The Governor's message this year shows his attitude and that of the State toward the great issue then before the country:

The President, in his late message to Congress, urges the purchase or, if necessary, the conquest of Cuba with a zeal worthy of an object as high and as noble as the abolition of the slave trade, and the civilization and Christianization of benighted Africa. He argues that the geographical position of that island is such, that so long as it remains in possession of a foreign power, our commerce will be exposed to perpetual injury and annoyance in time of peace, and to destruction in war; and he asks that an appropriation of money be made, and power placed in his hands to negotiate for its purchase.

The President also asks for authority to employ, at his discretion, the land and naval forces of the United States for the protection of American citizens in traveling through foreign countries, and sustains his application by examples drawn from the executive departments of France and other imperial governments possessing the war-making power. Kindred in character to the foregoing, is the recommendation of the President that the government assume a protectorate and establish military posts within the limits of a weak but independent nation. These views carried out would place our army and navy under the orders of the President, in all parts of the world; and yielding to others the same rights we claim for ourselves, would open our country to the armies of every other nation.

The conclusion which the mind would naturally and rapidly reach from this view of the subject is, whenever we judge any country or colony, either now or prospectively, endangers our commerce, we may negotiate for its purchase, and if unsuccessful, be justified in taking possession by force, in accordance with the despotic maxim that "might makes right."

This struggle for the concentration of power in the President, or the central power, is seriously agitating the minds of the American people. They believe that it is to have, and is intended to have, a controlling influence in the all-absorbing question of slavery. On the one hand they are advocating and on the other opposing it, with a zeal and energy which show how deep is the interest they feel in the final issue.

The citizens of Connecticut regard slavery as a system that paralyzes industry, dries up the sources of prosperity, obstructs the wheels of progress in the cause of education, civilization and Christianity, and conflicts irreconcilably with the principles of human liberty. They regard it as the creature of local laws, having no rightful existence beyond State boundaries; and while they will

counteract no interference with it, as it exists within the limits of our sister States, they will never acquiesce in its extension by the general government, without entering their solemn protest against the exercise of powers so maintained by the Constitution, and so hazardous to the tranquility of the Union.

Here is clearly and temperately stated the great question at issue between the free States and the slave States, and the position assumed by one of the former, just as the country was about to be plunged into all the perplexities of disunion, and the horrors of a fearful war. Whatever differences of opinion there were about the right position then there are none now. And all honor to the State that could so early comprehend the real issues of that controversy, and so nobly stood by the principles of freedom and righteousness to the end!

These last two years of 1858 and 1859 had been years of intense interest and earnest discussion throughout the country. Ever since the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, and the Dred-Scott Decision which justified it in 1857, and the attempt of President Buchanan's administration, as soon as he was inaugurated, to bring Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution, the subject of slavery had become the great question at issue, and there could have been none other of such fundamental and permanent importance. So when carly in the year 1858, the President sent in his message to Congress, treating the population of Kansas (for voting against slavery) as in rebellion against lawful authority, and recognizing the invaders from Missouri as rightfully entitled to impose a slave-holding constitution upon a neighboring territory; when he declared that by the Dred-Scott Decision, "slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States, and it is at this moment as much a slave State as Georgia or South Carolina ;" and when he and his administration undertook to justify such a stupendous fraud, and

reverse the whole historic policy of the government upon this subject and rob the Constitution of its two noblest characteristics, equal rights and self-government; was it any wonder that the political canvass began early, and was carried on vigorously with reference to the next presidential election, or that it did not cease until the matter was settled, so far as it could be settled by the popular vote of the nation? To be sure the South threatened secession and armed rebellion if they were not allowed to carry out their pro-slavery policy. But few believed that they would ever resort to such violent measures, when the question at issue was once settled by a national election, as every other great issue had been peacefully settled in this way, and so both sections of the country and all parties set about earnestly and anxiously preparing for the coming presidential election. This was to be the national election of 1860, when Mr. Lincoln came into office and such important results followed.

These two preceding years were not only a period of intense excitement and earnest debate everywhere, but of changes of position on the part of public men, the breaking up and readjustment of parties, and threats of unheard-of measures to be resorted to if one party was defeated at the polls. The Whig party had come to be regarded as too yielding to the South in supporting all the compromise measures of the last decade, and especially in acquiescing in the Fugitive Slave Law, and this party was broken up to be combined with the Free Soil, American, and all antislavery elements, into the Republican party. The Democratic party, then in power, had no sooner elected Mr. Buchanan by the aid of the South, than they found that they could not carry out the measures which the South demanded of them. The North would not acquiesce in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, nor accept the DredScott Decision, nor carry out the Fugitive Slave Law,

nor allow that slavery might be carried into the free States, or imposed upon the territories against the wishes of the inhabitants. This the President soon found to his cost, for he could not control Congress, though it was Democratic in both branches. It would not impose the Lecompton Constitution upon Kansas without submitting it to the people; neither would it favor his Cuban scheme of annexation, or allow him to make war upon the Central American States, or put the control of the army into his hands, or make appropriations for any such purpose. Indeed, the President had scarcely finished half his term of office before his administration had completely broken down. The House of Representatives had become Republican. Senator Douglas, the ablest man of his party, and the most prominent Democratic candidate for the next presidency, was opposing his policy. General Cass, his Secretary of State, who acquiesced at first in the measures he proposed, finally resigned his place in the cabinet. Attorney General Black, who sanctioned, if he did not draw up some of the President's most objectionable messages, found at last that he must retire from the cabinet. Then came the State elections which were to sanction or condemn Mr. Buchanan's pro-slavery policy, and of the great States which had helped to elect him, New York and Pennsylvania gave their majorities against him, until every Northern State, save one, had withdrawn from him its support. And when at last this "Old Public Functionary," as he styles himself in his final message, finds that in trying to obey that Dred-Scott Decision and serve the party that elected him, he has broken up his party and encountered the reprobation of all lovers of freedom, whether at the North or in the South, and discovers that he has only been the tool of the South in cutting away the very foundations of the Union, which he really desired to preserve, and was making so many concessions to preserve, he becomes one

of the most pathetic figures in political history. Had he been a wiser and stronger man he might still have retrieved his reputation. He might even at that late hour have made such a change in policy as, firmly carried out, would have placed him in the list of great Presidents. But he was not of such material.

Thus the year 1859 closed, to be followed by the evermemorable presidential canvass of 1860.