of intense exasperation between those who respect their political obligations, and those who have apparently no impelling power but that which fanatical passion on the subject of Slavery imparts. Without discussing the question of right—of abstract power To SECEDE, I have never believed that actual disruption of the Union can occur without blood; and if through the madness of Northern Abolitionists that dire calamity must come, the fighting will not be along Mason and Dixon's line merely. IT WILL BE WITHIN OUR OWN BORDERS, IN OUR OWN STREETS, BETWEEN THE TWO CLASSES OF CITIZENS TO WHOM I HAVE REFERRED. Those who defy law and scout constitutional obligations, will, if we ever reach the arbitrament of arms, FIND OCCUPA TION ENOUGH AT HOME. Nothing but the state of Mrs. Pierce's health could induce me to leave the country now, although it is quite likely that my presence at home would be of little service. 1 have tried to impress upon our people, especially in N. H. and Connecticut, where the only elections are to take place during the coming Spring, that while all our Union meetings are in the right direction and well enough for the present, they will not be worth the paper upon which their resolutions are written, unless we can overthrow political Abolitionism at the polls, and repeal the unconstitutional and obnoxious laws which in the cause of "Personal Liberty" have been placed upon our Statute books. I shall look with deep interest, and not without hope, for a decided change in this relation. Ever and truly your friend, "FRANKLIN PIERCE. "Hon. JEFF. DAVIS, Washington, D. C." The papers of Davis furnish additional evidence of the truth of what is said on a preceding page in respect to the service rendered the slaveholders by the last two Democratic Presidents. Mr. Buchanan, in a letter dated some years earlier, and also found among these papers, claimed the honor of having, in a certain instance, gone further in sup port of Slavery than Southerners themselves; or, as he expressed it, in "out-Heroding Herod." But Mr. Pierce goes a large stride further, and assures his Southern brother, that if war should come, their Anti-Slavery opponents would "find occupation enough at home !" If this letter does not prove the writer, before an impartial public, to be an accessory to treason, what language could convict a man of that crime? Could all the correspondence between Northern and Southern Democrats be brought to light, it would astonish the world, and would remove all doubt from the minds of the most skeptical, that, without the encouragement received from the representatives of the Northern Democracy, Secession would never have been attempted, and that the Rebellion is the act of the Democratic party. CONCLUSION. My history of the Democratic party is written. Whether the task has been well or ill performed, is submitted to the judgment of an intelligent and impartial public. It has been my sincere endeavor to make my "Mirror" reflect a true picture of that party. I have not selected for animadversion a few of its most unpopular acts, which are liable to unfavorable criticism; nor have I condemned indiscriminately the measures of any Democratic administration. I have noticed such of the principal measures of all parties as were deemed necessary to enable the reader to form a correct opinion of their general character and policy. With the Democratic leaders, PoWER has been the ruling motive. This was the object of the organization of the party; and to perpetuate their ill-gotten power, has been the steady aim of a majority of its leaders. With this view was formed their alliance with the Slave Power, based on Slavery as the cardinal principle of union. On this platform the party achieved several victories. Elated with its successes, it became rampant. It broke down the longstanding barrier to the spread of Slavery; and, having carried its aggressions upon Freedom beyond the point of Northern endurance, it met a repulse in 1860; and its ruling spirits ruled one-third of the States out of the Union ! This left the party in a minority, without any hope of regaining its ascendency, unless by a reunion with the Slave Power upon the old basis. To this object the efforts of its leaders have been directed ever since the Rebellion commenced. They opposed coercion; they advocated a recon struction of the Union, with a view to further concessions to the slaveholders; and they have in various ways opposed the administration in its efforts to suppress the Rebellion. They profess an earnest desire for peace; but they want a peace which shall restore the unity of the party. Hence their opposition to the Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery abolished, all hope of a restoration of the entirety of the party vanishes for ever. They desire peace; but they want to negotiate it themselves; and for this privilege, they would be willing that the war should be protracted until after the 4th of March, 1865. This is a fair inference from both their language and their conduct. After having, in conjunction with their former allies, involved the nation in a desolating war, these Northern Democrats have the assurance to ask for a restoration to power, alleging as a reason, that the Democratic party alone is competent to bring the war to a successful termination! In other words, the present administration is unwilling to prostrate itself at the footstool of the Slave Power, and beg a peace on such terms as His Majesty may be pleased to prescribe. Into such a humiliating posture is this party endeavoring to bring our Government. And to this humbled condition it will be brought, if this party should retrieve its lost power before the Rebellion shall have been suppressed. Do not then the honor and the permanent welfare of the nation demand the efforts of every patriot to put down and exterminate a party under whose despotic misrule Constitutional Liberty has been placed in imminent peril, and which hopes, after an interregnum of four years, to be reinstalled in power, and to resume its "reign of terror ?" Let the friends of the Union not forget, that they have a foe to contend with on this side as well as one on the other side of Mason and Dixon's line. In the war with ShamDemocracy, no weapon is so effective as LIGHT. The Democratic masses are honest and patriotic. But they have long been the victims of an inveterate prejudice. They have been taught to look with suspicion upon everything that was not labeled "Democracy." Thousands are be ginning to see that profession is not principle; that they have been beguiled into the service of Slavery by men with Democracy on their tongues while allied in heart and purpose with the enemies of Freedom. Expose fully the evil designs and artifices of their leaders, and they will dissolve their present party connection, and join the party of the Union. One of the most auspicious "signs of the times" is the growing sentiment, that permanent peace can be secured only by the overthrow of Slavery; and that in the present "irrepressible conflict" between Freedom and Slavery, the latter must yield. That Slavery and the Rebellion will end together, is not to be expected. Many years may elapse before the last vestige of the giant curse-the parent of the present gigantic Rebellion-shall disappear. But we rejoice in the hope, that, in the war which it has waged with Freedom, it will receive, if it has not already received, a wound which shall deprive it of its controlling power in the Government, and hasten its extinction. Lamentable as the immediate consequences of the Rebellion are, our grief is made tolerable by anticipations of its ultimate happy results. We can not repress the hope, that, when Slavery, which has made us a divided people, shall cease to exist, the two hostile sections will, "Like kindred drops, be mingled into one;" will become one in feeling and one in interest. And it is confidently believed that the South will have the greater cause for rejoicing. She will wonder at her folly in having clung with such tenacity to her "peculiar institution," when she shall have found its loss compensated ten fold by those other institutions which have made the North an object of envy to her less prosperous rival. Northern en'erprise and Northern capital will be no longer circumscribed by sectional boundaries, but will find a new and inviting field beyond the Potomac. An extensive and mutually profitable commercial intercourse between the two sections will be established. Churches and schoolhouses will be multiplied, and diffuse their salutary influence through every Southern community; Southern and Northern society will be assimilated; and the different |