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THE TRUE STORY

TIE BAEONS OF THE SOUTH;

OR,

THE EATIONALE OE THE AMERICAN CONEIICT.

By E. W. REYNOLDS,
AUTHOR OF "the RECORDS OP BUBBLBTON PARISH," ETC., ETC.

" AU our misfortunes arise fi-om a aingle source, the resistance of the Southern Colo
nies to Republican Government, .... Popular principles and axioms are abhorrent to
the inclinations of the Barona of the South." — John Abams in 1776.

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c ambrid g e :
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Printers to the University.

TO
THE JUST MEN AND WOMEN OF MY COUNTRY,
WHO,
LOYAL TO LIBERTY IN . ITS DARKEST HOUR,
HAVE SOUGHT THE TRUE GLORY OF THE REPUBLIC, BY VINDI
CATING THE RIGHTS OF HUMANITY IN THE PERSONS
OF THE LOWLIEST IN THE X.AND ;
AND WHO SEE,
BEYOND THE CARNIVAL OF BATTLE,
A RACE REDEEMED, AND A NATION RENOVATED,
E fnsctfbe tilts JBssaj,
WITH GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF THEIR SERVICES, AND
PROFOUND RESPECT FOE THEIR VIRTUES.

^-7 0^ . 7,0
" ' A NEGRO has a soul, an' please your honor," said the Corporal
(doj^tingly). " ' I am not much versed. Corporal,' quoth my Uncle Toby, ' in
things of that kind; but I suppose God would not leave him without
one any more than thee or me.'
" ' It would be putting one sadly over the head of the other,' quoth
the Corporal.
" ' It would so,' said my Uncle Toby.
" ' Why, then, an' please your honor, is a black man to be used
worse than a white one ? '
" ' I can give no reason,' said my Uncle Toby.
" ' Only,' cried the Corporal, shaking his head, ' because he has uo
one to stand up for him.'
" ' It is that very thing. Trim,' quoth my Uncle Toby, ' which
recommends him to protection.' " — Sterne.
" We must not allow negroes to be men, lest we ourselves should be
suspected of not being Christians." — Montesquieu.
" The man is thought a knave or fool,
Or bigot, plotting crime.
Who, for the advancement of his kind,
Is wiser than his time.
For him the hemlock shall distil;
For him the axe be bared ;
For him the gibbet shall be built ;
For him the stake prepared ;
Him shall the scorn aud wrath of men
Pursue with deadly aim ;
And malice, envy, spite, aud lies
Shall desecrate his name.
But truth shall conquer at the last ;
For round and round we run.
And ever the right comes uppermost,
And ever is justice done."
Mackay.

INTRODUCTION. By Eev. SAMUEL J. MAY.
Oil and water caimot be made to unite, unless you
first destroy their distinctive qualities, that is, make them
something else than oil and water. Light and darkness
cannot come together in the same enclosure, no, not on
the same hemisphere, without modifying each other.
Much less can liberty and slavery abide at peace in
the same country, nor, indeed, on the same continent.
They are, like good and evil, Christ and Belial, nat
ural, eternal antagonists, utterly irreconcilable, mutually
destructive. The founders of our Republic reluctantly consented
that the impracticable experiment should be attempted.
And the disastrous consequences of that attempt have
come upon this generation.
Could the framers of our Constitution have foreseen
what our eyes behold, they would never have consented
to any compromises with slave-holders, expressed or im
plied. Eather than permit our nation ever to become
what it has been for the last thirty years, they would
1

vi INTRODUCTION.
have deferred indefinitely its establishment, if that had
been the alternative. If this Union could not have been
formed without their agreeing that the Federal Govern
ment should erelong be put into the hands of a slave-
holding ohgarchy, to be wielded especially for the main
tenance and extension of their system of oppression, our
political fathers would have said, ' Then let it pass, — the
object of our fondest hope, our longing desire ! Much as
we have suffered, much as we have sacrificed, we had
rather abandon our great enterprise, and return even to
the subjection from which we have just fought our way
out, than to impose a worse bondage upon others. Better
will it be, more safe, more honorable, to be ourselves
again the subjects of a king, than to become the tyrant-
masters of any of our fellow-men, or the accomplices of
such despots.' But the wise and good men of 1787 did
not foresee, nor apprehend, the catastrophe which their
descendants of the second and third generations would
witness. They did not foresee nor apprehend, that the
government they instituted with so much care, in so much
wisdom (save only in one covert point), would so soon
be converted into a conspiracy against the natural and
inahenable rights of man, « a mere plot for the extension
and perpetuation of slavery " of the worst type ; and
that the " Barons of the South," whom they conciliated
by their concessions, would attempt the dissolution of the
Union, would involve these United States in all the hor
rors of civil war, rather than submit to those who only

INTRODUCTION. vil
insisted upon conducting the general government on the
principles and in the spirit of the Constitution.
Far otherwise : they confidently trusted that the love
of freedom, which had inspired the American Colonies
to attempt their deliverance from a foreign yoke, and
had sustained them through a long, unequal conflict with
the mightiest power on earth, was so rife everywhere,
South as well as North, that in due time it would expel
from every State every vestige of oppression.
In this belief the friends of hberty were encouraged
by the abolition of slavery in all the States north of the
Potomac ; the frequency of private manumissions in the
Southern States ; and the unanimity with which the
members of Congress, in 1807, concurred in an Act to
.suppress forever the African slave-trade, and punish as
pirates aU who should thereafter be found engaged in it.
Thenceforward, for more than a decade of years, tlie
philanthropists of the country, the Abolitionists, rested
from their labors, in the belief that a spirit was abroad
in the land which would accomplish the desire of their
hearts, the deliverance of the enslaved. It was not until
1820, when the question of the admission of Missouri
as a slave State, in violation of the Ordinance of 1787,
agitated the country, that the people of the Northern
States waked up to notice the " incUnations of the Bar
ons of the South," and to mark the encroachments they
had quietly but persistently made during the foregoing
ten years.

Vlll INTRODUCTION.

Since that time, the strife between the friends of free
dom and the abettors of slavery has waxed stronger and
hotter, until now our whole country is involved in a most
deadly civil war, which can never terminate until the
cause of it, slavery, is removed.
For more than thirty years the Abolitionists have been
endeavoring to rouse the people to exterminate " the evil
thing" from our midst by moral, ecclesiastical, and politi
cal instrumentalities ; urging them to their duty by the
solemn admonition of the great prophet of our Eevolu
tion, that, " if they would not liberate the slaves by the
generous energies of mind and heart, they would be lib
erated by the awful processes of civil and servile war."
But the counsels of the Abolitionists have been spurned,
their sentiments and purposes shamelessly misrepre
sented, their characters traduced, and their persons mal
treated. And lo ! now our beloved country, favored of
Heaven above all others, is given up to fratricidal, parri
cidal, it may be suicidal war.
That the " Barons of the South " and their retainers
have long been preparing for this diabolical rebellion,
and have intended to be utterly unscrupulous as to the
means they should use to effect their purpose, is daily
becoming more patent. Their dark secrets are being
brought to light. Every day new revelations are made
of their impious, infernal plot. Evidences of their
maUce long prepense are continually coming from un
expected quarters. Inquiring eyes have discovered

INTRODUCTION. ix
proofs of their guilt as black and damning as that of
"the rebel angels."
The modest author of the following book has been im
pelled to come forth from his loved retirement, as a wit
ness against them. It has been our privilege to hear,
from the manuscript, the greater part of what he now
offers to the public. We have advised the publication of
it, because, though much to the same effect has been
given in' sundry speeches and newspaper articles, we
have seen nothing so thorough, so radical. He has in
deed gone to the root of the matter.
Everything in this book is racy, evidently the result of
the author's own investigations ; the product of his own
thought. Some parts of it are wholly original. The
reader will find in it a few facts more startling than any
other explorer has brought us from the arcana of Ameri
can despotism. He has shown us again, that " the chil
dren of this world have been wiser in their day and gen
eration than the children of hght." He has shown us
that "the Barons of the South," as the illustrious John
Adams first called them in 1776, have, almost from the
beginning, hated democratic principles and purposes.
They have foreseen and forefelt the utter incompatibility
of a democratic government with the permanence of their
" pecuhar institution," — that worst system of tyranny, —
and therefore they early determined to rule or to ruin
the Eepublic ; to change its character ; to make it a ruth
less despotism under a better name; or else to break

X INTRODUCTION.
away from it, rend it in twain, tear it in pieces. All this
is made to appear on the following pages. We ear
nestly commend them to the attentive perusal of every
one who is willing to know how implacable is the tem
per, how impious the purpose, of the leaders of this
great Eebellion.
Syracuse, January 16, 1862.

CONTENTS.

PART I.
OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY. Page
I. Nature op the Conflict  11
II. The Germ of the Conflict. — The Barons espouse
Slavery ' . . .  17
III. Status of Slavery in the Republic ... 25
IV. The Prospects of the Babons  30
V. Prestige of the Barons  Omens. — The Ship of
Empire launched  34
PART II.
OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
I. The Process. — The Capital Infected . . 41
II. Territorial Extension of Slavery .... 45
m. Slave Representation  61
IV. Slavery construing the Constitution ... 57
V. Slavery in the Supreme Court .... 68
VI. Slavery subduing the Church .... 73
VII. Apparent Triumph of the Despotic System . 90
PART III.
OUR POLITICAL REGENERATION.
I. The Dawn of Reform  95
II. Why the Reform was resisted .... 101
III. The Vanguard of Liberty  104
IV. Organization and Opposition .... 109
V. The Opposition by Mobs  114
VI. Subserviency of the North  118
VII. The Opposition by States  121

xii CONTENTS.
VIII. The Opposition by the Federal Power . . 126
IX. Final Struggle, and Triumphant Assertion of
Freedom in the North  129
X. New Political Organizations. — The Republican
Party  1^^
XI. Considerations  ^'^^
PART IV.
THE EEBELLION OF THE BARONS.
I. The Plot of Aaron Burk  145
II. The Image OF A Southern Empire. — Nullification 163
III. Peculiar Social System of the South. — The Re
bellion THE Logical Result  157
IV. The Ripening of the Treason .... 164
V. Final Organization of the Plot in Mr. Buchan
an's Cabinet  167
VI. The Drama of Insurrection  171
VII. The Agony op Compromise  173
VIII. The Rival Administrations inaugurated in the
DISMEMBERED REPUBLIC  177
IX. Compromise ends, and the New Era begins . 182
PART V.
THE PROVIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
I. Gloomy Aspect op the Struggle .... 187
n. The Rebellion Vulnerable through Slavery . 189
IU. Impracticable Policy op the Government. — Pro
tecting Slavery at the Expense op the Union.
— Destroying the Nation to save its Constitu
tion  193
IV. The Programme of the President, and the Les
son OF Events  197
V. Must the Nation die, that the Barons may wield
THE Whip?  202
VL The War degraded in the Interest of Slavery 204
VII. God's Ultimatum  207
VIII. A New Policy Imperative  211
IX. Providential Doom of the Barons .... 220
X. Theseus AND the Minotaur. — Lesson of the Epoch 232

PAUT I.
OUR TWO SYSTEMS OE SOCIETY.

" It cannot be 'denied that in a community spreading over a large
extent of territory, and politically founded upon the principles pro
claimed iu the Declaration of Independence, but differing so widely in
the elements of their social condition, that the inhabitants of one half
the territory are wholly free, and those of the other half divided into
masters and slaves, deep if not irreconcilable collisions of in
terest must abound. The question whether such a community
can exist under one common government, is a subject of pro
found philosophical speculation in theory. Whether it can continue
long to exist, is a question to be solved only by the experiment now
making by the people of this Union, under that national compact, the
Constitution of the United States." — John Quincy Adams, 1833.
" The whole politics of rival States consist in checking the growth
of one another." — Machiavel.

