mmm m 'SMMF' 'MM ^ ^mMZ c c otc c ^*'^- ';' ■ '^ "">> > , t>^ > -J :> -> ^x> >:> ■ ^ ^XJ' ^ i) i) >~^r> >:^ :^ p^ i) ^ 'y ~S> ^ 'f ^5> » 3 > "^ i •'^ =51?' >)r^>'T>-' ; ^ .3.5>-> ->> \ , 1>y -^^ ->-X>^^ i> ■5-'>^ > ^>:>^' ?;> ^^^ >->>-' :^ :3>-i>.>,^. ^ '■5> ^2>^^ >^V ^ :2:> ^ M> >^^' 5P — >--^> -v'^s^/, ^-> ^-^ , ,->^ -. :>> ' --, ^7 -'^^-. 1> > = >i..irp> ^13^ THE National Controversy; OR, THE VOICE OF THE FATHERS UPON THE SrjTE OF THE COUNrRT, By JOSEPH C. STILES. ^ NEW YORK : RuDD & Carleton, 130 Grand Street. BROOKS BUILDING, COR. OF BROADWAY. M DCCC LXI. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by JOSEPH C. STILES, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. E. CRAIGHEAD, Printer, Stcreotypcr, and Eleclrolype Caiton ISuiltiing, 81, SS, and S5 Centre Street, PREFACE. There are three ways of investigating our national controversy. I may inquire, 1. To which of the con- tending parties the wrong is mainly attributable ; 2. Whether the principal blame lies at the door of the South ; or 3, at the door of the North. I have chosen the last. Let it be remembered it is not my object to labor directly to spread out the wrong-doings of the South. By so doing I should break up the logic, unity, and strength of the argument advanced to establish the end in view. If I am skilful, I shall do two things : to the best of my ability, prove the guilt of the North directly^ by pertinent argument ; and indirectly^ by sustainmg the defences of the South. By this course I do not lay myself open to the charge of 'prejudice. I set out to investigate one branch of the subject, and should not be censured because I do not introduce another. If my convictions are well founded, the causes of erroneous judgment may lie-at two points. The founda- tions of the justification of the South and of the crimi- nation of the North — or rather the facts and principles 11 PREFACE. which decide the relative right or wrong of the parties — lie far back in the history of the country, and do not now exert their proper influence upon the public mind ; while the heated state of popular feelings, for many years, upon our vexed question, has thrown up a false halo which invests with still deeper obscurity the true moral features of our national strife. Touching the injluence of this appeal, may I remind the reader, that adverse views will certainly bring up the sins of the South and the defences of the North at every step. Yet he should not deem me unfair because I do not give them a hearing. All I ask of him is this — let him look at the fact or argument before him, give it a just consideration, and judge whether he should not in candor renounce in whole or in part some objection to the conduct of the South, or concede in whole or in part the charged misconduct of the North. I cannot now pro- mise to exhibit the same impartiality. My little book has already found its way into j^our hand. But this I will say — if the sentiment to which you object is unfounded — then may our Heavenly Father forgive the transgressor, nor permit his ignorance to damage you or any brother man on earth. If, however, that to which you object is truth and righteousness in the case — Oh, look at our beloved country ! and unite in my prayer that these pages may be sent home to do their work in the hearts of all our countrymen. THE NATIONAL CONTROYERSY. Our unhappy Country ! Is there anything in the his- tpry of the past which may relieve the complications of the present? Is there no class of truths, no course of argument, which can bring the people to one mind, and restore the happy confidence of early years ? The capi- tal wrong may lie at the South^ or it may be chargeable to the North. A southern man, by birth, sentiment, and sympathy, for our common country's sake, will not my northern brethren and countrymen, in all earnest heed, accept my invitation, and join me in the discussion of the four following propositions ? 1. Were our northern fathers encouraged to expect that, within a short period after the formation of the con- stitution, slavery would disappear for ever ? 2. Has the South transgressed her constitutional rela- tions to the subject of slavery, and encroached upon the JSTorth ? 8. Has not the Korth violated her constitutional obliga- tions upon this subject, and encroached upon the South? 4. Where shall we find the origin and the healing of this unhappy strife ? I. Were our fathers encouraged to ^'■expect that within a short period^ slavery would disappear for everV It is not contended that the South expressly stipulated in the constitution that slavery should be speedily abo lished; but the grand aggravating element of almost 4 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. every modern charge is this: the history, principles, language, conduct, and condition, both of the IsTorth and of the South in that day, encouraged and measurably au- thorized " the father^ to expect that within a short period slavery would disappear for ever." We respectfully sub- mit whether every argument advanced to establish this expectation of the fathers does not involve a contradiction of the averment, and rather prove the endy^ring than the evanescent condition of the institution in early days. 1. The declining state of slavery in the times of the fathers. — That the institution of slavery had long been dying out at the North is undeniable; but the very causes which worked decay at the North wrought invi- gofation at the South. The cold climate of the North, uncongenial to the African constitution of the negro, shortened his days, and diminished his strength and value ; while the warm climate of the South, more suit- able to his physical nature, proportionably augmented his powers, both of labor and of enjoyment. In like manner, it had been demonstrated that the commercial, manufactural, and skilful avocations of the North could extract but a profitless service from the contracted intel- lect of the negro, while the agricultural pursuits of the South found, in his remarkable physical endurance, even in a sultry climate, an exact provision for her simple culture of tobacco, indigo, and rice. Thus, that very intellectual and physical structure of the slave, which so naturally worked out his rapid disappearance from the North, must exert an equal power to secure his perma- nent value at the South. 2. The anti-slavery spirit of the day. ~li cannot be denied that, during the debates which gave birth to our noble THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 6 conrititution, anti-slavery principles were abundant!}^ and vehemently avowed, both by northern and by southern men. Let it be remembered, that the grand struggle lay between the Northern and the Middle States on the one hand, and the extreme Southern States on the other. Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, on many points sympathized with the North — on one, certainly, their anti-slavery zeal was even more conspicuous.* But he undertakes an arduous task who sits down to build up the " expectation" of the fathers upon the foundation of the anti-slavery sentiments of the day. It is freely granted that Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Mason, Eandolph, and other Eepresentatives of the northern tier of Southern States, were all in language decided, and some of them violent, opponents of the institution of slavery. Surely they were most noble men. Their like earth rarely sees. God knows we should deeply honor them, but not for the power of their anti-slavery prin- ciples. One fact speaks volumes. If we mistake not, every man of them lived and died a slaveholder : Wash- ington, Jefferson, Madison, Mason, Randolph, and pro- bably every other prominent delegate from the South. We believe, moreover, that they all left their slaves in unlimited bondage, save Washington, who willed the liberty of his after the death of his widow. With entire respect, we are forced to inquire, what reason had our Southern fathers to expect that their principles would work the destruction of slavery in others, when they were too weak to abolish slaveholding in themselves ? We repeat it — what right had any man of that day to expect that the principles of our Southern fathers would * See Note A. 6 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. do at a distance, in the hands of their posterity, what they did not do at home, in their own hands? ISTor did the anti-slavery principles of our Norihern fathers seem much more reliable. Franklin and Morris, Martin and Wilson, Lansing and Hamilton, Sherman and Elsworth, Gorham and Gerry, and a host of others, were noble and powerful men, well worthy of enrolment amongst the most distinguished and gallant patriots of the Kevolution. But as emancipationists^ they were entitled to no such praise. The Convention had well- nigh decided to limit the importation of slaves to the year 1800. General Pinckney, of South Carolina, moved to extend the privilege of importation to the year 1808. Where was the anti-slavery principle of our Northern fathers when this wide door of national slave-importation was thrown open? Massachusetts, by her delegate, seconded the motion; and though two slave States, Virginia and Delaware, voted against it, it is a fact that Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire voted unanimously in its favor, and carried the motion. Let it be remembered, that of all the Northern and Middle States, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were the only two who recorded a vote against the constitutional extension of the right of importation. Where, too, was the anti- slavery principle of our Northern flxthers, when a motion was introduced to levy a tax of ten dollars a head upon every slave thus imported ? 'Tis true they did deeply disrelish the proposition, and vainly endeavored to put a fair face upon the transaction ; yet when it was thus proposed, to all intents and purposes, to enrol slaves amongst the taxable commodities of commerce, the records of the country incontestably declare that not THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 7 a single ISTorthern vote was entered up against the constitutional provision. We ask now, what reason had our Northern fathers, or we, their sons, to expect that their anti-slavery principles would accomplish the rapid downfall of slavery in the country, when with one hand they themselves opened the door to the extensive introduction of slaves into the country, and with the other graded them as property on their arrival ? The singular inefficiency of open opposition to slavery in the days of the fathers may find its secret partly in two things. First, it was temperate, not maddened. Had the fanaticism which, to a greater or less extent, imbues so large a portion of Northern mind in our day, equally affected anti-slavery men in the Constitutional Convention, they would have burst a world sooner than consent to be pent up and tied down as revolutionary anti-slavery was and is by the American Constitution. Again, anti-slavery was then political, not religious. The Honorable John Jay informs us, " that prior to the Revolution, the great body of our people had been so long accustomed to the practice and convenience of slavery, that very few of them ever doubted the pro- priety or rectitude of it!" Our Revolution, then, was the parent of the anti-slavery sentiments of the fathers. They had so much to say about natural rights, that they very naturally discovered a sort of incompatibility between the practice of slavery and the principles of the Revolution ; nor can it be doubted that this sense of incom- patibility was greatly quickened in all American minds at this time by Tom Paine's infidel but popular and powerful discussion of associated topics. But bear in mind, it was a sentiment just started up and sustained 8 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. bj an excited glance at the political surface of things, and had yet taken no such hold of the mind as enabled it to overthrow the long entrenched lust of gain arrayed against it on every hand. Now the protection of natural rights is not the great work which the Scriptures assign to man on earth. Remember ! not one syllable had God uttered to incite man to set a high value upon his right of property, or his right of character, or his right of liberty, or even his right of life. On the contrary. Sal- vation ! Salvation 1 is the great order of the day. And if our Northern fathers had but been content to carry out the principle they so frequently and honorably avowed, that " the moralitj^ and wisdom of slavery are considera- tions belonging to the states themselves :" had they exercised the Christian sobriety to reflect, that if the villany of man had torn away the poor slave from his native country, the mercy of Grod had well supplied the home of his captivity with most valuable facilities for his social and spiritual redemption : and had they taught themselves to honor the Southern master for all that was worthy in the treatment of his protege, congratulated him on his slave's improvement in character and condi- tion, and kindly co-operated with him, to the extent of their ability, in all wise undertakings for the good of his slaves, the Christianity, the noble Christianity of the prin- ciple would have made its powerful mark both upon the bond and the free. But the anti-slavery of the fathers had neither the had power of fanaticism^ nor the good power of Christianity. In the Southern man it failed to do what it purposed to accomplish. And in the Northern man it came near to yielding to that which it was prin- cipled to resist. THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 9 Two things, therefore, are perfectly clear. On the one hand, the fathers had no reason to expect that their principles of opposition to slavery would work its speedy banishment from society ; on the other, they had great reason to expect its sturdy endurance — for there must have resided somewhere in that institution a mighty power of self preservation — since it did so long and so perfectly paralyse all the adverse efforts of the mightiest men of the nation. North and South. 3. Language: pledges and predictions. — It is contended that the language of the framers of the Constitution, uttered in their prolonged conventional debates, afford abundant testimony of a prevalent conviction in that day, that the institution of slavery was near its end ; and moreover, that the half-way concessions of the South, and predictions of the North, contributed to warrant such a persuasion. I apprehend that this is a great mistake. The records of the Constitutional Convention furnish two classes of utterances bearing upon this subject. The first respects the abolition of the slave trade. The fraternal and powerful appeals of Northern brethren did sometimes, though very rarely, wring out from the extreme Southern delegate some such sympathetic response as the following — " If the Southern States were let alone, they will probably of themselves stop importa- tion. He would himself, as a citizen of South Carolina, vote for it." (Charles Pinckney.) " If the States be all left at liberty on this subject. South Carolina may per- haps by degrees, do, of herself, what is wished, as Vir- ginia and Maryland already have done." (C. C. Pinckney.) " Georgia, left to herself, may probably put a stop to the 1* 10 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. evil." (Baldwin.) Langdon, of liew Hampshire, ventured to extract some hope from the opinions expressed that " the Southern States left to themselves will cease to import slaves." Other Northern delegates reminded the convention of the suggestion of Southern members that "Carolina and Georgia were themselves disp^osed to get rid of the importation of slaves in a short time." But Northern members were not long left to a state of conjecture concerning Southern purpose upon this subject. The very delegates from the South, who, under pow- erful appeals, had encouraged some little hope of the abatement of the slave trade, when they perceived that Northern members were relying upon their guarded suggestions, substantially recalled all they had declared, and affirmed their solemn conviction that they never could persuade their respective states "to adopt the con- stitution," if importation was forbidden : that " Carolina and Georgia must have slaves" — and that the rejection of the importing clause " was an exclusion of them from the Union." While other Southern delegates, yet more decided, abruptly exclaimed, that every expectation of the North upon this subject would be disappointed — " that the people of the South were not such fools as to give up so important an interest," &c. Nor was it long ere the Northern delegates themselves abandoned all hope of arresting the traffic. Wilson, of Pennsylvania^ avowed his firm conviction " that the Southern States could not be members of the Union if the clause (import- ing) should be rejected." Governeur Morris, of the same State, after a long and gallant opposition, was "compelled to express his decided belief that the Southern States THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 11 would never confederate on terms that would deprive them of the slave trade." Eoger Sherman, of Con- necticut, counselled, that " it was better to let the Stntes import slaves, if they made it a sine qua nonJ'' Oliver Ellsw-orth, of Connecticut, " declared his willingness to take the clause as it is. Let every State import what it pleases. What enriches a part enriches the whole. • Let us not intermeddle. This widening of opinions had a threatening aspect. If we do not agree on this moderate and middle ground, he was afraid we should lose two States — and have several confederations — and not with- out bloodshed." Such at large was the graceful yield- ing of the North before the unflinching demand of the South. So exactly stood and struggled the parties, when sla- very itself became the bone of contention. During the early part of the debate, a very few expressions were uttered — not by Southern, but by Northern delegates — indicating an opinion that slavery would decline. Sher- man remarked that "the abolition of slavery is going on in the United States, and that the good sense of the several states would probably, b}^ degrees, complete it." Ellsworth, his colleague, supposed that "as population increases, poor laborers will become so plenty as to ren- der slaves useless. Slavery in time will not be a speck in our country." But the battle raged desperately on this main issue. On the one hand, the assailants pro- nounced the system of slavery "a neflirious institution" — " the curse of Heaven on the community where it prevailed" — "inconsistent with the principles of the revolution" — "dishonorable to American character" — " pernicious alike to morals and to manners " — " pre- 12 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. venting immigration of whites, tlie strength and riches of a country " — " in social development a desert and a wilderness beside the budding fields of freedom" — " in the state, a weakness and a burden through liability to insurrection, which the North is bound to suppress," &c., &c. On the other hand the Southern delegates respond : — "That slavery is justified by the example of all the world, since in all ages half of mankind have been slaves " — " is a blessing to the subject, for it civilizes the savage and converts the pagan " — " to the whole Union, for the more slaves, the more the produce, and therefore the more employment for the carrying trade " — " the more consumption, and therefore the more revenue to the treasury of our common country." " Slaves raise the value of lands " — " supply armies with food and clothing, and may become soldiers themselves." " To us of Carolina and Georgia, slavery is as necessary as a home, in this latitude; for who else upon earth could cultivate rice and indigo in our sultry swamps ? " " Entertaining such views, as free and independent states, we shall assuredly preserve our domestic institu- tion." On this point, as on the other, the North gave way before the unyielding adhesion of the South to the claims of her social organization. Thus, candor compels us to conclude that so far as language is concerned, " the fathers " had no encourage- ment to expect that slavery would rapidly disappear. On the contrary, the strong luords of southern men must have carried home deeply to the hearts of Northern delegates, the resolute, inflexible purpose of the South to maintain their ancient institution against all opposi- tion. THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHEKS. 13 4. Conduct: relative^ yielding^ and controlling. — There was nothing in the conduct of the parties, nothing in the practical issues of their deliberations, which justified the slightest expectation of " the fathers " that slavery was djdng out in the land. On the contrary, the pro-slavery delegates carried their main points so perfectly, against such powerful odds, that, to the end of time, the specta- tor of the conflict in the published debates of the con- stitutional convention, will pronounce the Southern victory an inexplicable enigma, apart from an enormous inherent poioer in the slavery of that day^ ivhich the fathers must have felt. The South held their slaves both as persons and as property^ and insisted that the constitution of the country should distinctly recognise this two-fold claim. When they presented their first point, that slaves as persons should have a representation in the government, — the delegates of the Northern and Middle states were out- raged. They substantially declared — "If you your- selves will first treat them as men^ and give them the dignities oi freedom^ we will cheerfully welcome them to a participation in citizenship with our people and our- selves. But while you strip them of their humanity, and degrade them to a level with the brutes of your plantations, we cannot go back and tell our constituents that we have allowed you to go still further, and enrol your servile .dependents in the same political category with themselves. They would not endure the revolting degradation, and we cannot, we will not do it." The delegates of the South, in substance, reply: — "Slaves are our wealthy and wealth should be represented in the government instituted largely for its protection. Slaves 14 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. are persoiis dwelling in the country, and working for it, and if inferior in intelligence and influence, we do not demand for them an equal representation. They are our fellow-men^ with rights of life, labor, and happiness to be guarded ; as such^ we expect the government to recog- nise them. Finally, we are sovereign and independent states ; we must look to the vital interests of ourselves and our people ; and if you nullify the half of our popu- lation, make our slaves a dead letter in the government of the country, and thus destroy the force of our social organization, we shall never belong to your Union." It was ultimately decided, after a hard struggle, that a clause should be inserted in the constitution, securing to slaves a " three-fifths " representation. (Art. 1, Sec. 2.) Let it be observed, too, that by the constitutional rule, "o?iVed" taxation is of persons. Slaves, therefore, are treated a second time in the constitution as persons — by being subjected to a " three-fiftlis direct taxation." Thus there are four ways in which the constitution clearly establishes the personality of slaves : by its census^ its representation^ its taxation clauses, and by expressly speaking of them as " other ^erso?25." When the second grand claim of the South was brought forward, that slaves should be recognised as property^ the anti-slavery sentiment of the convention was still more deeply shocked. But a similar struggle ultimately led to a similar issue. It is true you do not find the word "slave" in the constitution; neither in the thirty pages of our chartered rights, do you find any such phrases as "the nation," — "our country," — "our government," — " national treasury," — ^'national legislature," — " national government." The reason is this. Those who framed THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 15 that instrument well knew that they had a thousand conflicting interests to reconcile. They therefore resolved to employ no word or phrase which would give umbrage to any class or party in the country. Yet, as Luther Martin says, " they were willing to admit into their sys- tem those things which the expression signified." There were those in the country who loved the Confederation^ and opposed " the formation of a national government." The convention accomplished the work^ the formation of a national government, but avoided all offensive lan- guage. There were those, too, who abhorred slavery. The convention here in like manner avoided the term, but admitted the thing the term expressed. You will find property in man clearly implied in the clause requiring the rendition of fugitives. (Art. 4, Sec. 2.) Fix your thought upon the operation. Form a concep- tion, if you can, of the shadow of a reason for the restoration of the fugitive, apart from the fact that the master has a right to control his servant — has 2i property in his services. How clearly is the doctrine taught by the language of the first resolution passed upon this subject by the convention, August 27th. The closing words are these : — " shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming their service or labor." By the framers of the constitution, obviously the master has a just claim to his servant — 2^ property in hi^ services. When this section was put into the hands of the " committee of style and language " — mark ! it comes out thus : " but shall be deUvered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due^ Thus the constitution decides that tlie services of the slave are the due of his master. His master owns them — has a property in them. In like 16 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. manner, the imposition of a tax or duty on the imported slave, with equal clearness, establishes the constitutional doctrine oi slave-property. " A tax, or duty, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.'" (Art, 1, Sec. 9.) How pal- pable is the constitutional recognition here. The slave is set down amongst imports and taxed as such. No wonder Roger Sherman "was opposed to a tax on slaves, as making the matter worse, because it implied they were property.'