honorable investigation, the object of which is truth. I again put in
a broad denial to this charge, that any portion of these petitioners,
whom I represent, seek to excite one portion of the country against
another; and without proof I cannot admit that the assertion of the
honorable Senator establishes the fact. It is but opinion, and naked
assertion only. The Senator complains that the means and views of the
abolitionists are not confined to securing the right of petition only;
no, they resort to other means, he affirms, to the BALLOT BOX; and if
that fail, says the Senator, their next appeal will be to the bayonet.
Sir, no man, who is an American in feeling and in heart, but ought to
repel this charge instantly, and without any reservation whatever,
that if they fail at the ballot box they will resort to the bayonet.
If such a fratricidal course should ever be thought of in our country,
it will not be by those who seek redress of wrongs, by exercising the
right of petition, but by those only who deny that right to others,
and seek to usurp the whole power of the Government. If the ballot box
fail them, the bayonet may be their resort, as mobs and violence now
are. Does the Senator believe that any portion of the honest yeomanry
of the country entertain such thoughts? I hope he does not. If
thoughts of this kind exist, they are to be found in the hearts of
aspirants to office, and their adherents, and none others. Who, sir,
is making this question a political affair? Not the petitioners. It
was the slaveholding power which first made this move. I have noticed
for some time past that many of the public prints in this city, as
well as elsewhere, have been filled with essays against abolitionists
for exercising the rights of freemen.

Both political parties, however, have courted them in private and
denounced them in public, and both have equally deceived them. And who
shall dare say that an abolitionist has no right to carry his
principles to the _ballot box? Who fears the ballot box?_ The honest
in heart, the lover of our country and its institutions? No, sir! It
is feared by the tyrant; he who usurps power, and seizes upon the
liberty of others; he, for one, fears the ballot box. Where is the
slave to party in this country who is so lost to his own dignity, or
so corrupted by interest or power, that he does not, or will not,
carry his principles and his judgment into the ballot box? Such an one
ought to have the mar