Alexandria Gazette

Speech by Hon. J. J. Crittenden.

A grand Barbecue of the Americans was held at Falmouth, Kentucky, on the occasion of the presentation of a banner by the ladies of Frankfort to Pendleton-the banner county in the recent election. About 4000 people were present, a large number of whom were ladies, and the following is an extract from Hon. J. J. Crittenden's speech on the occasion :-

Amidst the party strife of the last few years, when the only one struggle seemed to be, not how the country should be governed, but who should govern it-unexpectedly a new party had grown up. Without a cause? No. It came from the heart of the people. A conviction was making its way from heart to heart, that foreign influence threatened our liberties. And the thought of having them subverted on our own soil aroused every true citizen. It was the people's party.

Immediately after the Revolution, when our country was impoverished, and our forests to be subdued, foreigners did not care about coming to share our labors. For the first twenty years but 6000 per annum came. In the next twenty, from 1810 to 1830, they came at the rate of 12,000 per annum. These were absorbed by our people and became Americanized.

But since that time a new scene had been exhibited. From 1840 to 1850 they came by the hundreds of thousands, and since 1850 they had been coming at the rate of between 4 and 500,000 per annum. This foreign invasion of armies of voters became alarming. Was there any probability of its decrease? No. It was true that it had fallen off a little in the past year, but when the war which was now swallowing up the surplus population of Europe closed, we should be again inundated with the worthless desperadoes it has made.

The like of such an emigration the world never saw. When the children of Israel quitted Egypt they were not more in number than this annual immigration.

Your forests are now subdued, and your country made habitable, and they now come to share it with you. Your free institutions have become a light to the world, and they are attracted by it.

The grave question is, are these foreigners to be entrusted with the preservation of our liberties? He would not boast, but he did not believe there was another race of God's men on earth, that could have formed the free institutions made by our fathers. Since the world's history commenced, a Washington had never arisen in any country but ours.

It required all our vigilance to preserve this government. Foreigners could not do it. They did not love it as we did. He did not blame them. Every man loved his native land better than any other.

As long as we could be safely generous, we were so; and we said to them, even now, come and share our liberties, our lands, and all our blessings; we make only one single reservation, and that for your good as well as ours. We are but the trustees of God, who has given us these blessings, and we dare not commit them to strangers.

He wished a change in the naturalization laws-an extension of the time so as to give foreigners a better opportunity to become acquainted with our institutions, and to fit themselves for taking part in our government. No man was to be upbraided for wishing to take the best possible care of his liberties, or for refusing to share them out until the little residuum was not worth keeping. These men came from monarchies, where they had been accustomed, not to governing, but to being governed. Were they ever called on to vote there? Why! the doctrine of transubstantiation was not a greater mystery to them than the elective franchise.

If the term of naturalization was extended, or the law entirely repealed, it would make no difference in the immigration. Foreigners did not come here to vote. They knew nothing about the elective franchise until they learned it on our soil. He did not object to their coming. On the contrary, he would say, come one-come all. We will receive and entertain them: but the right of governing we must reserve to ourselves, and repel every encroachment upon it, and we would call on our adopted citizens to help us. If these foreigners come with cartridges, we would call on them to assist in repelling them; but cartridges in their hands would not be half as dangerous to the brave American people as ballots.

Foreigners already formed a third estate- giving preponderance to either party, as they cast their influence with it. They had become an object for parties to pay court to, and they were wooed to one side and the other by every sort of promise and manoeuvre. They feel their influence, and are claiming their share in all the offices in the country; not as Americans, but as foreigners; for they keep up a separate political organization, and are as much foreigners here as in the heart of Germany

They favor us with their views in regard to improvements in our Government. A fellow had hardly shook the dust of the Black Forest off his feet but he was suggesting amendments to the Constitution, and some of the things they proposed to give us in exchange for our liberties were curious enough. They would abolish the President and the Senate, and have a single popular branch of legislation, whose members could be recalled at pleasure. They would give us their German dream of democracy.

Kossuth-that begging patriot--who got his country in a fight, and then was the first to run away, and leave her, charged the Germans here to band themselves together and watch the opportunity to vote in such a way as to benefit their father-land. He did not upbraid them for doing so. They had a right to love their country as he had to love his, but to submit to be governed by this foreign horde was to make us native-born the only aliens in our native land. He then spoke in glowing terms of the Union, and said he loved the American party because it was devoted to its preservation. Their principles must ultimately prevail. They would continue to advocate them notwithstanding their failure in other States, would submit to be called proscriptionists, if loving their own countrymen better than any other, made them such, till these principles should be triumphantly established at the capital of the nation.