OCR Text |
Show 24 rant to know what hurt them. They had no newspapers, no means of concerted action. Northern men have undertaken to help those men. Mr. Vaughan established his newspaper at Cleveland chiefly for the purpose of reaching them. Cassius M. Clay, in Kentucky, said, " Let us speak to that class of men." Once in a while, you hear of their holding a meeting somewhere in Virginia, and utterina some h:ind of antislavery sentiment or idea. Very soon b they are put down. Now, the Know Nothings went among the Poor-whites in the South, and organized American lodges. The whole thing was done in secret; so that the organization was established, and set on its legs, before the slaveholders knew any thing about it : it was Rtrong, and had grown up to be a great boy, before they knew the child was born. Of course, the Southern KnowNothing party, at first, does not know exactly what to do ; so it takes the old ideas of persons that are about it, and becomes intensely pros lavery. That is not quite all. The Whigs at the South have always been feeble. They saw that their party was going to pieces; and, with the instinct of that other animal which flees out of the house which is likely to fall, they sought shelter under some safer roof: they fled to the Know-Nothing organization. 'rhe leading Whigs got control of the party at the South, and made that still more proslavery in the South which was already sufficiently despotic at the North. Nevertheless, there has now risen up, at the South, a body of men, who, when they come to complete consciousness of themselves, will see that they are in the same boat with the black man, and that what now curses the black man will also ruin the Poor-white at last. At present, they are too ignorant to understand that; for the bulk of the American party at the South consists of Know Nothings, who were such before they ever went into a lodge, - natural Know Nothings, who need no initiation. Nevertheless, they are 25 human; and the truth, driven with the slaveholder's hammer, will force itself even into such heads. Such men are not hopeless. One day, we shall see a great deal of good come from them. At present, they are in the same condition with the Irish at Boston - first ' ' ignorant; and, next, controlled by their priests: for, as the Irish Catholic in Boston and New York is roughly ridden by that heavy ecclesiastical rider, the priest, so the Know Nothings at the South are still more roughly ridden by this desperate political rider mounted upon their backs. One day, both the Irish and the Know-Nothing master will be unhorsed, and there will be no more such riding. So much for these two antislavery forces,- one direct, and the other indirect. This, let me say in general, is the sin of the politician,he seeks office for his own personal gain, and, when he is in it, refuses to organize the antislavery ideas which he was put in office to develop and represent. After the windlass has lifted the anchor, he refuses to haul in the slack cable. That was the case with Webster; it caused him his death. It was the case with Everett; it brought him to private life and political ruin. Many are elected as antislavery men, who prove false to their professions. New England is rich in traitors. The British Executive bouaht Benedict b Arnold with money; the American Executive has since bought many an Arnold. Look at the present national Administration. In 1852, had he published his Programme of Principles and Measures, do you think Mr. Pierce would have had the vote of a single Northern State? Not an electoral vote would have been given by the North for robbing the People of a million square miles of land, and bestowing it on three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders! He is an official swindler. He got his place by false pretences,- the juggling trick of the thimble-rigger. Mr. Hale says, " For every doughfaced Representative, 4 , |