13 fest our will at the ballot-boxes. We must tell them that these men shall be consigned to privacy (applause), and that true men, men faithful to the Constitution, men loving all portions of the country alike, shall be elected in their stead. And, -gentlemen, we must do more than promise this— we must perform it. (Loud applause, followed by three cheers for Mr. O’Conor, and a tiger.) But a word more, gentlemen, and I have done. (Cries of “ Go on.”) I have no doubt at all that what I have said to you this evening will be greatly misrepresented. It is Very certain that I have not had time enough properly to enlarge upon and fully to explain the interesting topics on which I have ventured to express myself thus boldly and distinctly, taking upon myself the consequences, be they what they may. (Applause.) But I will say a few words by way of explanation. I have maintained the justice of slavery; I have maintained it, because I hold that the negro is decreed by nature to a state of pupilage under the dominion of the wiser white man, in every clime where God and nature meant the negro should live at all. (Applause.) I say a state of pupilage ; and, that I may be rightly understood, I say that it is the duty of the white man to treat him kindly ; that it is the interest of the white man to treat him kindly. (Applause.) And further, it is my belief that if the white man, in the States where slavery exists, is not interfered with by the fanatics who are now creating these disturbances, whatever laws, whatever improvements, whatever variations in the conduct of society are necessary for the purpose of enforcing in every instance the dictates of interest and humanity, as between the white man and the black, will be faithfully and fairly carried out in the progress of that improvement in all these things in which we are engaged. It is not pretended that the master has a right to slay his slave ; it is not pretended that he has a right to be guilty of harshness and inhumanity to his slave. The laws of all the Southern States forbid that: we have not the right here at the North to be guilty of cruelty toward a horse. It is an indictable offence to commit such cruelty. The same laws exist in the South, and if there is any failure in enforcing them to the fullest extent, it is due to this external force, which is pressing upon the Southern States, and compels them to abstain perhaps from many acts beneficent toward the negro which otherwise would be performed. (Applause.) In truth, in fact, in deed, the white man in the slaveholding States has no more authority by the law of the land over his slave than our laws allow to a father over his minor children. He can no more violate humanity with respect to them, than a father in any of the free States of this Union can. exercise acts violative of humanity toward his own son under the age of twenty-one. So far as the law is concerned, you own your boys, and have a right to their services until they are twenty-one. You can make them work for you ; you have the right to hire out their services and take their earnings; you have the right to chastise them with judgment and reason if they violate your commands ; and they are entirely without political rights. Not one of them at the age of twenty years and eleven months even, can go to the polls and give a vote. Therefore, gentlemen, before the law, there is but one- difference between the free white man of twenty years of age in the Northern States, and the- negro bondman in the Southern States. The white man is to be emancipated at twenty-one, because his God-given intellect entitles him to emancipation and fits him for the duties to devolve upon him. The negro, to be sure, is a bondman for life. He may be sold from one master to another, but where is the ill in that?—one may be as good as another. If there be laws with respect to the mode of sale, which by separating man and wife do occasionally lead to that which shocks humanity, and may be said to violate all propriety and all conscience—if such things are done, let the South alone and they will correct the evil. Let our brethren of the South take care of their own domestic institutions and they will do it. (Applause.) They will so govern themselves as to suppress acts of this description, if they are occasionally committed, as perhaps they are, and we must all admit that they are contrary to just conceptions of right and humanity. I have never yet heard of a nation conquered from evil practices, brought to the light of civilization, brought to the light of religion or the knowledge of the Gospel by the bayonet, by the penal laws,, or by external persecutions of any kind. It is not by declamation and outcry against a people from those abroad and outside of their territory that you can improve their manners or their morals in any respect. No; if, standing outside of their territory, you attack the errors of a people, you make them cling to their faults. From a sentiment somewhat excusable—somewhat akin to self respect and patriotism—they will resist their nation’s enemy. Let our brethren of the South alone, gentlemen, and if there be any errors of this kind, they will correct them. There is but one way in which you can thus leave them to the guidance of their own judgment—by which you can retain them in this Union as our brethren, and perpetuate this glorious Union; and that is, by resolving—without reference to the political party or faction to which any one of you may belong, without reference to the name, political or otherwise, which you may please to bear—resolving that the man, be he who he may, who advocates the doctrine that negro slavery is unjust, and ought to be assailed or legislated against, or who agitates the subject of extinguishing negro slavery in any of its forms as a political hobby, that that man shall be denied your suffrages, and not only denied your suffrages, but that you will select from 'the ranks of the opposite party, or your own, if necessary, the man you like least, who entertains opposite sentiments, but through whose instrumentality you may be enabled to defeat his election, and to secure in the councils of the nation men who are true to the Constitution, who are lovers of the Union— men who cannot be induced by considerations of imaginary benevolence for a people who really do not desire their aid, to sacrifice or to jeopard in any degree the blessings we enjoy under this Union. May it be perpetual. (Great and continued cheering.)
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