^ When he repeated his objection the next day, Mr. Goram, Mass., attempted to put a bet- ter face upon the transaction, and " thought that Mr, Sherman should consider the duty not as implying that slaves are property, but as a discouragement to the importation of them." But Sherman honestly replied, that the smallness of the duty showed that revenue was the object, not the discouragement of the importa- tion." A second attempt was made to break the force of its application to slaves, by considering the tax as equally extending to the " migration " of foreigners. But unfortunately, the very words of the constitution destroy the effort — for the word ." migration " is dropped in the latter part of the clause, and the " tax " is " imposed " on such ^^iinportation^^ only. When this section was called up on Friday 2'ith, Mr. Livingston, of New York, offered an amendment allowing importation, but impos- ing a tax or duty in the words, " at a rate not exceeding the average of the duties laid on imports.''^ Here cer- tainly the language places slaves in the category of ^^ imports," and of course adjudges them property. The next day Mr. Baldwin, in order to define more accurately the " average duty," moved to strike out the second part, the words — " average of the duty laid on imports " — THE EXPECTATION" OF THE FATHERS. 17 and insert " common impost on articles not enumerated." Thus the sentence would read, " a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, at a rate not exceeding the common imposts on articles not enumerated." As this motion was agreed to nem. con., the entire mind of the con- vention, North and South, hereby enrolled slaves among ^^ articles ^^ of import, pronounced the tax upon them an " impost,''^ and of course, stamped them as property, since they were "articles" "imported" under "impost." Sher- man felt this truth forcibly, and objected a third time, " that this second part acknowledges property in many King and Langdon, both northern men, very simply con- sidered " the second part (the taxing) as the price of the first part (the importation)." Eufus King had previously " remarked on the exemption of slaves from duty, whilst every other import was subjected to it, as an irregularity, which could not fliil to strike the commercial sagacity of the North." Whereupon Gen. Pinckney, adopting his language, moved " to commit the clause that slaves might be made liable to an equal tax with other imports,^'' " admitting in the same connexion, that slaves might be * didiecV like other imports." On the same day, Wilson objected, " as the section now stands, all articles imported are to be taxed, slaves alone exem'ptP This is, in fact, a bounty on that article. So much for the testimony of the framers of the con- stitution, individually. As to the mind of the conven- tion at large — Elias Boudinot, a member of the Continen- tal Congress, in 1788, from New Jersey, " was well in- formed that the tax or duty of $10 was provided instead of the five per cent, ad valorem, and was so expressly under- stood by all parties in the convention," that this tax was 18 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. deemed necessarj^, as " doing justice to all the States, and equalizing duties throughout the Union." (Elliott, vol. iv. 215.) The conduct of government in demanding and receiving from the British throne a pecuniary com- pensation for slaves abducted in the Revolution, is her own legislative construction of the constitution ; while the numerous express decisions of the Supreme Court — that slaves are property, is her judicial interpretation of it. How clearl}^, variously, indisputably, does the consti- tution recognise the slave-2^ro2:)erty doctrine of the South. Slaves are to be ^'■delivered up^^ as ^'■justly'''' claimed, and ^^due^^ to the master: are to be taxed as " imports ^^ and " articles^'' whose introduction should be subject to " im- 2yost,^^ and ^^ priced " and " dutied^^ like other im23orts " ad valorem,^^ whose " exeraption " from taxation might be com- plained of as an " inequality " which ''''commercial " sagacity will soon detect : and whose taxation was understood by the entire convention as doing universal "y^s^/ce," and ^'' equalizing duties^'' t]ivox\^\o\ii ^^ the Union :^^ for whose abduction the government demanded restitution, ad valo- rem, and who have been pronounced '^ property, ^^ and this without qualification, by the highest tribunal of the coun- try, from the formation of the constitution to the present da}^ We put it now to every fellow citizen in the coun- try, whatever be his principles or tastes, if the American constitution is to be interpreted by the established laws of construction, is he not bound in candor to concede that that document does clearly recognise slaves both as persons and as property f What a strong impression of the power of the principle of slavery in that day must have been made upon the mind of "the fathers," as they infixed, seriatim, the THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHEKS, 19 unlimited extent of the Soutliern demands upon the face of the constitution ! Governeur Morris at one time acknowledged the amazement and " r/i7em?7ia " into which he was thrown by the stern impracticability of Southern adhesion to the slave-trade : at another, he was pressed back into a temper of hitter petulance^ by the advancing demands of Southern guarantees, and indignantly ex- claimed — w^hy attempt any longer to blend ^^ incovipatihle things^ " Let us at once take a friendly leave of each other :" and finally, when he saw one Southern claim after another incorporated into the heart of the constitu- tion, he sarcastically pronounced ^''domestic slavery'''' the most ^^ prominent feature in the aristocratic countenance of the proposed constitution." Did not that man feel to the very centre of his soul, that come whence it might, be it what it may, surely there is a living poiver in the slavery of this day. Did not Rufus King feel the present and fear the future power of slavery ? Counselling that they, the convention, should do justice to the South; he says, " he must be short-sighted, indeed, who does not foresee that when the Southern States should be more numerous than the ISTorthern (did this man imagine that slavery would die out in a day ?), they (the South) can and will hold a language that will awe us into justice! If they threaten to separate now, in case injury shall be done them, will their threats be less urgent or effectual when /orce shall back their demands ? Even in the inter- vening period there will be no point of time, at which they will not be able to say — do us justice or we will separate!" Luther Martin seemed to be trans- ported with mortification and rage when he called up before the Legislature of Maryland, the inexplicable power 20 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. which had been exercised over the convention by South- ern men. He breaks out in the following strain — " This system of slavery, which hound hand and foot ten States in the Union, and placed thern at the mercy of the other three and under the most abject and servile subjection to them, was approved by the majority of the members of the convention." "Who doubts that that man and every other Northern man in the constitutional convention felt the living power of slavery in the days of " the fathers?" The conduct of our constitutional fathers : what shall we think of it? What light does it throw upon the debility or the strength — upon the probable disapijear- ance or endurance of the institution of slavery in early days? Southern men put down their programme bodily amongst the provisions of the constitution ; and with a power that made Northern men stand amazed at the feebleness of their opposition. Surely the practical issues of the deliberations of our ancestors should have estopped "the fathers" from "expecting that within a short period slavery will disappear for ever;" and rather forced them to feel that that domestic institution of the South, which, at the disadvantage of three to ten, did bind hand and foot the strongest men of the nation, had more than a few days to live on the earth. 5. Condition. — Relative state of the two sections, pre- sent and prospective.-— BQjon^ all question, at the time of the formation of the American Constitution, in all the elements of secular prosperitj^, the most flourishing section of the country was the South. The South was the wealthiest portion of the country ; and .the fathers say so. The slaves of Virginia sur- passed the entire population of the State of New York THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 21 by 50,000 ; and that of every other one of the Northern States, Massachusetts only excepted. The exports of Carolina were near 600,000 pounds per annum. As to the State of Georgia, Roger Sherman concedes that her rapid growth justified the relatively larger allotment of representatives accorded to her in the first arrangement upon this, subject. Indeed, during the entire debate on representation Southern delegates claimed the superiority of the South in property, and Northern delegates acknowledged it. Gov. Morris agreed " that property ought to have its weight, but not all the weight. If Southern States are to supply the money ^ the Northern States are to spill the blood." The peculiar property of the South, we should remem- ber, too, was rapidly improving in those days. Oliver Elsworth testifies " that slaves multiply so fast in Vir- ginia and Maryland that it was cheaper to raise them than import them.'' In like manner, the fresh and fertile lands of the extreme Southern States presented at this period a most inviting field of emigration. Col. Mason, a strong anti-slavery man, declared "that the Western people are calling out for slaves for their new lands, and will soon fill the country witli them." Finally, ponder well this fact — labor paid better, and population increased faster at the South than at the North, and the fathers say so. Madison admitted that the population at the North, at that time, surpassed that of the South, but added, "popu- lation every day tended towards an equilibrium.^'' He continued, " where labor yielded the most, the people would resort. Hence it is that people are constantly swarming from the Northern and Middle parts of the United States to the Southern and Western.^^ Mason corroborates 22 THE NATIONAL CONTROVEESY. Madison, observing that " as soon as the Southern and Western population should predominate, which must liajppen in a few yearsj^ etc. Gov. Morris testifies to a startling prediction of the day. " It has been said that North Carolina^ South Carolina^ and Georgia will, in a little time, have a majority of the people of America." Butler seemed better informed on the subject. He dis- claimed the supposition that these three States would have more people than all the other States, bat affirmed that they would have many more relatively to the North- ern States than they now have. For, says he, " t\iQ people and strength of America are evidently bearing Southwardly and South- Westwardly." So well-founded and accredited was this claim of more rapid increase in population at the South, that Northern and Southern men were study- ing out and making ready for the results. Col. Mason, anticipating the early preponderance of the South, was anxious to arrange for the periodical taking of the cen- sus, lest when the Southern States should come " to have three fourths of the population of America within their limits^ the Northern will hold fast to the present majority of the representatives." Governeur Morris inferred that the South must, in this case, "include the great interior country^ and everything was to be apprehended from their getting the power into their hands'^ Wilson, on the contrary, more calm and thoughtful, conceiving that all men, wherever placed, have equal rights, and are equally entitled to confidence — viewed without apprehension the period when a few States should contain the superior number of people. As for the North — intelligent, brave, enterprising, self- reliant, and destined to rise, yet for long yea,rs her busi- THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 23 ness broken up, her ships rotting, her people impove- rished — so sad was her condition and her prospects at this time, that one of her delegates on the floor of the Convention declared that '• the Northern and middle States will be ruined^ if not enabled (by a navigation law) to defend themselves against foreign regulations." Thus, the Southern States were the most wealthy, and their property the most improving ; they were spreading out their settlements to the West, and their fresh lands were calling aloud for emigrants ; labor paid best at the South, and the people were swarming from the North to secure its profits ; population was increasing faster at the South, and all anticipated its early predominance ; power and influence were rapidly accumulating at the South, and far-seeing men began to apprehend the results of its change of hands. The condition of the country in early days ! — what shall we say of it? One word only. Surely it must have struck to death the very first rising of an expecta- tion in the mind of any one of " the fathers," that, within a short period, slavery will disappear for ever. 6. The mental condition of the fathers. — It is question- able whether the anti-slavery virtue of the fathers was not too feeble to admit of any such conscious claims upon the South, to sustain any such expectations of the speedy abolition of slavery. Their ancestors had enacted, and carried out, probably the very darkest slave-code recorded in the history of a civilized people. Some of the States which the fathers represented, justified slave-making by statute. — Ancient Charters, Mass. ch. 12. Trumb. Col. Kec. 332. On their own soil they practised this slave-making ; and not only 24: THE NATIONAL CONTROVEIISY. divided families, but sent Indian women and boys to the West Indies, and sold them for slaves. — Trumb. Conn., vol. i. 85. They imported the product of slave-labor, distilled the molasses into rum, exported the same to Africa, purchased slaves with the proceeds, transported them to the West Indies, and sold them in the market. — (Yide Archives Conn. Hartford.) By law they author- ized every city, town, or manor, to appoint a cominon ivhipper^ who should receive a salary, not to exceed three shillings per head for every slave whipped ; and further authorized any person finding slaves at a certain distance from their homes, or out after nine o'clock at night — without a written passport — to inflict twenty lashes on each, and recover from the master by suit, reason- able compensation for his services. — (Laws of Conn., Mass. New York, New Jersey, &c.) They not only required the fugitive to be surrendered upon claim, and punished all who " harbored," " secreted," " entertained," *' aided," or " tolerated" the " oppressed," but laid their ven- geance on every person who, knowing that a slave is, or has been entertained or secreted, does not make it known. — Laws Ehode Island, New York, &c. They discour- aged emancipation in various forms — in one State inflict- ing a fine of $300 a-piece for every slave brought into her territory to be freed. — Ehode Island, Mass., Conn. These historical facts are not brought up reproachfully, but simply as necessary to justice in the premises. Such was the early face of slavery in the homes of " the fathers ;" and though the system had long since been modified by milder legislation, yet unsuitable as slave-labor had ever been in northern latitudes, and con- sequently unreasonable as was the perpetuation of slavery THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 25 there, except on purely benevolent principles, they testify upon the floor of the Convention, that they themselves were, in general, slaveholders still — only one SUite having emancipated her slaves, and one more arranged to follow her example. Nor let it be forgotten, that they themselves, at that very time, had just opened a national door to the importation of slaves, for the space of twenty years. That our northern fathers were men of exalted talents, patriotism, and worth, it is our pride and our glory to concede. That in perfect consistency with all virtue, they might have cherished the desire that their southern brethren would adopt such a course in the premises as they themselves deemed all-important to the welfare of the country, we readilj acknowledge. But this point we respectfully submit. Is it consistent with the laws of a good conscience, with the workings of truth and virtue in the human soul, that our northern fathers, and those they represented, with such a past history and present position in the premises, should expect from tlieir southern neighbors, as a species of duty to the North, the early abolition of slavery ? Eemember — ^it was an institution which the South had never carried to the same excess ; an institution which, with so little inducement to retain, they themselves had not yet aban- doned : nay 1 an institution which they themselves had recently and greatly augmented and encouraged. I say now — involved in such unhappy complications, would it not have been pure phariseeism in our northern fathers to entertain any such expectation ? And would not modesty and rectitude, on their part, have positively incapacitated them to cherish any such sense of southern obligation ? 2 26 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. Apart from the words of the Constitution, yon perceive tliere was nothing, in the whole conditimi of things, to justify, but everything to nullify the alleged expectation fxthers. 6. The great official act of the fathers. — Did not the fathers themselves hury deep in the Constitution all north- ern right to expect the speedy abolition of slavery by the South ? Consider — 1. The Attitude of the Parties. — The manner in which the opposing sections of the country came together to form a common government, is vividly exhibited in the debates of the convention. They had common ties, but conflicting interests. The North expected to live by her ships; the South by her slaves. The 'North was deeply revolted by the slave-claims of the South ; and the Soutli as deeply purposed that their rejection should work her exclusion from the union. An agricultural people, the South required free-trade^ because it would secure low freights. While the North, a commercial population, required a navigation act, because a prohibi- tion upon foreign bottoms would operate a premium upon Northern ships. In a word — if the North and the South formed a copartnership, Northern sentiments must con- cede to Southern institutions ; and Southern exports must be taxed for Northern commerce. Just here it was that the North and the South were brought to a dead- lock. Just around these conflicting points were laid down the foundations of our government. And precisely to this conflict and compromise must we ever come back for all just interpretation of the Constitution of the coun- try. The Eastern states declared through their represen- tatives — " we have but one motive to Union — and that is THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 27 commerce f without a navigation act, we "are ruined." The Southern states respond — we have no motive to Union if slavery is not protected ; and a navigation law would destroy its profits. Thus " the two grand divi- sions of Northern and Southern interests," as they were stjded, stood diametrically opposed to each other, not less in the purposes of the parties, than in the nature of things. Good reason had Pierce Butler to declare, " the interests of the North and the South were as far apart as those of Kussia and Turkey." What was to be done ? Consider. 2. The Compromise Effected. — " Government, to be last- ing, must be founded in the confidence and affection of the people." The convention felt the necessity of mutual accommodation, and appointed a committee of conference and compromise comprising one member from each state. Specially, the fourth, fifth, and sixth sections of Art. Seventh, were referred to them ; and generally in the language of Governeur Morris — " the whole suhjed^ of their differences. On the side of the South were committed the claims of her domestic institution and her opposi- tion to commercial restrictions. On the side of the North her opposition to the slave-claims of the South, and her desire for commercial regulations. Governeur Morris stated the object of the committee in these words — " that these things (these sectional differ- ences) may form a bargain among the Northern and Southern states." Madison subsequently alluding to the transaction, styled it. "a?2 understanding on the two sub- jects of navigation and slavery between the two parts of the Union." Concerning the action of the committee, Luther Martin, a prominent member, writes thus: "I found the Eastern states, notwithstanding tlieir aversion 28 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. to slavery, willing to indulge the Southern states, &c., provided the Southern states would gratify them by lay- ing no restriction on navigation acts." Through the mercy of God the parties conferred, agreed, and thus removed all obstacles to the formation of a National Union. When the agreement, in detail, was carried out in the stipulations of the Constitution, the South had surrendered two things — her claim to indefinite importa- tion was restricted to a term of twenty years, and her protection against navigation acts was reduced from the two-thirds vote recommended by " the Committee of Detail" to the vote of a majority. But she secured her great desideratum, her slave claims, person and property representation, taxation, &c. The North surrendered her public opposition to the domestic institution of the South, and secured for so doing a limitation of the right of importation, and what was of far greater importance to her, all necessary commercial advantages. Consider: 3. The Work Done. — The North surrendered, at once and for ever, all political right and philosophical reason to expect that the South would speedily abolish or depre- ciate her institution of slavery. After such a wheeling to the right-about in the new ground assumed, with what face could " the fathers" , either require or expect that slaver}^ should speedily disappear ? If any power on earth could have perpetuated slavery, that very power they themselves emphatically employed. If any act of man could have destroyed his right to expect the rapid disap- pearance of slaverj^, that very act they themselves per- formed. Bear in mind, they themselves had just entrenched slavery in the Constitution, and built up all the bulwarks of the government round about her every THE EXPECTATION OF THE FATHERS. 