And here permit me as a duty to you, and an obligation upon myself, to pay the tribute which I believe to be due the Northern Democracy.  Having formed my opinion of them upon insufficient data, I have had occasion, after much intercourse with them, to modify it.  I believe that a great reaction has commenced; how far it will progress I do not pretend to say, but am hopeful that agitation will soon become unprofitable to political traders in New England, and this hope rests upon the high position taken by the Northern Democracy, and upon the increased vote which in some of the States, under the more distinct avowal of sound principles, their candidates have received.  You may now often hear among them not only the unqualified defence of your constitutional rights, but the vindication of your institutions in the abstract, and in the concrete.

In the town of Portland, just preceding the election, a Democrat of large means and extensively engaged in commercial transactions and city improvements addressed the Democracy, arguing that their prosperity depended upon their connection with countries, the products of which were dependent upon slave labor; and the future growth and prosperity of their city depended upon the extension of slave labor into all countries where it could be profitably employed.  He showed by a statistical statement the paralysing effect which would be produced upon their interest by the abolition of slavery.  The Black Republican papers of course abused him, and compared him to Davis and Toombs, but his sound views were approved by the Democracy, and so far as I could judge, he gained consideration by their manly utterance.

A generation had been educated in error, and the South had done nothing in defence of the abstract right of slavery.  Within a few years essays have been written, books have been published, by northern as well as by southern men, and with the increase of information, there has been a subsidence of prejudice, and a preparation of the mind to receive truth.  Our friends are still in a minority.  It would be vain to speculate as to the period when their position will be reversed.  Whether sooner or later, or never, they are still entitled to our regard and respect.  A few years ago those who maintained our constitutional right, and to secure it voted for the Kansas and Nebraska bill, went home to meet reproach and expulsions from public employment.

Even their social position was affected by that political act.  The few years, however, which have elapsed, have produced a great change.  They have recovered all except their political position.  That bill which was considered when it was enacted, a Southern measure, for which Northern men bravely sacrificed their political prospects, has of late been denounced at the South as a cheat and a humbug.  A poor return certainly, to those who conscientiously maintaining our rights, surrendered their popularity to secure what the men for whom they made the sacrifice now pronounce to have been a cheat.  It is true that bill has recently received in some quarters a construction which its friends did not place upon it when it was enacted.  But it should be judged by its terms and by contemporaneous construction.