A PLEA FOR THE COUNTRY AGAINST THE

SECTIONS.

Mr. DAVIS was elected, in November, 1855, by the American party, from the fourth district of Maryland, to the Thirty-fourth Congress, and commenced his service there on the 3d of December following.

So soon as the House met began that memorable contest for the election of Speaker, which continued from that day till the 2d of February, 1856, when, upon the hundred and thirty-third vote (being the fourth after the adoption of the plurality rule, on motion of Mr. S. A. Smith, of Tennessee), Mr. Banks, of Massachusetts, was declared to be elected.

Throughout all those votes Mr. Davis steadily refused to support any of the candidates named by either the Democratic or Republican parties, and persistently voted for Mr. Fuller, of Pennsylvania, upon the final and decisive roll-call, when his colleagues from Maryland passed over to the support of Mr. Aiken, of South Carolina, then the Democratic candidate. During that long struggle, the gentlemen named for that place were interrogated as to their political views and opinions, and their intentions in regard to the organization of the House. As the candidates of the two great parties had declined or evaded the questions, a resolution was proposed on the 11th of January "that it was the duty of all candidates for political position frankly and fully to state their opinions upon important political questions involved in their election, and especially when interrogated by the body of electors whose votes they are seeking." In giving their votes upon this resolution (adopted by one hundred and fifty-five to thirty-eight), many of the members made short statements of their reasons therefor. In so doing, Mr. Davis first invited the House to hear him in such manner as to command its marked attention, and to confirm among the members the impression as to his powers which had preceded him there.

Mr. Davis was named, although this was his first term of service, on the Committee of Ways and Means; and his first speech in the House was delivered on the 12th of March, 1856, upon a resolution reported from the Committee of Elections, in the contested election case from the Territory of Kansas, empowering that committee to send for persons and papers. The argument was confined to the points of parliamentary practice, due order of proceeding, and to the questions of administration

of political law. It may be found reported in the Congressional Globe, vol. xli., p. 227; and as it did not refer, except incidentally, to the political condition of the country, it has not been thought proper to be included in this collection. During the same session he also took some part in the discussions in regard to the proposed amendment of the Naturalization Laws (March 25), the Election Bill for the District of Columbia, the Deficiency Bill, the bill for the remission of duties on goods destroyed (in warehouse) by fire, and the Civil and Legislative Appropriation Bills.

The three great political parties, American, Democratic, and Republican, had now (July, 1856) nominated Mr. Fillmore, Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Fremont as their respective candidates for the Presidency. The election was to be held in November. The country was excited to the highest degree. In the Southern States threats of revolution and secession were openly made; and secret meetings of the governors of those states were held, at which measures were concerted for joint action and a separate confederacy in case of the election of Mr. Fremont. Congress was about to rise, after a most protracted and excited session. The bitterness and exasperation of party feeling was daily increasing; it had shown itself not only in violent recrimination and abusive language in debate, but in disgraceful scenes of personal violence on the floor of the House. The members were anxious to return to their homes, and to begin there the work of stirring up anew the passions and prejudices of each section for the great contest in November.

It was when this feeling had nearly reached its height, and under such a condition of affairs, that Mr. Davis, in the evening session of the House on the 7th of August, 1856 (the House being in Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union), spoke as follows:

"Is Philip dead? No, by Jove! but he is sick." Such was the chatter of the factious demagogues of Athens, chilled by the shadow of the coming Cheronea.

Will Fillmore decline? "No; but he is too weak to get a single state!" say Democrat and Republican, shivering before the blast of the coming November.

Mr. Chairman, they consult prophets who prophesy pleasant things. Their hopes are the oracles speaking by the inspiration of their interests; and yet, while they trust to the prophecy to produce its accomplishment, they confidentially sigh, “Would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well!" That bedtime will surely come, but whether the couch of victory or the bed of death be spread-ah! that's the question. Sir, a party at brag and bluff is a suspicious witness to the goodness of his own hand, and the by

standers, I believe, do not usually regard him as a better witness of the badness of his adversary's.

If Democrat and Republican have conspired together to play by-bidder at each other's mock auction-to put off on the country plated brass for gold-the people will have the sagacity to see that, though Liberty be on one side, the image and superscription of the Union is not on the other, and the lacking weight will reveal the counterfeit.

I desire to make this discrimination. I wish to inquire into the weight of this style of brag, which has, to my poor understanding, exhausted the resources of opponents.

Say the Democrats, "Do not vote for Mr. Fillmore, because he can not get a single state at the North." Say the Republicans, "Do not vote for Mr. Fillmore, because he can not get a single state at the South." And both are so simple as to suppose, by thus excluding him from the regions of their opponents, that they have finally dealt with his pretensions.

Why is it that two parties, as wide apart as the southern and northern poles, have conspired together, in this significant and novel way, for the purpose of denying to their most dangerous opponent strength in the regions where the adversary of each is strong? There are two organized parties in this country which claim to represent adverse local interests. The Democratic party rests itself on its boasted and self-arrogated privilege of supporting and sustaining the peculiar institution of the South. Its strength, and its whole strength, consists in its assertion that it alone is the defender of Southern rights. It is therefore dangerous to them for any thing to arise within the limits of the South, and claim a hearing from the Southern people, which touches more nearly the rights of the people, and appeals to the more elevated and noble sentiments of devotion to the Constitution and the Union. The gentlemen of the Republican party of the North aspire to represent that sentiment which is likewise local and peculiarly confined to the boundary of the North, and having no power beyond it. They likewise are jealous of the intrusion on their domain of any topic of such stirring interest as will call the minds of the North away from the contemplation of the perpetual cry, "Freedom is national, and slavery is sectional;" "The rights of man;" "The oppressions of the South;" "The equality of the negro race.”

All these minister to the excitement in the North. They are subjects in themselves neither interesting nor attractive-not so interesting or attractive but that an appeal to the great interests of the country, the great fundamental principles of the Constitution, to the great danger of the agitation of these topics, may possibly reach the ear of the most besotted, and startle the reason of those who are still rational, that they whose talk is of negroes, and who think that the servants at the altar should live of the altar, may find themselves preaching to empty benches. One, therefore, and the other, each within his own region, seeks to drive out every thing that may sow wheat among his tares. They may touch any thing else but these rights of sovereignty; but put forth your hand and touch them in the very body of their power, and they arise and curse you to your face.

The Democrat is jealous of any thing which impeaches the high duty of extending the institution, and is impatient of men. who accept it as an existing institution, to be protected as any other industrial interest is to be protected.

The Republican tolerates no man who questions the practical honesty of the higher law, and suggests the conscientious duty of conformity to the practical enforcement of the Constitution. Both cry out "No compromise;" both execrate all adherence to the existing condition of affairs as wisest and best. Each boasts conquests in the future over his antagonist; each lives, and moves, and has its being in an atmosphere confined to its own region; it can not breathe a moment the air on which the other thrives. Neither has any representative in the region of its adversary to soften their antagonism. They are both strictly sectional parties, tending to bring into collision hostile opinions, feelings, and interests, concentrated without mixture at the opposite poles of the country; each intensified, like opposite electricities, by the intensity of the other, and threatening, if brought into contact, an explosion that may shake the foundations of the republic. Each knows that, unless it can keep exclusive control of the whole region, there is no hope of triumph or even of a collision.

In this lies at once their strength and their weakness. Unless Mr. Buchanan can carry the whole South, and trust-not to party discipline, for that has died away, but to the chance of the bribe' of high office to persons in the North to make up the deficiency of the Southern vote, they have not the most remote prospect of suc