of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the other hand, let me show the facts 5 (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend, and lover of the South, and her institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully for yours, mine, and every other man's interest, the words of truth and soberness), of which I TO wish you to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty 15 years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified and 20 strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you reply that in many instances they have violated this compact, and have not been faithful to their engagements? As individual and local communities, they may have done so ; but not by the sanction of government; for that has always 25 been true to Southern interests. Again, gentlemen, look at another act; when we have asked that more territory should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, out of which four States have been 30 carved, and ample territory for four more to be added in due time, if you, by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope, and, perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a 35 universal emancipation which may reasonably be expected to follow, 5 But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the general government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South, as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the executive department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South and but eleven from the North; 10 although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the free states, yet a majority of the Court has always been from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard 15 our interests in the legislative branch of government. In choosing the presiding presidents (pro tem.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the representatives, from their greater population, have 20 always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the general government. Attorney-generals we have had fourteen, while 25 the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the free states, from their greater commercial interest, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the 30 world-markets for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks, auditors, and comptrollers filling the executive 35 department; the records show, for the last fifty years, that of the three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic. 5 Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in which we have a great and vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of supporting government. From official documents, we learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of the government has uniformly been raised from the North. Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and candidly these important items. Look at another necessary branch of government, and learn from stern statistical facts how matters stand in that department. I mean the mail and post-office privileges that we now enjoy 15 under the general government as it has been for years past. The expense for the transportation of the mail in the free States was, by the report of the postmaster-general for the year 1860, a little over $13,000,000, while the income was $19,000,000. But in the slave-states the transportation of 20 the mail was $14,716,000, while the revenue from the same was $8,001,026, leaving a deficit of $6,704,974, to be supplied by the North, for our accommodation, and without it, we must have been entirely cut off from this most essential branch of government. Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition and for what, we ask again ? Is it for the over30 throw of the American government, established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of right, justice and humanity? And as such, I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the 35 greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots, in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest government - the - 10 25 5 most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles, to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century—in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety, while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed is the height of madness, folly, and 10 wickedness, to which I neither lend my sanction nor my - vote. IV. E. MAZZINI. To the Young Men of Italy. Delivered at Milan, July 25, 1848, at the request of the National Association, on the occasion of a solemn commemoration of the anniversary of the death of the brothers Bandiera and their fellow-martyrs. " [“ Giuseppe Mazzini, lawyer, patriot, and revolutionist, was born at Genoa in 1805. In 1830 he was arrested by the authorities of Piedmont for conspiring against the government, but after an imprisonment 15 of six months was released for want of sufficient evidence to procure a conviction. He thereupon left Italy and resided successively in Marseilles, Paris, and London, whence he conducted agitations for the liberation of Italy. He founded about 1832 the secret revolutionary society of Young Italy,' whose object was the unification of Italy 20 under a republican government. He returned to Italy at the outbreak of the revolutionary movements of 1848, and in 1849 became a member of the triumvirate in the short-lived republic at Rome, being again driven into exile on the restoration of the papal government (1849). He played a subordinate part in the movement which resulted in the unifica- 25 tion of Italy under Victor Emmanuel in 1861, and, unwilling to take the oath of allegiance to a monarchy, remained abroad. He died in 1872.” Century Dictionary. " Attilio and Emilio Bandiera, born at Venice in 1811 and 1819, were officers in the Austrian navy. They were, however, ardent patriots, and shared the longing of the party of Young Italy' to see Italy united, and free of foreign yoke, especially that of Austria. They made numer5 ous converts among the Italian crews in the fleet, and entered into correspondence with Mazzini. They planned to take possession of a frigate in order to make a descent on Sicily, but, denounced to the Austrians, they were obliged to flee. Meeting again in Corfu, they learned of the vain attempts of the Calabrians to rise, and resolved to hasten to IO them in order to reanimate the insurrection. The chiefs of the revolutionary committees and even Mazzini dissuaded in vain. Like patriots of antiquity, the brothers deemed it necessary that they should be a great sacrifice in order that the masses should be roused from their torpor. On June twelfth, 1844, they set out in a barge with seventeen 15 companions. On the sixteenth they landed near Crotone, knelt on the Italian soil, and kissing it, cried: 'You gave us life, and we will give it you.' Led by a Calabrian, they threw themselves into the woods, and on the eighteenth arrived in the neighborhood of San Giovanni in Fiore. Betrayed by one of their number, a Corsican spy, they were un20 successfully attacked by seventeen of the urban guard. On the nineteenth, when attacked by a battalion of chasseurs and a number of the militia, they were overcome after heroic resistance. All were condemned to death, though only nine were executed. On the twentyfifth, the brothers, with seven companions, passed through weeping 25 crowds in the streets of Cosenza, singing: 'He who dies for his country, has lived well.' When the band arrived at the place of punishment, they embraced, exhorted the weeping soldiery, themselves gave the order to fire, and fell crying; Long live Italy!' The sacrifice of the brothers and their friends made a profound impression throughout 30 Europe, and from the moment of their death the direction of the national movement changed from the powerless initiative of secret societies to that of a roused public opinion. La Grande Encyclopédie.] 35 When I was commissioned by you, young men, to proffer in this temple a few words sacred to the memory of the brothers Bandiera and their fellow-martyrs at Cosenza, I thought that some of those who heard me might exclaim with noble indignation : "Wherefore lament over the dead? The martyrs of liberty are only worthily honored by winning 40 the battle they have begun; Cosenza, the land where they fell, is enslaved; Venice, the city of their birth, is begirt by |