great ends, even were they to succeed in obtaining possession of the Presidential chair on the 4th day of March next. Why, gentlemen, what can such a party do? With no certainty of another majority in the House, with a Senate unalterably opposed to them, and with the whole Southern mind embittered, exasperated, and inflamed to a white heat against them, what hope would there be of their accomplishing any thing, either for the relief of Kansas, or the good of the country? They might bring the government to a dead lock now and then, as they have lately done on the army bill; but if the Senate should see fit to follow the example which the House has now set, and to limit the action of the executive by provisos of a similar sort, Mr. Fremont might be rendered as powerless for good, as his friends have attempted to render Mr. Pierce powerless for evil.

What has a Republican House of Representatives accomplished during the last nine months? They have elected a Speaker, and doubled or trebled their own compensation, I know. But what have they accomplished for suffering, bleeding Kansas? And does any man doubt that if men of less extreme and extravagant views, men more conciliatory and practical in their purposes, had been in Congress, those odious and abhorrent Kansas laws would have been repealed before the session closed? I have not a particle of doubt that such would have been the

case.

For myself, I do not believe it is written in the book of American destiny, that this government can be carried on prosperously, if it can be carried on at all, upon a principle of sectional hostility and hate, or by a party which either cherishes such a principle itself, or naturally excites and stimulates it in its opponents. I agree with Col. Benton, that there is too much sectional antagonism for the safety of the country. Sectional animosities and sectional hatred are the greatest evils of the times, and unless they are speedily allayed they will be the fountains of incalculable mischief to us and our posterity.

When I saw in the advertisement for the recent barbecue at Needham that the occasion was " to be graced with an ox, roasted whole," and when I thought of the fumes of passion and prejudice which would be mingled with the smoke of that unwonted

holocaust, I could not help recalling the beautiful proverb of the wise man of old: "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." In my honest judgment, fellow-Whigs, if these perplexing and perilous questions are ever to be settled wisely, justly, and peaceably, it will not be by the triumph of either of the principal parties to the strife. On one side we hear men declaring that if they cannot succeed by the ballot-box, they will resort to the bayonet; and on the other, that Mr. Fremont, if elected, will never be suffered to enter the White House. I have no fear that either of these extreme threats will be executed. But it is evident that neither of the parties who give utterance to such views, or who give occasion to such views being uttered, are in a condition to bring back to the country that reconciliation and repose which are essential to its prosperous and permanent existence. To give either side a triumph is to prolong and perpetuate discord. And I do not hesitate to say that I should have a better hope for justice being done in Kansas and everywhere else from the success of a grand popular movement, for which even now it is not too late, by which a President of moderate and conciliatory views, pledged to neither party nor to any precise policy, should be placed at the head of the government, than from any Republican success, however triumphant, even were it to embrace all the branches of the government at a single swoop.

It is with these views, gentlemen of the convention, that I have expressed, and now reiterate, my decided preference for Mr. Fillmore. It is said that he has joined another party. I have not. That party has many excellent men in its ranks in all parts of the country, and in its leading aim to purify the ballot-box, and to guard against the corruptions and frauds of a defective naturalization system, it must have the concurrence of all good citizens. But let its organization and its object have heretofore been ever so objectionable, if it can now throw itself into the breach successfully, planting itself between contending sections, and putting an effectual stop to the strife which threatens such serious mischief to our land, it will have earned a title to the gratitude of a thousand generations. If its muchderided dark lantern should have done nothing worse than find

out as honest a man as Mr. Fillmore, old Diogenes himself would not have been ashamed of it. For Mr. Fillmore is a man of private and of public integrity, of approved experience, moderation, discretion, and firmness, never wanting in fidelity to his whole country or to any part of it, true always to the Constitution and the Union. The helm of state has felt his hand already in times of similar peril, and the gallant ship has answered to it and ridden out the gale. He is literally a "pilot that has weathered the storm." He has the confidence of good men at both ends of the Union, and is peculiarly in a position to calm and conciliate the feelings of all sections and of all parties, and I have entire confidence that Peace, Justice, and Freedom, would be safe under his administration.

These, fellow-Whigs of Massachusetts, are my views, the best which I am capable of forming. I seek not to force them upon others, but I cannot shrink from avowing them, and acting upon them myself. I have entered into no careful calculation of the chances of success, having never been accustomed to take my rule of political duty from either the estimates or the returns of popular elections. In my experience thus far, I have voted for a President of the United States once with only four States, and once with only my own State, and I am prepared, if need be, to try how it feels to vote without any State at all. But no such prospect is at present before us, and the declaration that Mr. Fillmore has no chance is one to which I cannot and do not at all subscribe. Every day convinces me that there is a growing feeling in his favor in all parts of the country, and an increasing conviction that his election would save us from a world of trouble.

At any rate, I shall act on no suggestions of despair, but hope on to the last that a spirit may still be aroused among the people which shall secure us the only result which can restore harmony and concord to the country. Others may seek the distinction of ministering to the passions and prejudices of the hour; - but I should esteem myself the happiest of men, — if I may appropriate with a slight alteration the language of John Adams to old King George, when he first appeared before him as an ambassador from independent America, -I should esteem

myself the happiest of men, if I could be instrumental in restoring an entire esteem, confidence, and affection, or, in better words, the old good nature and the old good humor, between the different sections of this distracted and afflicted land. For out of such a restoration, I do believe, would come a better hope for all that is dear to us and to our posterity, and better, wiser, and juster views of even African slavery itself, at the South as well as at the North, than from all the criminations and contentions which are now shaking the capitol and the country to their foundations, and threatening to rend asunder the whole framework of American freedom.

17

THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE

OF FRANKLIN.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF FRANKLIN, IN BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 17, 1856.

WE are assembled, Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizens, to do honor to the memory of one, of whom it is little to say, that from the moment at which Boston first found a local habitation and a name on this hemisphere-just two hundred and twenty-six years ago to-day-down even to the present hour of her mature development and her meridian glory, she has given birth to no man of equal ability, of equal celebrity, or of equal claim upon the grateful remembrance and commemoration of his fellowcountrymen and of mankind.

We come, on this birthday of our ancient metropolis, to decorate her municipal grounds with the image of that one of her native sons, whose name has shed the greatest lustre upon her history; proposing it as the appropriate frontispiece and figurehead, if I may so speak, of her Executive and Legislative Halls for ever.

We come, at this high noon of a new and noble exhibition of the products of New England industry and invention, to inaugurate a work of Art, in which the latest and best efforts of American genius and American skill-for it is all Americanare fitly and most felicitously embodied in the form and lineaments of the greatest American Mechanic and Philosopher.

We come, on this anniversary of the very day on which the Constitution of the United States was adopted and signed, to commemorate a Statesman and Patriot, who was second to no