letters of gold on every glorious banner that has been unfurled in this war! Tennessee is even now making arrangements to erect a monument to the gallant dead who have fallen in battle in this war. You will rear (said he) the massy column with its lofty summit towering to the skies. You will engrave the name of Allen and Elliot, and Martin, Ewell, and Kirkpatrick, and all the best-but with what honorable memorial of their glorious deeds. A very distinguished member of Congress from Tennessee comes forward with his inscription-"Died at Monterey, in a war of conquest and plunder." Other members from this State propose about the same thing. my competitor with his inscription. Monterey, (or Buena Vista,) in the year 1847, in an unnecessary war-in James K. Polk's war, waged by him to glorify his administration." Oh! (said Gov. Brown) a monument with such an inscription can never stand. The earth will heave up her bosom and by some mighty earthquake will level it to the ground; or the lightning of Heaven will descend and blast its towering column, and shiver the massy rocks that compose it. No, no, let me give you a memorial worthy the noble deeds of these gallant dead And last of all comes What is it? "Died at "How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, To bless the sod that wraps their clay; To dwell a weeping hermit here." Gov. Brown said: Having now disposed of all the questions in relation to the war, I must follow my competitor in his long, and loud, and numerous complaints, not against the Mexicans, but against his own countrymen. Congress has done wrong, the democrats have done wrong, the President has done wrong, every body has done wrong, but the plunderers and murderers of our people. Well, what has Congress done? She has repealed the protective tariff of 1842, and substituted a much lower one in its stead. My competitor denounces this repeal and vehemently advocates the restoration of the tariff of 1842. Two years ago, I stood on this very spot, and before a large portion of this very assembly, debated this subject with my then talented and gallant competitor. What did he tell you? That James K. Polk did not intend to repeal the high tariff of 1842-that he would not dare to do it-that James Buchanan, one of his Cabinet, would not allow him to do it. Well, time has overruled this vain prophecy, and we now know that James K. Polk did intend to repeal it; we now know that he did dare to do it, and that James Buchanan did not prevent him. What next did he tell you? "To hold on to the tariff of 1842 as the rock of your salvation; that if you did repeal it, it would shut up the workshop of the mechanic, bring ruin on the manufacturer, strike down the wages of labor, and by destroying the home market of the farmer, would leave him with a large surplus of his crops rotting and wasting in his granaries." I can almost yet hear his eloquent voice calling on you to hold on to the tariff of 1842; to hold on to it, to save the mechanic, the manufacturer, the day laborer, and the farmer. Well, gentlemen, said Gov. Brown, time that tries all things-that confirms every truth and explodes every errorhas again interposed and convinced you whether he was right or wrong. The tariff has been repealed, and now what do we behold? The workshops of the mechanic have not been closed; the blacksmith with his lusty strength is yet striking his blows on the anvil; the shoemaker is drawing his thread; the tailor is plying his needle; the manufacturers of iron and wool are dividing their wonted profits; whilst the farmers and planters are realizing prices for their stock and their produce of which avarice itself cannot complain. Let us pause for a moment and contemplate the wonderful prosperity which the people of happy America are this day enjoying. Look out on the broad ocean and see the crowded sails of commerce-bending to every breeze, and visiting with rapid velocity all the nations of the earth. Glance your eye along the course of your mighty rivers, and behold the thousands of steamboats, loaded down to their guards with the rich productions of your varied soils and climates. Gaze on this broad and fertile land, with its teeming abundance gladdening the hearts of our own husbandmen and sending life and sustenance to the famishing millions of Europe. Whose heart does not heave upward, big with joy and gratitude to God, for so much goodness and mercy ! Would my competitor mar, if not totally destroy, all this prosperity and happiness, by going back to the high tariff and low prices of 1842? Daniel Webster himself would not do it. Daniel Webster, whose deep and full voice was heard at the preceding session of Congress crying "Repeal, repeal," would not do it. The boldest whigs in the last session of Congress, who had united with Mr. Webster in the cry of "down with the democratic tariff of 1846," would not do it. They met at Washington city-at the time and place when and where these vows of repeal were all to be fulfilled. But when they saw that our low tariff was bringing more money into the Treasury than their high one-when they saw the iron, the cotton, the wollen, and in short the manufacturers of every sort, the mechanics of every description, the farmers, and planters, and stock raisers, were all more prosperous than they ever had been before-they had not the heart to repeal it-they had not the heart to try to repeal it. They met, and gazed through the winter with wonder and astonishment on the swelling, booming prosperity of the whole country, and finally adjourned and went home without once offering to repeal the democratic tariff of 1846. Thus it is, my countrymen, that time, experience, and actual knowledge, have now settled the question between a high and low tariff. When we stood on reason and argument, you would not believe us. Now we stand on time, on experience, and actual knowledge-your knowledge, your experience. The great ocean crowded with commerce; your mighty rivers burdened with trade; the earth with all her mines and mineral, with all her fruits, and herbs, and flowers, all tell you that a low tariff is the best. Can my competitor stand out any longer against all these ?