1*

" Hardly had the country recovered from its external struggles and
internal troubles, than the most eminent and sagacious of the Ameri
can statesmen became apprehensive as to the nature of the disease
with which they had inoculated the national being; and fears as to
the dangers whioh might be evolved out of the perpetuation of slavery
were openly and solemnly expressed. Gradually it became apparent
that, however highly the Slave States prized republican institutions,
they prized slavery more, — that slavery, instead of dwindling away,
was establishing itself permanently as a commercial as weL as a social
institution, and allying itself with political power, — that it was creating
out of the Union a ' North' and a ' South,' — and that the necessity for
its extension into new territory would cause a perpetual and ever-
increasing antagonism between them, with an ever-growing divergence
of feeling and interest  America has thus reached a position
in which the two sections are as far asunder in opinion as they can
be ; they are, in fact, diametrically opposed iu respect to the funda
mental ideas on which social and political institutions are based." —
North British Review, 1861.

I.

NATURE OF THE CONFLICT.
We trust that it has become obvious, by this
time, to all the spectators as well as participants
of the pending struggle, that the American Civil
War is not a mere flash of sectional petulance,
wantonly provoked by unnecessary aggressions,
— the work of a few fanatical Abolitionists, on
one side, and of desperate demagogues, on the
other, — but a war of Principles, — a war of his
torical forces, lying deep as the foundations of
human nature, and working wide as the scope
of human action.
This being the real fact, we trust it is fast be
coming equally obvious that there can be no
" compromise " between the hostile powers, and
no permanent, immediate, or desirable peace ; —
that, in a word, there can be no settlement of the
great quesion at issue, which would be either
honorable or profitable, except on the complete
subjugation of the criminal party, and the com
plete extinction of that infamous system which
— never compatible with political purity — is no
longer compatible with the liberties or safety of
the land.

12 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
It has been well observed, that "The slave
question in America is only one phase of the
more comprehensive question of human freedom
that now begins to agitate the civilized world,
and that presents the grand problem of the pres
ent age. Such a question must be met, must
be discussed, must be decided, and decided cor
rectly, before the nations of the earth can be en
franchised, and before this anomalous republic
can either secure her own liberties or find per
manent repose. In a nation whose declaration
of self-evident and inalienable human rights has
been hailed as the watchword for a universal
struggle against despotic governments, — a nation
whose support of human chattelhood has armed
the world's despots with their most plausible pleas
against republican institutions, it is in vain to
expect that the discussion of such incongruities
can be smothered, or the adjustment of them
much longer postponed." *
All great nations have been called to face great
perils, to exhibit great virtues, and to achieve
great victories. The proof and seal of their great
ness has been, that they have been strong in the
day of calamity, generous and bold to meet the
requirements of the hour, and have woven the
scarlet threads of war into robes of immortal
honor. What other people have been called
* William Goodell.

NATURE OF THE CONFLICT. 13
to face, to endure, and to suffer, in the forma
tion of a strong nationality, may reasonably be
exacted of us ; and we are authorized in believ
ing that the result which God has in view will
justify and reward the sacrifices involved in the
contest. What is it, for instance, that has formed the
sterling qualities of the English nation, — the
vigor, persistence, patience, enterprise, and heroism
that distinguish the national character ? These
qualities are the product of the roughest dis
cipline that ever spun the fibres of political great
ness. They are the result of a providential col
lision and blending of races, under the impetus
of conquest, under the hammer of affliction. The
Briton and the Dane, the Saxon and the Norman,
were thrust into the furnace in the historic pro
cess, and welded into an empire in the white
heat of battle. War was the instrument, blood
cemented the rising edifice, but the English mon
archy is the solid result.
There are respects in which the present war
will redound to the greatness of this country, aside
from the attainment of the special objects for
which it is waged. It will bring out the latent
energy of our people ; it will prove their loyalty,
their fertUity of resource, their self-denial ; it will
school them in patience and fortitude, and show
the world what ardent patriotism has flowed in
our calmer blood, and what power has slumbered,
unseen, through the peaceful summer of our his-

14 OUE TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
tory. It will teach us all that there are better
things to five for than riches and pride, or houses
and lands, and permit us to lavish on the pre
cious institutions and imperilled interests of our
country the money and labor that would have
been wasted on vanity and ambition. It will en
able millions of us-, who might have lived common
lives, — who might have sauntered through the
world aimless and imbecile, — who might have
fatted and died like the cattle, but for this great
peril of liberty and the salutary spur of a stern
necessity, — it will enable these to enroll them
selves among the benefactors of mankind, and
to file into the illustrious ranks of patriots and
heroes. It will transfigure our tame and prosaic
life into the poetic colors that all memorable ages
wear, and admit us to the solemn fellowship of
the great dead, who have made the earth a battle
ground for righteousness, and twisted its harvests
of thorns into chaplets for heaven.
It is these experiences that ennoble a nation.
They break the enervating enchantment of luxuri
ous living, and fire aud purify the land with moral
enthusiasm. Whatever may be the evils involved
in such a conflict, — and they are neither few nor
trivial, — the eventual blessings transcend them.
Men cease to be triflers and hypocrites before the
apparition of a great catastrophe. The good and
evil qualities of men declare themselves in a vital
social crisis. Every man, detached from his con
ventional anchorage, seeks his affinity. The moral

NATURE OF THE CONFLICT. 15
nature comes uppermost, and life assumes a
higher significance as sensuous superfluities be
come stripped away and we hear the voice of
God in thunders that rock the temple of Liberty
to its base.
It is our fortune to live in what will doubtless
be esteemed, in after times, the most memorable
epoch of our country's history. We have not been
called into existence to share a torpid land, or to
fulfil vacant years. God bids us live in the central
current of his providence, and permits us to be
servants and witnesses of his unfolding kingdom.
He plants us on the ramparts of liberty, to guard
the fairest heritage of humanity. He stations us
at the wheel of the great constitutional ship, to
pilot her through the stormy straits. He calls
us to bear the battle's brunt, and take a trophy
worthy of the momentous day.
Dwelling here on this latest scene of historic
interest, amid the sprhigs of ever-gushing events,
how deep and full is the life of every loyal man !
In the circuit of a single year — whfle the trumpet
of battle is sounding, and we are bringing our
holiest sacrifices to the altar of our country —
we imbibe a more vital existence than we had
ever tasted. We taste the emotions that swept
tiirough the souls of our fathers when they pledged
life, fortune, and sacred honor to the cause of
Preedom ; the emotions that exalted Luther be
fore his regal judges, that guided Milton's pen
to coin undying words, that followed Sidney to

16 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
the block ; and, like them, we are permitted to
feel that this world has no joys which we cannot
resign for the sake of a loyal conscience, an in
trepid will, and a mind superior to fate. Like
the noblest men who have dignified past ages,
some of us are now permitted to realize how God
makes the world a crucible for the refining of
nations ; — how he rescues the precious stones
and the gold of every civilization, while he burns
the dross in renovating fire ; how he preserves
every spiritual treasure, but shakes down our
idols with remorseless austerity ; and how, with
unerring skill, he prunes our luxurious life, and
saves only the branches that bear fruit for God
and man.

II.

THE GERM OF THE CONFLICT.— THE BARONS ESPOUSE
SLAVERY.

The germ of the momentous contest in which
the nation is now engaged is to be sought as far
back as the beginning of our history. When, in
the eventful year 1620, the ocean bore on its
turbulent bosom a band of Puritans to Massa
chusetts and a cargo of negroes to Virginia, it
deposited on our soil two hostile elements, — the
seeds of two rival social systems, — the story of
whose growth and expansion, of whose compe
titions and aggressions, forms the distinctive his
tory of the Republic, down to this day.
The May-Flower brought the germ of a civiliza
tion in which thought is free, — learning diffused
like the light, — law made the equal bulwark of
every individual, — labor compensated and hon
ored ; — a civilization in which the rights of every
man are recognized, the prerogatives of every
class and sect protected, and the largest develop
ment of the whole body of society encouraged.
The Dutch ship brought, with its menial cargo,
the germ of a social order radically different, —
a social order that regards the State as existing

18 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
solely for the benefit of a dominant class, which
it arms accordingly with absolute and irresponsible
power, and to which the other members of the com
munity are related as cattle are related to their
owners, — a social order in which justice is ig
nored, learning restricted, genius and enterprise
discouraged, labor extorted and dishonored, the
dictates__ of religion contenmed, all improvement
vetoed, and the organic forces that are intended
to develop and magnify a state stricken with
deadly paralysis.
It should have been morally self-evident, in the
beginning, that these two social orders could never
mature — within the same national domain — with
out coming into collision, shocking the govern
ment to its centre, and involving the destruction
of at least one of the antagonistic interests. The
event was inevitable as the working of instincts
in the blood, its fulfilment only a question of
time. The antithesis has a yet deeper root. The
Puritans who came to Massachusetts left a sturdy
brotherhood in England, who overturned the throne
of Charles I., reared a Commonwealth out of the
chaos of civil war, and engendered among the
English people a republican spirit, that allowed
the kingdom no rest till bounds were set to the
royal prerogative, and the rights of the subject
fortified by law. The Cavaliers who settled in
Virginia — assuming the charge of that peculiar
"property" brought over by the Dutch slave-

THE GERM OF THE CONFLICT. 19
trader — - were of that effeminate and supercilious
nobility * that drew the lance in behalf of the
oppressive Stuarts ; that poured out treasure and
life so profusely in defence of a family whose
crafty malice was equalled only by its scandalous
vices and impotent imbecility ; and that resisted
with such virulent hostility the spirit of political
reform marshalled under Cromwell and William
of Orange.
Thus the two parties — the representatives of
liberty and oppression — whose struggles comprise
the glory and shame of English history in the
seventeenth century, delegated their quarrel to
the new empire then rising in the West ; and
here, accordingly, under modified conditions, we
are fighting to reach an issue far grander and
more momentous than that which banished James
II. and gave a new dynasty to England.
* Respecting the first emigrants to Virginia, I find the following
statements, copied from WUlson's American History : — "Of the one
hundred aud five persons on the list of emigrants destined to remain,
there were no men with families, — there were but twelve laborers,
and very few mechanics. The rest were composed of gentlemen of
fortune, and of persons of no occupation, — mostly of idle and disso
lute habits, — who had been tempted to join the expedition through
curiosity or the hope of gain; a. company but poorly calculated to
plant an agricultural state in f wilderness." (p. 162.) "New emi
grants arrived in 1609, most of whom were profligate and disorderly
persons, who had been sent off to escape a worse destiny at home."
(p. 166.) At the time of the first importation of negroes (1620), " there
were very few women in the Colony." " Ninety women of reputable
character" were soon after sent over, and the colonists pnrchased
them for wives, "the price of a wife rising from one hundred and
twenty to one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco." (p. 170.) Is this
the origin, after all, of the celebrated First Families of Virginia?

