SEPTEMBER 12, 1860.
Fellow Democrats,—I thank you most cordially for the honor which you confer upon me by permitting me to preside over your deliberations on this occasion. It is an occasion the importance of which cannot be impressed too much upon our minds. We have come together in order to pledge our support to the nominations of our National and State Conventions, determined to withhold the thirty-five electoral votes of the great Empire State from Abraham Lincoln, and thus to save the glorious Republic from the horrors of disunion and anarchy. We have come together to listen to the heart-stirring eloquence of our noble and gallant standard-bearers, Stephen A. Douglas, the bold and fearless champion of the Constitution and the rights of the people, and Herschel V. Johnson, the patriot and the statesman. In order to share this rare privilege with you, I have sacrificed the pleasing duty of attending the celebration by which the city of Cleveland honored this week the memory of an illustrious kinsman of my family. It is forty-seven years since the gallant Perry fought and conquered, after a most bloody struggle against fearful odds, the enemies of his country on Lake Erie. Let us this day pledge our united and unwavering energies to fight and conquer the enemies of the Constitution and the Union, arrayed against us by sectional fanaticism North and South. We are fighting for the maintenance of our beloved and blessed Union, and the sacredness of our cause should give us the victory. Let us, then, advance to the charge, and the lion-hearted Democracy of this vast Republic, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, will in November next inscribe on its banners the memorable words of Perry, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”