29 strong point. Say ! If strangers set xq:) slavery, do they thereby authorize their own expectation that masters would throw it down ? If opponents honored andpresei^ed slavery, could they thereby expect its advocates to discoun- tenance and destroy it. Aye 1 They had made the Con- stitution itself open the door of the whole country to an illimitable introduction of slaves for the space of twenty years — a period, in the estimation of Mr. Madison, long enough to insure all the mischiefs uf interminable impor- tation. If Northern men so extensively augmented and built up slavery, could they thereby acquire a right to ex- pect that Southern men would diminish and abolish it? What shall we say now of that historical statement which has been so industriously and indignantly bandied about amongst the people for years past to the perpetration of incalculable injury to the character of the South, and the peace of the country ? What shall we think of Senator Seward's censorious dictum^ — that — The fathers expected that slavery, within a short period, would disappear for ever?" We answer : All history and reason pronounce it a declaration perfectly preposterous ! Was not slavery dying out at the north ? Yes ! But the very power which diminished it at the north developed it at the south. Did not a great anti-slavery wave flow over the country at the close of the revolutionary war? Yes! But it was a principle which did not do its work in southern men, and could not hold its ground in northern men, and seemed to find its principal mission in proclaiming the power of that assaulted institution^ before which it broke down so emphatically in the debates of the convention. Were there no words of predicted relaxations in time to * Speeches, passim. 30 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. come? Yes! a very feeble conjecture of some possible depreciation in a mere accident of slavery. But even that feeble note was soon drowned by the loud counter- protestations of a host of hearts purposed to yield nothing, but stand by their institution to the very last. Was nothing done towards breaking the power of shivery, and arresting its progress in time to come? Yes ! The pro- secution of a contingent operation of slavery was reduced from an unlimited to a definite period. But slavery established all her main positions, and by such an over- throw of mighty powers arrayed against her as must have charged many an adverse mind with the strongest expec- tation of her vigorous future. But were there no signs of decay in the declining hope of the master and the stagnant condition of the country ? Precisely the reverse ! Of all sections of the Union the south was then the most flourishing and the most hopeful. Besides ! tell me how that heart, whose ancestor had oppressed the slave as the southern man never did, which, at this very moment, is still holding on to the slave after the last good reason in his own mind for his detention has departed — which, in opposition to southern votes, opened the door for twenty years to an African influx, whose multiplied descendants may this day make up more than half of the slaves of the nation — Tell me, I say, how such a heart can cherish a cotem- poraneous claim upon the south to the speedy abandon- ment of her institution. But, above all, tell me how can that heart which has just now constitutionaUzed slavery — has just now thrown around it all the protec- tions, and shed upon it all the countenance of the govern- ment, and given it all the force and power which mortal THE GUARANTEES OF THE SOUTH. 31 man can convey — tell me, I say, how^ lioio can such a heart hold a rational or an honest exjDectation that the southern man, through some insinuated pledges to the north, will speedily set himself to the work of dismissing slavery from the land ! In all the history of the times, in all the reason of things, in all the obligations of virtue, where can you find one solid inch of ground in the mind of the fathers to hold up their alleged " expectation V Surely not in the covetous nature of man, not in the consistent abolitionism of the expectants, not in the concessory pledges of the defendants, not in the practical results of the Convention, not in the more flourishinsr ' CD prospects of the southern people, not in the covenant to hand up southern slavery to the platform of the consti- tution upon the proviso that she will consent to shako liands there with northern commerce. II. Has the south transgressed her constitutional rela- tions to the subject of slavery and encroached upon the north ? What were the relations of the south to slavery as established by the founders of the government. Be it remembered : Not one word of discountenance of the essential principles of the institution is recorded in the constitution of the country. Not one word of pledge has the south, ever uttered, either that she would not uphold slavery through all time, or that she would sur- render one of its principles, or abandon therefor one of the immunities of the government, or that she would diminish its force in the future, or consent to its confine- ment within specified limits. On the contrary, the deci- sive fact is this : barring the limitation of the slave- trade, the national compact expressly recognised all the 82 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. principles, practices, and claims of slavery which were represented in the convention by the delegates of the planting States. Behold the programme bodily imbedded in the heart of the constitution. For all time to come, and for all the ter- ritory and population of the earth, now belonging to the great American Union, or that "may be included" within her dominions hereafter, there stands the great constitu- tional status of all national enumeration, representation, and taxation, there it stands — mark ! embracing the " three- fifths of all other persons ! ''^ When these slaves fly from the service of the master, while this government exists, there stands the constitutional guarantee that on any foot of the nation's soil to which he may have escaped, on claim of that master, to whom the constitution says his services are justly due — the fugitive "shall be de- livered up." When these slaves rise in revolt against the master, while this government has a name on earth, there stands the constitutional guarantee, that Congress shall stretch out her strong arm in defence of the master, and in suppression of the insurgents. Thus, in the very clearest and strongest language, the constitution guarantees to the South all maintenance and carrying out of the principles and practices of slavery, to which she had been accustomed before the formation of the Union. The very feeblest statement, therefore, of the true slavery position of the South, we take to be this : By constitutional enactment, the South is entitled to all such tolera7ice and countenance on the subject of slavery., both in language and in conduct., as shall afford her a reasonable opportunity of securing the profits of the institution., without being scandalized for its practice. THE GUARANTEES OF THE SOUTH. 83 We "hold that the provisions of the constitution, fairly interpreted, furnish ample proof of this definition. The nature of the guarantees supports it. When they built up all the bulwarks of the constitution around every principle and practice of slavery, what did the fathers mean ? Surely to fortify to the South all the ordinary customs of slavery, without insult or encroach- ment, while the government stands. He who grants a privilege conveys all that is necessary to the reasonable enjoyment of that which is granted. The North gua- rantees Slavery to the South. If now she defames Slavery, will not arrest the abstraction of slaves, and even obstructs the rendition of slaves, just so far she takes back what she had granted, diminishes the benefits and comforts of the relation, and breaks her guarantees. i\gain, if, on the one hand, the North sincerely deems slavery a state of society whose impiety, impolicy, and outrage should be publicly exposed on all occasions, then she makes herself particeps criminis by her guarantee of toleration ; but if, on the other, slavery, under the cir- cumstances, might be justifiably tolerated, then she lies under every obligation to secure to the slaveholder — what constitutional language so obviously implies — a comfortable, unobstructed prosecution of his guaranteed custom of society. If any man still denies that the nature of the guarantees demands a practical and respect- ful toleration of the institution, let him compare the warring attitudes of the North, first in framing, and then in interpreting the constitution. Standing up to forin the constitution, the Northern man says to his Southern neighbor, " Yes ! we will concede all you require. On the one hand, your slaves shall enjoy all the dignities you 2* 84 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. would have conferred upon them. Like other men of the country, they sliall be counted in the national census, constitute subjects of direct taxation, and be represented in all the dignities and authorities of the country. Nor, on the other hand, will we refuse to exact from them all the degradation you yourselves have been pleased to pre- scribe. When they come from Africa, as you say, they shall be ' articles' — 'taxed,' * dutied,' and 'priced,' like all 'other imports.' When they fly from your service, cost the nation what it may, from any foot of her soil — by her military arm, if necessary — they shall be de- livered up to him to whom his service is ' justly' ' due.' Should any man dispute your right of service, our courts shall stand by the constitution, and pronounce the slave the property of his master. And finally, should that slave ever venture to rise up against you, the strong arm of the nation shall shoot him down at your feet, but he shall be subdued to your just dominion. Yes! all this will we do. Come, now ! let us shake hands in an honorable, fraternal national covenant." The com- pact is made. But the moment the Northern man comes to officiate as interpreter, his construction destroys his contract ! How changed his language and tone ! " Now that we have constitutionally anchored you in the Union, you must allow us to say, we hate your institution, and can never fraternize with you fully until you abandon it. We claim unrestrained liberty to denounce and disgrace it on every hand ; nor shall we ever cease our obloquy and opposition until we degrade and drive it from the free soil of our countr3^" Our sketch is boldly drawn, we acknowledge ; but we need hardly say, that any such construction of our national constitution as warrants THE GUARANTEES OF THE SOUTH. 35 either an abusive or an obstructive intermeddling with the subject of slavery, is a palpable destruction of its face and force. Clearly, protection of the principles and cus- toms of slavery in language obliges to the protection of the principles and habits of slavery m practice. Where is the consistency of that man who says, " I will solemnly authorize you to hold man in slavery, but I will habi- tually castigate you for the rascality of the deed. By all the power of the nation, judicial and military, I will assuredly return to you ^^our flying slave ; but I will spit upon the baseness that demands the rendition ?" We hold, therefore, that the guarantees of the constitu- tion, in themselves considered, demand of the North that she secure to the South such a peaceful carrying out of her peculiar state of society as shall never be disturbed, either by provoking defamation or practical interruption. 2. The origin of the guarantees fully corroborates the definition laid down. At the close of the Eevolu- tionary war, whei| the South set out to meet the JSTorth to form a national government, she was in a great strait. The Nortli would jput down slavery. The South must uphold slavery. Her character, peace, honor, power, prosperity, business, and home, were all insepa- rably identified with her institution. A man had almost as well covenant to tear out and surrender a bone of his body, or a faculty of his mind, as the South agree to surrender or disparage her inherited social organization, or constitutionalize such treatment of it by others. She travelled to the Convention every way compelled and resolved to have the rights of her institution written out in full in the Magna Charta of the country, or return to her home as independent as she left it. JSTor did the 36 THE NATIONAL CONTEOVERSY. !N'ortli and tlie South confer many days before the !N'orth became perfectly convinced, that the South, in position could not, and in temper ivould not, yield on the subject of slavery. As the only term of union, the South de- manded that she should be allowed to transact her own affairs in her own way ; and since her ways of slavery were not ways of pleasantness to the North, she dis- tinctly demanded all constitutional protection in carrying out her social views and customs as she had done from time immemorial. !Now, let it be remembered, it was in consideration of this demand of the South, that the I^orth, after mature deliberation, subscribed the slavery guarantees of the constitution. Most certainly, then, the North intended to give what the South required, as the sine qua non of her confederation. These constitu- tional guarantees, therefore, which in terms convey every right of slavery to parties interested, and which in history were subscribed in view of a resolute, inflex- ible demand of all reasonable protection, most certainly do secure to the South, while the government stands, a constitutional right to prosecute her system of domestic slavery without defamation^ intermeddling^ or obstruction on the part of the North. 8. The ohjecti of the guarantees confirms our definition of the rights of the South. The North and the South had set out to form a harmonious national family; to construct a peaceful, happy, and prosperous Union of the two sections of the country. The object of confedera- tion decides the conduct of the parties. Whatever con- tributed to accomplish this object was right and cove- nanted; whatever exerted an opposite influence was wrong and covenanted against. Now these slavery THE GUARANTEES OF THE SOUTH. 87 guarantees were granted expressly to carry out this fra- ternal co-existence of the parties. They were delibe- rately framed and subscribed to prevent all dissatisfac- tion and collision ; and to promote mutual respect and friendly co-operation. In view of the special object of all the slavery clauses of the Constitution, therefore, the South was and is entitled to a peaceful, respectful, and profitable prosecution of her inherited social cus- toms ; and the Korth was, and is proportionably bound to abstain from all such courses of language and conduct as were calculated to disturb the peace, destroy the respect, or obstruct the profits of her institution. We are forced to conclude, therefore, that the language of the constitutional guarantees, the demand they were framed to meet, and the object for which they were sub- scribed, incontestably establish two facts. First. By the Constitution of the United States of America, the South has secured to her while the government stands, a national right to hold slaves, and of course to buy, sell, employ, transport, and universally manage them as she bad ever been accustomed to do. While, by the same Constitution, the North has deliberately surren- dered all right, while the government stands, to dis- honor, and provoke, or confine the South by any sort of intermeddling with her institution. Has the South ever stepped beyond this broad, well- guarded Constitutional platform of Southern rights? It is said that she has. Her attempt to take her slaves into the Territories is pronounced an encroachment upon Northern rights. But wherein lies the trespass? 1. Were not the Territories equally won by the prowess or purchased by the treasure of the South ? If 88 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. you deny the Soutliern man's riglit to carry "his slaves with him into the Territories, you destroy his ConstitU' iional property. For the use of the owner — is the primary idea of property, and that use you obstruct. 2. The explicit language of the Constitutional guaran- tees sustains this general view, and settles the question. The Constitution has distinctly settled the rule of appor- tionment ybr representatives and direct taxes — in two rela- tions. First, for the states already included in the Union. The Constitutional rule of apportionment for these, requires that you add " to the whites," " three-fifths of all other persons." Mark ! The act of the Constitu- tion is this: in the States — it presupposes the existence of slavery, and secures to slavery a share in the privileges and burdens of the government. But this is not all. The Constitution goes out to every inch of the bounda- ries of the present states. It looks over into the Terri- tories and upon the people all around. It is familiar with the idea of " new States." It expects their annexa- tion, and makes a rule of apportionment touching repre- sentation, not only for the states now included, but also for those states which ** may he included''^ hereafter. What is that rule ? The Constitution determines that on admission, they, too, shall be allowed, in connexion with the whites, a " three-fiftlis representation for all other per- sons^'''' i. Q.for their slaves. Now, he who says there shall be no more slave states, exactly crushes out the Constitution. For the Constitu- tion says to adjacent territories, **In the present condi- tion of the population of the world, it is quite possible that you may have slaves or choose to have them ; should it be that you so have or choose, our provision for the THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NORTH. 89 contingency is this : — when you come into tlie Union, your slaves^ like those of the present states, shall have " a three fifths''' repy^esentation in the government. Thus, it is undeniable, that the great Constitutional rule for the apportionment of the privileges and burdens of the government, presupposes, we repeat, presupposes^ that slavery may inhabit the Territories^ which are to he annexed as states. He, therefore, who says " True ! There may be slaves in the Territories in fxct, and if not, slaves are certainly in the Territories by Constitutional admission; but it matters not, you shall not take your slaves there ;" palpably, that man sets himself above the Constitution, and stamps himself the encroaching party. 8. The constitutional provision of Art. 1, quoted above, in a large sense, nationalizes slavery. The " three- fifths representation and taxation of all other persons," is not a grant or guarantee limited to the South. It is just as applicable to the ISTorth as to the South. Every Northern and Middle State in the Union may avail itself, this day, of this universal provision of our national standard. State sovereignty, it is true, may reject slavery at will ; but if slavery does not obtain in every State in the Union, it is not because our constitu- tion has not laid down a basis for slavery and its claims, as large as the country — the whole country over which it flings its authority. Where now is the consistency of the Northern territorial doctrine? The constitution has spread out a foundation for slavery throughout all her States, but denied it to all her territories. Why should she do this ? If slavery is an evil, why is it not an evil in the States ? If slavery may be allowed in the States, why not in the territories ? Besides, where the consti- 40 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. tution makes rules, it makes them for all under its author- ity. And where is the first constitutional word excepting the territories from the great broad rule of the constitution ? 4. Wisdom and the wise stand by our interpretation of the constitution. James Madison, discoursing upon the introduction of new States, remarks : " I am clear and firm in opinion that no unfavorable distinctions are admis- sible in point of justice and policy," and adds, that ** the Western States neither would nor ought to submit to a union which degraded them from an equality with other States." " The best policy," says Col. Mason, " is to treat them with that equality which will make them friends and not enemies." Shut out, now, the South from the territories. Express to them your operation. " You people of the South are not upon an equality with us. You mix yourselves up with things which should not be admitted in a well-regulated community. We cannot allow you to come into the common territory of the country with your slaves." Those " unfavorable dis- tinctions " which Madison says are inadmissible violations both of policy and of justice, and ought not to be submit- ted to, observe, if you please, the Northern doctrine does not practise upon territories seeking admission into the Union, though this were bad enough; but perpetrates upon five of the old thirteen States. It puts them in Coventry, and says, " stand by, we are holier than yoii." How inadmissible, how impracticable are all such invi- dious distinctions in a family of free States J Distraction unto dissolution, must ever follow degradation from political equality. We affirm, therefore, that the neces- sary fruits of the Northern territorial doctrine establish its heretical parentage. THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NORTH. 41 5. Consult the contracting mind of the Korth and of the South when forming the constitution. The Southern men, though slaveholders, respected them- selves, and were deeply purposed to be respected by others or have no union with them. Suppose our Northern doctrine had burst into the mind of the fathers, and found nerve enough there to address the Southern delegates in the following language. "So long as you keep at home with your slaves, we will endure you. But in all coming time, when our boundaries shall be enlarged, and fresh lands shall throw open their fertile bosom to our people and invite their occupancy, and stir up a mighty emigrant spirit in the country, upon this common soil of the nation, which you have equally con- tributed to acquire, we shall never allow you to trespass with your miserable institution. Its barbarous cruelties, immoralities, and insufferable dishonor, we cannot away with ! You may come in person, but you shall never enter our national territories with your slaves." Had this doctrine been declared on that day, in terms ever so decorous and kind, I need say, there never had been our United States of America. No ! never! The entire spirit, principles, language, and conduct of the Southern dele- gates throughout the five months of constitutional dis- cussion, emphatically evince this. Let one indication of their determined protection of their institution and into- lerance of Northern intermeddling suffice. When James Madison read his resolution in the convention, proposing a method of altering the constitution, and Alexander Ha- milton seconded it, Rutledge, of South Carolina, sprang to his feet and said : " I never can agree to give a power, by which the articles relating to slaves might be altered by 42 THE NATIONAL CONTKOVERSY. the States not interested in that property, but prejudiced against it." What an unreasonable resistance! The power that made the constitution shall have no power to alter it to the damage of slavery ! How firmly and fiercely those men stood by their principles! They would not trust Southern interests in Northern hands, though protected by a national constitution — if that con- stitution had not the virtue of the legislation of the Medes and Persians. It was indeed a very bold demand. But the fathers had passed through too many conflicts. Well they knew there could be no union, if they did not deal quietly and wisely with the temper and position of these men. Mr. Madison, on calling to mind the great interest of the South in exports and importation at that time, very ingeniously proposed an amendment, yielding to the objection for twenty years, by stipulating that the fourth and fifth sections of Art. 7, embracing these and other points, should not be alterable before 1808, by any power. The convention passed the amendment nem. con.j and the objector was appeased. If any man would learn the genius of the Ame- rican constitution, and the character and position of its Southern framers, he should never forget one car- dinal interpreting fact. The South felt that she had no motive for union but generous appreciation of Northern fellowship and aid in the Revolutionary war. Their interests were all adverse to union, in their honest judgment. They must bring their slaves with them : it was their life. This, they knew, would revolt the North, and work ceaseless chafing. They must favor Northern commerce : this, they knew, would just so far diminish the profits of slave labor. They THE GUARANTEES OF THE SOUTH. 