-against the roar of the ocean, the murmurs of the rivers, the soft whispers of the teeming earthagainst light, and truth, and knowledge? Nay, nay; give it up and return to the ancient faith of Tennessee-to your faith up to 1837; to the faith of Hugh Lawson White and Andrew Jackson. Yield obedience to that light, and truth, and actual knowledge, which like three angel forms bending from some azure cloud, now beckon you to return to that faith, from which you never should have departed. But I cannot leave the subject of the tariff until I have furnished you with the great fact which my competitor now denies, and which weighs down like a millstone nearly everything which can be said against the tariff of 1846. That fact is that the duties received under the present tariff for the first five or six months largely exceed (probably by more than half a million of dollars,) the amount received during the same period of the preceding year under the tariff of 1842. What next in the catalogue of charges is preferred against Congress by my competitor? They have established the Independent Treasury. Here, also, time, experience, and actual knowledge, have done sad work with the predictions of my competitor and his party. You were told by them that if the Independent Treasury was ever established, it would make one currency of rags for the people and another currency of gold and silver for the office-holders-that it would be a declaration of war against the Banks by banishing specie from the country; that it would become a great government bank, the most odious, they said, of all systems of banking; that it would be a union of the sword and the purse, and enable a President to stand erect like Cæsar, holding in the one hand the sword of the nation and in the other its vast treasuries, while public liberty would lie lacerated and bleeding at his unhallowed feet. O, what a picture of prophetic despotism! Cæsar, the great tyrant of Rome, standing aloft with a bloody sword in his hand, while public liberty lies pale, bleeding and dying at his feet! Now turn your eyes slowly and gently away from this horrible and bloody picture, to the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, New Orleans, and St. Louis, where the Independent Treasury is quietly and gently working its way, collecting the public dues of the nation and paying them out to our soldiers of the revolutionary and present war-to the officers and sailors of our gallant navy, and to all others who have just claims on the Government-accomplishing it all through the instrumentality of our fellow-citizens, without the aid of any bank whatsoever, and inflicting, in the language of Mr. Bell, "No great harm to the great interests of either trade, agriculture, or com merce." Here were four distinct predictions of my competitor, every one of which has been signally disappointed. The oldest citizen of our country never saw the currency in a sounder or better condition-never saw our exchanges better regulated-never saw our local institutions more able to redeem their liabilities-never saw such an amazing influx of gold and silver into the country; still my competitor tells you it was not borrowed from any of the free governments of the earth, but finds its origin in the dark and despotic governments of the old world. There is no other really free government on earth from which it could have been borrowed; and, in fact it was not borrowed from any government, either free or despotic. It dates its origin in our own free and happy government to the law of 1789-the first law regulating the receipts and disbursement of the public moneys. The law of 1789, passed in the very morning of our republic, when it came pure and fresh from the patriots of the revolution—the law of 1789, signed by George Washington himself, but now extended and enlarged only to suit the growth and increase of our country. Such is the Independent Treasury now in operation—precisely such as Mr. Bell said it would be, speaking of it just after it had been passed in 1840. My competitor was a prophet, Mr. Bell was an historian-the one guessed at it, the other knew it. Thus it is that time and experience have likewise settled this great question, so long disputed between the parties of this country. But to that Athens speech. What was I endeavoring to do in making that part of it which he reads? You and your party were opposing the annexation of Texas-you were opposing the extension of our laws over Oregon-you were impeding, by all the means in your power, the growth and enlargement of your own country. I wanted to liberalize and enlarge your patriotism. I told you that the kings of the earth were every day plotting your destruction-that they wished to put out the light of freedom in the new world, in order to reign more triumphantly over the prostrate rights and liberties of mankind. I called on you and your party to unite with me in this noble work of self-defence-to unite with me in extending the area of freedom from ocean to ocean, and |