New York Daily Tribune

met — (great laughter). I see you know what I meant [Laughter]. To-day between a man of the Palmetto State and a man of the Keystone State to fill the Presidential chair, I would say, "In God's name, give us the one from the Palmetto State always and forever [applause]." …because there is where Calhoun was raised, and there is a will. If a man has a will, and knows what is right, he is as good a servant as you can get; but if a man has no will it is of no consequence what he thinks or proposes to do. He is as clay in the hands of the potter, to be molded into vessels of honor or dishonor, as potter's vessels are but most likely into vessels of dishonor [Laughter]. I say therefore, that we have no objection to rulers from this section of the confederacy, but I call your attention to this act of wrong of which we complain: the repeal of the Missouri Compromise act of 1820, re-endorsed as it was by the Congress of 1853, by the whole people of the country without the exception of a State or a community, or a single man in public or private life. I say it without fear of question, and knowing that my words will go in the omniscient press of this city, over every part of the Continent, that there was not a man of the thirty millions of people then living who had spoken a hard word against the existence and continuation of the Missouri Compromise line of 1820. Even Mr. Douglas in a report which I hold in my hands, made in January, 1854, upon a bill which proposed a repeal of the Compromise Act of 1820, declares in explicit terms, that the repeal of that act would be a violation of the Compromise measures of 1820, and would open anew an agitation which had been so happily settled by the act of 1820. Mr. Banks, after reading the extract, continued as follows: That is the report of Mr. Douglas, in January, 1854—not made by Mr. Douglas of Illinois simply, but made by him as Chairman of a Committee of Southern origin and principles, to whom had been referred questions relating to the Territories of the United States. This report was received without a murmur by the entire Southern portion of the United States at that time, and even Mr. Atchison, the leader of the war in the Territory of Kansas, said in 1855, only a year previous, that he was perfectly content that an organized government should be established in the Territory of Nebraska, without any reference to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise act of 1820. In this act of Southern Senators, of Mr. Douglas, in this declaration of Mr. Atchison, in the declaration of Gen. Cass, and also in that of the President of the United States, and in the declarations of men representing every section of the Confederacy, you have the clear admission that this Missouri Compromise line was to stand. But it was repealed, and the act has inflicted upon the country all the wrong, the infamous wrong which we have seen, and the end of which is not yet upon us, and of which we cannot predict the result. For this we have a remedy. I speak for that portion of the Northern people, in another part of the Confederacy, with whom I am associated, and not for you. The question is not that we shall legislate against the South upon the question of Slavery. It is not that we shall legislate upon the question of the Fugitive Slave law. We don't raise the question whether, in the future extension of our territory, Slavery shall be prohibited or no. We abandon all these questions, and we stand upon this distinct simple proposition—that that which gave peace to the country in 1820, and that which secured the peace of the country in 1850, ought to be made good by the Government of the United States with the consent of the American people [Great applause]. That is all we ask—no more, no less, no better and no worse—that the spirit of the acts of 1820 and 1850 shall be made good in 1856 by the American people of the South, let me say, as well as the North, in the place of the conflagration, murder and civil war that now prevail in Kansas. To do this, no legislation is required, and it is not necessary that the halls of Congress should be again opened to agitation. We desire the election of a President of the United States with simple views and determined will, who will exert the influence of the Government in that portion of the territory of the United States, and allow the people of this country to settle the question of Slavery for themselves there [Applause]. We ask no more than this and when we have succeeded in the Presidential election before us, as in the grace of God we shall and will succeed [great applause], and the fact is proclaimed that Fremont is elected, Kansas will be again restored to freedom without legislative act or the interference of the hand of the Government in any way [Applause]. So much, gentlemen, for the remedy in regard to Kansas that we propose. It is a simple, feasible, and statesmanlike proposition. Effect the settlement of this question, and you remove a question of agitation and give again the peace which it enjoyed in 1850. I should do wrong to our cause, the cause of the Northern States, if I failed to say that there are other influences we desire to exert by the elevation to the Presidency of the man of our choice. We ask that the dead weight of human wrongs shall be lifted up from the continent again, that it may