20 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
The two antagonistic systems found congenial
soil in the places where they were planted. Free
dom was cherished in Massachusetts, slavery was
fostered in Virginia. There was a momentary
effort, it is true, to establish an aristocracy in the
Puritan Colony; but it was found hostile to the
temper of the province. It is true, also, that
slavery obtained a temporary footing in this Col
ony, as in all the other Colonies, and that the
slave-trade formed an important part of the early
commerce of New England. But it was impos
sible that the system should long survive, in oppo
sition to that intense love of freedom which was
the salt of the otherwise unsavory character of
the Puritans, and in the face of the institutions
they founded and matured. To Massachusetts
belongs the honor of having been the first of the
States to abolish negro slavery by a solemn judi
cial decision. In Virginia, the baleful plant of
despotism became rooted deeper in her growing
polity in the process of time. In the first in
stance, negroes were enslaved on the ground that
they were heathen ; but as they began to be con
verted and Christianized, it became necessary to
base their servitude on their alleged inferiority as
a race. Having thus subverted the liberties of
the negroes, the Virginia planters proceeded to
curtail the rights of the other race, and poor
white men were disfranchised by an act of the
Provincial Assembly.*
* Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. I. pp. 523, 524.

THE GERM OF THE CONFLICT. 21
The political tendencies of the two Colonies
were consistent with their antecedents. On the
breaking out of the Enghsh civfl war, Massachu
setts indicated her sympathies by dropping the
oath of allegiance and furling for a while the
red cross of England, while Virginia, with Mary
land, adhered to the king, and piously cursed
the Roundheads who were prevailing against
him.* The same distinction is observable with respect
to social improvement. As early as 1649, the
freemen of Massachusetts — "in order that learn
ing may not be buried in the grave of our fa
thers" — enacted that every township should
maintain a school for reading and writing, and
every town of a hundred householders a grammar
school, with a teacher qualified " to fit youths for
the University." This school law was adopted by
the sister Colonies of New England, — that of
Rhode Island alone excepted. f But in Virginia,
as late as 1671, Governor Berkeley said, — in a
Report made to the Privy Council, — "I thank
God there are no free schools nor printing, and I
hope we shall not have these hundred years ; for
learning has brought disobedience and heresy
and sects into the world, and printing has di
vulged them, and libels against the best govern
ment: God keep us from both! "J
* Hildreth's History, Vol. L pp. 285, 339.
t Ibid., pp. 370, 371.
t Ibid., p. 526.

22 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
The extreme pertinacity with which the South
ern Colonies adhered to the slave system is well
illustrated in the early history of Georgia. Gen
eral James Oglethorpe — a member of the British
Parliament, and a man whose enlightened views
and humane policy render him worthy of an hon
orable remembrance — " conceived the idea of
opening for the poor of his own country, and for
the persecuted Protestants of all nations, an asy
lum in America." In 1733, having obtained a
grant from the king, he landed at Savannah with
one hundred and twenty immigrants, and com
menced a settlement. In this infant society,
slavery was strictly prohibited, and pronounced,
" not only immoral, but contrary to the laws of
England." But, unfortunately for this attempt to plant a
free state, most of the first emigrants were not
accustomed to labor. " The Colony did not pros
per," and the colonists began to complain that
they were prohibited the use of slave labor.
" The regulations of the trustees began to be
evaded, and the laws against slavery were not
rigidly enforced. At first, slaves from South Caro
lina were hired for short periods ; then for a hun
dred years, or during life ; and a sum equal to the
value of the negro paid in advance." In this
way the insidious systeni rooted itself in the new
State ; slave-traders sailed boldly for Africa from
the port of Savannah ; the trustees, baffled in
their humane endeavor, resigned thejr pharter ;

THE BARONS ESPOUSE SLAVERY. 23
and Georgia obeyed the fatal gravitation that
has carried her sister States into the slough of
slavery.* General Oglethorpe returned to England in
1743, where he distinguished himself by writing
against slavery and the impressment of seamen.
In a letter to his friend Granville Sharp he al
ludes to his former connection with the Colony
of Georgia : " My friends and I settled the Colony
of Georgia, and by charter were established trus
tees, to make laws, &c. We determined not to
suffer slavery there. But the slave-merchants
and their adherents occasioned us not only much
trouble, but at last got the then government to
favor them. We would not suffer slavery (which
is against the Gospel as well as the fundamental
law of England) to be authorized under our au
thority ; we refused, as trustees, to make a law
permitting such a horrid crime. The govern
ment, finding the trustees firmly resolved not to
concur with what they believed unjust, took away
the charter, by which no law could be passed with
out our consent." f
We have heard it argued that the system of
slavery at the South was forced upon a reluctant
people in the beginning ; but facts, we apprehend,
will scarcely warrant the plea. The whole system
of colonial slavery was illegal under the law of
England ; and, though it was fostered in some
* Willson's Am. Hist., pp. 262, 265, 266.
t Stuart's Memoir of Sharp.

24 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
instances by govemment, it appears that nothing
stronger than the cupidity of traders, the procliv
ity to idleness, and the pride of caste among the
colonists, gave it footing on our shores. In the
North, the more enterprising habits and more
solid moral quahties of the people, — uniting with
a more stimulating and rigorous chmate, — pre
vented slavery from striking its roots deeply into
our social system. But at the South, the predi
lections of the early immigrants led them to wel
come slave labor, and their descendants — influ
enced by temper and by custom — came to esteem
it indispensable to their station, their passions, and
their existence.
Thus long before the Revolution two different
orders of society were in the process of develop
ment in America : one essentially Christian and
republican, — recognizing the rights and destiny
of human nature ; the other essentially Pagan
and despotic, — ruthlessly trampling on the pre
rogatives of man.

III.

STATUS OF SLAVERY IN THE REPUBLIC.
The discussions that brought on the Revolution,
and the struggles and genius by which it was sus
tained, contributed to raise the republican system
into an ascendant position, and to depress its
rival in a corresponding degree.* " It was by
no accidental coincidence that the period of the
Revolution was the period of a more general and
deep-seated opposition to slavery than had been
before visible, or than has been witnessed since.
The religious sentiment against slavery, as a vio-
* In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, made by
Mr. Jefferson, the following charge is preferred against the king of
Great Britain : —
" He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its
most sacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant people
who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery
in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transporta
tion thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers,
is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to
keep a market where men should be bought and sold, he has at length
prostituted his negative for suppressing any legislative attempt to pro
hibit and restrain this execrable commerce."
This paragraph, being objected to by the delegation from Georgia,
was expunged from the document. It gives a good indication of the
public sentiment of the period touching the turpitude of slave-holding
and slave-trading. 2

26 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
lation of Heaven-established rights, a sentiment
that had been rising for some time previous, and
that was now beginning to reach the point of dis-
fellowship with slave-holders, was a sentiment that
naturally assimilated itself with the rising oppo
sition to the British government for its invasions
of the same sacred rights, and that as naturally
sought the same remedy ; to wit, the separation
of freedom from the embraces of despotic power.
 It is equally evident that the rising opposi
tion of the community in general to the despotic
assumptions of the British government, so far
as it had anything in it like a manly regard to
free principles for its basis, compelled that com
munity to look at the more grievous wrongs of
the slaves, and created an earnest sympathy in
their favor. A decent regard to self-consistency,
in that unsophisticated and earnest age, could
scarcely fail to produce some such effects. The
only just ground for regret or astonishment is
that the spirit of freedom, then seeming to be in
the ascendant, did not secure and maintain a more
complete and permanent triumph. It is instruc
tive to notice how the spirit of republican liberty
and independence, in the different Colonies, was
found most predominant and most efficient pre
cisely where there were fewest slaves, and where
the spirit of opposition to slavery was likewise
most efficient and most predominant; while the
regions most deeply involved in the sin of slave-
holding, and least accessible to the principles of

STATUS OF SLAVERY m THE REPUBLIC. 27
emancipation, were precisely the same regions in
which the apologists and partisans of British usur
pation were most numerous and influential, — the
regions in which the spirit of opposition to that
usurpation was to the smallest extent and with
the greatest difficulty roused. The South was over
run with Tories, while New England was united in
favor of independence, almost to a man. Particu
lar localities at the North might be mentioned,
where the prevalence of slave-holding and slave-
trading was connected with a corresponding sym
pathy with despotic government." *
It is worthy of everlasting remembrance, that
almost every patriot who labored conspicuously or
efficiently in laying the foundation of the Union
was hostile to slavery, reahzed that it was an
incongruous element in the republic, and de
sired to see it extirpated from the soil of the
nation. Still the despotic system was not awed
into absolute submission. It was weakened, but
not subdued. The finger of destiny seemed clear
ly to indicate its doom; but it survived, a pen
sioner on the patience of the hour. It had a
few representatives in the Constitutional Conven
tion, who vainly sought to obtain an open recog
nition of its piratical interests under the federal
law. To the undpng glory of the framers of that
instrument be it said, no such recognition was
obtained. In clear, unequivocal language, the
* Slavery and Anti-Slavery, pp. 69-71.

28 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
OBJECT of the Constitution is declared to be "to
form a more perfect union, establish justice, in
sure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
defence, promote the general welfare, and secure
the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos
terity." Here is the amplest possible recognition of the
interests of Republican Society ; but no recog
nition whatever of the interests of Despotic So
ciety. If it was the real object of the Constitu
tion to " form a more perfect union," it could
never have contemplated the perpetuity of two
systems radically antagonistic in their principles
and tendencies. If it was the real object of the
Constitution " to establish justice," it could not
have been intended to protect an institution that
perpetrates wholesale and unmitigated injustice.
And if it was the real object of the Constitution
" to promote the general welfare, and secure
the blessings of liberty," it could never have
been designed to indorse any policy that puts
the welfare of an entire nation in jeopardy for
the sake of fostering the interest of a class, or
to sanction a system that reduces one sixth of
our population to perpetual servitude.
If we grant that the framers of this great char
ter knew their own intentions, and honestly meant
what their words clearly express, we cannot doubt
that the Constitution on Which the republic is
based was drafted and adopted as the charter
of free society, in absolute opposition to every
interest of despotism.

STATUS OF SLAVERY IN THE REPUBLIC. 29
The nation having been thus consecrated to
republican society by the supreme law of the
land, all the territory then at the disposal of
the Republic was likewise dedicated to freedom.*
Express provision had also been made in the Con
stitution for putting a period to the slave-trade ;
and the tinie was fast approaching when that
traffic — stigmatized as piracy — would lie under
the ban of the nation.
« Hildreth's History, Vol, IU. pp. 627, 528.

IV.
THE PROSPECTS OF THE BARONS.
So far all was auspicious. The government of
the Union was enthroned in the unqualified in
terest of freedom ; its antecedents, its principles,
its instincts, were all hostile to despotic society.*
But the government of the Union — competent
to reflect the spirit of the Constitution, and to
embody the policy of the nation, — had no do
minion over the domestic institutions of the States.
And in all the States but Massachusetts slavery
actually existed at the time the government went
into operation, although provision had been made
for eventual emancipation in New Hampshire,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, and
the legal restrictions upon emancipation had been
removed in Virginia and in Maryland.f
But the Federal Constitution — moulded in the
glow of that ardent devotion to liberty which
marked the Revolutionary age, and embodying the
* See a very able argument for the anti-slavery construction of the
Constitution, by Rev. Samuel J. May, in the Quarterly Anti-Slavery
Magazine, Vol. II. Parts I. and II. of this Essay were written before
I met with Mr. May's paper. It gratifies me to find my own views
sustained by so admirable an argument as his.
t Hildreth's History, Vol. III. pp. 391, 392.

