the questions in issue, or of the candidates proposed. They are mere instruments used by unprincipled and wicked men, and made competent instruments only by the accumulation of crime upon crime. Now it seems to me impossible, that every honest man, and every good citizen, every true lover of liberty and the Constitution, every real friend of the country, would not desire to see an end put to these enormous abuses. I avow it, therefore, as my opinion, that it is the duty of us all to endeavor to bring about an efficient reformation of the naturalization laws of the United States. I am well aware, gentlemen, that these sentiments may be misrepresented, and probably will be, in order to excite prejudice in the mind of foreign residents. Should such misrepresentations be made or attempted, I trust to my friends to correct it and expose it. For the sentiments themselves I am ready to take to myself the responsibility, and I will only add that what I have now suggested, is just as important to the rights of foreigners, regularly and fairly naturalized among us, as to the rights of native born American citizens. (The whole assembly here united in giving twenty-six tremendous cheers.) The present condition of the country imperatively demands this change. The interest-the real welfare of all parties--the honor of the nation-all require that subordinate and different party ques tions should be made to yield to this great end. And no man who esteems the prosperity and existence of his country, as of more importance than a fleeting party triumph, will or can hesitate to give in his adherence to thesc principles. (Nine cheers.) Gentlemen, there is not a solitary doubt, that if the elections have gone against us it has been through false and fraudulent votes. Pennsylvania, if, as they say, she has given 6,000 for our adversaries-has done so through the basest fraud. Is it not so? And look at New York. In the city there were thrown 60,000 votes, or one vote to every five inhabitants. You know that fairly and honestly, there can be no such thing on earth. (Cheers.) And the great remedy is for us to go directly to the source of true popular power, and to purify the elections. (Twenty-six cheers.) Fellow-citizens, I profess to be a lover of human liberty-especially to be devoted to the grand example of freedom set forth by the republic under which we live. But I profess my heart, my reputation, my pride of character, to be American. In the New Hampshire Convention, held in 1850, to amend the Constitution of the State, Mr. Cass, a member of the Democratic party, offered the following resolution: "Resolved, That an article be inserted in the Constitution, as follows: 'No one who is bound by the oath of allegiance to any monarchial or foreign power whatever, or who is bound by his religious faith to put down free toleration, shall at any time hold any office of trust or profit in the State.'" This proposition seems to have aimed not only to require aliens, when naturalized, to renounce and abjure all allegiance and subjection to all and every foreign power, ecclesiastical as well as civil, but also to exclude native born citizens from office, who acknowledge ecclesiastical allegiance to a foreign power. The motion failed, but Mr. Cass made a speech on the occasion, from which the following extracts are made : Mr. Cass asked: "Was it safe to elect a man Governor who was sworn to the Pope of Rome, and believed that all Protestants were heretics, and should be persecuted unto death? He would not have it left open, so that persecutors could come in and take the helm of government. He thought it right to put up the bars. Was it ever known that Catholics gained the power over any people, and got the government into their own hands, that they did not persecute, even unto death, all that were opposed to them? And was it not their religion, though they might be bound by all the oaths that could be imposed on them, that they might be absolved by the Pope? And were they not striving for conquest every where, and to set up their religion of Church and State? * Were not nunneries and Catholic schools springing up all around us? And were they not teaching the children that we are all heretics? And should Ireland be free from England to-day, would she sustain a republic? No. Let Ireland be free from England, and the Pope would have the power. And would he sustain a republic? Look to Mexico," &c. Mr. Richardson, of Hanover, followed Mr. Cass, and spoke against the resolution, but took occasion to have a fling at the Catholics. He said: "It was idle to suppose that a narrow-minded Jesuit should be elevated to office. • In this country, with its liberalizing influence, we had no reason to fear any thing from Catholics." The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, of July, 1850, held such language as the following on the subject: "These European reformers are flocking hither by thousands, bringing with them the pestilent products of the worn-out soil of the Old World-which, it would seem, when ever it falls into labor, produces nothing but monsters. They bring with them a host of extravagant notions of freedom, or a plenty of crude, undigested theories, which are utterly irreconcilable with obedience to laws of our own making, and from a constitution of our own adopting. They come with their heads full of a division of property, to a country where it is already divided in a manner most salutary to the general welfare, by existing laws and institutions, allowing every man an equal chance, and placing no artificial obstructions in the way of any. It is not here that idleness, profligacy and extravagance are shielded from their otherwise inevitable consequences-poverty and contempt by laws and institutions expressly devised for that purpose. It is not here that property is perpetuated for ages in one family, and that the laboring classes are forever excluded from their share. But it is here that industry, economy, prudence and enterprise receive their due rewards; and by being left to themselves, produce that general diffusion of comfort, as well as that salutary distribution of property, which can never be brought about, or at least perpetuated, by any other means. "The socialists, however, who are come and coming among us, either from not comprehending that they have got into a new world altogether different from the old, or from a wild and reckless spirit of innovation, are silently making an impression on the people of our great cities, where all the sweepings of the country are gathered into one great mass of ignorance and corruption. They are instilling into them principles at war with society, and have attracted the attention of the several leaders, who begin to nibble at them, and discover evident symptoms of a design to enlist them in their great army of rag-tag and bob-tail, clothed in the many-colored patches of anti-masonry, anti-mailism, abolitionism, socialism, Fourieriteism, St. Simonianism, and heaven only knows what besides." The reader will bear in mind that the above was written by democratic authority. It was uttered five years ago, before the organization of the American party-so called-and before the country had been aroused to the importance of the American movement. Subsequent events have de monstrated anew the necessity of a change in our naturalization laws, as well as the equally pressing necessity of Americanizing ourselves. And this feeling is even