Everett were the veriest free-soilers and abolitionists in the wiole country! But I do not suppose that the Republican party of Massachusetts will give them their support exactly upon that showing. There is no public'man, among the living or the dead, of our own land or of any other land, whose record - - if not too insignificant to have any record may not be twisted and distorted by malicious adversaries.

But the question is not where a man was twelve years ago, but where he is now, with whom he is now acting,—in what direction he is now moving, to whom and to what he is now committed. Old records are nothing. Names are nothing. Men are nothing, in a campaign like the present. There is but one, simple, but all-sufficient and all-embracing consideration, certainly, which will govern my own vote at the coming election; and if it could govern the vote of every other man in the Union, I should have no fears for the result. It is no consideration of slavery or anti-slavery. It is no question of personal or of party triumph. It is the conviction which has taken possession of my whole heart and soul and mind, that the best and highest interests of our country, and of every human being who inhabits our country, yes, I will not scruple to include black as well as white, bond as well as free, that all our dearest moral and religious interests, as well as our highest political and social interests, demand a truce, a long truce- if possible, a final truce and termination - to the fratricidal strife which has been so long waged between the North and the South. Peace, concord, the restoration of national harmony, of mutual good-will and of individual good nature, - this is the one great want of our land, in all its relations, at this moment. Nothing but mischiefnothing but mischief- has thus far resulted from the sectional criminations and recriminations which have so long formed the whole web and woof of our public debate. Extravagant and untenable doctrines have been advanced and advocated, both at the North and at the South, in mere spite towards each other, and measures have been set on foot which would never have been dreamed of, except in a spirit of retaliation and revenge. Bad blood has been engendered; bad language has fallen from lips educated to better utterances; and blows, alas, have some

times followed words. Both the Northern and the Southern mind need rest and repose, in order to recover from the fever and frenzy which recent domestic struggles have produced. A four years' truce to all these dismal and dreary and wholly abstract disputes and bickerings about squatter sovereignty, and Dred Scott decisions, and Southern oligarchies, and sectional aggressions, would do more to restore and advance just views of the Constitution, and just views of freedom, and just views of slavery too, than all the harangues and philippies which have been composed and uttered since the days of Demosthenes and Cicero.

It is not often I find any thing on this subject in an English paper to agree with, but here is a slip from the London "Athenæum," published on the very day I left Liverpool, and which comes very near to expressing the whole truth of the matter. It is a paragraph from a brief review of a book called "Slavery Doomed," by a Mr. Edge,-who I should think might be a twinbrother or at least a cousin-german of a certain Mr. Helper,— and who hails Mr. Lincoln as the first anti-slavery President of the United States, and looks forward to the extinction of slavery, and of the Union too, and of the cotton crop more especially, as the result of his election. After speaking of this book, and after alluding to the rejection, many years ago, of what it calls Mr. Jefferson's scheme of emancipation, the writer in the "Athenæum" says as follows:

"Since then, wild schemes have been propounded, and wilder plans attempted; the whole question has become imbittered, and a life and death feud has sprung up where the sole chance lay in friendly and unimpassioned relations. Steady-going minds have flung themselves with heat and ardor into the fray; gentlemen have become ruffians while discussing the best mode of dealing with it; Christians have developed into savages; while the few calm men, at least on the pro-slavery side, who can really hold their own in times of tumult, have withdrawn from the contest altogether, seeing no chance for rational philosophy to be heard in a company of madmen hacking at each other's throats. Thanks to certain indiscreet partisans, Abolition, as a feasible and practicable good, has been delayed yet another generation, to the grief of all honest men, and the confusion of all wise ones."

Now, whether this writer is correct or not in what he says about Abolition as a practicable and feasible good, he has presented a most forcible and graphic picture of the condition of things at this moment in our country, and has placed the responsibility where it belongs-where it justly belongs- for the delay and indefinite postponement of any measures, which have ever been either feasible or practicable, for ameliorating the condition of any portion of the African race on this continent.

I repeat, fellow-citizens, we need a restoration of national harmony; of that fraternal feeling between different members of the Union which was so eloquently and admirably advocated by the gallant and true-hearted Crittenden in his late noble speech, in order that all the great interests of our country may once more be calmly and justly considered and provided for. And national harmony can never be restored by the triumph of either of the extreme parties, whether of the North or the South. Certainly, it cannot be restored by the triumph of a party, which has wholly refused to recognize the Southern States in the selection of their candidates, and which does not pretend to rely upon, or to anticipate, a single electoral vote from any one of those States. Certainly, it cannot be restored by the triumph of a party, at least one of whose candidates is so identified with those who would award the holiest crown of martyrdom to the very instigator and organizer of insurrection and treason, and so many of whose organs and orators are daily denouncing the South as a land of barbarism, and daily exulting in the proclamation of an irreconcilable and irrepressible conflict between the slave States and the free States. It would be madness to expect from such a triumph any thing but renewed agitation, renewed irritation, renewed outbreaks of fanaticism at one end of the Union and fury at the other, which no patriot and no Christian can contemplate without a shudder.

For myself, my friends, I have nothing to seek from any candidate or any party, and I can take but a humble share in what remains of this campaign. Neither my health nor my engage ments will allow me to mingle often in the strife of tongues. But I rejoice that I am here in season to give a vote for the candidates whose nomination you are assembled to ratify; to give

a vote which shall virtually and practically say, "That man of blood, and treason, and massacre, was not right. The men of the South are no barbarians, to be reviled and defied, but our brethren, with whom we delight to dwell, and mean to dwell, in unity. And there is no conflict between the free States and the slave States which moderation, and reason, and justice, and patriotism cannot repress, and ought not to repress, at once and for ever."

That vote may be in a minority or in a majority; one of many or one of few. I have not been at home long enough to calculate the chances of success, even if I desired to do so; but, whatever may be the result, it will at least secure to him who gives it the cheering consciousness, of having done what he could to arrest the progress of as mad and mischievous a strife as ever disturbed the peace or endangered the union of a great and glorious country.

TRIBUTE TO HON. NATHAN APPLETON.

REMARKS MADE AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AUGUST 8, 1861.

WE have been called on so often of late, gentlemen, to notice the departure of those whose names have adorned our Honorary or our Resident rolls, that the language of eulogy may seem to have been almost exhausted. Yet I am sure you would not excuse me, nor could I excuse myself, were I to fail to make some brief allusion this morning to a valued and venerable associate, who died only a day or two after our last monthly meeting.

Lowell, the revered pastor; Shaw, the illustrious jurist; White, the accomplished counsellor and scholar; Bowditch, the faithful conveyancer and genial humorist, whose diligence has illustrated so many title-deeds, and whose wit has illuminated so many title-names;-all these and more have received, in sad succession, our farewell tributes within a few months past. The wise, upright, and eminent merchant presents no inferior claim to our respectful remembrance, nor will his name be associated with less distinguished or less valuable services to the community.

Not many men, indeed, have exercised a more important influence among us, during the last half-century, than the late Hon. Nathan Appleton. Not many men have done more than he has done, in promoting the interests, and sustaining the institutions, to which New England has owed so much of its prosperity and welfare. No man has done more, by example and by precept, to elevate the standard of mercantile character, and to exhibit the pursuits of commerce in proud association with the highest integrity, liberality, and ability.