Franklin Repository

Rumor said, a few days since, that the decrepit old imbecile who holds the important position of Chief Justice of the United States--Roger B. Taney--had resigned that high trust. Immediately, longing glances were thrown in the direction of that most coveted post. Among the patriots, whose names we have seen mentioned in connection with that responsible office, is Caleb Cushing. Whether he is anxious to succeed Taney or not we cannot say, from personal knowledge; but the low disgusting speech delivered by him at Newburyport, on Monday evening, the 26th ult., and published in the Press, of the 30th, is the heaviest bid in that direction that we have yet seen. The labor seems to have been in vain, however, for the old man has not let go his hold upon the judicial robes--nor does he intend to do so.

The fact that Taney had not resigned, and had no intention of the sort, however, was not known at the time Caleb Cushing held forth at Newburyport. If diving down deeper, and coming up filthier than any other Northern man could aspire to do will have the desired effect, to win golden opinions from Southern Senators--who can control the appointment--then the claims of Caleb Cushing are far ahead of those of any other sycophant we know of. To read his speech, not being acquainted with the truth of history on the subject he discusses, one would suppose that slavery was the greatest blessing that could befall a poor man; that our forefathers so regarded it; that the greatest outrage upon the Constitution is in entertaining a feeling hostile to human bondage; and the most dangerous encroachment consists in speaking against the diction of Southern nabobs; and the breaking up of the Union is the only remedy for the unheard of indignities which Northern men inflict upon the South.

Everything that is wrong is ascribed to the Freemen of the North; everything right, everything noble, to the South. No language is too severe to be applied to his own neighbors and friends; none too gingerly for the haughty hotspurs of slavedom. Caleb was very unfortunate in not having first beheld the light of day; in not having first breathed God's free air in an humble, obscure cabin on some large plantation--in negro quarters. His admiration of slavery is such that if he had been born a son of bondage his eloquence might have been turned to some account; his master might have given him constant employment convincing his fellow slaves that their "normal condition"--"and the normal condition of poor men everywhere, without regard to color"--"is that of slavery." Doubtless if he had been raised under the beneficial influences of slavery, his admiration of the "Peculiar Institution" would have prompted him to endeavor to induce all poor men to become slaves--to voluntarily choose masters for life.

As it is, however, having been born a white man, in the Free North, under the benign influences of our "Peculiar Institutions": Free Schools, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Liberty in its fullest, largest sense, he can, unmolested, pour forth his abominable tirades against the system of social, moral and political sentiments and practice which, when fully developed, as is in the case in the State in which he resides, produce a race of men in every way the equals of any class of human beings in the world-- their Free Schools being the basis of all their greatness. After reading this miserable effort of a would be great man--abusing those of his own section and adulating the owners of slaves--we thought that we would like to hear of a Southern man (it might be the largest slaveowner in that section,) making a speech as strongly against his neighbors, and against slavery, as Cushing's is against freedom, and see how long he would go unpunished by Judge Lynch.

The office of Chief Justice, for life, is certainly an enviable position. It is well worthy the noble ambition of any man competent to discharge its duties; it is right and proper for such an one to put forth honorable efforts to obtain the position after having been selected by his fellow men; but there is no excuse for truckling subserviency in a mad desire to gain even such an honor. What, we would like to know, but the wish of gaining a high place in the estimation of Southern Senators--the men who, with the President, fill the post of Chief Justice when a vacancy occurs--could have induced any man to occupy the bad eminence which Cushing voluntarily assumed in his ridiculous outpouring of slang at Newburyport?

There is no position on earth more degrading for a human being to occupy than that of accuser of his nearest relatives and friends of constructive crimes. There is no position less enviable than that of using the Freedom of Speech, which can alone be uninterruptedly enjoyed in the North, in piling up epithets upon the heads of those whose manly defence of the speaker and his rights is his only guarantee of safety while he is abusing them for maintaining the Liberty he so loudly decries. If, therefore, we had not the most indubitable evidence of its truthfulness, we could scarcely believe that a son of New England would demean himself so much, even when desiring to make a heavy bid for a high office; as Caleb Cushing has done--vainly, as he will find, endeavoring to appease the wrath of men who, loving such treason by his own people as he exhibits in his heavy bid, utterly despise the traitor. Caleb Cushing might have well spared himself the trouble, and refrained from heaping this disgrace upon his progeny; for he will not-- nor will any other aspirant who bids so heavy for the place--ever accomplish his wishes by such base attempts at securing Southern favor.

The practice of looking only to the South for political assistance, which too many Northern aspirants for office have long indulged in--especially those of the Locofoco school--has so completely absorbed the minds of seekers for place that they do not believe that there is any other power in the land; they forget that there is a North. The recent election went very far toward establishing, beyond further controversy, that there is a great, Free, active, thinking and working North; that the cotton rope with which nabobs heretofore bound Freemen, enabling them to lead them whither they would, has been torn asunder; that a Northern workingman--although "a small fisted farmer," a "greasy mechanic," or a "filthy operative," in the estimation of Southern lords-of -the-lash--is the equal of any man in Republican America; no matter what claims to superiority the rich owners of human flesh may arrogate to themselves. The manner in which the Freemen of the North expressed their wishes on the 6th of November, teaches the important lesson that, the day is not far distant when no man can secure office who bids so heavily for exclusive Southern favor.