THE PROSPECTS OF THE BARONS. 31
convictions of men of the widest intelligence and
most genuine philanthropy — was really far in
advance of the mass of the nation. Like Chris
tianity in the Church, it was a Gospel of Liberty
in the Republic, far above the practical virtue
of the people by whom it had been accepted.
While they might honor it with verbal praise, —
as men of the world honor the golden rule, as
hypocrites honor sanctity, — there was every prob
ability that they would violate its principles in
their practical action. And, as Christianity has
been degraded to conform to the debasement of
human nature, so it might have been expected
that this charter of absolute freedom would be
come perverted, under the interpretation of an
inferior order of men, to meet the exigencies of
a depreciated political morality.
It was only requisite that an insidious hostile
interest should be tolerated in some of the States ;
allowed to work upon public opinion through the
cupidity, the pride, the lust and ambition of
men ; and permitted to creep, through these base
avenues, into the halls of national legislation, to
effect a virtual revolution in the character and
policy of the government, — to metamorphose it
into a machinery of despotism ; and even to
achieve, in process of time, if not checked by
a revival of popular virtue, an absolute change
in its organic law.
That hostile interest, in the person of slavery,
still had its roots or ligaments in all quarters

32 OUE TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
of the Republic; and it only required that the
enthusiasm for liberty which the architects of our
political temple had felt and inspired should sub
side in the prosaic routine of prosperous days,
to see the instincts of slavery quickened wher
ever they still survived. Even in the States where
it had been abolished by statute, many of the
people gave it up with reluctance, and some re
mained ever after tainted by its evil spirit. These
persons from that day to this — alien to the genius
of the Republic, and wholly subservient to its
despotic ANTAGONIST — have been the most effi
cient servants of the slave power, the most supple
apologists for the enormities of slave-holding, the
most plausible advocates of the plots of the South
ern oligarchy, and the most pernicious enemies
of republican society.
Under the influence of the Revolutionary spirit,
a strong anti-slavery sentiment was awakened in
Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia ;* but it yielded
to the force of custom, climate, and self-interest,
and disappeared, for the most part, with the illus
trious men who had fanned it into existence.
Washington complains, in a letter addressed to
Lafayette, in 1786, that " petitions for the abo
lition of slavery, presented to the Virginia legis
lature, could scarcely obtain a hearing." And
Jefferson, writing in his old age, laments, with
* It may be stated, on the authority of St. George Tucker, (Profes
sor of Law in William and Mary CoUege, Va.,) that between the years
1782 and 1797 there were upwards of ten thousand private manumis
sions in Virginia alone.

THE PROSPECTS OF THE BARONS. 33
the pathos of true philanthropic sensibility, the
disappointment of his hopes as regards any popu
lar interest in emancipation.
In North Carolina, the subject of abolition was
agitated, especially by the Quakers ; but the legis
lature of that State, backed by a large majority
of the people, was unfriendly to their humane
views.* In a word, in nearly all the States where slavery
still subsisted, especially in those south of the
Potomac, the resolution began to be evinced to
perpetuate the system at all hazards. From that
time the public opinion of foreign nations began
to be defied, and that of this country began to be
corrupted, in the interest of despotic society.
* Hildreth's History, Vol. IH, pp. 393, 394.

2 *

PRESTIGE OF THE BARONS. — OMENS. — THE SHIP OF
EMPIRE LAUNCHED.
To the eye of the sagacious moralist, it must
have been as evident seventy-five years ago as it
now is, that slavery cannot be tolerated in a politi
cal system like ours, without endangering every in
stitution and prerogative sacred to freemen. Can
we conceive of a " powerful oligarchy, possessed
of immense wealth," existing in any country with
out attempting to influence its politics ? Since
even banking, manufacturing, and commercial
capital have been known to interfere with the le
gitimate course of legislation in many instances,
can we apprehend less from slave capital ? — es
pecially when it is allowed to accumulate to the
enormous sum of two thousand millions of dollars !
Besides, the slave-capitalists are not simply one
class in the slave-holding States ; they are the dom
inant CLASS, having positive control of the social,
religious, and political power of those States. It
has been very pertinently observed, that " a weak
er prestige, fewer privileges, and less comparative
wealth have enabled the British aristocracy to rule
England for two centuries, though the root of their

PRESTIGE OF THE BARONS. 35
strength was cut at Naseby." * Can we fail to see,
therefore, that the system of slavery — concentrat
ing, as it does, all political influence in a few men
who are virtually absolute in their respective States
— becomes a most formidable enemy to free soci
ety, and is naturally instigated by the instinct of
self-preservation to undermine and overthrow its
rival ?
Moreover, the temper and manners which slav
ery continually fosters tend to weaken the securi
ties of freedom. It was well remarked by Dr.
Channingjf that " free institutions rest on the love
of liberty and the love of order." And " how
plain it is that no man can love liberty with a true
love who has the heart to wrest it from others ! At
tachment to freedom does not consist in spurning
indignantly a yoke prepared for our own necks ;
for this is done even by the savage and the beast
of prey. It is a moral sentiment, an impartial
desire and choice that others as well as ourselves
may be protected from every wrong, may be ex
empted from every unjust restraint. Slave-hold
ing, when perpetuated selfishly and from choice,
is at open war with this generous principle. It is
a plain, habitual contempt of human rights, and
of course impairs that sense of their sanctity which
is their best protection. It offers, every day and
hour, a precedent of usurpation to the ambitious.
It creates a caste with despotic powers ; and under
* Philosophy of the Abolition Movement, by WendeU Phillips, p. 38.
t Channing's Works, Vol. H. pp. 85, 86,

36 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
such guardians " liberty and justice are about as
secure as were the infant princes whom the tyrant
smothered in the Tower.
Slavery is equally incompatible with the love of
order. It fosters the habit of command, but not
the virtue of obedience. The slaveholder is accus
tomed to see his arbitrary will or changing caprice
obeyed by servile multitudes as their supreme law.
In the natural growth of his character under this
system, he comes to arrogate to himself an author
ity that transcends the law of the land. The sub
mission he has been accustomed to receive from
the slave, he comes to exact of the freeman. His
despotic disposition resisted, he appeals to vio
lence, as he would to execute his plantation-edict.
He relies on the bowie-knife and revolver, instead
of the magistrate, to enforce his supposed rights.
Thus society in all the slave-holding States gravi
tates toward anarchy. And thus slavery prepares
the mind of a community, by its inevitable etfects
upon sentiments and manners, for the inception
of conspiracies that aim at the subversion of the
government itself, and the elevation of universal
despotism by military violence.*
* "It is evident that there is no way to save our govemment and
render it permanent, but by constant resistance to the spirit of despot
ism, — a spirit whose nature and essence is hostility to free institu
tions. We should repel its first approaches, reject its alliance, dread
its smile, suspect it under the fairest disguises, and always, every
where, and in every shape, reprobate it as the deadliest foe of republi
canism. It is believed that Americans estimate these truths, so far
as they relate to foreign despotisms, and are prepared to resist all
anti-republican influences from abroad, — excepting always those of

OMENS. 37
All these dangers, latent in the system of Slavery
as a political element, the Federal Government was
obliged to ignore, when it went into operation. It
had to incur the risk. It had to " take the
chances." It had to confide in the possible virtue
Popery. So jealous are we sibout foreign interference that, let but an
Englishman come amongst us, and propose to discuss publicly our
own institutions, aud at once the outcry is raised, he is an emissary
commissioned by despotism to fire the temple of liberty. But tlie
same considerations which call for the exercise of vigilance toward
foreign infiuences, apply with an hundred-fold power to that despotism
wliich is in our midst; and yet what is the state of the public mind
with regard to the latter? No concern about its existence here, — no
suspicion of its character, — not even so much as a misgiving that it
has any tendency to sap the foundations of the government, — nay, it
is a matter of serious debate whether it be not ' the conier-stone of
republicanism ' ! It is surely time that Americans should iuvestiga.te
the precise bearings of slavery upon our free institutions, — that we
should fully understand both the manner in whioh it endangers them
and the imminency of the danger. It will not require gi-eat research
to see that all the combined power of Europe's aristocracies, mon
archies, and despotisms cannot do one tenth part as much to subvert
our liberties as our own system of domestic slavery." — American
Slavery vs. Liberty, by a KentucHan, in Anti-Slavery Magazine for Oct.
1836. This is only an echo of Jefferson's famous words: "The. whole com
merce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most
boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism, on the one part,
and degi'ading submission on the other. Our children see this, aud
learn to imitate it : for man is an imitative animal  The parent
storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on
the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose rein to the
worst of passions; and, thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in
TYRANNY, cauuot but be stamped by its odious peculiarities. The
man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals unde-
praved by such circumstances. And with what execration should a
statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens to trample
on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots and these into
enemies, destroys the morals of the one and the amorpatria of tho
other! And can the liberties of the nation be thought secure, when

38 OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF SOCIETY.
of the people, in the progress of liberal principles,
in the wisdom and integrity of future administra
tions, and in the merciful overrulings of Divine
Providence. Republican society was not launched under as
favorable auspices as many have supposed. Dan
gerous rocks lay near the channel. Insidious
currents waited for the splendid ship. Rapacious
pirates lay hidden in quiet lagoons, hoping she
might drift within their reach. A shoal of wran
gling pilots were struggling for a place at her helm.
And so she lifted her anchors, spread forth her
canvas, gave her starry flag to the breeze, and
sailed away into the untracked Future. And the
ghosts of dead Liberties beyond the sea — rising
from their sepulchres — wafted after her their sol
emn " God speed ! "
we have removed their only firm basis, — a conviction in the minds
of the .people that their liberties are the gifts of God, that they are not
to be violated but with his wrath ? Indeed, I tremble for my country
when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever,"
&c., &c.

PART II.
OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.

" Who can reflect, unmoved, upon the round
Of smooth aud solemnized complacencies.
By which, on Christian lands, from age to age.
Profession mocks performance. Earth is sick,
And Heaven is weary, of the hollow words
Which states and kingdoms utter when they talk
Of truth and justice." WoriSswokth.
" Casca. I believe these are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.
" Cicero. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time :
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves."
Shakspeare, Julius Qesar.
" 0 masters ! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men." Ibid.

" Unhappily, the original policy of the government, and the original
principles of the government in respect to slavery, did not permanently
control its action. A change occurred, — almost imperceptible at first,
but becoming more and more marked and decided, until nearly total."
— Hon. S. p. Chase, 1850.
" What, then, have been the causes which have created so new a
feeling in favor of slavery in the South, — which have changed the
whole nomenclature of the South on the subject, — till it has now be
come a cherished institution there ? " — Daniel Webster, 1850.
" The general decline of the spirit of liberty that was witnessed iu
the community, was witnessed also in the Church, and the same moral
lethargy arid stupor came over them both. The influx of wealth, the
erection of castes and aristocracies in society, that displaced simplicity
and equality in the State, produced similar effects in the Church.
 The unexpected profitableness of slave labor in the production
of cotton was a temptation to the Church, as well as to the rest of the
community, and the Southern Church fell into the snare." — William
Goodell, 1862.
" The judgment of God wiU be very visible in infatuating a people
ripe and prepared for destruction." — Clarendon.