43 frequently declared to their Northern brethren, ''^inde- pendent^ we can now sustain ourselves, united^ we gain nothing but risk all." There^ exactly, lay the secret of their power. They felt that they did not seek union, and deeply determined that they would not peril their vital rights to secure it. No man can read the Madison papers and fail to be convinced, first, that nothing could have induced the Northern delegates to propose the present Northern territorial doctrine in the convention ; and second, if they had proposed and persistently pressed it, our present national government would never have been formed. That our national territories are as open to the South as to the North is undeniable. Strong popular preju- dice, however, disqualifies us to sit in impartial judg- ment upon the great modern question — Whether the Southern man may not take his slaves with him when he seeks a home in the territories of the country ? And yet, in defiance of all prejudice, the consider- ations advanced, which w^e now repeat, would seem to place the matter beyond a question. 1. On the one hand every man has a right to carry his property wher- ever he takes his person ; on the other, without one syl- lable of limitation, the constitution pronounces slaves to be property, not only by the force of the plainest words, but by the most significant disposition of them. 2. In the essential structure of its leading principles, the constitution presupposes the existence of slaveholding territories, and would hardly forbid a slave to go where it supposes a slave to he. 3. Having laid a broad basis for the claims of slavery throughout all our American States, the constitution could hardly have intended to deny such a basis to all our American territories. 4. 44 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. If disparaging distinctions, an American statesman, discussing the constitution, pronounces so unjust, un- wise, and insufferable, that even Territories should not submit to them, he would hardly consider them admis- sible amongst confederate States. 5. The sensitive and resolute stand of the Southern man to secure all riglits and reject all indignities in defence of slavery, could hardly have brooked the censorious exclusion of slavery from the equal enjoyment of common national property. Surely the South would sooner have parted with the Union and kept unsullied her honor and her ancient institution, than parted with her constitutional rights in the territories and her honor, and kept nothing but the name of Union and the mockeries of it. 6. Let all these considerations be deemed invalid, yet the decision of the Supreme Court settles the question. ISTational territories are obtained by purchase, gift, and arms. That the South paid her part in all territo- rial acquisition will not be denied. When the pulse of the North beats more generously they will find some apology for Southern sensitiveness on this subject by a strict comparison of her own gift of square miles to the government, and amount of military service winning territory, with the territorial donations and blood-shed- ding of the South. If the South perpetrated no encroachment upon the North when she preferred an equal claim to common 'property., where shall we look for the encroachments of the South? Yerily encroachments upon the North seem not a little like a myth in the brain of a dema- gogue. The vox populi it is which secures his per- sonal re-election and the success of his party. These THE GUARANTEES OF THE SOUTH. 45 are all lie lives for. It is his very life therefore to know, study, and practise whatever creates a sensation, tells npon personal or party issues, gives or breaks a blow — in a word carries the people. That the glaring antagonism of the North, in the political world, would raise the cry of Southern encroachment, was almost as certain as that the constitution of things in the material world will lift the sun every morning. But why should the South encroach upon the North ? What has she to gain by the effort ? What has she to encourage the attempt ? The public sentiment of the world is agaiixst her ! The predominant power of the North is against her ! The very constitution of things will fling in her face Northern soil. Northern climate, and Northern experiment. By past agitation, galled almost beyond endurance, what can make her so ready to provoke heavier persecutions ? No, indeed ! Take the slavery of the South as it w^as when Southern delegates travelled North to make a constitution for the country ; take that very condition of slavery as it was then and there without stint, stereotyped in the constitution, and go now, not to politicians, or the press, or the party spirit of the day, but in some time of calmness, go down amongst the planters of the South, and visit the great body of the people at their firesides, and sound them as to their views and feelings, and those of their fathers, on all this subject, and, my word for it, you will come back perfectly convinced that there has scarce been a day since Southern men signed the constitution, when the great body of the Southern people would not have been content in the Union, if the North had but secured to the slaveholder that ordinary social respect, and those 46 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. political and private rights conceded to him in the con- stitution. To deny that there have been occasions in the historj^ of the country when the South chiiined too much, and trespassed upon the rights of the North, is to deny their humanity. Justice, however, requires us to acknowledge that, in general, such transgressions did not find their origin in the spirit and principle of the people so much as in the schemes and arts of poli- ticians. On the whole, let a candid man inform himself in the premises, and duly weigh — 1. The peaceful object of confederation, and thence Southern right to kind treatment; 2. The preliminary requirement of the South, involving Southern demand of respectful treat- ment ; 3. The constitutional guarantees subscribed to meet it, carrying a Northern pledge of courteous treat- ment ; 4. The fact that these guarantees are weakened by no concessions to Northern fathers — in connexion with the further fact of an apparent absence of all strong inducements to such trespass ; and he will be prepared to believe that the South, in her general course of procedure from the days of the Revolution, cannot be justly charged with overstepping the consti- tutional bounds of slavery to invade the rights of the North. We submit it now to the fair-minded, honorable man, if our Northern fathers never received the shadow of a pledge from the South that slavery should be speedily abolished, then we, their sons, should not be quick to charge her with the spirit of encroachment simply because, in our day, Southern men stand strongly upon their constitutional guarantees, which they must do to live. THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NOKTH. 47 Let us go farther, and throw out of onr hearts all that provocation of temper we, the sons, have suffered our- selves both to cherish and to diffuse, by acting upon the principle that the South in this day is both retaining and enlarging objectionable foundations, which she had long since promised to abandon. And finally, let us welcome the sentiment, that since we have so deeply wronged her conduct in the past, we are more bound to right her principles in the future. In reference to the argument closed, and that I am about to commence, and indeed to all I have said, or shall say, I wish to be understood as desiring to do ample justice and honor to the principles and motives of a great body of my brethren and countrymen, who feel that, for many excellent reasons, the system of slavery should be discouraged. But the point to which I would hold the consciences of these friends is this : — If you can- not accomplish your purpose save by countenancing the modern system of abuse and hindrance^ is not your con- duct immoral f Do you not sanction the palpable infraction of a solemn covenant ? III. Has not the North violated her constitutional ohliga' iions upon this subject^ by encroaching upon the South ? What are the constitutional relations of the North to the subject of slavery? "We have seen that the constitutional convention nationalized southern slavery. I know that this is offensive language to many persons. I would disturb no man ; but truth and justice require a candid exami- nation of the position assumed. If the convention did not nationalize slavery, how came Governeur Morris to 48 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. say that " domestic slavery is the most prominent fea- ture of the aristocratic countenance of the proposed constitution." If not, how came Luther Martin to complain, " This system of slavery, which bound hand and foot ten states of the Union, and placed them under the most abject and servile subjection, was approved by a majority of the members of the convention." Let me hasten to explain. I do not say that slavery was nation- alized in any such sense as to compel any man to become or remain, a slaveholder; nor that state sovereignty may not admit or exclude it, at pleasure ; nor that every man may not entertain any opinion of the institution he pleases. But the constitution has nationalized the insti- tution of slavery in these two important respects : every man in the country, so far as the constitution is con- cerned, may hold slaves if he pleases ; and every slave- holder has the government of the country both to secure and to enforce all its recorded immunities and liabilities. In view of this undeniable fact, the constitutional relations of the North to the South may be stated thus . The North covenanted, by all the sanctions of the con- stitution, that they and their posterity, while the govern- ment stands, would never harass, dishonor, or obstruct the South in the reasonable maintenance and enjoyment of that domestic institution which makes up so large a part of Southern society. This position has been substantially discussed, and we trust sustained in view of the language^ the origin^ and the object of the constitutional stipulations upon the sub- ject. It* corroboration is required, we shall find it by changing our line of investigation from generals to par- ticulars. The South sought protection. The North con- THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE KORTH. 49 ceded guarantees— guarantees, protection — of what ? Clearly of all that needed and sought protection in the circumstances. Clearly then the South required, and the North granted, protection of those great natural rights which the South felt must be greatly exposed by an inti- mate union with the North. Nations, as well as individuals, have a right of charac- ter — a right to be considered to be what they are. By nature all mankind feel this right — and the value of it, both to their power and their peace. The South did not disrespect herself on account of her connexion with slavery; yet for this very connexion she knew the North would be strongly tempted to depreciate her. Whatever, therefore, might be the private opinions of her northern neighbors, she demanded of the North a demonstration of respect which should protect her cha- racter against all such public wholesale defamation as would destroy her reputation, peace, self-respect, and influence in the Union. It is utterly preposterous to imagine for an instant that the South would have accepted the northern guarantees, had it been announced at the time that they should constitute no protection against that flood of vilifying speeches, paragraphs, and epithets poured out upon her, through a multitude of northern channels, during the last twenty years. Every nation, as well as person, is entitled to cmil treatment. Self-respect in all humanity feels this right, and understands perfectly how much power in the world and comfort in life depend upon its preservation. The South well knew that her claims to ordinary courtesy would be greatly exposed by close confederation witk the North. Nor did she consent to the proposed union 3 50 THE NATIONAL CONTROVEKSY. until sbe considered her claims to common civility pro- tected by the articles of the Constitution. How utterly preposterous is the thought, that the South, with all her quick, high-strung sensibility, would have entered into the union, had it been published at the time that the provisions of the Constitution were not designed to protect her feelings from all the scandal and abuse — all the scoffs and taunts which have been so lavishly show- ered upon her from the Korth for many long years. Every nation, too, has its right of property. This the South well knew she must protect, and sought to do so. But there had been no union of these States, if the South in early days had been thus addressed : — "It shall be deemed no impeachment of the constitutional integrity of the North, if she stands by for a long course of years, and does nothing to arrest the outrage, while she is divested of tens of millions of seu^ierja moneys by the adverse agency of northern men, private and organized, and often published and boasted ; no impeachment of her constitutional integrity, though there should spring up in the bosom of northern popu- lation a wide-spread and violent prejudice against the constitutional rendition of the fugitive, and northern legislation give it countenance.^ Finally, nations have a right of hajjpiness ; and who will contend that there has been a faithful protection of th'e guaranteed rights of the South on this head, when he reflects how deeply her peace has been disturbed by unkind, unceasing assaults upon her reputation, her feel- ings, her property, and all her foundations of comfort and prosperity ? Can a reasonable man pretend to deny that the South THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NORTH. 51 souglit and the ISTortli granted constitutional protection of her great natural rights? If the great personal rights of the South were not shielded by the guarantees of the Constitution, of what use were they ? If they were not framed and proffered for this purpose, how came the South to accept them ? If, on the contrary, they did cover the great natural rights of the South, and were framed and offered for this express purpose, then the North covenanted, by all the sacred authorities of. the Constitution of the country, that they and those who should represent them through the following genera- tions, while the government stands, would see to it that the South should not be harassed, dishonored, or obstructed while legitimately sustaining the institu- tion of her fathers, but that her valuable rights of character, courtesy, property, and happiness, should be duly guaranteed under the wing of the Union. Is not this argument irrefragably sealed by that great principle of interpretation pertinent to all language, and especially to that of contracts, viz. — that words are to be inter- preted as bearing the sense in which the speaker knows that the party addressed understands them. Did not the North know that by her constitutional guarantees, the South would expect from her an honorable and a peace- able union, although she brought her institution of slavery with her ? An embarrassing question springs up here. The North, we contend, is bound to protect the character of the South. But the North may sincerely believe that there are many serious evils connected with this Southern institution. Has she now surrendered all her rights of judgment and speech in the premises? 62 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. Certainly not. Where then shall we draw the line of discrimination between the duties and the rights of the Northern man under the guarantees of the constitution ? On the one hand, we are free to say, that the rights of private judgment and free speech are so undeni- able and inestimable that, rather than submit to the mischiefs of their permanent invasion amongst men, far better sacriiice forthwith the noblest nation earth ever saw. We hold therefore, if any man conceives that slavery is sin against God, or a political mischief, or involving personal and social degradation, &c., he has a pe^-fect right to entertain such views ; a per- fect right to express them to his fellow-men ; a perfect right, by all decorous, earnest, and protracted discus- sion, to convince him of their truth, and if possible bring him to adopt them. Yes, indeed ! A more sacred, vital, and inalienable right — human nature never received from the hand of God. But on the other hand, the moment a Northern man goes beyond fair argument and decorous persuasion on the subject of slavery, and commences any form of uncourteous address, censorious charges, belligerent agitation, or irritating conduct, that moment he not only departs from the rules of ordinar}^ decorum, but violates the great sectional compact, and exerts a power delibe- rately surrendered in the constitution. Evidently all such conduct has a tendency to irritate and alienate Southern men, and thus break the national union. It is therefore a style of procedure from which the Northern man, by the object of confederation, stands pledged to abstain. Evidently all such conduct is a departure from that spirit of civility and forbearance, THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NORTH. 53 on tlie subject of slavery, for which the Southern man substantially stipulated, and which the Northern man substantially agreed to exercise. It is consequently conduct in violation of his solemn covenant in the con- stitution. In a word, since the objects of our national union never could be accomplished, if one party were interminably exposed to the harassing and degrading assaults of the other, therefore beyond the civil utterance of truth — whatever in feeling, language, or conduct brought to bear upon the relation of slavery is calcu- lated to inflame the Southern man, and disalfect him towards the North, and stir up the Korthern man and disaffect him towards the South, is a breach of the gi-eat covenant of union. Clearly, therefore, all malignant, contemptuous, and hostile feelings ; all wounding, pro- voking, and defamatory language ; all depreciating, scandalizing, and injurious publications; all speeches delivered, parties organized, and papers published pur- posely to invalidate, unsettle, and overthrow the South- ern institution ; all public and private denials of the con- stitutional claims of the South; all political declarations that slavery has no reliable guarantees in the constitu- tion and must be abolished ; all administration of the government w4th a view to undermine and eradicate slavery ; all popular prejudice and state legislation that obstructs the enforcement of recorded rights; all under- handed attempts to disaffect the slave at home, and all organizations and efforts public or private to bear the fugitive beyond the reach of recovery ; all attempts to stir up insurrection by incendiary publications, secret coMspiracy, or open invasion — all, all such agencies, and all justifications or apologies for the same, are a 54 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. palpable breach of faith, a provoking denial of the great American sectional compact. Who questions the im- morality of such conduct ? That it tends to break up that harmony of the national family we had engaged to promote, all must see. That it works this mischief by dishonorable abandonment of constitutional obligations, none can doubt. Thus that the guarantees obliged the Korth by language and conduct to practise all such tolerance on the subject of slavery as would tend to secure to the South reasonable enjoyment of her natural rights, in order to a quiet, honorable, and happy fraternity in the Union — is established by the following considerations : 1. All such toleration was demanded by the South as a condition precedent to K confederation, and granted as such. 2. All such toleration is so emphatically embraced in the provisions of the constitution, that they mean nothing without it. 3. All such toleration is indis- pensable to the preservation of the union formed. If we were allowed to express the compact on the part of our Northern fathers we should employ sub- stantially such language as the following : " We covenant — not that we surrender those opinions on the subject of slavery which we brought with us to the convention, but that we will practise all respectful tolerance of yours : not that we shall adopt your customs upon the subject of slavery, but that you shall not be molested in the support of them during the entire period of our confederation : not that w^e will honor or promote your institution, but that beyond the language and influence of courteous suasion we will not suffer it to be dishonored or opposed in any such THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NORTH. 55 manner as shall wound, irritate, or alienate your feel- ings, or molest and imperil our liappy union. If this is the just interpretation of the great laws of the constitution on the point of Northern and Southern differences, it is no difficult matter to decide which party has adhered most closely to its constitutional obli- gations on the subject of slavery. We do not believe, as we have contended above, that the South can be fairly charged with any general spirit or habit of disobedience to her constitutional duties. But has the North kept her covenant ? Has she main- tained her integrity in carrying out her constitutional engagements on this unhappy subject ? Has she always or prevailingly spoken and acted with such considerate, conscientious moderation and forbearance in the pre- mises as to give the South no ground of complaint ? Has she said and done nothing calculated to disaffect Southern men and break up their honorable and happy co-operation in the Union? Go and listen to any Re- publican speech on the floor of Congress. Go and read any issue of the Eepublican press from one end of the country to the other. Go and attend any Republi- can meetings, and give heed to their words and spirit touching slavery and the South. Open your ears to the conversations of men on the highways and at their firesides. In a w^ord, gather up from every outlet of popular temper, from every exhibition of the spirit of the people, the beatings of the public heart at the North upon the subject of our sectional relations. Far be it from any man to charge every utterance of every member of the dominant party with intolerant hostility to Southern institutions — far be it from us to deny that 56 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. many an American, while standing in the ranks of those who are opposed to the social institutions and political claims of the South, has yet manifested a generous and higli-souled appreciation of the character, condition, and constitutional rights of the Southern section of our common country. But who is he, so destitute of intel- ligence and candor as to aver that the every-day national exhibitions of the mind of the nation bear no testimony to him of a wide-spread and bitter anti-sla- very spirit, every way well calculated to provoke, dis- honor, and disunite the Southern branch of the national family ? The truth is, there is no need of specifica- tion upon this subject, for it must be obvious to every candid mind that by every natural development, the North has been making perpetual aggressions upon the constitutional rights of the South, and lately with a recklessness which seems to have utterly forgotten that all this severe anti-slavery tone and movement in our day is a palpable infraction of the very compact which lies at the foundation of the American Union. Let no man suppose that this antagonistic element in ISTorthern population is either limited or feeble. Study its two great fountains of supply. Self-styled Aboli- tionism I Its organizations and its organs may be found in almost every portion north of the Potomac, and beyond a question have been steadily augmenting in number and power for the quarter of a century. In 184:0, Abolitionism changed its field — the Church for the State — and set up 2i])olitical in the place oi -a. religious operation. The American Anti-slavery Society was divided at that time. Those who retained the name — from centres of influence, such as Boston, New York, THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NORTH. 