democracy of that city, to address them, and my attention was
especially called to a delusion practiced on the people of Maine, by
which many were led to believe that there was a purpose on the part of
the South, through the government of the United States, to force
slavery not only into the territories, but also into the
non-slaveholding States of the Union. It was represented to me that in
the last Presidential canvass that one of the Senators of Maine had
convinced many of the voters that if Mr. Buchanan should be elected,
slavery would be forced upon Maine, and that the other Senator was
arguing that the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court had given
authority to introduce and hold slaves in that State. To counteract
such impressions, injurious to the South and her friends, the remarks
which have been extracted were made.

On that, as on other occasions, it was deemed a duty to correct
misrepresentation and seek to vindicate our purposes from the
prejudice which ignorance and agitation had created against us. If it
was in my power in any degree to allay sectional excitement, to
cultivate sounder opinions and a more fraternal feeling, it was a task
most acceptable to me, and one for the performance of which I could
not doubt your approval. But it has been my fortune to be the object
of a malice which I have not striven to appease because I was
conscious that it rested upon no injury or injustice inflicted by me.
The land swarms with Presidential candidates, announced by their
agents or their friends, or by themselves, as the mode most available
for preventing too zealous and partial friends from putting them in
nomination. To these it was the source of unfounded apprehension, that
I went to the coast of New England, instead of returning to
Mississippi. If any of them had known the necessity which kept me from
home, it is fair to suppose the aspirant for such distinction could