The Daily Dispatch: November 17, 1860., [Electronic resource]

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Union demonstrations in New York.
address to the country.

The "Young Men's Union Club," of New York, held a large meeting on Wednesday evening, at which Ex-Mayor Swan, of Baltimore, delivered an address. He thought the danger to the South was not great now, but should it grow greater, a Southern Convention should be called. The Breckinridge and Lane General Committee of New York held a meeting on Tuesday evening, to take into consideration an address to the country on the present crisis. The delegations from the different wards were very full, there being but few absentees. The first business being the address, Mr. Philip W. Engs, from the Executive Committee, stated that they had, with the assistance of Mr. Brady, in a very short time prepared an address, which might not be faultless, and which might meet with criticism, and he hoped it would. He then read the address, from which we make the following extracts:

‘ In the language of Breckinridge, ‘"there can be no evasive middle ground in regard to this question of negroes,"’ and we National Democrats of the city of New York say to the men of the South and of the North, no State shall be coerced into remaining in this Union when, in the judgment of her people, her safety requires that she should secede in order to protect the lives and property of her citizens.--[Applause.] And on the other hand we proclaim our willingness and ability to meet the "irrepressible conflict" upon our own soil, [applause,] and assure our Southern brethren that if they will remain for a time within the Union, we will put down this fanatical raid upon the Constitution, the South, the Union of these States, and the whole white race. It must be conceded that in the recent canvass many of the Republican presses have claimed for Mr. Lincoln that he did not concur with the frenzied felons who in their fierce onslaught upon slavery, blasphemously assail all ordinances of God and man which interfere with their dogmas or designs.

His declarations are cited to the effect that he recognizes the constitutional sanction of Slavery in the States, the validity of the Fugitive Slave law, and is opposed to negro suffrage. His sincerity, and that of the more conservative of his party, is now to be tested.--There is some consolation in the canvass of our State, deplorable as its principal effect has proved. The Republican party of the State, while it was enabled to give Lincoln some fifty thousand majority, did not sustain the proposition to amend our Constitution by permitting negroes to vote without a property qualification. That measure is defeated by an overwhelming majority. In our city it received about sixteen hundred votes, while the vote against it numbers about thirty-seven thousand.

It is our opinion that there are, in the Republicans ranks of the North, fewer Abolitionists than our friends of the South suppose, and an effort is to be made to prevent Mr. Lincoln's Administration from interfering with or impairing the equality of the South in the Union. Assurances of this kind are very general in this region. In view of these facts, and considering now momentous must be the consequences of breaking up that Union f sovereign States which the blood and wisdom of our ancestors organized, we earnestly entreat our brethren at the South not to resolve upon any act which may dissever our Confederacy at this time.

Let us wait, at least until the 4th of March next, and then learn upon what principles Mr. Lincoln proposes that our Federal Government should be administered. Let us see what class of men will be called to his Cabinet. If, in the selection of doctrines or Ministers he evinces a tendency which may be regarded as calculated to impair the rights of any portion of our Confederacy, it will then be time enough to take deficit action. If secession should now take place, and the Southern Senators resign, the whole power of the Government would be placed in Mr. Lincoln's hands, and all Southern co-operation taken from the patriotic men of other sections who are prepared to support Southern rights to the last extremity. This withdrawal would be particularly deplorable in view of the fact that Mr. Lincoln is to have a majority against him in the House as well as the Senate, if our friends remain where they are.

Brethren of the South, we call upon you not to desert us who have to the best of our capacity, and without hope or chance of preferment, profit or reward, other than the consciousness of having acted well, maintained the political doctrines which you advocate.--Do not leave is in a hopeless and enduring minority. Do not infer from the vote in this State that the South as so few friends here as the canvass might seem to indicate. Mr. Douglas drew off from their natural allegiance masses of men, who from personal preference, or the habits of organization, adhered to him, and we had no aid from any of the ordinary organizations by which the Democratic ticket is generally supported. We had to rely upon the staunch and fearless support of men whom no mere party call could control, no persuasion allure, and no fear drive away from their sense of duty to the whole country, [applause,] the men who stand up and battle for the Constitution and the Union, and equality in the Union to all the States.* * * *

Candidates whom the South can support, and acceptable also to the National Democracy of the North, have as a capital whereon to urge forward in pursuit of honorable victory the votes cast for Breckinridge and Lane, and perhaps as the contest has become in all respects a national one, those also which Bell and Everett obtained. Thus will be formed the great national party of our country, and around its banner all the true Democrats will rally, leaving the obsolete leaders of decayed factions in the ignominious obscurity and pitiful impotency which their meanness, folly, or corruption has secured for them. Is the hope of opportunity for thus concentrating our forces to be destroyed by the South? That is the question to be dealt with by our friends there, and to be dealt with now. Its solution we leave to these friends, confiding in their honor, patriotism and chivalry.

We are ready and eager to contend for and maintain all their rights in any contingency. but to give the struggle even one ray of hope must have their earnest and persistent co-operation. Will they remain with us, or leave us? We "pause for a reply," but we do not fear it. We think we can behold in the brighter days of our country soon to come, the splendid spectacle of a united and irresistible party, which, trampling down the bigot and the fanatic, whose false and odious heresies about the negro race have too long disturbed our repose, will place the Constitution, with all its sanctions and guarantees, in such position and keeping as that every American citizen, in all parts of our country, shall, under its wise execution, have protection for all his property and an equal enjoyment with his fellow of all the territory as of all the welfare which our nation may acquire. [Applause.]

In the name of our past history, in the name of humanity, regulated by liberty, civilization and progress, in the interests of commerce and property, by all the ties of fraternity and good will that ought to exist between the South and the National Democracy of the North, by all that is good in past, present, or future, we ask you to trust the fate of this battle to us. Ours is a common cause. The attack is made here. Trust the defence to us. We will resist the enemy successfully. We have stood by you; stand by us, and, notwithstanding the imminent peril now threatening the common country, we will thus survive the shock, and preserve unimpaired this glorious Union of free and equal sovereign States, composed of free and equal white men. [Loud applause]

In making this appeal at the present juncture, we are impelled not only by the considerations already presented, but by the evidence daily accumulating, that even uncertainty as to the course the South will pursue is seriously endangering our various interests, and rendering probable a commercial revulsion far more general and disastrous than that of 1857, from the effect of which we have scarcely yet revived. Such a result would be productive not only of permanent injury to our city and all the interests depending upon it, but would entail on thousands of our laboring Democratic brethren during the coming winter, if not for a much longer period, want and suffering to a fearful extent.

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