57 Pennsylvania, and Ohio, instead of struggling to intro- duce the community into their organizations, rather labored to impress themselves upon the community, emplo^ang for this purpose journals, agents, advocates, conventions, lectures, tracts, &c. The measure of the power and growth of Abolitionists, therefore, is to be learned rather from the growth and power of their principles in the community at large, than from any appreciable catalogue of the body. Judge its progress from its impression upon the political world. That portion which seceded from the parent society in 1840, threw themselves fully upon the political arena, and started the so-called Liberty Party. In 1840, they voted 7,000 ; in 1844, 64,000 ; in 1848, about 100,000 ; in 1852, 150,000 ; and in 1860 elected Lincoln. Judge its progress by its impression upon the reli- gious world. The American Missionary Association seceded from the American Foreign and Home Mis- sionary Society, some fifteen years ago, because of their silence upon the subject of slavery, and are supposed in general to be immediate emancipationists. They made their first report in 1847. They had received but a small sum, and assisted but four Home Mission- aries. In 1852, they raised $30,000, and aided about sixty Missionaries. In 1854, they collected $50,000, and assisted near one hundred Missionaries. In 1860, they report $64,000, and near one hundred and fifty Missionaries. 'Tis true you cannot measure Abolitionism accurately by any or all of these standards ; yet Abolitionism lies at the foundation, and has been the moving power in 3* 58 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. these and otlier growing bodies, political and religious ; and it is fair to infer from their steady, rapid growtli in nunibers and power, the steady growth of the Abolition principle during the last tw^enty years. As to the temper of these fellow-citizens, with what a demoniacal hate do they curse the Constitution and its guarantees, and practically expel Southern men from all possible affiliation with themselves ! What a divi- sive virus do they perpetually and resolutely radiate through all the population of this latitude ! The second fountain-head is strong anti-slavery or ranh Re/puUican- ism. Its advocates strenuously disclaim the designa- tion of Abolitionists^ but seldom fail to prove their consanguinity by answering w^hen Abolitionists are called, and defending when Abolitionists are assailed. This class of Northern population is far more nume- rous and influential. It must be admitted, too, that like the Abolitionists, they do breathe out a public and virulent hostility to slavery, by all their doctrines, deliverances, and measures, which practically expels the Southern man, if not from all possible, yet from all comfortable political fellowship. Through all their well-arranged and efficient organizations, journals, and public and personal habits, as from a mighty magazine, what a countless multitude and diversity of hostile missiles are constantly showered upon the South ! The circulation of the most powerful and mischievous ^ jpowerful union : and that agent that can step through the land and sunder all sorts of the most venerable Christian fiimilies, cannot be feeble. It should certainly enhance our conviction of the power of extreme anti-slavery principles at the North, that the sacred pulpit^ and exalted political statesmanships the two strongest citadels of political rectitude, the two last bulwarks against national dissolution, have long been giving icay before the resistless energy of this desolating fanaticism. Alas ! the pulpit ! Would you form some conception of the divisive poison which it has spread through the land, reflect how many of its commissioned occupants have already reached the bitterest extremity of intolerance, and have revealed the fact by avowing their determined purpose to part with the Bihle sooner than obey the constitution, and affiliate with the South. AVhen the appointed expounders of the 'hook of the churchy in such numbers are content to lead the van in this crusade against the South — the country's last hope for the pre- servation of political fraternity must rest upon eminent statesmen of every party stripe. These are the men to whom in times of trouble the country must ever look for sound expositions of the hook of the state ; the men Avhom she expects to come to her help, and make a stand against the profane violation of that early sec- tional covenant which composes the corner-stone of the government. But here, too, the patriot's last hope has failed liirp. Those fundamental guarantees, upon THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NORTH. 61 which, in an eventful hour, our venerable ancestors built the constitution of the country, and the Union of the States — where, oh, where are they now ? If our constitutional fathers could arise from their graves and look over the history of their beloved country for the last twenty years, what grief would bow them down as tliey surveyed the progress of the irrepressible conflict; the manifold encroachments of the North upon the constitutional prerogatives of the South ! But wliat amazement and horror would seize them as they pondered the responses returned by the President Meet and his Pre'inier^ the acknowledged leaders of the dominant party, to their own anxious interrogatories concerning the present fearful condition of the countr3^ Our fathers well knew that they had secured to the South, indisputably, the peaceful enjoyment of their Southern institution by all the sanctities of the constitution they had framed. Yet, wdien they inquire of the now head-men of the nation, — " What is the object of your party ?" The answer is : " The party of freedom seek complete and universal emancipation." (Seward's Cleaveland Speech.) The fathers well knew their constitutional decree in the event of an escape — that the combined power of the nation should rise up and remand the bond-man to the control of his master, and tJiis^ that the rights of the slaveholder, by Northern compact, to the unobstructed service of his every slave might be untouched before the eyes of the world. Yet, when our fathers inquire further : "What is the work of your party ?" The i-esponse comes back — " Slavery call he^ audit must he aholished^ and you and I must do ity {Ibid.) Finally, when the fathers inquire — 62 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. " What are the plans of yonr party ?" The answer returns in the triumphant shout of the leader to his par- tisans : By these measures you '' shall sooii hriny the jparties of the country into an effective aggression upon slavery. If this is too sIovj — then go faster if you can^ and I will go with youy^' {Ihid.) But we will not enlarge, nor need we do so. Call to mind that early day when Southern men, under the shelter of the con- stitution, travelled constantly through the country with their family and servants, and were welcomed by all the North, save, perhaps, here and there a solitary Quaker, and compare it with the present condition of Northern society — and who so ignorant or uncandid as to deny that while the South, in general, has main- tained her fidelity to her sectional stipulations in the constitution, there has sprung up in late years a power- ful adverse sentiment at the North, which, powerfully organized, perpetually and provokingly encroaches upon rights which the constitution secures, and under- mines an institution which the constitution over- shadows. Let it not be said that your condemnations are too sweeping. You breathe an unkind, a reproving spirit upon the whole North. He that does this is a great transgressor. Thank God ! A yqyj large body of the people would this day do justice to the South, if her rights in the constitution were brought fairly and fully before them. Besides the very many who have ever * We are very happy to observe Mr. Seward's recent indisposition to carry out his extreme views. The unhappy condition of things in the country, in part, is surely the legitimate result of his earlier doctrines. May his future conservatism counteract the radicalism of the past. THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NORTH. 63 stood up nobly in her defence, not a few of those who are numbered amongst opponents to her policy are yet very far from being oppressors of her principles. God grant that all tJie large remains of mutual respect and kindness, North and South, may be preserved and developed. God grant that a kind heart and a good spirit may spring up, and be cherished here and there, and the country and the world be summoned to praise that most benign interposition of God, which shall heal our breaches, and reunite our w^arring sections by a warmer, closer, firmer bond than made us one people in the past. But if these earnest longings of many hearts are ever realized, we must fix our eyes upon one fact. We must assure ourselves that there is an adverse spirit in the land ; that this fierce spirit it is which has principally wrouglit our disorganization ; and that obli- gation is upon us, and we must bestir ourselves to win it to our views, if we can, or overturn its strongholds, if we must. Let it not be said that the South would rob men of the rights of private judgment and free speech. Slay we not retort the charge, and say. It is not the South, but the North herself, who imposed the prohibition. A man may do what he will with his own. It was the North that deliberately covenanted, for consideration received, that she would never make such use of her personal rights as must damage the interests and dis- turb the peace of her neighbors. Let it not be said that the South demands impracti- cabilities of the Nortli. For how is it possible that a great, intelligent, intrepid, and free people, in this free age, when national shackles are- falling off in every 64 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. land, should be gagged, and forbidden to express their abhorrence of a barbarous relic, which in the heart of the freest nation under heaven, is bolstered up to frown upon all the liberties of the earth ? Maj we not retort the charge, and say. The responsibility of pro- viding the Southern man a peaceful, honorable partici- pation in the Union — remember, slavery to the contrary notwithstanding — tlie Xorth herself, with her eyes open, deliberately assumed. If now she provokes, disaffects, and alienates Southern men, or allows it to be done, her contract is broken, and she alone is responsible. Let it not be said, " But we insist upon it, you expect an impossible performance at our hand. "Who can put a bit upon the mouth of man in this free country? In the United States of America, who can rule down the very sheets of liberty — the daily jour- nals of the country — to a definite tone of respect and courtesy, upon the most exciting, irritating subject under- heaven ? The winds and the rains that purge the'heavens and fertilize the earth can be chained up to 710 such precision as shall covenant against occasional storms and floods ; so the spirit of liberty cannot be ruled down to an inviolable tenor of decorous phrase, especially when discussing the most flagrant outrages of freedom itself. My friend, you deceive yourself. The only inability in the case lies in the lack of a heart true to covenant. Public sentiment is the dominant power among a free people. Let the ]N"orth stand up honestly to her constitutional covenant ; let one neigh- bor, under a sense of its obligation, check the violence of another ; let the man who has been compelled to THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NORTH. 65 read in his daily, a week's unbridled vituperation of tlie South, say to the editor — Sir, we are under a solemn covenant of toleration on this subject, and if you do not stop your abuse of our countrymen, I shall stop my paper. Let him who hears a bitter tirade from a poli- tician, accustomed to pay such compliments to Southern institutions, hear it said on every hand — ^The man who has no better sense of national obligation than this, cannot represent me in the councils of the nation. In a w^ord, just cherish a heart which feels, that when our fathers, for benefits received, shook hands with the South, and pledged a courteous treatment of her pecu- liar institution, they enforced upon their posterity a solid obligation, which dies with the government, and not before. Yes ! only let the North stand honestly to her contract, and our sectional controversy instantly comes to an end. But when it becomes something like the settled state of society at the North — that the tongue in private and in public is frequently heard in violent denunciation of the South — that the press daily issues paragraphs and columns of the bitterest scorn and contempt of the South — that more than a million of money, largely through the decoying encouragements of the North, is annually abstracted from the South — that regions of country rise up in violent opposition to the constitutional rendition of fugitives from the South — that a dozen states pass laws palpably tributary to this faithless prejudice against the South — that incendiary hand-bills are freely scat- tered over the plantations of the South — that secret conspirators here and there are ever planning and work- ing to stir up insurrections in the South ; and finally, 66 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. when it has come to pass that there can be found men who will both execute and defend raids upon the South — I say now — If you have a heart so perfectly swept of all sense of obligation in the premises, that to all this you naturally respond — " Oh, you cannot chain free speech ; you cannot fetter the liberty of the press ; you cannot guard against every violent act of bad men ; you cannot arrest the waves of popular prejudice in a free-thinking, independent community ; you cannot pre- vent legislation itself from taking an occasional step beyond the bounds of exact prudence and rectitude ; and if there are vile men at the North, where do you find the community exempt from such an element of popula- tion ? " — then I beg leave to put this appeal, solemnly, to my Northern friends : On this point of constitutional obligation to the South, is there not an universal demo- ralization of Northern society ? And is not the solemn covenant of our fathers abandoned ? Yes, my Northern brother ! and it should thrill your conscience to reflect that the Southern man has never uttered the very first word — never entertained the very first thought of divest- ing you of that which he placed in your hand, when, for the same, you covenanted so solemnly to treat his insti- tution with toleration and civility. Oh, yes ! it should start up your slumbering conscience, to think that if Southern men were, to-day, to inaugurate the very slightest movement designed to throw you back for your present commercial privileges, upon the status quo before the national compact, and insist that from this day nothing short of a two-thirds vote in Congress should sustain any one regulation of commerce in the country — you know, my Northern fi^iend, you know that you THE OBLIGATIO^vTS OF THE NOETH. 67 would turn the world upside down to crush to instant death the faithless outrage. Bat lo ! when, bereft for twenty years of your own equally clear constitutional guarantee to him, the Southern man comes to you to-day and claims his rights once more, what is your reply ? You send him away, substantially, under the accustomed treatment of long years — " I am not sensible of any prac- tical obligation in the premises!''^ Oh, should it surprise you that the South is out of heart, and dead to all hope of justice from the North ? Candidly — is not the seces- sion of the South chargeable to the unfaithfulness of the North ? Finally. Let it not be said, " But you reflect not that we, of this nineteenth century, have emerged from the darkness of other days ; that a great new light has been shed upon us ; that we see, as with a beam from Heaven, that slavery is an unrighteous, odious^ nefarious crime, and feel as though we had heard a voice from God, charging us to discountenance, denounce, and destroy the accursed thing. Under these new lights, and heaven- prompted ' cognitions,' how can we sit still and connive at this outrageous inhumanity?" But stay, friend! That light is very questionable which conducts you to a breach of faith ! That progress is more than doubtful, which brings you to falsify your word, and nullify a sacred covenant ! You must permit me yet once more to call you back to the recollection of early days. When your fathers and my fathers assembled to build a nation, your fathers entertained just such sentiments of slavery as you now express. They indulged just such feelings, employed just such words, and evinced a disposition to do just what you have done in the past, and propose to QS THE NATIONAL CONTKOYERSY. do in the future. But my fathers calmly and firmly replied, that they entertained no such sentiments of the institution themselves, and would be associated with no men who proposed to act upon them. Your fathers were reduced to a dilemma. They longed for the union of the South. They wanted her help in their commerce. A question sprang up in the bosom of your fathers : "Although, in our judgment, slavery, in the abstract, is such an evil, and should be treated with such decided and public discountenance, yet circumstances alter cases. To obtain all the advantages of union to fraternity, morality, Christianity, and universal national prosperity, may we not virtuously covenant, that from this time we will withhold all depreciating, provoking treatment of the subject ; that we will moreover pledge ourselves to our Southern brethen to manifest all such toleration of the practice as will enable and incline them to live in the spirit and habits of hearty peace and friendship with us ? " They conferred, and decided this question — affirmatively. And now slavery from the South, and commerce from the North, were committed^ with a view to see whether there could not be framed such "a bar- gain " in the premises as would satisfy both parties, and secure a sincere national union. " The bargain " — never forget this — the Northern fathers themselves called it by that name — " the bargain," the bargain was made. The South gave her part — commercial regulations. The North gave hers — an agreement^ from that time forth, to give to slavery such practical toleration as would be acceptable to a Southern man. Hear me now ! My Northern friend, your right to abuse slavery perished then and there. Your fathers — for you — " bargained " it THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NOETH. 69 away. It was surrendered in the constitution. Its grave lies buried deep amongst the foundations of the gov- ernment. You may go and read its epitaph to-day, and every day, in the capitals of our Magna Gharta ! ! This whole controversy between the North and the South, we apprehend, may be shut up within a very narrow compass. Either slavery is such an institution as may be virtuously tolerated in its American circum- stances, or it is not. If slavery may be justifiably tole- rated, then the covenant of the constitution binds you, and you must cease your encroachments upon its gua- rantees, or be a guilty man. If you feel that you can- not consent to throw down the weapons of your abusive warfare upon the institution, then in conscience and in honor one only course is yours. Come squarely up to the Southern man and say to him, " My fathers made a covenant for me which I cannot carry out. Yon must reconstruct the government to meet my scruples^ or I must heg leave to give up my jpart in it., and retire from the Union!''' This is tire one only honest course for a Northern man. To remain in the Union and abuse slavery and slaveholders as you do, is to avail yourself of the commercial privileges of the government and pay nothing for them. It is to withdraw your capital from the firm, but insist upon your share of the profits. It is to take the specified government protection for your own rights, but deny me the specified government protection for m^ine. Settle this question. Is a man hound hy his word f Are covenants tohehieptf And when you do this, you settle our national controversy. But national hope begins to sink just here — the violent anti-slavery man never studies his 2>osition. He plants 70 THE NATIONAL CONTKOVERSY. the-soles of his feet upon the most sacred right ever sealed between man and man, and draws his sword upon the proprietor. What a pulpit this from which to preach " The encroachments of the South ! " " The wrongs of the Korth ! " This man never goes hy the reins^ never feels his check I If he must curse slavery, let him wheel to the right-about and go N"orth, and begin with his fathers for making such a constitution. In rectitude, surely he cannot take a single step to the South. Bitted, and curbed, and reined up, held back by the strong arm of the government, if he does go Souths it is a runaway from beginning to end. My friend, regidarly dissolve your contract or go hy it. Never open your mouth to blame another, if you have to break a covenant by breaking silence. In this hour of the nation's darkness, let us look to God. He brings day out of night, and he can cause love and justice to spring up out of all this wrangling and wrong. Yes! He who combines the incom- patibilities of day and night, to heave out all blessing upon tlie world, can make JS'orth and South kindly work together, to accomplish all those grand re- sults to liberty and religion, which we had so long trusted was the glorious mission of our common country. TV. Where shall we find the Origin and the Healing of this unhappy Strife f No man comprehends the sources of our national con- troversy, who does not include the different origin, history, character, avocation, and interest of the con- THE PRINCIPLE OF PACIFICATION. 