justified by writers of foreign as well as American journals, as may be seen by the following, taken from the London and Loyd's Weekly Register, edited by Douglas Jerrold : "All things considered, the Know Nothings are the most impressive development of American life. Hitherto America has been a refuge for the outcasts of all nations-the home of all who had fled from debt, from tyranny, from starvation, from justice. It has received all-rejected none. This was a grand experiment, but has only partially sueceeded. Some of the immigrants-especially the Irish-brought mischiefs with them-evil passions and bad habits; and, as all were admitted to public power-to vote at elections-public men had to stoop to their baseness, to get support; and hence, a lower style of public morals became the rule in large towns. The Know Nothings, who comprise the most intellectual and prosperous men of the American democracy, say this evil must be stayed. Their cry is, America for Americans! And surely this cry is as reasonable as Italy for the Italians,' or 'Hungary for the Hungarians.' The new party is a protest against Irish political profligacy, and against Jesuit influence in America. They seek to deprive the immigrant hordes of the means of mischief. Their motto is, Protection to all-power exclusive to the Ame rican born." " CHAPTER XL. AMERICAN NATIONALITY. Ir was the proud boast of the ancient Roman that the watchword, "I am a Roman citizen," would secure him personal respect throughout the world; and so now it may be said, with equal truth, the salutation, "I am an American citizen," is the best and safest passport a stranger can have to the yeomanry of foreign lands. But the causes which insure this respect to the American throughout the civilized world, are widely different from those which commanded it for the ancient Roman. It was the dread of the Romań power which secured it for its countrymen; but no such sentiment protects the American abroad. It is not fear of the American Government, but admiration for its institutions, which commands respect. America is a land known and admired every where, as that of peace and plenty, of virtue and safety, of freedom and equality, whose people have solved the problem, so long disputed, and proved that man is capable of self-government. It is not regarded as cosmopolitan, but has a distinctive national character of its own, and that is one emi nently American, made up and formed by its own citizens, which challenges the admiration and respect of all Christendom. It is the land of Constitutional Liberty, where the down-trodden and oppressed of other nations may find a refuge from tyranny, and enjoy the blessing of freedom. In a word, "The land of the free, and the home of the brave." It is the land which has already a history filled with heroic deeds, and that is known by the achievements on the field, of its Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, and Scott, and the vindication of its rights upon the ocean, by Perry, Decatur, Stewart, and others not necessary here to enumerate; which has produced such statesmen as Henry, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, whose names and fame are known the world over; whose Marshall, Story, Kent, Livingston, and Wheaton, have shed a lustre on its legal jurisprudence which commands the homage and admiration of the jurists of the whole world; and whose Franklin, Edwards and Wayland, on mental and moral philosophy, Bancroft and Prescott as historians, Fulton, Fitch, Whitney, Silliman, Morse, and Maury, names which "guarantee the scientific glory of America;" Powers as a sculptor, and Audubon as an ornithologist; Cooper and Irving, as novelists; Bryant, Halleck, Sigourney, &c., as poets, and Webster, as a lexicographer, have not only given promise of its future eminence, but possess sufficient merit to be known and read wherever the English language exists. Its triumphs. of intellect and industry are known, and the American Flag is honored and respected in all parts of the world as that of a powerful nation of freemen. To sum up, America has a character of its own, a government unlike and unequalled by any other on the face of the earth, and its people, animated with a true American spirit, are not only every where recognized by their distinct nationality, but, as already stated, can present no higher claim to respect abroad than that of being American citizens. But there are those of native birth among us, who do not hesitate to proclaim that there is not yet, and will not be for ages to come, an American nationality; that we are not a people and have no country; that we are without a national identity, and can be regarded only as mere denizens in the land of our birth, without any more claim to it, or impressing upon the character of its government a distinct, well-understood and recognized nationality, than any horde of wanderers who may choose to squat upon it, and make it their home. It is a relief to have cause to believe, however, that there are, comparatively, few who, to promote political objects of their own, have the reckless audacity to proclaim such an atrocious libel upon the American people. Among these are what may not improperly be called the American Radicals, who are disciples of the anarchist school of European Infidel Revolutionists, and would, if they had the power, carry out here the principles inculcated by them, instead of following the precepts of Washington, and his compeer of patriots. Within the last year past, it must be confessed, however, a no less leading and influential journal than the New York Tribune has denied and repudiated all nationality to our country, by publishing such sentiments as these "Principles and not nativities constitute an American. Hugo and Mazzini are better Americans than Douglas and Pettit, because they are better democrats. Applying terms in any other sense than this, nothing is more untrue to the whole spirit and meaning of our history than the maxim 'America for the Americans.' Aside from the identity of our national principles, we have no national identity, nor shall we have for centuries." Is this true? Who that has an American heart within him will subscribe to such a sentiment, though it has been proclaimed by so distinguished a journalist as Mr. Greeley? "Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land? If such there breathe, go mark him well: And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, It was one of the charges of chines against Ctesiphon, that, "He who is insensible to that natural affection which should engage his heart to those who are most intimate and near him, can never feel a greater regard to your welfare, (that of the Athenian people,) than to that of strangers ;" and he might have well added, that he who is insensible to the ties and associations of his native land, is no more to be trusted by strangers than by his own countrymen. Man's first great duty, next to that which he owes to his Creator, is to his country; and he who is insensible to the associations of birth and of childhood, feels no veneration for the glorious achievements of a noble and patriotic ancestry; and has not admiration sufficient for the government established by them, to claim for it a distinct nationality, possesses neither the heart nor spirit of an American, and does not deserve the honor of the name. The Father of his Country held to no such humiliating and self-degrading doctrine as that |