THE PROCESS. — THE CAPITAL INFECTED.
We have seen that the government of the Union
was organized in the interest of Republican Soci
ety. Under such a government, the interests of
despotism could be subserved, and its ultimate as
cendency secured, only by an insidious process of
corruption and usurpation. That process we are
now to describe. It consisted in multiplying slave-
holding States, thereby increasing the representa
tive power of slavery in the national legislature ;
in obtaining a new interpretation of the Constitu
tion ; in corrupting the Judiciary ; and in deprav
ing the Christian Church.
These changes in the practical working of the
government, and in the tone of our ecclesiastical
bodies, might be presumed to involve a corre
sponding degradation of public sentiment, until
carried so far as to awaken alarm in the more
sagacious of the people, and stimulate resistance
and reform.
Moreover, soon after the founding of the gov
ernment, the interests of freedom came under cer
tain malign influences growing out of the location
of the capital in a slave territory. When the Dis-

42 OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
trict of Columbia was ceded to the United States,
all the laws of Maryland heretofore operating on
the soil were adopted by Congress in a body, with
out change or modification. Whoever desires to
learn the character of those laws will find them
collected in a small work entitled " The Black
Code op the District of Columbia."
One law provides a liberal reward for " every
person who seizes and takes up a runaway slave."
If the individual thus arrested is proved to be a
slave, the master pays the reward, together with
the "imprisonment fees," when he takes posses
sion of his " property." And if the individual
turns out to be a freeman, and no claimant ap
pears, it becomes the duty of the marshal to ad
vertise him, and sell him as a slave, to defray the
expenses of his arbitrary arrest and unjust incar
ceration ! Thus the United States, in locating the
seat of government on the Potomac, adopted and
sanctioned a law under which free and innocent
men are deliberately sold into slavery, for the sake
of rewarding the kidnapper, and paying the jailer
for retaining his victim !
It would be some relief to the. national con
science to be permitted to believe that this mon
strous law has been a dead letter ; but this conso
lation is not left us. Many freemen have been
sold into slavery under its operation. In 1827,
1828, and 1829, the subject was laid before a Con
gressional committee, from whose report it appears
that, during those three years alone, one hundred

the capital infected. 43
and seventy-nine persons were committed as fugi
tives, among whom not less than twenty-six were
found to be free persons. Six of these free per
sons were actually sold into slavery, the rest being
saved from that fate only by the humanity of the
jailer. Estimating the aggregate fruit of despot
ism in the District by the development of these
three years, aided by the records of the Washing
ton jail, we see how appalling is the turpitude of
crime which the nation has committed against the
fundamental law of its existence.
There are other laws pertaining to the District,
and enjoying the sanction of the Federal author
ity, which are not less inhuman. Thus, if a slave
is caught away from home without a pass, the con
stable arresting him "is required to whip him on
the bare back at his discretion, not exceeding
thirty-nine lashes." Por going abroad by night,
or riding a horse in the daytime, without permis
sion, he is exposed to " whipping, cropping, or
branding in the cheek." For running away, and
resisting his pursuers, he may be " shot, killed,
and destroyed." Besides these statutes directly
affecting the slaves, there are others legalizing a
systematic tyranny upon free colored men residing
in the District, against distributing publications
adverse to slavery, and providing for a special
police, at an enormous expense, as "a national
guard " in the service of the slave masters.
The establishment of our capital in a slave dis
trict thus subjugated to the most barbarous and

44 our political apostasy.
tyrannical laws to be found on record, has tended
to strengthen every aggressive measure by which
the despotic system speedily triumphed over the
nation. The halls of our legislation and the home
of our executive, established in that infected dis
trict, became impervious to the nobler influences
of the country. The action of Congress became
embarrassed — perhaps we may say controlled —
in important emergencies by local opinion and in
terest. And, owing to the same influences, Wash
ington City has been, under the thrilling perils of
this rebellion, and continues to be at this moment
(November, 1861), as rank with the breath of
treason as Richmond. If the government is slow
to respond to the better impulses of the nation, —
if it tenderly admonishes traitors in arms, leaves
the Republic to bleed away its life that slavery may
continue to exist, and still shields four or five hun
dred clerks in the Federal offices from the grip of
outraged Justice, — we must look for an explana
tion to the fatal locality of the capital, and to the
accursed sorcery that appears to seize most of
those who pass its blighting precincts.

II.
territorial extension of slavery.
The first slave State admitted into the Union
was Kentucky. It was formed of territory origi
nally comprised in the State of Virginia, and nat
urally adopted her domestic institution.* The
admittance of Vermont as a free State, however,
preserved the equilibrium of interest in the Repub
lic. Then came Tennessee, originally ceded to
the United States by North Carolina, under the
proviso " that no regulation made or to be made
by Congress shall tend to the emancipation of
slaves." The Constitution of Tennessee adopted
the code of North Carolina, thus " tacitly legaliz
ing the system of slavery," while avoiding a direct
allusion to the subject. f
The acquisition of Louisiana and Florida —
though of obvious value, in a commercial point
of view, to the whole country — opened immense
fields for the propagation of slavery, and greatly
* It seems, however, that, " in the Convention that formed the
Constitution of Kentucky, in 1780, the effort to prohibit slavery was
nearly successful," " But for the interest of two large slaveholders —
Messrs, Breckinridge and Nicholson — the measure, it is believed,
would have been carried," — Power of Congress, p. 34,
t Hildreth's History, Vol. IV. pp. 150, 632.

46 our POLITICAL apostasy.
enhanced the influence of the despotic interest in
the nation.
But the application of Missouri marks the rise
of the great controversy among us on the exten
sion of slavery. Already four slave States —
Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi
— had been admitted, with little debate or opposi
tion, — being offset against an equal number of
free States, namely, Vermont, Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois. But, as Alabama was about to come in
as a slave State, it was very reasonably demanded
— in accordance with the rule hitherto observed
— that slavery should be prohibited in Missouri.
Accordingly, Mr. Tallmadgb moved, in the House,
to insert a clause in the bill relative to Missouri,
" prohibiting any further introduction of slaves,
and granting freedom to the children of those
already there on their attaining the age of twenty-
five." This motion, after an exciting debate of
three days, was carried by a small majority. The
bill went to the Senate, where it received such
amendments as the House refused to adopt, and
so was lost. A similar effort, made at the same
time, to organize the Territory of Arkansas under
a clause prohibiting slavery, failed to secure even
the vote of the House. At no distant day, both
States came into the Union, without any restriction
upon the system of slavery ; and the balance of
territorial weight, thus inclined in favor of des
potism, has never been restored.
It was during this first debate on the Missouri

territorial extension of slavery. 47
question, or rather after the defeat of the prohibi
tory clause in the Arkansas Bill, that the cele
brated compromise line, dividing the territory west
of the Mississippi, was first proposed. As origi
nally suggested, that line was to follow the north
ern boundary of Arkansas ; * but its final adoption
was made dependent on the admission of Missouri
as a slave State. Nor did it prove, even then,
a barrier to the aggressive cupidity of the slave
holders, as the duplicity of two administrations
and the wrongs of Kansas impressively testify.
While the slave-holding propaganda were strug
gling to bind Missouri to their empire, they began
to covet a new province belonging to a sister
republic! The annexation of Texas began to be
openly agitated in the South and West as far
back as 1829, and the motives that inspired the
movement were boldly avowed. It was argued,
about this time, in a series of papers attributed to
a gentleman who subsequently occupied a seat in
the Senate of the United States, that the acquisi
tion of that extensive domain would add five or
six slave-holding States to the Union, or even nine
States as large as Kentucky. " In Virginia, about
the same time, calculations were made as to the
increased value which would thus be given to
slaves, and it was even said that this acquisition
would raise the price fifty per cent." % Thus
* Hildreth, Vol. VI. pp. 661, 662, t Ibid, p, 713,
X Dr, Channing's Letter on the Annexation of Texas, Works, Vol.
n. p. 218.

48 OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
would be opened a new market for the sale of
human beings ; and thus another " vast accession
of political power " would be secured to the slave-
holding despotism. " The project of dismembering
a neighboring republic, that slave-holders and slaves
might overspread a region which had been conse
crated to a free population, was discussed in news
papers as coolly as if it were a matter of obvious
right and unquestionable humanity." *
The sinuous intrigues and impudent frauds by
which Mexico was robbed of this province,! with
a view to its ultimate annexation to the Union, as
another contribution to the already preponderating
influence of slavery, have become matters of his
torical certainty ; and the fact that this measure
created so little alarm in the free States, at the
time it was being consummated, affords one proof
out of many, that we had become infatuated with
the lust of empire, and that the sentiment of
liberty had become torpid in the nation.
In vain a few men at the North, not wholly
blind to the purposes and tendencies of slavery,
raised an indignant voice in protest, — as had been
done, indeed, during the sacrifice of Missouri ; but
the baleful project had acquired too great an
impetus to be arrested. Me. Wendell Phillips
relates — and we quote the incident to illustrate
the fatal blindness of the Nortii — " being one of
a committee which waited on Abbott Lawrence,
* Dr, Channing's Letter, Works, Vol. IL p, 198.
t North American Review for July, 1836.

territorial EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. 49
a year or two only before annexation, to ask his
countenance to some general movement, without
distinction of party, against the Texas scheme.
He smiled at our fears," says Mr. Phillips, "beg
ged us to have no apprehensions ; stating that his
correspondence with leading men at Washington
enabled him to assure us annexation was impos
sible, and that the South itself was determined to
defeat the project. A -short time after. Senators
and Representatives from Texas took their seats in
Congress." *
Thus the relative positions of the two systems
of society were changed.
At the formation of the Union, Republican
Society was in the ascendant, — all its interests
guaranteed by the supreme law of the nation.
Now, Despotic Society was in the ascendant, hav
ing the government under its control, and pros
tituting all the energies of the Republic to the
extension of the blighting curse of human bond
age. Once, the States contiguous to those which had
abolished slavery — smitten by the sterility and
ignorance which the system entails, and viewing
across the border the salutary results of freedom
— were turning their thoughts towards emancipa
tion. Their proximity to States flourishing under
free labor, and ennobled by every element of
social progress, was gradually forcing upon their
« Philosophy of the Abolition Movement, p. 24.
3 D

60 our political apostasy.
reluctant minds the propriety of adopting the
more humane and prosperous system. But the
opening of immense territories in the Southwest
to the cupidity of slavery at once arrested the
tendency to emancipation in the border States.*
The almost unlimited demand for slave labor
on the rice, sugar, and cotton plantations of those
new territories, gave a fearful impulse to the rear
ing of slaves in the old .States, and opened a
domestic trade in the bodies and souls of our fel
low-creatures, as infamous, to say the least, as it
was lucrative.
Thus slavery — once apparently in the last stage
of dissolution in Virginia and Kentucky, in Dela
ware and Maryland — revived in a more virulent
character, and assumed a more shameful attitude
than ever^ in those States, while it spread its
mortal blight, by successive aggressions, and by
the wicked complicity of a majority of the Amer
ican people, over the fairest regions of the conti
nent. * See this view sustained by Justice McLean in his argument iu
the Dred Scott case.