71 tending sections. Kor is he any better informed, I apprehend, who does not set down the praGtical substi- tution of Deism for Christianity^ or ratlier deistical and fanatical anti-slamry^ as the grand exciting cause, the present efficient agent of the strife. Let no one understand me to say that the anti-slavery man is a deist, or a sinner, or a disunionist. On the contrary, I need not affirm, that the anti-slavery brother may be in general as orthodox as scripture itself; as holy as man ever is this side heaven ; and as full of love, peace, or union, as mortal man can be. That there is nothing necessarily divisive in simple disapprobation of slavery, is established by one august historical fact. Anti- slavery views were spread out in strongest exhibition before our jNorthern and Southern fathers in the con- vention, and yet they shook hands over the subject, and forined the Union. But that there are influences, which, imbibed by anti-slavery sentiment, do impart to it a fearful capacity to reduce all social organizations to their elements, the whole history of North American society for the last quarter of a century, abundantly proclaims. Observation sustains analysis, and proves that deism s^ndi fanaticism incorporated with opposition to slavery, compose a sentiment which depreciates moral principle, and thus cuts the chord of moral union in the heart of the abolitionist ; unhesitatingly tramples under foot all rights and interests that cross its path, and thus cuts the social chord of union in the breast of the so-called pro-slavery man ; and by its fierceness and bitterness chafes to ultimate rupture and incapacity of toleration every remaining hond of fraternity. Should the reader require clearer proof of the proposition, he 72 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. will find an attempt to advance it in the Appendix. Be the suggested canses of our national disagreement ever so just or faulty, there is another question of far greater importance. How may this national strife be appeased ? How may mischiefs afflicting or impending be averted ? A very feeble hope of thorough deliverance, I appre- hend, is to be derived from conciliation or compromise, from secessions or force-bills, from peace congresses or national conventions ; even from acts of Congress, or amendments of the constitution. None of these con- trivances seem to reach the foundation of our troubles, which I take to be providential displeasure on account of the general religious dereliction of the people : nor to touch the method of their action, which I suppose to be the radical diversity of sentiment between the con- tending sections. Where then shall we go to find true deliverance from the surrounding, overshadowing cala- mities of the country ? The great God of man has given him a great rule to go by, especially under all the anxieties and perils of life. At such a time as this, when earth ofifers no solid ground of hope, let us look up and encourage ourselves in the Lord. Let us go to Him for counsel. Oh, let us lay our blessed Christianity alongside the great wounds of the nation, and we shall soon learn that our religion is the great Healer of the earth — national as well as individual. 1. Christianity will correct the temper of the North concerning the institution of the South. I am aware that many persons apologize for their anti- slaver}' zeal on this principle — they feel responsible for THE PRINCIPLE OF PACIFICATION. 73 Southern slaveiy, because, as i\iQ peoijle in mass made the Government of the United States, therefore, every man is directly accountable for all that the government coun- tenances. The political theory is this : just as the people of a territory or a state make a territorial or a state government — so the people embraced by the old confede- ration in the aggregate, made the constitution of the United States. So says the constitution itself. " We, the people of the United States, do ordain and establish," &c. This, 1 apprehend, is a mistake. The true doctrine may be stated thus : The subscribing states as such, and not the people in mass, made the constitution. 'Tis true that they did this, not second-hand, as they had been accustomed to act, through their legislatures, or by depu- ties, but primarily by their people. That the states separately, and not the people collectively, made our government, is proved. Visibly : If the people in mass made the government, all prior political organizations must have been thrown down, in order that the people might have their self-governing power uncommitted and free for exercise. But see ! Here are thirteen organized states. Whence came they ? The constitution did not make them. Account for their existence after the forma tion of the general government, if you can, except upon the principle that they made it. Historically : We know by the record, that the states respectively appointed delegates to draw up a constitution, and then that the states respectively ratified the constitution presented. Theoretically : " All powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution are reserved to the states respectively or to the people." The import of this sec- tion is made perspicuous by the action of the several 4 74 THE :n'ational controversy. states assembled in convention to ratify the constitution. Massachusetts declared, of all powers not expressly granted, " that they are retained to the several states to he hy them exercised^ Precise!}^, this is the declaration of New Hampshire. South Carolina resolves that " every power, not relinquished hy the states and vested in the gene- ral government of the union J'' the states do retain. Yir- ginia claims " that each state in the union shall respectively retain any power not delegated" by the same, &c., &c. Thus the power that made the United States government came out of the states respective!}^, and of course was not exercised by the people collectively. Literally : Surely the delegates of the convention that framed the constitu- tion, of all men, should know who its authors are. When they acted in the formation of the constitution they expressed their action precisely in these words — Not " We, the people of the United States," — but " we, the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Khode Island, Connecticut, New York, &;c., &;c., do ordain, declare, and establish the following constitution." When this resolution was passed, like every other act of the convention, it was placed in the hands of " The Com- mittee of Style and Language^^ not to alter but to express the act. For brevity and euphony, instead of recording it in the language brought in — " We, the people of" — thirteen long^ rough^ proper names, they simply general- ized what before had been specified, and said — " We, the people of the United States," &c., in view of the resolu- tion passed, — " We, the people of the suhscrihing states (in union), do ordain and establish this constitution." Authoritatively : The Federalist tells us what every intelli- gent patriot knows, that our United States government is THE PRINCIPLE OF PACIFICATION. 75 partly federal^ partly ludional., and partly mixed^ both federal and national. In relation to this express point, " the foundation on which the government is huilt^^'' James Madison thus expresses himself: "On one hand, the constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratifica- tion of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose ; but on the other, this assent and ratification is to be given by the ^qo\)\q^ not as individuals composing one entire nation^ hut as coriiposing the distinct and independent states to ivhich they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several states derived from the superior authority in each state — the authority of the people themselves. The act therefore of establishing the government toill NOT be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL ACT." (Fed. p. 213.) ISTow if this be true, and if our Southern fathers never surrendered in the consti- tution the control of their domestic customs upon the subject of slavery, then the responsibility of a Northern man founded upon his power to control or touch the subject of slavery, is exactly as great and no greater than his responsibility and his power touching an alleged immorality in the British government. Most especially has he no right or power of interference, since the con- stitution itself places the whole subject beyond his reach. He may fight against the constitution on account of its slavery guarantees if he pleases, but never, never against slavery under the constitution. It is a melancholy fact, which candor must concede, that so fiir from according to the South its double inde- pendence upon this subject, both original and constitu- tional, to an unhappy extent, the anti-slavery assaults of the North have been so persistent, belligerent, and abu- 76 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. sive, tbat tbej virtually deny to the South her rights of private judgment, independent agency, self-respect, domestic privacy, personal peace, private property, and covenanted toleration. Breathe now the spirit of Christianity into the heart of the North and South upon this subject, and what is the issue? All indecorous excess at the North will be instantly restrained ; all personal rights at the South will be instantly restored ; and the North and the South — slavery to the contrary notwithstanding — will entertain feelings of mutual respect and kindness, and preserve all desirable mutual influence. Oh, what a seasonable, refreshing boon ! The restoration of a becoming national temper upon this irritating subject! 2. Christianity will correct the judgment of the North concerning the institution of the South. The rnan of color, like every other man, has two great interests. The one temporal, call it liberty ; the other spiritual, the scriptures call it salvation. Especially in his present state of unpreparedness for freedom, in rela- tive importance the former is as nothing compared w^itli the latter. But the practical judgment of the North, so far as the influence of deistical anti-slavery extends, has precisely reversed this order, and thereby largely wrought all the convulsions of the country, ^he social and religious irnprovernent of the man of colo7\ his all-in-all^ awakens comparatively no interest, is prac- tically reckoned of no importance in the Northern mind, while his personal freedom, which it were mur- der to put into his hands to-day, the man of color must have, though it cost the instant overthrow of universal social order. What an unbalanced intellect ! What a THE PRINCIPLE OF PACIFICATION. 77 perverted judgment ! You meet a raan upon the streets. He lias two I'igbts : a right to draw a breath, and a right to take a step. You can destroy either of these rights of his at pleasure. You can put a bullet through his heart and overthrow^ one, and jostle his person and overthrow the other. What madmen would the passers- by be deemed if they exerted all power to prevent your execution of the latter, but none to prevent your exe- cution of the former ! Touching the slave's right to take the step of temporal freedom, and to draw the breath of life eternal, anti-slavery has judged and acted very much as in the case supposed. But now let our noble Christianity take the case in hand, and w^hat a wholesome balance she instantly restores ! Without depreciating one w^hit man's right of liberty, or any other natural right of man, Christian- ity looks at the case as it is. It sees that these parties possess no present qualifications for freedom ; that the masters have no present right to decree their freedom, but stand under prior obligations to train them for ulti- mate enjoyment of all liuman rights. What then is the judgment of Christianity in the premises? That the liberty of the slave is so important, you may disturb the foundations of society to secure it for him ! Far from it. Christianity rather decides, that for the pre- sent, J?/'6)^re,s^^'y€ somal and religious imrprovement of the slave is his supreme good. He therefore who would befriend the slave should cherish a wholesome, practical, and supreme regard for his sound worldly and religious culture. Wlio now can describe the solid comfort and profit w^hich w^ould accrue to the black man, our country, and the world, if our Christianity 78 THE NATIONAL CONTIIOYERSY. were only permitted to rectify the practical judgment of the North touching the true interests of the man of color, and the true obligations of the white man, Nortli and South. 3. Christianity will correct the conscience of the North upon this subject. The providence of God lends its sanction to the view of obligation suggested. Six capital acts comprise the history of the slave in America. By the first, he was separated from his native land and thus cut off from the fountains of paganism. By the second, he was landed on American shores and exposed to all the lights of civilization. By the third, he was placed here in the relation of a slave, and thus, preserved, he could become the object of a benevolent plan of progressive eleva- tion. By the fourth, he became extensively christian- ized, and thus qualified to save others. By the fifth, an expulsive power returns him to his native country as fast as he obtains his freedom in this. And by the sixth he is re-established there in civilized. Christian colonies, and thus most effectually empowered to radiate recovering light among the degraded masses of the surrounding aborigines. I forget not man's evil part in all this history, but I would not close my eyes to the good use which God would make of man's bad con- duct.* And, oh, if we could but concentrate the atten- tion of the North upon these facts ; if we could per- suade lier to remember that b}^ votes in the constitu- tional convention her fathers opened the door for the importation of these African natives : that by their own ships they bore a prominent part in transporting them * See Note C. THE PRINCIPLE OF PACIFICATION. 79 from their native homes and selling them as slaves to the South ; and especially, that the inherited proceeds of these slave sales are, this day, in the hands of their posterity ; shoukl we not thereby plant one truth deep in her conscience, viz. That the great present duty of the North to the man of color in our country is, as much as in her lies, to do her part and work har- moniously with the South in accomplishing that bene- volent purpose for which God in providence allowed his importation. Instead of doing tliis, to give the South no credit for all she has done in elevating these imported Africans; to give the South no credit for all she has done in christianizing \\\q^q imported Africans ; to take no interest and lend no aid in the one operation or the other, but, even to the destruction of the nation, to fight the South in behalf of abstract rights, which these fellow-men, even yet, have no capacity to enjoy, seems to me just the most unwise, unkind, and unfaith- ful mind for which, in the premises, the I^ortli could be responsible. Oh, let our Christianity come to our help, and rectify the consciences of the North, and bring up a strong sense both of the honor and of the duty, just so far as the Southern man will open the way, to stand by his side and work with him for the solid social and spiritual welfare of the slave. Let the North but do this, and what a healing of breaches? What a dispensation of mercies ! what a brightening of prospects ! should we witness on every hand. 4. Christianity will correct the aims of the North, touching the institution of the South. What are the great interests of the colored population 80 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. of the Soutli, and of the world, in the principles of thei management? Decree the immediate and universai emancipation of the slaves of the South, and from one" end of Christendom to the other, countless multitudes shall shout the praise of the edict. Yet a more censur- able mismanagement of the case it were hard to plan. As for the black man's liberation, it would be a death-i blow to him, and he would disappear from the earth in a very few generations ; and as for the liberties and hopes of men in such a condition, in all time to come, libera- tion would be a death-blow to the true principle of their protection. Would you seek the true interests of our colored fellow- men, set it down, that the social elevation of the man of color, his capacity to take care of himself — this, this is his very greatest, because most needed blessing in this life. Behold the four millions of slaves' of the South ! For physical comfort, general intelli- gence, and the prospect of improvement in both, anothei such community of colored men cannot be found upor the face of the earth. You arrange, therefore, for thc^ best good of the slave of the South at present, by per petuating and improving the very causes which hav(' brought up such multitudes of his color to a social sum mit level, so far above that of any similar number ill the world? Wi^ conversion to God I I need not say, i pre-eminently his very highest good. There are this day ii' the United States, probably 600,000 colored communi cants of the church of Christ. Collect all the \nov\ achieved by the combined missionary energies of th world, measure it by souls saved, and you would pre bably fail to find 200,000 hopeful, heathen converts— a told. To Christian philanthropy, is not this multituc THE PKINCIPLE OF PACIFICATION. 81 f colored Christian professors a most delightful and icouraging fact ? If a greater number of colored hristians have died in the past than live at present, len probably millions of souls have already been ■deemed among the slaves of the South. When of old od brought the black man from his country, and laced him in our hands, He said to America, *' Keep :is man. If by any means he be missing, then shall ly life be for his life." In the keeping of this pri- )ner the South has not done what she should have jcomplished. The North has been yet more remiss in er part of the common charge ; but we will both shout ar thanksgivings to God in view of the glorious work e himself has principally wrought. Let the North study what God has done, and take wnsel of our glorious Christianity. If she does, she ill instantly dismiss from her aims her wild attempt to laugurate, in behalf of the man of color, a liberty- 'iumph, which he has no present culture to appreciate, fid discard from her soul that feverish apprehension of ^e political power of the South, which has led her to Ian the eternal confinement of the slave in his geogra- hical prison (see Appendix). She will fix her heart pon this imported, intrusted sti'anger, and cherish a enerous interest in his destiny. She will love to feel if |0d has done so much for his truest, best interests in 16 past, when the philanthropy of his fellow-men, [orth and South, was so feeble and questionable, what light not God do for him and his posterity in the iture, if North and South would now shake hands in a ovenant of sincere kindness to their humble protege? •he will say to the bondman of the South, " Even to 4* 82 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. promote Tiuman weal, I may not do wrong ; go forth, therefore, into all the earth ; increase and multiply, and the God of thy fathers be with thee. All tliat we can do, through the direction of those intrusted with the more immediate supervision, by hearty good-will, pecu- niary contribution, wise suggestion, and earnest praj^er to advance your progressive training towards an ulti- mate capacity for all secular and spiritual blessing, we pledge ourselves henceforth to consecrate. When we look into the future, should the heavens be overcast at times, and terrors spring up again, and sight fail, we will bring up the better vision of faith, and say, * Hitherto the Lord hath helped thee.' ' Surely good- ness and mercy shall follow thee all the days of thy life.' And finally, under all the fearful peculiarities of thy condition, and the dark forebodings of our own unbelief, we will strive to cherish the cheerful confidence that the consummation of thy destiny will be as glorious as its commencement was unparalleled. ' For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon earth, and ask from the one side heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it ? Did ever God assay to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by tempta- tions, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you before the eyes of the world.' " Who can believe that our God — at work to save the world — by all this stupendous power, at all this terrific cost, has taken a nation from the very bosom of the darkest degradations I THE PRINCIPLE OF PACIFICATION. 83 of tlie fall, transported tliem half around the world, and set them down amidst the brightest shinings of the saving light of heaven, and meant no good by it ? Duties are ours — events are God's. Let us bring up our faith to the loudness of the call of Providence. Let us look away from the comfortless temporal to the glorious spiritual bearings of the subject ! Side by side let us work with God, for God's benign ends. And though thick darkness hangs over our vision of the issue, let us remember, that He who directs the movement is omni- scient. In our pLace, under his lead, let us work faith- fully, for the glory of our leader, and the present and eternal good of our African fellow-men ; and let us keep up a good heart ; and for one, I am free to express my trust, that in some way — nor do I care to know his plan — God is able, and has purposed to make the consum- mation of this movement as transcendently glorious as he has made its commencement in our day pre-eminently peculiar. Oh, that I could heave up all my fellow-men of this nation from the miserable littleness of quarrelling over the social relations of this mighty subject, to the Christian elevation of looking to the hand of God, and working supremely f<)r the best good of the fellow- men he has intrusted to our keeping ! Oh, my country, what is to become of thee? Is there then to be no more a United States of America ! So long the pride of the North American, and the glorj^ of the world ? How it wrings the heart to think of it! What can be done in this dark hour? Com- promises may connect^ but can never unite the people. Organizations hand the body, sentiment only welds the parts. Oh, friend and brother of the IN'ortli, I fear you 84 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. liave had too mucli to do in working out these dark issues. Wrong is rarely confined to one party — nor do I insist upon it here. But in behalf of yourself and our JSTorthern brethren, for God's sake, and for man's — will you not give impartial heed to the serious convictions addressed to you on these sheets ? Pray, think of it ! If the opinions here expressed are true, and you will heartily adopt them — this shall save the nation, as nothing else can ! Before the God of our country, do you not believe them, in the main, to be true ? Are you not assured that the [N'orthern fathers were never authorized by Southern delegates in the constitutional convention to expect that slavery should be brought to a speedy close ? In your heart, then, let the South have the benefit of this solid truth. In con- sideration for commercial privileges granted by the South, are you not assured that the I^Torth covenanted to yield to the South all such claims and toleration upon the subject of slavery as would secure to her, in this relation, a comfortable, honorable, and profitable participation in the Union % Then, in your very soul, give to the South the full benefit of this most important right. Whatever pride, passion, assumption, and mis- conduct may have been justly laid to the charge of the South, are you not convinced that, on the whole, the South has not wandered very far from Jier stipula- tions in the great constitutional compact upon which the government was founded ? Let the South then have the full advantage of this important admission in your mind. Are you not assured, that the North, for long years, has allowed her people to carry out a vexa- tious persecution of the South, ir^ the very teeth of her THE PKINCirLE OF PACIFICATIOiN'. 85 own slavery guarantees, which has largely despoiled Southern men of that peace, respect, and profit in the Union, so sacredly pledged ? If this be indeed so — and surely you will not deny it — should you not be willing to concede the wrong and make amends for it ? Finally — Has not our national controversy its origin very largely in this unhappy truth : viz. that the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ has had too little to do with almost all Northern virtue upon the subject of slavery ? In the leading class of opponents, and in all others under their influence, has not a fanatical spirit been allowed to disturb kind relations, unsettle sound judg- ment, demoralize good conscience, and set the heart upon disorganizing ends ! Come now, friend ! Speak out from the sincerities of your soul — to save our glori- ous country — will you not do right ? Will you not act sensibly, honorably, justly? Will you not permit the God of the nation, by his most blessed book, in all the matter of our difference, to breathe a kinder temper into your heart, to shed sounder light upon your under- standing, to set up a juster rule in your conscience, and place before you wiser ends than you have sought ? But do this, and think of it — It shall save our people, as nothing else can. For — justice to the South ! On the one hand, it is the very last element of hopeful recon- struction of our divided country ; on the other, the most potent agent of a sound fraternity between our bordering nations ! Only let the North do right — only let her see, feel, and say — "We have all gone wrong in tills matter of slavery. The South never troubled us in her part <>f the contract, but fairly gave us all she engaged to surrender. We, on the contrary, have 86 THE NATIONAL CONTROVERSY. not secured to her what we covenanted to convey. "We \i2iyQ disturbed her where we promised j^eac^. We have saifered her to be diskoiioi^ed where we vowed ^?'