the Ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery in all the territory then belonging to the United States. In 1803, we acquired, by a treaty under Mr. Jefferson, another tract of land, known as Louisiana Territory ; and as the Ordinance of '87 had reference only to the North-west Territory exclusively, and not to that which the framers of the constitution never supposed we would possess, agitation at once was created between the North and

South as to the mode of disposing of the slave question on their new territory.

In a little while the State of Missouri was formed out of a part of the Louisiana Territory, and knocked for admission into the Union at the door of Congress. The South, at that time, was in a minority in Congress, and it was therefore in the power of the North to admit Missouri as a slave state, or to reject it, and insist that the law of 1787, which forbade the extension of the institution of slavery into the North-west Territory, should be made also to apply to the Louisiana Territory.

Finally, the South introduced the famous Missouri Compromise, and it was passed by Southern votes. It is true a Northern man introduced the measure ; but the proposition came from the South, and was supported by the South. The South said to the North, " If you will allow us — you being in the majority, and having the control — if you will permit us to carry slavery up to the line of 36 deg. 30 min., we will pledge ourselves not to attempt to carry slavery beyond 36 deg. 30 min." They said, " We will allow every state south of 36 deg. 30 min., that chooses, to adopt slavery or reject it, as they please ; " but, if they come to Congress, as Missouri has done, you will make no opposition to their admission on the ground of slavery, whether it is in or out of their constitution.

In the Senate of the United States every senator from the South voted for this Missouri Compromise, but two, and every senator from the North voted against it, but four. There were then eighteen Northern votes cast in opposition to it, and but two Southern votes ; Mr. Macon, of North Carolina, and Mr. Smith, of South Carolina. When the bill went to the House of Representatives, it passed by one hundred and thirty-four to forty-two votes. Forty Southern representatives went for it, and thirty-seven against it. Mr. Clay, Mr. Lowndes, and others from the South, were the chief advocates of the measure ; and the history of the events of that day demonstrates with what enthusiasm that Compromise of 1820 was received by the whole South. Mr. Monroe was President at that period, and before he signed the law it was submitted to Win. H. Crawford, J. C. Calhoun, and Wm. Wirt, Southern members of his cabinet, who were unair'jnous as to its constitutionality.

To this law, then, the integrity and honor of the South was pledged. And now, Americans, mark the conduct of this democratic party ! They waited to people all the territory that could he populated hy slaves, and then disturbed the peace and prosperity of the country hy attempting to take what of right belongs to the North ; for Missouri, Arkansas, and Florida, could have all been kept out of the Union, if the North had seen fit.

The Missouri Compromise being applied to the Louisiana Territory, all settled down in peace, until the annexation of Texas. The democratic party, in the mean while, having made a scare-crow of a few abolitionists in the North, by introducing a resolution refusing the people their constitutional right of petition, kept alive agitation, as a part of their sacred creed ; and by the passage of the "twenty-first rule" they brought thousands and tens of thousands of these petitioners to Congress, insisting upon their right to be heard. The democratic party then became alarmed at the unpopularity of their act, and repealed the twenty-first rule. What was the result ? The people became satisfied, when once their own rights were vindicated, and, instead of flooding Congress with these petitions the succeeding session, it was a rare occurrence to hear that one was presented.

When Texas became a state, the Missouri Compromise line was applied to it by act of Congress, and that matter was thus settled. It passed the House by a vote of one hundred and twenty to ninety-eight, and every Southern democrat in that assembly voted for it.

But not long after this the Mexican war occurred, and California, Utah, and New Mexico, were added to our territory. Oregon had just been organized as a territory, with the ordinance of 1787, which you will bear in mind, Americans, was a prohibition to the extension of slavery, and was signed by Mr. Polk, having as his cabinet adviser James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania !

The next thing to be done was to provide for the Territory of California. The Missouri Compromise was then offered in Congress to be applied to it, and every Southern senator voted for it. But, there was other territory acquired from Mexico, which was not included in this legislation, and about which great difficulty was created. Then it was that Mr. Clay, in the decline of life, left his own fireside, to forego all its pleasures in his last hours, to heal the impending strife by aiding in the passage of the Compromise measures of 1850. And let it not be overlooked that the democrats, who caused the twenty-first rule to be enacted in the House, a short time before, to create agitation and disunion at the North, were the stern opponents of the Compromise of 1850, which saved the Union, and restored harmony to all sections.

