_Palace Garden Meeting, Oct. 19, 1858._


Countrymen, Democrats:--When I accepted this evening the invitation to
meet you here, it was to see and to hear, not to speak. I have
listened with pleasure to the language addressed to you by your
candidate for the highest office in the State. It is the language of
patriotism; it is an appeal to the common sense of the people in favor
of that fraternity on which our Union was founded, and on which alone
it can long continue to exist. I have rejoiced to hear the applause
with which such sentiments, when he uttered them, have been received
by those here convened, and trust it is but an indication of that
onward progress of reaction which I believe has already commenced, and
which is to sink to the lowest depths of forgetfulness the struggle
which has so long agitated the country, and prompted an internecine
war against your countrymen. [Applause.]

Truly has the distinguished gentleman pointed out to you the extreme
absurdity of attempting to excite you upon the ground of southern
aggression upon the north. We have nothing to aggress upon. We have
not now, as he has told you, the power, though once we had, to
interfere with your domestic institutions. We never had the will to do
so. And if we had the power now, true to the instincts and history of
our fathers, we would abstain from intermeddling in your domestic
affairs. [Applause.] I have no purpose on this or any other occasion
to mingle in the consideration of those questions which are local to
you. I am not sufficiently learned in conchology to do it if I would,
[laughter,] and I have too great a respect for community independence
to do it if I could. My purpose then is, simply in answer to your
call, to offer you a few reflections, such as may occur to me, as I