(?- tection. And we have allowed to be taken away from her what we ourselves promised to restore. In a Avord, we have not kept our hargain with the South. No ! we have not ! !" Now, my Northern friend ! Let the South do or fall to do what she may — will you do right ! For the sake of our country, the church, and the world — do right, my friend — do right. And by the constitution of things, and the fidelity of its author, heaven and earth shall see what the North and the South shall feel — that the tvork of righteousness is — peace. APPENDIX. Deism is that working of human faculties which accepts the existence, but rejects the character of God. It is the child of the fall, and therefore, spiritually, the perfect anta- gonism of the God of the Scriptures. It cannot shut out nature's displays of the majesty, wisdom, power, and good- ness of Jehovah, but it does not like to retain in its know- ledge his stricter attributes — holiness, justice, truth, and immutability — and therefore repudiates the entire revela- tion of God in Jesus Christ. Thus, deism reaches God by the very narrowest possible glance ; and this, as we have said, altogether one-sided ; embracing his natural, but excluding his moral perfections. The primary result is this; Deism never sees the law of God ; because this is built upon God's moral perfections as well as his natural relations. Consequently, to any valuable purpose, the deist never feels religious responsibility, nor natural depravity, nor divine condemnation, nor salvation by Jesus, nor glory beyond the grave. The ultimate result leaves the deist no heaven which he can appreciate beyond the fruition of natural rights. The illimitable enjoyment of property, character, liberty^ or life, constitutes the highest good that ever visited the imagination of deism. American history very naturally fixed the American heart upon liberty. British oppression had qualified us to relish it, by privation. The struggles of the Revolution endeared it, through hope deferred. The Declaration of Independence 88 APPENDIX. brought it near, by heroic assertion. The surrender of Yorktown flushed the soul with its conscious achievement. The praise of foreign nations for its happy developments amontist us, filled our hearts with an exultant sense of its admirable properties ; while the Fourth of July, our day of liberty-worship, annually feeds our devotion with its glorious reminiscences. It was perfectly natural that our passionate embrace of liberty should ultimately swell into fanaticism. Why not ? Fanaticism is a compound of two mental forces : the one direct, seizing its object ; the other collateral, shutting off intermeddling claimants. Destroy the deism of the mind, and you open it to the inlet of a spiritual world, which must break up the maddening absorption of the soul in any single secularity. The immortality of man, his responsi- bility to God, the corruption of his nature, damnation to the sinner, salvation to the believer, the last great day, the fires of hell, the raptures of heaven — such topics as these must exert a mighty attraction upon human thought, and furnish lofty standards for the measurement of mere secu- larities, and of necessity must lower down earthly liberty to its proper comparative insignificance. But deism nul- lifies all superior objects, and thereby protects the soul against all foreign intrusion, and leaves it to spend itself exclusively, intensely, and perpetually (in our case) upon the glories of liberty, and thus philosophically breeds fanaticism. Liberty, therefore, with very many in our country, is the heaven of deism. It is the one highest, chiefest good of man. All else is nothing to it. ^ He who is stripped of his liberty is the accursed of the earth. Now, when this fanatical liberty of the North fixes its eyes upon the slave of the South, is it any wonder that it should have roused creation to overthrow Southern insti- tutions? The fanatic's eye sees nothing to relieve the APPENDIX. 89 calamity it surveys. One dark, forbidding object fills the entire range of his vision. For his own advantage, a tyrant has robbed a fellow-man of the supreme good, and infixed upon him the sum of all evils. No wonder he heaves and swells. O the fancies ! the fancies that live in this world ! This man's mind has lost its balance, and been turned upside-down. I shall shock and enrage him to the very core of his heart by the utterance of a simple truth. In view of Christianity's doctrine of an immortality, at hand, of unmixed and immutable good or evil, it is a matter of the most consummate non-importance whether man's brief life on earth is spent in slavery or in freedom. Place liberty at the head of all secularities, and yet there is no one spiritual element of an immortal being, in itself considered, that is not worth more than all the natural liberties of the generations of the earth. So thinks the infinite mind. For during all the ages wherein the spirit of knowledge dwelt in the souls of men, this very liberty, to every possible extent, on every hand, was both crushed and enjoyed, both individually and nationally ; yet, though that spirit was charged with worlds upon worlds of all sorts of messages to man from the God of light, not one single word did he ever utter to speak the ignominy of slavery or the glory of liberty. The enormous misconception which makes up this fanatical idea of liberty, which turns everything upside-down, and makes the highest and the lowest to change places — surely, in a world built to be governed by truth, such a principle must work incalculable mischief. Let us rapidly trace the course of this deistical fanaticism in our country. I. — It depreciates moral principle, I say not that extreme anti-slavery men have no principle — that, in general, they are not as good or even better than 90 APPENDIX. other men. But I say that their fanaticism is immoral in its tendency, and rather damages than improves their virtue, because by inherent necessity it exerts a power unfriendly to a sense of moral obligation. This is indicated by its temj^er. Love is the basis of all virtue. Excite the man ; start his fanaticism, and you will mark two things. His every breath seems to be violence and bitterness : nor does he appear to possess, on this point, anything like love in his nature. Recollect, the Spirit of knowledge, the Spirit of holiness, and Spirit of love, is one and the same Spirit. If, therefore, you drive the Spirit of love out of your heart on any one subject, by that very act you have probably expelled the Spirit of truth and righteousness also. It is still more clearly indicated by its structure. The mind of the fanatic holds one dominant thought, to which all else in the mind, or that enters it, must yield. In our case the ruling thought is this : To hold a fellow man in bondage is probably the greatest, certainly the clearest sin in tlie world. Whatever comes along therefore, call it argument, obligation, or what you will, to modify his sentiments — has less evidence to commend it to his adoption than his governing thought has. Remember, too, that there is a furor in the heart as well as a halo in the intellect of the fanatic. The moment, therefore, any separating element, no matter what, arises between his heart and its object, so ferocious is the adhesion that his soul will hate it instantly, assail it vehemently, and expel it violently. The result is that all moral considerations, like everything else, have but little power over such a mind, and will certainly be depre- ciated. Tell him that the constitution of the country is built upon the compact of the fathers — that in consideration of the solid advantages surrendered by the South, we and our posterity have solemnly promised to concede the authority of the master. What is his reply ? Let the APPENDIX. 91 constitution and the covenant slide — freedom is inalienable ! Tell him the powers that be are ordained of God — that submission to law is Christian duty — and that our govern- ment demands of its citizens that they acknowledge the bondage of the servant. What will he say ? Down with the government ! It traverses man's clearest conviction to disparage man's highest weal. Bring the Bible itself to lay its teachings upon the mind of this man. Tell him that God says to the bondman : " Art thou called being a slave, care not for it ! When you have lost your liberty you have not lost your all. Obey your master faithfully." What does he reply ? " Liberty ! liberty ! ! This is the grand pi'imary right ! This the chief blessing of all ! Away with the Bible if it crosses all natural instincts to break down all natural rights." The fi\ct is, all adverse obligation is a dead letter in the line of this man's excite- ment. You cannot touch his conscience. Try the experi- ment. How can he conscientiously receive the protection of the government when, so far from rendering allegiance, he tears away from his master that slave which the govern- ment orders him to retain if he should find him a fugitive ? He feels no difficulty. How can he trample southern rights under his feet, and yet consent to go on accumulating the blessings of commerce in the use of a" privilege put into his hand by the southern man expressly in consideration of his promise to respect southern rights ? But he is sensible of no compunctions. A very good man he may be in a thousand respects : on this point his moral nature is laid in the dust. The decisive fact is this : The inspiration of his object is the only law of the fanatic. To him this is all rectitude. All covenants and principles that ^vould break the hold of his mad- dened mind are withs upon the limbs of the Hebrew giant. Thus, you perceive, fanaticism breaks every moral 92 APPENDIX. ligament which should hokl a man in union with his neighbor. II. — Deistical anti-slavery tramples upon all rights and interests ichich cross its path. — Love for the slave, in the bosom of the abolitionist, soon began to give way before the fierce passion of hate to the master. Now, it would appear that the best interests of the beneficiary must be saciificed to insatiate hostility to the slaveholder. No ordinary demonstration of this fict would seem to be fur- nished by that pi-oposed interminable confinement of the slave within the limits of his present geographical abode, in which the soul of the fanatic appears to find such exult- ant satisfaction. To lay off impassable jail-bounds for four millions of rapidly growing colored population in the heart of the most civilized nation under heaven — what a singular oflTspring from that mind which boasts of its love of liberty, especially the liberty of the black man. Before entering upon the discussion of this subject, I would premise again that I do not primarily embrace here a large class of persons, who, like the abolitionists, object to Southern claims touching fugitives, territories, slave states, etc., and who hold to slave confinement., etc. etc., but have a very diflTerent mind on the whole subject — different views, motives, and ends. Yet this, in general, is true of such per- sons. They are more or less open both to the influence and the charge of abolitionism as they do in a greater or less degree sympathize with its doctrines and its spirit. On this topic the characteristic difference is this : In pro- portion to his separation from fanatical anti-slavery the party will be apt to look out upon the interests of the world •and seek to stay evil and do good; while the abolitionist, under the dominion of his too fierce fiinaticism, Avill be more strongly prompted to look in upon slavery and the slaveholder, and by a cordon of free states drawn APPENDIX. 93 close around, work to incarcerate, environ, and strangle the monsters. 1. This measure of slave confinement upon a gigantic scale must ultimately destroy the liberties and hopes of the slave by preventing their natural development. Supposing the South to enjoy in the future her ancient liberty of loco- motion, and that the same privileges hereafter shall sustain the same ratio of increase, it is calculated that her colored population will amount to near fifty millions in 1960. This stupendous result ! Who does not see that it must prove an enormous abortion, if you undertake to develop it Avithin the geographical bounds prescribed ? But tell me ! Why have not these colored fellow-men at the South, as good a right to live, and grow, and flourish in the earth as any other people under heaven ? Why are not their natural rights equal to those of any other branch of Adam's family ? When God gave the products and liberties of the earth to man in the garden, did he not design that the man of color should have an equal share with the white man ? When God commanded the race to increase and multiply and fill the earth, did he not address the one as certainly as the other ? Simply for the color of his skin, my Northern friend, why should you cast a fellow-man from a gift and a privilege which God himself has made the common heri- tage of the race ? Under his former auspices, for genera- tions he has been steadily growing in a host of the richest natural gifts. He certainly has constantly improved in physical health, comeliness, and power ; in intelligence, cha- racter, piety, happiness, and universal culture. He has certainly made steady progress from the beginning towards a development which may ultimately qualify him, every way, to take his full part in all the social responsibilities, dignities, and enjoyments of his race. Why will you cut down at a blow all these richest blessings and hopes of the 94 APPENDIX. black man ? After the God of Providence, through his Southern master, has done so much for him and brought him on so far from the very darkest and cruellest barbarism towards hopeful deliverance from his every native degrada- tion — by your barbarous edict of slave imprisonment, oh, why would you tear him away from the bright hopes which have long been very slowly but very certainly dawning upon his futui'e, and throw him back into a condition far more calamitous than that from which the slave-ship rescued him? My Northern brother, change your heart towards the black man. Love him warmly, as many a Southern man does ; in his place, let him go out freely into all the earth, and increase, and multiply, and improve, and enjoy himself, as other men do ; and go thou down and stand beside his master, your brother and neighbor, and kindly converse with him touching all those wholesome laws, institutions, and arrangements which may most hap- pily develop all his fiiculties, rights, and interests through time to come ; and give him the full enjoyment of his pre- sent happy opening for his own temporal and eternal good, and the elevation of his continent ; and you will put your hand to one of the very noblest and largest works man ever undertook since he fell from the likeness in which God made him. Yes ! Do this, and you will prove yourself a far more sincere and sensible friend of the bond and the free than your insufferably tyrannical edict of Southern impalement bids fair to make you. 2. But this abolition discipline of the master, by the eternal confinement of the slave, does not hmit its malice to the lower class of natural rights. There is a sense in which it virtually strikes at human life itself with the most unsparing hand. The nature and objects of Southern society require that the whites should dwell amongst the blacks in equal if not superior numbers. This Northern project of APPENDIX. 95 Southern impalement is responsible therefore for crowding within the present territorial limits of the South in the year 1960, an agricultural population of near one hundred mil- lions of souls. Domesticate this enormous multitude of human beings upon the territory around which deistical anti-slavery would build such insurmountable walls, and the gloom and the havoc which, though not 2>laTmed, must inevitably follow, who can depict? So dense a population in so hot a climate, cholera, yellow fever, and plague must mow them down by tens of thousands ! Forced to go out and build their domiciles, and breathe the air along the sick- liest swamps of the country, climate fever nlust waste them fearfully through all the hot months, of the summer ; com- pelled to go forth and plant the arid sands and exhausted fields which cover half a hundred square miles in many portions of the land, what multitudes must starve to death for the lack of the common bread of life ? The unprosper- ous condition of the master, and the darkening lot of the servant, must breed mutual discontent, and what ill-blood, insurrection, and murder, from time to time, must agonize and depopulate the universal region ! In a word, this dark, malignant decree, whatever benign intentions may sustain it in many minds, must eventually roll forth one broad wave of desolation and destruction over the entire popula- tion of the district inclosed. Remember ! In point of criminality, it matters not much whether I put a bullet through a man's heart and kill him instanter, or employ a month in gradually strangling an embryo ere it comes forth to breathe in this world of life! Look out now upon communities which the past and the present assure you do certainly possess all the capacities, surroundings, and gene- rative power, under ordinary providence, to throw out upon earth a hundred millions of healthy, hopeful people in 1960. Move up and seize these nations! By confinement, 96 APPENDIX. oppression, and strangulation, deliberately prevent the birth of this prodigious population ! Before God and man, is it not somewhat as though you had regularly set to work, upon just such a multitude, the necessary causes of their destruction ? And does it require you to stretch your imagination very far beyond the boundaries of reason to enrol the probable issues of this incarceration of the South amongst the most stupendous catastrophes that ever stained the records of humanity ? When poor Lopez was strapped hard and fast to the Spanish chair, and the exe- cutioner behind began to screw up the metallic girt about his throat, I almost wonder that the earth did not shriek, out from beneath, when, in an instant, the blood, cut off from its return to the heart, rushed out to the extremities of the skin, blackened every pore of his face, blood-shot both his glaring eyes, and before a crowd of living men, put the poor wretch to a death that forcibly bereft him of nature's last relief, a groan or a struggle. Look ! my mad- dened fi-iend of the North, look upon your worse than metallic throttle ! Have you not thrown it around the necks of the forthcoming generations of a whole family of civilized states? By your own cruel, penal impalement may you not be near to turning the screw that shall garotte on this free soil of America scores of millions of your countrymen ? Is this a becoming work for the gal- lant friend of liberty and of tlie black man ? The most inhu- man suffocation of one hundred and forty-six English prisoners in the Black Hole of Calcutta ! The pestilence, death, and putrefaction of thousands of African natives cruelly crowded between the decks of the slave-ship ! are terrible tragedies. But how narrow their dimensions ! How speedy their relief! Ah, think ! In your great black dungeon of the South, when population shall become too dense for production, and labor and living too hard for APPENIUX. 97 content, and hope can extract nothing but the blackness of darkness from tlie future, and starvation, and insurrection, and pestilence shall become the order of the day, and untold disasters shall agonize the souls and mow down the bodies of struggling generations, then shall be practically portrayed not the catastrophe which deistical anti-slavery malignantly set out to accomplish, but what would seem to be the legitimate result of that lack of philanthropy, of that unreflecting malignity which animates its persecution of the slaveholder. We had seen that the fanatic would tread down the Con- stitutional rights of the slaveholder, and the august author- ity of the government. N'oic^ we are assured that there is nothing too dear or sacred to be sacrificed to the demands of his iuexorable Avill. The man of color, he whose patron he had assumed to be before the eyes of the world, he in whose defence he had drawn his sv/ord and perilled his peace — even he — must suff'er the loss of all, if vengeance upon the grand enemy calls for it. He must be thrown into a dungeon, cut oif from God's primary gift to man of the liberties and blessings of the earth; bereft of the divine privilege of unrestrained propagation and universal progress ; nor matters it much whether he be wasted from the flice of the earth, so the fanatic's vengeance upon his enemy be glutted. What, on earth, can safely confederate with such a prin- ciple ? We have seen that there is no such 7noral charac- ter as can bind the fanatic to any course of procedure at variance with his special object ; and now we observe that there is no interest or class of men which should or will be willing to trust either his justice or his mercy in a social union. III.— Finally, it destroys political structure. In a repub- lic, no union, no government. Without common consent, 5 98 APPENDIX. there can be no public control. He therefore destroys the government, who makes the political association of grand sections of the people insufferable. From its earliest lise, fanatical anti-slavery, with a steadily augmenting force, has been pressing out upon the South its adverse doctrines, charges, demands, and procedures, until its violent, inexo- rable opposition has destroyed primitive affinities, set up invidious distinctions, and multiplied fretting hostilities beyond further endurance, and by its direct and resulting influence compelled the South to seek her peace in secession. To a considerable extent, all the forces of society have been subordinated, very naturally, to the accomplishment of this work. Learning — with her schools, colleges, lectures, periodicals, novels, and graver works : politics — with her parties, platforms, speeches, papers, and patronage : reli- gion — with her tracts and organs, her family and Sabbath- school training, her sanctuary prayers and sermons, and her ecclesiastical protests and prohibitions : in a word, almost every power amongst men, organized or irregular, is subsidized to get up and bring out an " effective aggres- sion" upon slavery throughout the country. Upon the feelings of the South, by all these forces, through all these channels, this severe spirit, directly or indirectly, for long years has been pouring out a flood of irritating defamation. From the ownership of the South, Northern population along the borders, for long years, through byways and railroads above ground and below it, have stood ready to bear away every slave who could be disaffected and removed. Against the Constitutional rights of the South, for long years, throughout large portions of the North, a strong public sentiment and strong State legislation have sprung up, ostensibly to prevent Southern kidnapping of Northern freemen, but purposely to oppose Northern rendition of Southern fugitives. Agninst the honorable APPENDIX. 99 equality of the South, from the political heights of the nation you may now hear these dominant pronmiciamentos: "iV'o 7norG slave States !^^ — though slave States took part in forming the Constitution, have a door opened to their admission in the very foundations of the Constitution, and from the earliest days liave been constantly added to the Union. " JVo more tra7iS20ortatlon of slaves into the terri- tories /" — though the Constitution was constructed to acconnnodate slave-holding territories, and though in early days slaves were permitted to dwell for generations in the only territories of the country permanently free — made so, by the way, through the generosity of the South. " Per- petual impalement of all slaves loithin their present geo- graphical limits .