III.

slave representation.
Let us now observe* more particularly how the
increase of slaves, and consequently of slave rep
resentation, was made to affect the political action
of the country.
When the principle of slave representation was
proposed to be admitted into the Constitution, it
was indignantly resisted ; nor was the principle
finally conceded to the South until coupled with
another, providing that their proportion of the
direct taxes that might be levied should be in
creased in the ratio of such representation. This
proviso was probably designed to operate as a prac
tical check upon the inordinate growth of slave
representation ; and at the same time to relieve
the Constitution of the odium of recognizing any
interest peculiar to slavery.* Such, however, has
* The views of Rev. S. J. May upon this clause in the Constitution
— which I had not read when this part of my essay was penned —
appear to me quite original and worthy of note. While the remarks
of my esteemed friend do not affect anything which I have said in this
section concerning the pernicious consequences of slave representa
tion, they do vindicate the framers of the Constitution from any de
sign to favor the system of slavery, when they admitted the clause in
question. See Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine, pp, 80-82,

52 OUE POLITICAL APOSTASY.
not been the effect, and the case presents an in
structive example of the fact, that no compromise
with injustice, for the sake of avoiding a present
difficulty, and in the specious assurance of a re
mote advantage, ever fulfils its flattering promise.
In the several States, before their union under
the Federal compact, it had been customary to
provide for debts and expenditures by direct taxa
tion; and it was naturally enough supposed that,
under the new government, a large part of the
revenue would be furnished by the same process.
But, in point of fact, — "with the exception of
two brief periods, during the French war, and the
war with England, — the revenue of the United
States has been raised by duties on imports. The
greatest proportion of these duties are, of course,
paid by the free States ; for here, the poorest
laborer daily consumes several articles of foreign
production, of which from one eighth to one half
the price is a tax paid to government. The cloth
ing of the slave population increases the revenue
very little, and their food almost none at all."
Thus, in the practical operation of our govern
ment, the South has obtained all the advantages
of the proviso for slave representation, while fur
nishing scarcely any of the anticipated equivalent.
The effect of the arrangement upon the fortunes
of the slaves has been peculiarly aggravating, for
— since the prerogative of slave representation
has always been used to extend the slave power —
the slaves have been practically made to vote for

slave REPRESENTATION. 53
the perpetuity of slavery, and to " furnish halters
to hang their own posterity." *
The immeasurable advantage which this pre
rogative has given to the South, in a political
point of view, was forcibly expressed, many years
ago, by a Southern gentleman, the Hon. W. B.
Sbabrook. In a pamphlet on the management
of slaves, he is said to have used this language:
"An addition of one million of dollars to the
private fortune of Daniel Webster, would not
give to Massachusetts more influence than she
now possesses in the Federal councils. On the
other hand, every increase of slave property in
South Carolina is a fraction thrown into the scale
by which her representation in Congress is de
termined." As far back as 1833, the importance of the
slave element, as an instrument of political as
cendency, was well understood at the South, and
by a few men at the North. In a speech made
in Congress that year, by Me. Clayton of Geor
gia, he boldly alluded to the slave population as
" the machinery of the South." Upwards of
twenty members had already obtained seats in
the House of Representatives by virtue of slave
representation. In a speech made three days
later, John Quincy Adams declared, that, tracing
the history of the government from its founda
tion, " it would be easy to prove that its decisions
had been affected in general by less majorities
* Mrs. Child.

54 OUR political apostasy.
than that." He would go even further, he said,
and insist that the slave representation had ever
been, in fact, the ruling power op the Goveen-
ment. " The history of the Union has afforded a con
tinual proof," said Me. Adams, "that this rep
resentation of property, which they enjoy as well
in the election of President and Vice-President
of the United States as upon the floor of the
House of Representatives, has secured to the slave-
holding States the entire control of the national
policy, and, almost without exception, the pos
session of the highest executive office of the Union.
Always united in the purpose of regulating the
affairs of the whole Union by the standard of the
slave-holding interest, their disproportionate num
bers in the electoral colleges have enabled them,
in ten out of twelve quadrennial elections, to
confer the chief magistracy upon one of their
own citizens. Their suffrages at every election,
without exception, have been almost exclusively
confined to a candidate of their own caste. Avail
ing themselves of the divisions which, from the
nature of man, always prevail in communities
entirely free, they have sought and found awx-
iliaries in the other quarters of the Union, by
associating the passions of parties and the am
bition of individuals with their own purposes, to
establish and maintain throughout the confeder
ated nation the slave-holding policy."*
» Speech on the Tariff, Feb. 4, 1833.

slave representation. 55
In palpable confirmation of these statements,
the offices of President of the United States, Pres
ident of the Senate, Speaker of the House of
Representatives, and Chief Justice of the United
States, were all occupied by incumbents from the
South, — pledged to the slave-holding policy, —
at the very time Me. Adams was speaking.
The most lamentable effect of this political ad
vantage, this imperium in imperio, has been expe
rienced in the corruption of Northern politicians.
Since the South was always certain to be united
on every important question, while the North has
ever been more or less divided ; and since the
prerogative of slave representation has given to
the South, from the beginning, the controlling
power in the government, — it has generally been
found necessary for politicians from the free States
to affiliate with the purposes of the South, and
to adopt its policy, in order to obtain any offices
of honor or emolument in the Federal Union.
Thus the path of ambition for Northern mem
bers of Congress has been, almost of necessity,
the path of subserviency and compromise. The
highest Federal honors were accessible only to
those who paid fealty to the slave-holders, and
abased themselves most as the tools of their ar
bitrary policy. In a Republic nominally the freest
on the globe, the positions of supreme dignity
and trust, the executive and administrative offi
ces, could be won only by bowing to the dictation
of an oligarchy, and becoming ductile to the

66 cue political apostaSy.
crafty designs of a despotism. Shameful and om
inous are the anomalies which our political his
tory has developed. A vile interest, originally
lurking in the recesses of the State, and aban
doned to die of its own virulence, — an interest
under the ban of pubhc opinion the civilized
world over, and no man so lost to virtue as to
plead for it, — an excrescence, the outgrowth of
Asiatic depravity and of feudal manners, alien
alike to the new nation and the new age, — an
abominable thing, condemned by equity, and ab
horred by nature, — is warmed into vital action
by a fatal conjunction of circumstances, encour
aged to emerge into the public arena, and pro
moted, in process of time, to hold the balance
of power in the greatest of republican govern
ments ! The leading statesmen of the country
— lured by the sin the angels are said to have
fallen by — are seen quenching the light of con
science, killing the instincts native to freemen,
and stooping to render homage to the mother of
viUanies. And the fame of many an illustrious
son of freedom, nurtured by generous scholar
ship, crowned by classic eloquence, and applaud
ed by confiding States, is seen blighted by the
curse that lights on the betrayer of humanity,
and turned into fuel to blazon the base man's
shame !

IV.
slavery construing the constitution.
While the immense territorial acquisitions were
contributing to the ascendency of the Despotic
System, the same dangerous tendency was being
accelerated by a new doctrine of constitutional in
terpretation. This doctrine, hy successive stages
of growth, ex;tending through seventy years of po
litical intrigue and corruption, has become the
most gigantic and impudent sophistry that was
ever imposed upon a rational public.
It has virtually transformed the Constitution
into a national slave-code, — perverting it into a
broad warrant for slave-holding and kidnapping in
every State and Territory of the Union, — degrad
ing the judges of the Supreme Court to the level
of a political club, and changing the President of
the United States into a pettifogger, pleading in
the interest of the Southern oligarchy. The au
thority of most of the courts, and the inordinate
influence of a single Northern statesman, have pre
vailed so far as to secure a general acceptance of
the new dogma in the Free States. And yet the
judicial authorities are notoriously at variance on
the question of constitutional interpretation, — a
3*

58 our political apostasy.
minority of the judges of the Supreme Court of
the United States arguing for the anti-slavery con
struction, in opposition to their colleagues ; * and
even Mr. Webster, whose authority as expounder
of our national law it has long been the fashion to
venerate, was not always consistent with his own
decisions. The question is not of so profound or complex a
nature as to prevent men of ordinary intelligence,
and of little legal learning, from deducing a sound
conclusion. It is only needful to recall a few car
dinal facts to convince any person, willing to be
guided by common sense, that the Constitution is
not responsible for the system of slavery.
In the celebrated decision of the Court of King's
Bench, pronounced by Loed Mansfield in the case
of James Somersett, in 1772, — a decision which
has never been reversed, — it was shown that slav
ery was nowhere legalized by the law of England.
" The state of slavery is of such a nature," said
Loed Mansfield, " that it is incapable of being in
troduced on any reasons, moral or political, but
only by positive law. It is so odious that nothing
can be suffered to support it but positive law."
According to this decision, slavery never had a
legal existence in the American Colonies, so long
as they were subject to the law of England. It
was tolerated, but was never lawful. When these
Colonies came to be united in the Federal compact,
* See the Arguments of Justices McLean and Curtis, in the case of
Dred Scott,

slavery CONSTRUING THE CONSTITUTION. 59
after the Revolution, it became necessary, in order
to give slavery a legal existence in the Republic,
to enact into the Constitution a positive provision
for its support. Being of such an exceptional na
ture, nothing short of an express and positive en
actment could bring it under the protection of the
General Government. Can any such enactment
be found ? So far from it, neither the word slave
nor slavery occurs in the instrument. The history
of the formation of the Constitution shows that
these terms were excluded, not by accident, but
by design, — so strenuously opposed were the
majority of its framers to any recognition of the
system. Indeed, as De. Channing has said, " a
stranger might read it without suspecting the ex
istence of this institution among us." And so
free is the Constitution from any direct refer
ence to the system, that, if slavery were abol
ished throughout the States, not a single article
or section of the- instrument would require re
vision. In the absence, then, of every provision for the
support of slavery in the supreme law of the land,
how is it possible to claim for it a guaranty in the
Constitution, as a national interest, — it being, in
its nature, " so odious that nothing can be suffered
to support it but positive law " ?
In view of the considerations just submitted, let
us now consider the famous clause concerning the
rendition of fugitives, — that Malakoff of the slave
holders, in the shelter of which the Fugitive-Slave

60 OUR political APOSTASY.
Bill was framed. The history of that clause is
thus related by Me. Hildreth : " When the article
came up providing for the mutual delivery of
fugitives from justice, a motion was made by
Butler, seconded by C. Pinckney, that fugitive
slaves and servants be included. Wilson objected
that this would require a delivery at the public
expense. Sheeman saw no more propriety in the
public seizing and surrendering a servant than a
horse. Butler withdrew his motion ; but the
next day introduced a substitute, evidently bor
rowed from an ordinance of Congress passed a
few days before, and — in its strong resemblance
to one of the clauses of the old New England
Articles of Union — bearing plain marks of a New
England hand. Agreed to without debate, it be
came, with some subsequent changes of phrase
ology, that famous clause which provides that ' no
person held to service or labor in one State, under
the laws thereof, escaping into ¦ another, shall, in
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be
discharged from such service or labor, but shaU be
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labor may be due.' " *
Now that allusion is made, in this clause, to
fugitive slaves, as well as to indented servants, is
barely possible ; and yet it seems that the original
motion, in which the word slaves occurs, was not
suffered to pass. No open and unequivocal con
cession of this claim to hunt fugitive slaves was
* History of the United States, Vol. IH. p. 622.

slavery CONSTRUING THE CONSTITUTION. 61
admitted into the Constitution. And the fact that
Butler's substitute (in which the word slaves had
been struck out) was accepted without debate,
seems to indicate that the anti-slavery members
of the Convention attached some different mean
ing to the clause, or believed that its ambiguity
would disarm it of practical force.
Admitting that this clause refers to fugitive
slaves, it may well be doubted whether it was
designed to express more than a recommendation
to the States, in the nature of comity. It is perti
nent to this case to remember, that the civil law,
throughout the continent of Europe, without a
single known exception, has decided " that slavery
can exist only within the territory where it has
been expressly established ; and that if a slave
escapes or is carried beyond such territory, his
master cannot reclaim him unless by virtue of
some express stipulation.* There is no nation in
Europe which considers itself bound to return to
his master a fugitive slave, under the civil law or
the law of nations. On the contrary, the slave is
held to be free where there is no treaty obligation,
or compact in some other form, to return him to
his master." f Whether the obscure clause in
question amounts to such a " stipulation," or
* See Grotius, lib, 2, chap, 15, 5, 1; lib, 10, chap, 10, 2, 1; Wicquo-
post's Ambassador, lib, 1, p, 418: 4 Martin, 385; Case of the Creole in
the House of Lords, 1842 ; 1 Phillimore on International Law, 316, 335,
— cited by Justice McLean,
t -Argument of Justice McLean in Reports of the Supreme Court,
Vol. XIX. p. 634.

