its original defensive position, but to extend its sway throughout the whole Union. The very constitution of the Democratic party commits it to execute all the designs of the slaveholders, whatever they may be. It is not a party of the whole Union, of all the free States and of all the slave States; nor yet is it a party of the free States in the North and in the Northwest; but it is a sectional and local party, having practically its seat within the slave States, and counting its constituency chiefly and almost exclusively there. Of all its representatives in Congress and in the electoral colleges, two-thirds uniformly come from these States. Its great element of strength lies in the vote of the slaveholders, augmented by the representation of three-fifths of the slaves. Deprive the Democratic party of this strength, and it would be a helpless and hopeless minority, incapable of continued organization. The Democratic party, being thus local and sectional, acquires new strength from the admission of every new slave State, and loses relatively by the admission of every new free State into the Union. . . To expect the Democratic party to resist slavery and favor freedom is as unreasonable as to look for Protestant missionaries to the Catholic propaganda of Rome. The history of the Democratic party commits it to the policy of slavery. It has been the Democratic party, and no other agency, which has carried that policy up to its present alarming culmination. [Here Mr. Seward gave a historical sketch of the transactions by which the Democratic party had fostered the interests of slavery.] Such is the Democratic party. It has no policy, State or Federal, for finance, or trade, or manufacture, or commerce, or education, or internal improvements, or for the protection or even the security of civil or religious liberty. It is positive and uncompromising in the interest of slavery negative, compromising, and vacillating in regard to everything else. It boasts its love of equality, and wastes its strength, and even its life, in fortifying the only aristocracy known in the land. This dark record shows you, fellow-citizens, what I was unwilling to announce at an earlier stage of this argument, that of the whole nefarious schedule of slaveholding designs which I have submitted to you, the Democratic party has left only one yet to be consummated the abrogation of the law which forbids the African slave-trade. At last, the Republican party has appeared. It avows, now, as the Republican party of 1800 did, in one word, its faith and its works, "Equal and exact justice to all men." Even when it first entered the field, only half organized, it struck a blow which only just failed to secure complete and triumphant victory. In this, its second campaign, it has already won advantages which render that triumph now both easy and certain. The secret of its assured success lies in that very characteristic which, in the mouth of scoffers, constitutes its great and lasting imbecility and reproach. It lies in the fact that it is a party of one idea; but that is a noble one an idea that fills and expands all generous souls; the idea of equality - the equality of all men before human tribunals and human laws, as they all are equal before the Divine tribunal and Divine laws. I know, and you know, that a revolution has begun. I know, and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backward. Twenty senators and a hundred representatives proclaim boldly in Congress to-day sentiments and opinions and principles of freedom which hardly so many men, even in this free State, dared to utter in their own homes twenty years ago. While the government of the United States, under the conduct of the Democratic party, has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to slavery, the people of the United States have been no less steadily and perseveringly gathering together the forces with which to recover back again all the fields and all the castles which have been lost, and to confound and overthrow, by one decisive blow, the betrayers of the Constitution and freedom forever. Of an old and wealthy family in Boston, young PHILLIPS was graduated at Harvard, and in 1834 began the practice of law. Becoming more and more dissatisfied with the constitutional limitations that prevented interference with slavery in the South, he deserted the law and its binding oath of allegiance to the Constitution, and from 1839 threw his lot in with the extreme Abolitionists, becoming their chief spokesman. His aristocratic appearance, cultured phrases, and refined rhetoric gave polish and point to the rapier-like thrusts of his argument. Seemingly calm and well-poised, he aroused his audiences to intense feeling, and was one of the most effective of the early agitators who incited the antislavery sentiment in the North. But PHILLIPS was also a noted lyceum lecturer. His addresses on "The Lost Arts," "Toussaint L'Ouverture," and others, always attracted thronged houses. Whether one agreed with PHILLIPS or not, the orator's charm was upon him, and the voice, the manner, the deliverance itself, were delightful. After the emancipation of the slaves, PHILLIPS turned his attention more specifically to woman suffrage, temperance, labor and penal reforms, although he had from the first advocated these causes, and was in 1870 the unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Massachusetts on a Labor and Prohibition ticket. In these matters, however, he made no such effect as in his earlier antislavery days. His address on Toussaint L'Ouverture, which follows, is selected as showing at once his historical and descriptive power and his devotion to the enslaved negro First delivered in 1861, it was repeated on demand of those to whom he was to lecture more than two thousand times. PHILLIPS was never a self-seeker, but was a rare example of a man of wealth, culture, and high social position, devoting all that he was and had to the uplifting of the unfortunate. race. |