^" This, though it is undeniable that any and every one of these imprisoning States, if it pleases so to do, has the most perfect right, by the Constitution of the country, to import all these slaves of the South, and domesticate them as such within their own territorial boundaries. All this fanaticism has done, not by one act of its own power, but by enlisting the co-operation of all sympa- thizing sentiment as far as she was able to secure it, seek- ing therein, however, more violent ends than many proposed who sustained the same measures. Now when the South reflected that from year to year it was in vain that she lifted her voice in solenm protest against all this unc(Misti- tutional persecution of Southern rights; that an anti- Southern party, if not perfectly, yet considerably imbued with this anti-Southern spirit, holds now the reins of gov- ernment in its hands ; and that recently, when the South was in the very act of secession, the dominant party, though strongly pressed, declined to provide satisfactory security against those mischiefs which the South felt she had great reason to apprehend from 'he unfriendly spirit and uncou- 100 APPENDIX. stitiuional progress of those now in power; in view of tliese and other consideration^, she concluded that in order to form a more perfect nnion, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, i3ro- mote the general w^elfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to herself and her posterity, it became her solemn duty to dissolve her connexion with those States whose opposite and dominant principles and interests had now placed beyond her hope tlie legitimate objects of political union. Does any man inquire — What is it that has dissolved the American Union ? Address your attention to that deistical, fanatical opposition to slavery, whose ferocious appreciation of natural rights knows nothing of the balancing power of Christianity ; which has long been dividing conventions, families and parties; churches, societies and denominations, all over the country; beyond all question this agent exerts a still higher power, and dissolves States and breaks gov- ernment. Ah, how true is this ! Were it possible to extend an arm over the past, and lay hold of the very first stirrings of this principle, and tear out from American history all its direct and remote agency to the present hour, you would thereby leave the North and South so heartily united that creation could hardly drive them asunder. What now shall we think of deistical anti-slavery .^* I will not say that no promptings of sympathy, no sense of justice, no generous bearing, no manly intrepidity, have throbbed in the breast of our misguided fellow-man. I dare not say that there dwell not in his soul elements which every noble man is forced to admire. But this I do say: His fanaticism, analysed, reveals, in astounding development, the unconscious but enormous hostility of sin to reason as well as to rectitude. In springing into life^ abolition cuts off * Note n. APPENDIX. 101 God from man, and man from God, by nullifying that law which connects them. Ifentally^ it upturns the constitution of things by lifting liberty above praise and sinking Chris- tianity below contempt. Morally^ it tramples under foot love, conscience, compacts, government, and revelation itself, if they cross its creed, and would unlock its hold upon its object. Practically^ it ruptures all it touches — families, parties, churches, nations. And finally^ such is its malignant and reckless will, it never stays to mark that the liberties, hopes, and lives of patronized nations are under its feet, if this but seems the shortest way to run down and crush out that which it hums to destroy. Is it any wonder that our nation is divided ? What else could be expected of a principle so self-icilled^ unreasonable^ immoral^ malignant^ and reckless^ set to work within the dominion of regnant^ wise, holy, and imm.utahle perfection. 102 APPENDIX. Note A. YiRGiNiA, Maryland, and Delaware, in early days, entertained the most honorable views upon the subject of slavery, if they were not the most efficient. Virginia, by the ordinance of '87, ceded to the general government her north-western territory, embracing the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, now containing a population of 7,000,000 souls. Unlike Connecticut, Virginia made no reservation, and when the second half of the land shall have been sold at the price paid for the first, will have placed in the treasury of the United States $200,000,000. This entire territory, vastly against her pecuniary interest, in demonstration of tlie sincerity of her anti-slavery opinions, she dedicated to freedom. She expressed her sincere conviction, moreover, by a vote of her legislature, that it became her to manumit her slaves, at a proper time. Private emancipation had been practised for a long time. Through a course of years the mind of Virginia was undergoing a change as to the benefits and duty of this practice. In 1832 she made the definitive conclu- sion that the experiment was a failure ; that emancipation wrought injury alike to the servant and the commonwealth. It is a mistake to ascribe this change of views to the high price of cotton. The average price of cotton for twelve years previous to 1832, by American and British records, was more than twelve and a half cents per pound; since that period to the present day, the average price has been less than ten cents and a half In 1833, it should be remembered, the American Anti-slavery Society was formed, and the abolition agitation commenced at the North, and has never ceased from that day to drive the South further and still further from every thought of emancipation. Let it be observed, first, that although the fathers may have entertained the opinion that tlie Northern tier of Southern States would probably emancipate their slaves, these States made no concession to the North on this subject, nor was there anything like a pledge given by them. Observe again, that the North were in no condition either to demand or even receive a pledge. They had exhibited a mental instability which prevented the possibility of any such thing. They came near, as frontier's- men say, to rolling logs with the pro-slavery States. " You help me to roll my log of commerce into the constitution, and I will help you to roll your log of slavery into the constitution." Virginia and Delaware stood firm on their anti-slavery ground, and any such notion as a pledge on this subject APrENDIX. 103 by the border States to the Xorlh is preposterous. But observe once more, the expectation of the fathers that slavery would be speedily aban- doned by the South, in an important sense, could not rest upon Virginia, Maryland, and Delav/are. The difficulty did not rest with them, and could not be removed by them. It was the extreme South that needed slavery, that desired slaver}"-, and was determined to preserve slavery. It -was the extreme South only, then, whose co-operation was necessary to encourage iJie expectation of the fathers. But the Northern fathers, for their own ends, leagued themselves with the South, and encouraged the importation of slaves, and justified their own expectation of the continuance rather than the disa.ppearance of slavery. Note B. I am aware that, in its February issue, the New-Englander, through one of its contributors, professes to review this position, and devotes to it some five or six pages, somewhat after the fashion of a rambling, infidel bur- lesque. The effort betrays little thought and less argument. My proposition consists of three ideas — a missionary — plan — of provi- dence. I suppose that God had his part in the transportation of Africans to this country : this he seems to discredit. That this act of God was according to plan : this he explicitly denies. That God's odj'ect was the salvation of the African : this, too, he seems to disbelieve. 1. By denying God's agency in the slave trade, the doctrine of the review destroys God's attributes. Save that exercised by God, is there any independent power in the universe ? Has there ever occurred an event in the production of which God employed no power ? If the slave trade is such an occurrence, then here is a moving agent whom God does not pervade. Where is his omnipresence ? Here is an effect produced inde- pendent of God's power. Where is his omnipotence 1 Here is an element, a means, of which neither God's knowledge nor his goodness makes use. Where is his infinite wisdom? AVhere his infinite goodness? Not so the Scriptures — " Who vjorketh all things.'^ If this is truth, then God wrought the slave trade, and my first position is Scriptural. 2. By denying God's plan in the slave trade, the doctrine of the review destroys God's reign. Does God ever act by chance, or by fate, or igno- rantly, or unconsciously ? If not^ then God always acts by plan. But the review contends that God had no plan embracing the slave trade, because this fact would make God the author of sin. On this principle, lOi APPENDIX. if God governs the world, lie controls what he does not touch. In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand, there is nothing in man but sin : and in the one case of every thousand there is not one act unmixed with sin. What can that mind mean by God's providence over the world, if providence makes no use of human wickedness to accomplish the ends of divine mercy ? I had supposed that the chiefest glory of providence lay precisely in this fact, that God can and does employ man's folly, and wickedness, and malice, and self-destruction, and divine dishonor, to develop his own wisdom, and holiness, and grace, in man's salvation, and all to his own glory. Clearly the doctrine of the review in the New-Englander, that God does not work up man's sin in his providential plans, expels God from the government of the w^orld. Not so the Scrip- tures. "Who worketh all things" — how? ^^ After the counsel of Ms own will." Everything, therefore, that occurs in this world, good or bad, is embraced in the schemes of providence, and my second position is Soipiural 3. The doctrine of the review destroys all the dignities and prerogatives of the Almighty. It places what, I affirm to be God's agency in the slave traile, side by side with man's agency in the same, and pronounces tlie moral character of both to be identiciil. Calling up the fact that men speak of an operation as "noble and grand," -when its instrumentalities are " adapted to the end and worthy to be chosen," the review inquires — " Does Dr. Stiles also mean that in this ' stupendous scheme of provi- dence' the Lord chose the African slave trade and slavery as worthy instrumentalities for carrying out his plan of salvation ? And does he give glory to God for his wisdom and preference of so excellent a means as the slave trade and slavery to save Africa ? Then let him be con- sistent, and give some honor to men, too, for choosing the same, and for now practising them, provided only that they seem to be guided by a purpose in sympathy with Africa's salvation. Let him condemn no one for being ever engaged in slavery and the slave trade," &c. " But if you praise God for the choice of slavery and the slave trade, do not blame men for the same choice ; only blame them because they are wanting in good motives, no matter what their iniquities." A man full of iniquities engaged in the slave trade, pray what kind of good motives can he have ? The morality of an act depends mainly upon its motive — and you have given up almost everything in a bad act when you have given up the bad motive. This clumsy lugging in of good motives in this connexion seems to indicate a starting back from the ground the mind set out to take. But let us examine the comparison instituted. There are three parts to APPENDIX. 105 every act — motive^ means, and object. In the premises, God's motive is holy : for it is grace to the guilty. God's means are holy. As creator, preserver, and proprietor of the slave-trader, his ship, the wind, and the sea, he has a perfect right to make any use of them most pleasing to him- self. As creator, preserver, and proprietor of the slave, he has a perfect right to send him this instant to perdition as a heathen man and an idolater. Every greater contains the less. God, therefore, has a perfect right to subject the slave to every possible degree of human oppression or temporal suftering. All, all are his own, and he does perfectly right to do with all just what he pleases. God's ohject is holy, for in mercy he would overrule all for the salvation of the perishing. On the contrary, man's motive in the slave trade is purely wicked : for it is love of filthy lucre. Man's means are purely wicked : for it is shameless, cruel injustice to a fellow creature. And man's oljeci is purely wicked : for he seeks to enrich himself upon the wrongs and tears of his unfortunate neighbor. How insane and blasphemous to place these two acts in the same category ! 33ut this is not all. How can he accomplish this, and bring down God's act in the premises to the moral level of man's? In one way only. He must first demolish God's rights as creator, preserver, benefactor, proprie- tor, and king of the universe. "We repeat, the doctrine in the New- Englander, of necessity shipwrecks all the dignities and prerogatives of Godhead. 4. The doctrine destroys the word of God. Search ever so diligently, and you will fail to find in all the history of the African slave trade of modern days an approximation to an act of African slave-traflBc in the days and in the family of the patriarch Jacob. Jacob's sons kid- napped a free man, their own brother, and sold him in slavery out of a Christian into a heathen land. In these three respects, the en- slaving of Joseph has no parallel in all the abominable outrages of the modern slave-trade. Xowjust what I have said of God and the modern slave-trade, the Bible says of God and this most inhuman act. Not at all so as to make him the author of sin, yet for the good of man God planned and executed it. Says Joseph to his brethren, "Ye sold me hither." This is true, and you may well be humbled for it. But this is not all the truth of the case, " for God did send me before you to preserve UfeJ^ Just so in the numerous captivities of his people, God abundantly teaches us, no matter how shocking the atrocities of the human oppressors, that he himself planned and executed them all. What a thoughtless reader of the Bible our reviewing brother seems to have been, " Why does not Dr. Stiles call on us to ponder the stupendous scheme of provi- 5* 106 APPENDIX. dence," and see that spiritual achievement, the rehgious good of mankind in God's employment of all the hatred, and lies, and murderous intents of the Scribes and Pharisees resulting finally in the death of his son, in order to accomplish the atonement. Does Dr. Stiles preach in that way ? " Yes ! exactly in that way, and so does the God of the Scriptures. Him being delivered by the deterryiinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and with wicked hands have crucified and slain." Does not God here aver, that through the acts of the Scribes and Pharisees "ye have taken." in accordance with his own plan, his '■'■ deterviinaie counsel and fore- Tcnowledge,''^ he accomplished the crucifixion of his son, and ^^ delivered" him into their " hands." Should any man feel disposed to quibble, and say, by his own words God went no further than to place Christ in the hands of his persecutors, let him give ear to another word of God. "Of a truth against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do." Let me pause and inquire of the reviewer, have we not here all the hatred and lies and murderous intents of the Scribes and Pharisees " resulting in the death of God's son ?" Aye, and more too I for we have embraced all the cruelties of the Gentiles. Now, had God no plan, no agency in all this faithless, murderous hate of Jew and feraeltt« ? Let the Bible speak for God. All these " were gathered together" — be pleased to observe now — '■'■for to do what thy hand and thy counsel deterinined before to he done^ By the Bible, is not tiiat very trans- action most palpably "a scheme of Providence,''^ though apparently so infinitely removed from the knowledge and faitli of the author ? And has not this very fact been held up before the whole world, in every way, from the earliest ages ? Behold it in the institution of the Passover. On the fourteenth day of the montli '■'■the whole assembly of the congregation shall slay the Paschal Lamby Behold it, far earlier, for Christ is a lamb slain from the foundation of the world ! Nor let it be said, that all this is prediction only, '■^determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God^ Is not this planning f " What thy hand and thy counsel determined before to he done." Is not this ^^ a scheme?" The fact is, tlie doctrine in the New Englander lacks nothing but potency to desti"oy not the word of God only but his throne and his being. Finally, the unfortunate reviewer falls into th.e very pit which he digged for his brother. My chief objection to the doctrine under discussion is tliat shocking profanity which its author strives to lay to my charge, but of which he himself is the only and the eminently guilty party. The one distinguishing principle of the review is this: it makes God such an one as APPENDIX. 107 man. Forgetting tliat God's exalted nature and relations place his rights and rule of action bej'ond all human comprehension ; and that man's rebel- lion against the law and Gospel makes it almost an impossibility for God to ivrong man : forgetting that he crosses an impassable gulph who goes from all the moralities which make up any one act of God to all the crimi- nalities which compose every wicked act of a wicked man, the author seems to have imbibed an astounding error, and to suppose that if the body of God's act and the body of man's act are but the same, then the moi-alUy of the two acts is the same. Acting therefore upon the principle that he understands all the deep things of God, and has found out the Almighty unto perfection, he decides that any guilty conduct of the creature makes God equally guilty if he embraces that conduct in his plan of providence. No doubt he speaks from the sincere opposition of his heart when he says, " Now, for our part, we are not going to ponder a stupendous scheme of providence, and admire it, and praise its author, when the same thing in man we call ' wickedness' and ' outrageous cruelty.' " Come, my thoughtless friend I bring your heart right up to God's face, and hear God's own mouth say, " / 'planned and predetermined the enslaving of Joseph " Does your heart dare to say, ^^ lam not going to admire you for it f Hark again to the word of God, " I planned and carried out all the m,urderous hate of the Scribes and Pharisees," How does your heart beat, friend? Are yon saying to God's face, "7a??i 7iot going to praise you for it V Is not all this rebellion against God, and a deliberate repudiation of the palpable Calvinism of the Scriptures ? Note C. " You mean me, and call me an abolitionist.''^ Friend, you are rude. I did not mean you. I did v.ot call you an abolitionist. I spake distinctly of the extremest man — tlie deistical aiuti-slavery man. I knew that you would make this charge, and burdened my sheets to give you no ground for it. I repeatedly admitted a partial similitude of sentiment, but distinguished you from the extreme man, exactly in the degree in which you had distinguished yourself from him, by your different sentiments and sympathies. Was not tliis perfectly just ? How comes it, friend, that no book, sermon, or paragraph assails the abolitionist, but you instantly start up and say, " You mean me!" I will tell you. You know that abolition- ism is a flagrant wrong, and you feel that you are too near to it. That is the secret. I have not charged you with abolitionism, but your own con- science confesses you are an accessory of the party indicted. 108 APPENDIX. Suffer me to officiate as your teacher for a moment. In unconscious self-defence, you pronounce abolitionism perfectly insignificant and unwor- thy of notice. We have seen above, that you hug to your heart a great mistake on both points. The fact is, abolitionism in its nature is, hate, energy, and self-will personified : in its influence, the prominent agent of religious and political division : in its treatment, the first arm that should be broken to reunite the people : and in its force working vast results, by conversion and neutralization. There are three classes of anti-slavery sen- timent in the country. The two first — Fanatical and Christian — need no definition. The third and largest class of auti-sh'ivery men in North Ame- rica, are the neutrals, ^hey are middle-men, precisely; some of them nearer to one extreme, and some to the other, but all having this charac- teristic mark — perfectly, they have neither the had qualit}^ of the first nor the good quality of the second. I do not charge you with the malignity of the radical, but have you not lost the sympathies of the conservative? Do you cherish any reasonable interest in the Southern man and his slave ? Do you ever listen with fraternal sympathy to statements of advance in secularities, morals, or religion, amongst the masters or slaves? Do you spend one hearty dollar in Christian or benevolent enterprises at the South ? Friend 1 is h not a fact that your sympathies have been para- lysed? That your heart has been chilled? Have you not a half-way feeling as though you should not heartily a-pprove, admit, or admii'e any- thing as good and worthy at the South ; and do you not live along, to a great extent, spiritually incapable of any such open-hearted sincere fraternity as you do give to Northern men and objects, and should give to all ? Why, my friend, you are exactly half-way to abolitionism. There are but two steps, and you have taken the first. If not of you, it is true of more than half that stand by your side, that through a thousand channels, the spirit, principles, publications, and agencies of extreme men have something to do in destroying, in the mind, impartial estimation of the claims of the South. Say, friend, would he not be a blockhead who would take counsel cf you, and go to work to heal the broil of the nation, and point out the causes which have produced it, but say nothing of extreme anti-slavery sentiment. Your own outcry settles the question, and proves, first, the ivisdoyn, and next the efficiency, of that class of truths which you have felt so suitable to yourself. THE END. REJDT rHIS IVEEK. FAST DAY SBB.MOKS. JLarge duodecimo, Iiandsomely bouJid in muslin. Price $1.25. A volume comprising the most marked and important dis- courses from prominent pulpits tliroughout the United States — both North and South— on the questions now convulsing the whole country. Nearly all of these sermons have created such general interest, that they have been printed largely in the pubHc journals, as well as in separate pamphlets, in which form their circulation is counted by tens of thousands. The selection embraces such well known names as Dpw. Palmer, of Neiv Orleans, Dr. Rapuall, the celebrated Jeivish Rabhi, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Tuornwell, of South Carolina, Rev. Henry J. Van Dyke, of BrooJdyn, Professor Tayler Lewis, N'ew York, Dr. Bellows, N'ew York, Dr. Breckinridge, of Lexington, Ky., Dr. Vinton, Trinity Church, New York, Dr. William Adams, Neio York, Dr. Dabney, of Virginia, The absorbing subject of these sermons, their variety of treatment, and the collection in one volume of prominent dis- courses from Divines of the very highest rank, combine to pre- sent a book of unusual and incomparable excellence. ALSO PUBLISHED SEPARATELY, In elegant clotli limp covers. Price 25 cents eacli. RABBI RAPHALL'S discourse, "Bible View of Slavery." AND DR. WILLIAM ADAMS'S discourse, " Prayer for Rulers." *^* Any of the above will be sent by mail, postage free, on receipt of the price, by RUDD &: CARIjETON, Publishers, 130 Grand St., New York. THE National Controversy; OR. THE VOICE OF THE FATHERS UPON THE SrjTE OF rHE COUNtRT. By JOSEPH C. STILES. ^ NEW YORK. : RuDD & Carleton, 130 Grand Street. BROOKS BUILDING, COR. OF BROADWAY. M DCCC LXI. > 19 > ^> ~^mj >::s> i%?>:> > > :j>>^^ > >.'»», ) >^^:»:) > ^ .^>^> :^ ^> ->)'>: > ^:»^ > T.O">' » -^5e: T»> imy 1^ S*^ ^S t^ii PI .^. -^-y^lp iy vyy ^?>^ :> » > LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 011 933 331 3 mm