At the beginning of the session, subsequent to the Compromise of 1850, Col. Jackson, of Georgia, offered this resolution: — "Resolved, That we recognize the binding efficacy of the compromises of the constitution, and believe it to be the intention of the people generally, as we hereby declare it to be ours individually, to abide such compromises, and to sustain the laws necessary to carry them out, — the provision for the delivery of fugitive slaves and that act of the last Congress for the purpose included, — and we deprecate all further agitation of all questions growing out of that provision, of the questions embraced in the acts of the last Congress known as the Compromise, and of questions generally connected with the institution of slavery, as unnecessary, useless, and dangerous ;" when sixty-four voted against it. The 3 democratic papers of that day said, " We notice the ultra Southern members from South Carolina voted with the free-soilers." That is, against the acquiescence of the two sections in peace, and a settlement of the slavery question.

Mr. Hilly er, another member of the House, offered, in addition, this resolution : — " Resolved, That the series of acts passed during the first session of the Thirty-first Congress, known as the Compromise, are regarded as a final adjustment and a permanent settlement of the question therein embraced, and should be regarded, maintained, and executed, as such ; " which was also opposed by sixty-five votes ! And these from the South were every one democrats, who united with the abolitionists of the North against the very measures, Americans, which had just restored peace to your distracted country.

Chapter II

In 1852 Pierce obtained the nomination for President by the democratic party, and was elected by fraudulently deceiving the people, and inducing them to believe he was true to the compromises of the Constitution and the Union. The democratic party then got into power by that deception. And what has it done, my countrymen ? Why, it has plunged us into civil war ; and we should also have been in foreign war, but for the respectable position the British cabinet took when they saw that Franklin Pierce and the democratic leaders were not representing, but personating, the American people. They have introduced an insurrectionary and revolutionary spirit among the masses, that they may hold out the Union flag, after staining it with blood, and call on the people to rally around it for the safety of the Union. Great Heaven, defend us from this serpent rule another four years ! Defendthis people, 0, our nation's God, our people's only refuge, from James Buchanan's power to peipetu ate this shameful democratic rule, which is now shaking the edifice of the Union through an executive instrument who sacrilegiously occupies the chair of state !

Out of ten senators in Congress who yoted for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, thereby unsettling the compromises of 1820 and 1850, seven of that number have gone over to the fortunes of the democratic party, with Atchison, Douglas, and Franklin Pierce, and just where the American people want them to remain. " Pierce suits us well; " "we know our man," was said with no more truth by Yan Buren, in 1852, than it is now said of James Buchanan. It is the interest of the democratic leaders to keep up the agitation of slavery ; in this they live, move, and have their being ; and James Buchanan is pledged to keep all its elements in full blast, to perpetuate the power of the democratic dynasty.

And who is it now, Americans, who can arrest the dangerous evils that democratic misrule has brought upon the land ? We answer, there is but one man now before the people who can restore us to the peace, prosperity, and progress, which were given the country by the Compromise of 1850 ; and that man is Millard Fillmore. Mr. Stephen A. Douglas, United States senator from Illinois, is very good democratic authority ; and we give you an extract from his speech made in Eichmond in 1852, and published in the Richmond Examiner, an influential democratic paper of that state. Mr. Douglas was denouncing the Baltimore convention for not nominating Mr. Fillmore at that time, and said, " We say — ay, all of us — that Mr. Fillmore was a real God-send ; that he was sent by his Creator, that he was sent by Grod himself, to rule over the destinies of this country, when the ship of state was sinking in the tempest. (Loud and long- continued cheers.) It was the calming of the waters when the ship was sinking in the tempest. All, therefore, look kindly on Mr. Fillmore ; and we like to give him all the consolation we can, after the bad treatment he received at Baltimore, because he was a whig, and yet did no harm to the country."