rise as it was rising before these acts of wrong were done [Applause]. We ask of you, fellow-citizens of New York, four years of quiet and peace, so that we may again proceed to the development of the material interests of that portion of the continent which we occupy. We ask that commerce shall again thrive, that manufacturing industry shall again proceed in its wonted career, and that the industry of the inventor may no longer be shut out from its study and counting-rooms, but that everywhere free play and free sweep may be given to that intelligent and energetic mind which has thus far developed the energies of the American people [Applause]. Let me allude here to another question of the policy of the present Administration of the country as contrasted with our own. I mean that Ostend Manifesto: that policy which was reaffirmed, blindly and darkly, in the Cincinnati platform, which goes to the extent that it is right for a people when they want a territory to steal it if they can get it in no other and better way. We are against that policy, not that we are against the acquisitions of territory which have taken place in past times, which were necessary for national defense, and which have contributed to the prosperity of which I have spoken, and to which allusion has been made heretofore. We are opposed to the acquisition of those islands which, in the language of our Southern brethren, are spoken of as our islands in the southern seas, so long as they remain in the hands of those countries that are at peace with this country and will do justice to its interests. If the Sandwich Islands, if the islands of the southern sea, excepting the Island of Cuba, were possessed by the people of the United States, they would be held either by the consent of other nations, or else we would only hold them as tenants at will. You would have to send steamers for their protection, and at any moment of difficulty or doubt in regard to the relations between this and another part of the confederacy, we would be obliged to protect these islands in the southern seas with a fleet or naval power, such as this country has never yet contemplated. What we want, is not to steal territory from other nations. We have at present at least as much territory as we want. But we have the right, and it is the duty of our people to cultivate amicable relations with the people of these islands and with other portions of the people of the southern as well as the northern American continent, so that out of these amicable relations shall spring another evidence of that commercial prosperity which has placed your city before all the cities of the American Continent [Applause]. Look, fellow-citizens, at Central America and Cuba. Cuba, lying in the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico, has a flourishing commerce, but she gives to the people of the American States no more than 25 per cent of her whole commerce, and sends three fourths of it to the people of Europe. And why is this? Because we have alarmed the Government and the people, alike by our proposition for a theft of their territory. It is better that we should cultivate amicable relations with her. So long as she stands in the position she occupies at present, it is better to substitute for the views which they so much fear, the doctrines of reciprocal trade. Look again at the South American States. What advantages have we in South America—a territory ten times as large as the United States, and more fertile than any portion of the United States—that will give $450,000,000 every year of accumulated industry, and times this accumulated product of human industry? By reciprocal treaties and favors we could retain the whole trade of the Southern continent, vast as it is, and vast as it may hereafter become without injuring in the slightest possible degree anything that is produced in this country, and give to them in return everything which is produced here and which they want in return for their own goods. And so it would be with Central America and the countries of the North. We have tried it in the case of Canada and the British possessions, and no human experiment has been more successful than the Reciprocity Treaty made with Canada in 1854. Now we propose, if the people of the North shall consent to inaugurate it, to substitute this policy of reciprocal free trade with the nations of the western world in the place of that doctrine of theft which has made the name of America a scandal and a by-word among the nations of the earth [Applause]. Shall I, with your leave, allude for a single moment to the extent of American commerce? Out of the question of American commerce grew the Constitution of the United States. It was the desire on the part of the American people, acting under the Confederacy, to strengthen and enlarge the commerce of the States, that led to the establishment of the American Constitution. It was the refusal of the English to trade with us under the articles of the Confederation that justified and enabled the men of the Convention of 1787 to frame the Constitution that is now recognized throughout the world as the most perfect institution of government that the mind of man has ever conceived or framed [Applause]. What is it was at that time? Then it was no more than what American commerce necessitates, compared with what privateers that had covered