62 OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
" treaty," which the Constitution arms the Gen
eral Government with power to execute, may fairly
admit of doubt.*
Again : the supposed right to reclaim fugitive
slaves is grounded on the Federal compact, to
which the North and South became voluntary
partners. Now what is the orthodox doctrine in
relation to the conditions that render this compact
binding? We will be guided here by Mr. Web
ster, the great " expounder" of our constitutional
law and of the duty of the States. In a speech
made at Capon Springs, in 1851, Mr. Webster
said : " It would be absurd to suppose that either
the North or the South has the power or the right
to violate any part of the Constitution, and then
claim from the other observance of its provisions.
* The " doubt " expressed above has been confirmed by the follow
ing:— " We frankly confess, that it is less easy to give to this article
than to any other in the Constitution such an exposition as will recon
cile it with the avowed sentiments and purposes of the framers. This
difBculty has been enhanced, if not created, however, by the subse
quent action of Congress under this article. We refer to the Act- of
1793, for the recapture of fugitive slaves. There was then, no doubt,
an ai-rangement made by the General Government to assist those who
have the hardihood to hold their fellow-beings as propei'ty to retake
them as such, if they fiee for refuge from oppi'ession into a free State.
But for this the Congress of 1793 alone are responsible, not the Conven
tion of 1788. The Act has recently been pronounced, by a distinguished
Judge of one of the State Courts, unconstitutional ; and we have no
doubt tliat it is so. Congress could have no authority in the premises,
other than that conveyed in the article before us. Now, we look into
this in vain to find any right which our national legislature had to
enact a law regulating the recapture of a fugitive slave from any
State, more than it would have had to enact a law providing in what

SLAVERY CONSTRUING THE CONSTITUTION. 63
If the South were to violate any part of the Con
stitution, would the North be any longer bound by
it ? and if the North were deliberately to violate
any part of it, would the South be bound any
longer to observe its obligation ? How absurd it
would be to suppose, when different parties enter
into a compact for certain purposes, that either
can disregard any one provision, and expect the
other to observe it ! "
Here the doctrine of constitutional obligation is
very clearly set forth, by a jurist eminently quali
fied, in the estimation of the public, to illumine
the dark subject. It matters not that this prin
ciple was laid down in the course of an argument
for the Fugitive-Slave Bill ; if it is sound, we are
as much entitled to the use of it as Me. Webster.
way persons shall be held to service in any State. The Congress of
1793, with equal propriety, might have passed an act for the abolition
of slavery. The members of that body transcended their powers. AU
that the framers of the Constitution had done, or could be persuaded
to do, was so to construct the article now under our consideration, that
those who are held to service in any State may be retaken there, if
they can be. But if it leaves to the several States to prescribe how
persons may or shall be held to service or labor there, it equally leaves
to the several States to prescribe how the claims to the fugitive shall
be preferred and proved. In short, the Constitution does leave the
responsibility of holding slaves where it was found, and expresses no
intention to make the national government any way subservient to its
support," — Rev. S, J, May.
This question would seem to be placed beyond controversy by the
testimony of Mr. Madison : —
" On motion of Jlr. Randolph, the word servitude was struck out,
and service unanimously inserted, — the former being thought to ex
press the condition of slaves, and the latter the obligation of free per
sons." — Madison Papers, Vol. IH. p. 1569.
See, also, Goodell, " Slavery and Anti- Slavery," pp. 227-231.

64 OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
The doctrine is, that if either the North or the
South deliberately violate any part of the Consti
tution, the compact ceases to be binding upon the
other party. Now let us see which party it was
that first violated the Constitution. As far back
as 1825, before any complaint had been uttered
against the Northern agitators, — before the Abo
litionists had fulminated their thunders, or " the
under-ground railroad" had been laid, — "the
Legislature of South Carolina passed an act legal
izing the imprisonment of colored persons who
should enter her boundaries, and their sale, in
case of inability to pay their jail-fees." Now, at
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, colored
persons were in the enjoyment of the right of
the elective franchise in not less than five of
the States, and were of course included among
the " people " who voted to adopt that instru
ment.* That act of the South Carolina Legis
lature was,' therefore, a palpable violation of the
provision in the Federal Constitution which de
clares that " the citizens of each State shall be
entitled to all the privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several States." It is a well-known
fact, that, in both South Carolina and Louisiana,
colored seamen from the North were exposed to
imprisonment and to sale from the auction block
in payment of their jail-fees, if found in the ports
of Charleston and New Orleans. With a view to
* Argument of Curtis, Reports of the Supreme Court, Vol. XIX.
p. 574.

SLAVERY CONSTRUING THE CONSTITUTION. 65
obtaining legal redress against this perfidious treat
ment of her colored citizens, by taking an appeal to
the Supreme Court of the United States, the Legis
lature of Massachusetts, after repeated efforts to
induce Southern lawyers to make the necessary
legal investigations, sent two of her own citizens
as agents to those cities. Both gentlemen were
expelled, at no little personal peril, and the Legis
lature of South Carolina, glorying in the act of
high-handed despotism which the Charleston mob
had achieved, proceeded to pass a statute mak
ing it a penal offence, punishable in the State
prison, for an agent of Massachusetts to enter
that State in pursuit of legal redress in behalf
of her colored citizens.
Thus it should seem, agreeably to the prin
ciple laid down by Daniel Webster himself, that,
if the fugitive clause in the Constitution be never
so binding upon the North, by virtue of the Fed
eral compact, the North had become absolved of
all obligation to respect it long before the Fugi
tive-Slave Bill was enacted, in consequence of re
peated violations of the compact by the South.
" How absurd it would be to suppose," quoth
Me. Webstbe, " when different parties enter into
a compact for certain purposes, that either can
disregard any one provision, and expect the other
to observe it ! "
But grant the late interpretation of this clause
to be correct, and grant that the constitutional
obligation was still binding when the Fugitive-

66 OUR political APOSTASY.
Slave Bill was being framed, — in what part of
the Constitution do we find authority for hunting
fugitive slaves at the public cost ; for " magni
fying slave property above all other property "
in the Union ; for denying the trial by jury ; for
suspending the writ of habeas corpus ; and for
offering a bribe to the Commissioner to incline
his decision in favor of the kidnapper ?
However men may differ as to the meaning
or scope of the fugitive clause, or its permanent
validity, there can hardly be two opinions in
reference to the palpable unconstitutionality of
this biU of abominations, professedly framed under
its sanction. The Constitution provides that in
suits at common law, when the Value in contro
versy shall exceed twenty, dollars, the right of
trial by jury shaU be preserved, yet the biU in
question, in a suit that involves the total value
of a human being, abrogates this right. The Con
stitution provides that the privilege of the writ
of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless
when in cases of rebellion or invasion the pub
lic safety may require it, yet the execution of
this odious bill does suspend this time-honored
prerogative of free States. The Constitution was
adopted to establish justice, and secure the bless
ings of liberty, and yet the Fugitive-Slave Bill
offers five dollars to the Commissioner if he de
cide in favor of personal liberty, and ten dollars
if he decide in favor of the slave-hunter. How
can we doubt that this was a statute made, not

SLAVERY CONSTRUING THE CONSTITUTION. 67
in the spirit of mutual compromise and comity
between the States, but in the interest of an ag
gressive oligarchy ? It was an impudent and
flagrant usurpation of powers not granted by the
Constitution, for the purpose of promoting the
ascendency of Despotic Society.

V.

SLAVERY IN THE SUPREME COURT.
Not less violent and arbitrary was the construc
tion forced upon the Constitution in the dogmas
announced by the Supreme Court under the
memorable decision in the case of Deed Scott
V. Sandford. Those dogmas deny the power of
Congress to establish territorial governments, —
pronounce null and void the prohibition of slav
ery north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes,
embodied in the Missouri Compromise, — and af
firm that the status of slavery attaches to the
slave, wherever he may be carried by his master.
That these positions are utterly untenable has
been ably shown in the arguments of the two dis
senting Judges ; and it seems impossible for a dis
interested person to examine the tissue of soph
isms with which Chief Justice Taney and the
associate Judges concurring with him build up
their case, without perceiving that those opin
ions are only the pleas of so many pettifoggers,
pledged, not to " the service of the Republic, but
to the interest of the slave-holders.
These dogmas announced by the Supreme Court
are of a nature which any man is competent to

SLAVERY IN THE SUPREME COURT. 69
test, who may take the trouble to institute the
necessary research. In relation to the jurisdic
tion of Congress over the Territories, Justice
McLean, dissenting from the Court, says : " The
judicial mind of this country. State and Federal,
has agreed on no subject, within its legitimate ac
tion, with equal unanimity, as on the power of
Congress to establish Territorial governments. No
court. State or Federal, no judge or statesman, is
known to have had any doubts on this question
for nearly sixty years after the power was exer
cised. Such governments have been established
from the sources of the Ohio to the Gulf of Mex
ico, extending to the lakes on the north and the
Pacific Ocean on the west, and from the lines of
Georgia to Texas. Great interests have grown
up under the territorial laws over a country more
than five times greater in extent than the original
thirteen States ; and these interests — corporate
or otherwise — have been cherished and consoli
dated by a benign policy, without any one sup
posing the law-making power had united with the
judiciary — under the universal sanction of the
whole country — to usurp a jurisdiction which did
not belong to them. Such a discovery at this late
date is more extraordinary than anything which
has occurred in the judicial history of this or any
other country." *
So, in relation to the alleged illegality of the
Missouri Compromise, the Chief Justice and his
* Reports of the Supreme Court, Vol. XIX. p. 545.

70 OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
indorsers seem to be equally wide of the mark.
The prohibition of slavery north of thirty-six de
grees thirty minutes and of the State of Missouri,
contained in the act admitting that State into the
Union, was passed in the House of Representatives,
by a vote of 134 to 42. Before giving his signature
to the act, Mr. Munroe submitted it to his Cabinet,
and they held the restriction of slavery in a Terri
tory to be within the constitutional powers of Con
gress.* Indeed, such power had been assumed
without question, as early as 1804, when Con
gress prohibited the introduction of slaves into Or
leans Territory from any other part of the Union,
under the penalty of freedom to the slave.f
But in no dogma announced by the Chief Jus
tice does he make so flagrant an assault upon
the principles and spirit of the Constitution, as
in that in which he maintains that the status of
slavery adheres to the slave, wherever the master
may convey him, — in other words, that the Con
stitution guarantees protection to property in
slaves, as to all other property, wherever its au
thority is acknowledged.
The extraordinary nature of this assumption
will be appreciated at a glance, when we consider
the undisputed fact, that the state of slavery has
been viewed — for almost a century past, by the
courts of England, America, and all other civil
ized nations — as a mere municipal regulation,
* Reports of the Supreme Court, Vol. XIX. p, B46.
t Ibid., p, 544.

slavery in tee supreme court. 71
founded upon, and limited to the range of, the
local laws by wliich it was established.*
Now if slavery be limited to the range of the
local laws especially ordained for its support, —
which is the unanimous doctrine of the jurists in
all countries, — "how can the slave" — in the
language of Justice McLean — " be coerced to
serve in a State or Territory, not only without the
authority of law, but against its express provis
ions ? What gives the master the right to con
trol the will of his slave ? The local law, which
exists in some form. But where there is no such
law, can the master control the will of the slave
by force ? Where no slavery exists, the presump
tion, without regard to color, is in favor of free
dom. Under such a jurisdiction, may the colored
man be levied on as the property of his master by
a creditor? On the decease of the master, does
the slave descend to his heirs as property ? Can
the master sell him ? Any one or all of these acts
may be done to the slave where he is legally held
to service. But where the law does not confer
this power, it cannot be exercised. Loed Mans
field held that a slave brought into England was
free. Lord Stowell agreed with Lord Mansfield
in this respect, and that the slave could not be co
erced in England  By virtue of what law is
it, that a master may take his slave into free terri
tory, and exact from him the duties of a slave?
The law of the territory does not sanction it. No
* Reports of the Supreme Court, Vol. XIX. p, 547.

