interests of humanity. I believe it to be dangerous to the peace, happiness, and prosperity of the country. I believe it to be pursuing the spirit of liberty like a hungry and remorseless hound upon the track of a wounded and dying deer. I know, for I have felt its vindictiveness and its persecutions; but in the travestie of Macpherson, I am still ready to exclaim

"Oh, what is death but parting breath?

On many a bloody plain

I have met its face, and in this place

I scorn it once again!"

In a few years we shall be in the dust, but these institutions are too valuable, too priceless, to be jeoparded. I would have this spirit resisted in the name of humanity and freedom, which it mouths and abuses. I would have it resisted by the Democracy; not in a party sense, but by that great conservative element which pervades the country. I invoke all, whether Democrats or Whigs, to come up to the support of the Constitution. It is supposed by some that the constitution can endure all these trials, and, in view of any possible result, that the North is not dependent upon the South. The dependence and the benefits are no doubt reciprocal; but even if it were not so, I would still appeal to you upon the principles of justice and of right. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

We must be united, because demagogueism has united all its forces against us. The democratic party and all the conservative elements must come together and act together as in a common cause. We must not only elect our President and Vice-President, our Governor and our Lieutenant-Governor, but a Congress and a Legislature to sustain them in the sound principles they will carry forward; and let no narrow, personal considerations of any kind interpose between you and your candidates regularly nominated. The laboring democratic masses cannot make themselves felt in any way without organization. The opposition is at the telegraph office, the publication office, and at the receipt of customs, and, like old Bartimeus, blind at that. But the democrats are at their labor in the fields and in the workshops, providing for those whom Providence teaches to look to them for subsistence. They can

not be felt except through their organization and the success of their candidates, and therefore I invoke you, in support of the constitution and the Union, in support of the great principles of equality, to come together and sustain your nominations, that we may not only have a victory, but a complete victory, and that our opponents may be routed forever. What will come next we cannot tell, but it will be the last experi ment upon the constitution and the Union.

The interests of this Union and of humanity are committed alike to the North and the South. We are brethren of a common tie. We should discharge these duties together, and the blessing of heaven will never rest upon us in any other direction. What being, black or white, heretofore or hereafter, has been or will be benefited by this spirit of sectionalism? Suppose the blacks were liberated at once, whom would that ben efit? Not them, for they have been for generations in a state of tutelage, and are not prepared for immediate emancipation. Their definition of liberty would be to do as they pleased. They would rush to the North. Their vicious would fill our prisons, the poor our almshouses, and their laborers compete with our laboring men. But why should slavery go to Kansas? It would have to leave the rice and cotton plantations where it is in demand, and go to Kansas where it would not be profitable. There is no probability of it, and any one who believes in the principle of self-government will be willing that a people organizing themselves into a great social community shall determine their own local institutions, within the constitution and laws of the United States, and decide that as well as other questions of internal policy for themselves. This is our solution of this vexed question; a solution saving the rights of all parties and the peace of the Union. Kansas will soon be a State, and then neither North nor South can prevent her people from acting upon it as they please. We are not proslavery. Our party has had control of the government during three fourths of the time of its existence; and from thirteen slave colonies we have grown to thirty-one States, sixteen of which are free, and in some of the other fifteen slavery has only a nominal existence; and if this meddling abolition spirit had not interfered, there is no doubt that before this time laws for its gradual abolishment would have been in operation in

some of the slave States. It is a spirit of irreligion in the name of religion; a spirit of strife and contention in the name of humanity. It must be overcome, or our hopes, built upon the heritage of the Revolution, will turn to bitter disappoint

ments.

I repeat, in conclusion, we stand by the Union, let whoever will be against it; and let all good men rally with us to maintain it for its inestimable benefits already conferred, and that they may descend to our posterity to the end of time.

DEDICATORY ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT THE

OPENING OF THE NEW COURT-HOUSE AT BINGHAMTON, N. Y., AT THE GENERAL TERM OF THE SUPREME COURT FOR THE SIXTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT, January, 1857.

[The Address Valedictory to the Old Court-House, interesting in its reminiscences of early times and scenes, was delivered by Hon. John A. Collier, and responded to by Hon. Charles Mason, Presiding Justice. Mr. Dickinson then delivered the following address dedicatory of the new edifice, and was followed by their Honors Justices Campbell and Balcom, of the Supreme Bench, and Edward Tompkins, Esq., and other members of the Broome County Bar.]

THIS change of edifice for the administration of justice is suggestive to the contemplative mind of many interesting reflections. Nearly thirty years since, when that old house was new, and Binghamton a secluded rural village, nestling between these beauteous rivers in her hill-formed basin, like the Happy Valley of Rasselas, in early manhood I commenced professional practice here with life's battle before me; and though in the mutations of time I have been incidentally diverted to other and wider fields of effort, this pursuit has been the leading purpose of life, and I am still at the bar. In the mean time, many waves of sorrow have swept along life's then unruffled sea-many, alas! of the companions of that bright morning have paid the debt of frail humanity;-others, yielding to the restless spirit of the age, have sought fortunes. homes, and graves in other and less lovely lands, and some are yet here to gild the approaching evening with their society and friendship. In the progress of events, Binghamton has become a populous city; physical science has found out her seclusion, and, with railroads, canals, and telegraphs, has spread out her limits. Commerce and the mechanic arts have invaded

the green consecrated to youthful sports and May-day festivals, and of the merry throng who then rung out the joyous laugh

"There play no children in the glen;

For some are gone, and some have grown

To blooming dames and bearded men."

But the forsaken, abandoned Court-House, where we have seen exhibited so many of the lights and shadows of existence! Though more eloquent lips have pronounced its funeral oration, may I not be permitted in passing to cast a single chaplet upon its tomb? In the language of the British peer, "with all thy faults, I love thee still." How much of life's passion and emotion, of its follies and frailties, of its joys and sorrows, of its hopes and fears, of its good and its evil, its truth and error have been exhibited within thy silent walls! And in that dark and fearful basement, fashioned for the home of depravity and crime,

"How many there have pined in dungeon's gloom,
Shut from the common air and common use

Of their own limbs!"

How many evil spirits in communion have there held their awful court! How many bitter, unavailing tears have there been shed! How many repentant prayers whispered through that dismal grating, and wafted to the mercy-seat! There has languished hoary depravity, blackened and defaced beyond all hope of reformation-there the iron has entered into the soul of erring youth, whose heart has been stained but by a single crime. The pen of the recording angel alone has taken note of the emotions which have struggled in that dark abode, and none shall read the secret until the hearts of all are laid open to view. But the light of heaven's sunshine will soon penetrate its gloomy recesses, the flowers of spring shall germinate upon its bed, verdure there shoot up, birds sing around and children gambol over it, and few shall remember that it was ever the abiding place of so much sin and sorrow.

The learned and experienced member of the bar who, with