persons be sacred and inviolable, it is certainly much stronger and more forcible when applied to property in things; and although a State might by penal enactments endeavor to prevent any person from bringing into its jurisdiction, for use or for sale, playing cards, or gambling machines of any description, yet as these articles might be considered property, and the right of the owner secured under the Constitution of the United States, such penal enactments would be vain and useless attempts. A state of things of this kind would be most deplorable indeed, and one to which, I think, the people of the United States would not long and tamely submit. Yet if these things were manufactured in a sister State, held and recognized as valuable property there, our condition would be far worse. Should Congress, by the exercise of its power, attempt to prevent us from speaking, writing, printing, publishing, and forming societies, for the exercise of all our moral power, in order to induce the people of our sister States to refrain from such practices; and of sending by mail all such proceedings, in order to induce them to abandon their pursuits, by proving that they were both moral and political evils? Yet such is the doctrine of the bill now before us; a plain exposition of which is its best refutation.

There has been another topic constantly connected with this subject, that if Abolition societies and papers were not put down, and incendiary publications (as they are called here,) prevented from being sent into the slaveholding States, the Union must and would be dissolved, and that the South would take care of her own interests, and that she was sufficiently able to do so. I regret, as I have before expressed myself, on another subject, that I so often hear this threat of a dissolution of the Union; it is, however, a vain and idle threat, calculated to affect no good, but may do some mischief. We are sometimes spoken of as a family of States, and the allusion

is not an inappropriate one. What family, I would ask, could long continue in harmony, if any one of its members, on the least dissatisfaction with the general economy pursued, should always be found declaring that he or she would dissolve the union of the family, or secede from it altogether? No family could long continue happy and prosperous under such a state of things; nor could partners in business ever be successful, or labor together in peace, if one of them should, on every slight occurrence, which he did not approve, make a like threat. For my own part, I should always be disposed to believe, that persons who make such threats, desire what they threaten, and that their continuance in the family or firm, instead of being a benefit, is always an injury to the remaining members. Dissolve the Union? Who has the right to do this? No State or individual has either the moral or Constitutional right to dissolve or secede from the Union for any cause. A man may attempt revolution, and may commit treason against his country, but whether he may finally receive the reward of the traitor or the patriot, may depend on the final issue of the contest. The union of these States can not be dissolved but by the consent of the people to a change in their Government, in the manner provided by the Constitution of the country. States or individuals will never be permitted to do it; for if there exists in the American bosom one principle of patriotism, more strong than another, it is that of attachment to the Union. principle is so deeply-seated in the hearts of our countrymen, that it can not be shaken, and the Union must and will be preserved. All threats of dissolution, as I before said, are vain and illusory; they never can, they never will be carried into effect.

This

This question, like most others agitated here, has not been suffered to pass by, without an allusion to party. We have been told that such is the influence of party discipline, that in the very eye of the gentlemen rests

one, who, by raising his finger, could muster the party to vote. Insinuations of this kind, I, for one, cast behind me; the country will judge of their correctness. It is said, however, that the President in his annual message, recommended a measure of this kind; and it is strange that his party should now falter. I follow party where the Constitution and principle lead; and when men attempt to take their place, I halt. I support the administration party, because I am a firm believer in the great principles which govern them; and I endeavor to sustain. them in all minor and formal points. For the sake of these principles, I sustain the President to the best of my abilities, because I believe he has done more for the liberty of his country, and to place his administration upon the basis of the Government and public opinion, than any man living. That he may sometimes err, is human. That his most ardent friends may sometimes think him in error, when, in truth he is not, is natural to expect. But that this honest difference of opinion should divide them, his opposers need not hope for; that he has recommended that postmasters and officers of this Government should arrest the passage through the mail of publications of any kind, as contemplated in this Bill, I do not understand, but he suggests the propriety of passing such a law as would prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slave to insurrection; not barely a publication touching the subject of slavery. With great respect to this recommendation, or rather suggestion, I can not give it my support; to punish injuries done to individuals, belongs exclusively to the States; they have ample security in their own power to punish any person in their jurisdiction, who may read or distribute any publication which their laws may prohibit, but they can not reach the post office or the postmaster for its delivery as directed, because such act is under a

paramount authority. I, for one, doubt, strongly doubt the power of Congress to provide by law for the punishment of any act, as a criminal offense, but for those especially enumerated in the Constitution; and I can find but few such grants, such as counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, the punishment of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, offenses against the law of nations, and treason against the United States. It will readily be perceived that I confine my doubts to punishments to be inflicted in consequence of judgments by the civil tribunals of the country, rendered in courts of justice. Whatever is my course here, or elsewhere, on this or any other measure, I can not suffer the Senator from South Carolina to be my sole judge. There is another and a higher tribunal before which I must and am willing to answer; and to whose just judgment I will most cheerfully submit for my opposition to this Bill.

This Bill, designed to fetter the freedom of the press, and the circulation of thought, was rejected by a small majority in the Senate.

CHAPTER XXII.

FORMATION of parties-Their nature and results-Politics and moralityThe necessity of their union-Opinions of Washington-His views need a new application to parties-Mr. Morris's views on this subjectThe platforms of the two great parties on slavery-Necessity of a new party-Liberty party formed-Its platform-Birney and Morris nominated-Free Soil party-Its platform-Van Buren and Adams nominated-Hale and Julian nominated in 1852-The platform-Republican party-Fremont and Dayton nominated-Its platform-Letter of Mr. Morris on his nomination-Address of the Liberty State Convention -Votes cast for the party of freedom in 1844, 1848, and in 1852.

THE formation of parties is a natural result of a republican form of Government. The freedom of thought, created and protected by Democratic institutions, gives rise to varied political opinions and policies, and these become the nucleus around which different parties gather and rally. The wisdom and beneficent influences of parties, based on the great landmarks of true political science, admit of no doubt. They are the symbols of political faith, and the index of political action. They classify men according to their various views, and allow them to act with energy and unity in that line of policy congenial to their principles. Parties produce conflict of opinions, and collision of intellect, both of which contribute to a healthy national and individual growth.

They act as a conservative power on each other, and thus tend to a clearer vision of political truth, and to a purer and more patriotic course of action. The danger of parties in a Democratic Republic is not in their distinctive organizations, but in their rigid exclusiveness, and