72 our political apostasy.
authority can be claimed under the Constitution
of the United States, or any law of Congress.
Will it be said that the slave is taken as property,
— the same as other property which the master
may own ? To this I answer, that colored persons
are made property by the law of the State, and no
such power has been given to Congress." *
It is worthy of note, that every other descrip
tion of property which a man might bring to Eng
land from one of her slave islands was protected
by law. The property in the slave was not pro
tected, because there was no law in England that
recognized slavery. How clearly this shows " that
property in a human being does not arise from
nature, or from the common law," but, in the lan
guage of the courts, is a " mere municipal regula
tion," having no other authority than the local
laws especially instituted to protect it !
In this amazing effort of the Chief Justice of the
United States to pervert the Federal Constitution
into a virtual slave-code, extending its infamous
sanctions over the entire republic, — the wicked
audacity of the slave propaganda was thought to
have culminated. In that decision, the long series
of usurpations against liberty — the long succes
sion of arrogant and tyrannical concessions, ex
torted from free society — seemed to receive an
ominous consummation.
* Reports of the Supreme Court, Vol. XIX, p, 548.

VI.
SLAVERY SUBDUING THE CHUECH.
The account we have undertaken to give of our
national apostasy would be incomplete, without a
notice of the change that took place in the senti
ment of the Church, as regards the sinfulness of
slave-holding, and its growing toleration and ap
proval of the practice.
The views that characterized a great majority of
our statesmen in the Revolutionary period may
fairly be said to have honored also the leading
clergy. It has been even supposed that the de
cided anti-slavery sentiments of Washington, Jef-
feeson, Feanklin, and others, may be traced to
the influence of De. Hopkins whose celebrated
" Dialogue" was published in 1776, and to that of
Dr. Jonathan Edwards of New Haven (after
wards President of Union College, Schenectady),
who preached a powerful sermon before the Con
necticut Society for the Promotion of Preedom, in
1791. The work of De. Hopkins was circulated
extensively during the Revolutionary period, " and
is known to have produced a powerful impression
upon the minds of reflecting men, including some
in high stations." The boldness and pungency of
4

74 OUR political apostasy.
De. Edwards's sermon may be. conceived by the
fact, that he "distinctly charges upon the slave
holder the crime of man-stealing, and the repeti
tion of the crime every day he continues to hold a
slave in bondage. He charges him also with ' theft
or robbery,' — nay, with ' a greater crime than for
nication, theft, or robbery.' He predicts that, if
we may judge the future by the past, within ^fty
years from this time it will be as shameful for a
man to hold a negro slave, as to be guilty of com
mon robbery or theft ! In an appendix. Dr. Ed
wards answers objections against immediate eman
cipation, just as modern Abolitionists answer them
now."* The character of these publications, and the
favorable reception they met with from the pub
lic, indicate beyond controversy the position of
the Church, at that time, toward American slav
ery. The doctrine of Abolition was unquestion
ably in the ascendant.
The sentiments of the Methodist societies, at
that time, were expressed both in the well-known
opinions of Wesley and in the minutes of the
Conference for the year 1780. " The Conference
acknowledges that slavery is contrary to the laws
of God, man, and nature, — hurtful to society, —
contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure
religion,  and they pass their disapprobation
upon all our friends who keep slaves, and they
•^ Gooddl's " Slavery and Anti-Slavery," pp, 92, 93,

slavery subduing the church, 75
advise their freedom." * In 1785, the Methodist
Episcopal Church held this language : " We hold
in the deepest abhorrence the practice of slavery,
and shall not cease to seek its destruction, by all
wise and prudent means." Similar sentiments
were held by the General Assembly of the Pres
byterian Church, and by the Baptist denomina
tion. The story of the subsequent decline of this
righteous sentiment in the Church — the story
of its toleration of slave-holding, of its acquies
cence in all the practices which it involves, of its
final approbation of the system, and its open as
saults upon the few surviving sons of Liberty —
will comprise, in coming time, the most dishonor
able chapter of our annals, and will rank among
the most dubious records of Christian history.
We shall cite such facts in this section of the
essay — from the proceedings of different ecclesi
astical bodies — as we deem needful to- convey an
accurate impression of this melancholy declension,
— not exhausting the materials we have collected,
but culling from them as copiously as our limits
admit. We will first notice the declension of Christian
sentiment in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
In 1801, the General Conference declared, " We
are more than ever convinced of the great evil of
African slavery, which still exists in these United
* Sunderland's Anti-Slavery Manual, p. 58.

76 OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
States." In 1836, the same Conference declared
that they "¦wholly disclaim any right, wish, or
intention, to interfere with the civil and political
relation of master and slave, as it exists in the
slave-holding States of this Union."
This is about as complete a somerset of opin
ion as we could expect an ecclesiastical body to
execute in thirty-five years ; but here is another
equally dexterous.
In 1797, the General Conference had required
its preachers to memorialize their legislatures in
favor of Abolition. But in the Pastoral Address
issued in 1836, the same Conference, dissuading
their members from agitating the subject, inform
them that " The question of slavery in the Unit
ed States, by the constitutional compact which
binds us together as a nation, is left to be regu
lated by the several State legislatures themselves ;
and thereby is put beyond the control of the gen
eral government, as well as of all ecclesiastical
bodies," &c. The Conference omits to mention
what " constitutional compact " had been formed
since 1797, when the ministry were expressly re
quired to use their influence against slavery. It
also neglects to explain why — if the responsibility
of maintaining slavery rests with the State legis
latures — it has ceased to be proper to memorial
ize them on the subject. In 1785, this Church
" held in the deepest abhorrence the practice of
slavery," and were resolved " not to cease to seek
its destruction " ; but in 1836 they disclaim the

SLAVERY SUBDUING THE CHURCH. 77
right, the wish, and the intention to interfere
with it.
In 1839, Bishop Soule, at the Pittsburg Con
ference, declared, " I have never yet advised the
liberation of a slave, and think I never shall." In
1888, " Bishop Hedding, presiding at the New
England Conference, refused to put resolutions
condemning the buying and selling of slaves, and
at the same time refused to put a motion declar
ing slavery to be a moral e-vfl." *
The Book Concern owned by this denomination,
" up to the division which followed the General
Conference of 1844, published books for the whole
connection, North and South ; hence, in the re
publication of English works which have con
tained allusions to slavery, various expedients were
resorted to to render them acceptable to slave
holders. Sometimes the anti-slavery matter is
said to have been expunged ; and in other cases
it has been attempted to explain it away by notes
appended by the American Book-room editor." f
Soon after the secession of the Wesleyan mem
bers of this Church, on account of its approbation
of slavery, a division took place between its North
ern and Southern sections. " The action of the
General Conference which led to the separation
was not against slavery or slave-holding by the
membership or ministers, but simply against slave-
holding by the Episcopacy ; and that not upon
? Goodell's " Slavery and Anti-Slavery," pp. 144-148.
t True Wesleyan, January 24, 1852.

78 OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
principle, but wholly upon the ground of expe
diency." The rupture, moreover, " did not throw
all the slave States into the Southern General Con
ference. Official documents show that there are
at the present time in the Northern General Con
ference eight annual conferences a part or the
whole of whose territory is in the slave-holding
States. There are many slave-holding preachers
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and it ordains
slave-holders to the ministry. It is computed
that there are in the Methodist Episcopal Church
North not less than four thousand slave-holders,
and twenty-seven thousand slaves."
The quotation is from the Annual Report of the
American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society for
1850. It is proper to add, that in 1849 and 1850
there seems to have been a revival of anti-slavery
sentiment, or at least of anti-slavery action, in the
Northern branch of this Church, — judging by
certain resolutions then adopted, which denounce
slavery in severe terms, and conclude by affirming
" that the glory of God and the good of mankind
require the exclusion of slave-holders from the
Christian Church."
We next notice the declension of Christian sen
timent in the Peesbyteeian Church. In 1794 this
Church had denounced slave-holding as " man-
stealing." " In 1815 the General Assembly de
clared their ' approbation of the principles of civil
liberty,' and their ' deep concern at any vestiges of

SLAVERY SUBDUING THE CHURCH. 79
slavery which may remain in our country.' Tliis
is theory. In practice, they urge the lower judica
tures to prepare the young slaves ' for the exercise
of liberty when God, in his providence, shall open
a door for emancipation.' This recommendation is
an implied permission to their slave-holding mem
bers to dismiss all thoughts of emancipation at
present, waiting for some colonization opening, or
some undefined providence of God." In 1816 the
General Assembly allude to slavery as " a mourn
ful evil " ; but at the same time they discreetly
erase their note to the eighth commandment, in
which, in 1794, they had stigmatized slave-holding
as " man-stealing."
In 1818 this General Assembly, under a some
what notable impulse of moral courage, issued an
" expression of views," in which slavery is called
" a gross violation of the most precious and sacred
rights of human nature, utterly inconsistent with the
law of God, which requires us to love our neigh
bor as ourselves, and totally irreconcilable with
the spirit and principles of the Gospel of Christ,
which enjoins that all things whatsoever ye would
that men should do to you, do ye also to them."
This was a promising commencement ; but how
" lame and impotent " the " conclusion " ! " In
stead of requiring the instant abandonment of this
gross violation of rights, &c., the Assembly exhorts
the violators to ' continue and increase their exer
tions to effect a total abolition of slavery, with no
greater delay than a regard to the public welfare

80 OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
demands ' ! " * Here observe, the persons who are
convicted of " a gross violation of the most precious
and sacred rights of human nature," are gravely
advised to " increase their exertions " to cease
from their sin, " with no greater delay than a re
gard for the public welfare demands " ! How long
the public welfare may require a persistence in
this " gross violation " of human rights, the As
sembly does not presume to decide.
It proceeds, however, to recommend that, " if a
Christian professor shall sell a slave who is also in
communion with our Church," without the slave's
consent, he " should be suspended till he should
repent and make reparation " ! f Observe here
that no penalty is annexed to the selling of a slave,
even though " in communion with our Church," if
the slave makes no objection ; and if the slave be
not " in communion with our Church," he may
be sold, willing or unwilling, and the dealer in
human flesh incur not even ecclesiastical censure !
In order to see what effect this " expression of
views " had in mitigating the cruelties of slavery,
we have only to look into a "Report" on the sub
ject adopted by the Synod of Kentucky in 1834.
Alluding to the horrors of the domestic slave-
trade, and to the forcible separation of families,
the Report says : —
" These acts are daily occurring in the midst of
us." " There is not a village or road that does not
* Goodell, American Churches, &c,, by J. G. Birney,
t Birney's American Churches.

SLAVERY SUBDUING THE CHURCH. 81
behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts,
whose chains and mournful countenances tell that
they are exiled by force from all that their hearts
hold dear. Our Chuf ch, years ago, raised its voice
of solemn warning against this flagrant violation
of every principle of mercy, justice, and humanity.
Yet we blush to announce to you that this warn
ing has been often disregarded, even by those who
hold to our communion. Cases have occurred in
our .own denomination where professors of the re
ligion of mercy have torn the mother from the
CHILDREN, and sent her into a merciless and return-
less exile. Yet acts of discipline have rarely fol
lowed such conduct."
One would naturally suppose that the knowl
edge of such terrible crimes, committed in the
very bosom of the Church, would have stimulated
measures leading to some reform ; but nothing of
the kind took place. Mr. Birney, formerly a resi
dent of Kentucky, assures us that no act of disci
pline was ever applied to such offences. The
Synod of Kentucky, with the fullest knowledge
of these dreadful facts, have remained opposed to
the immediate abolition of slavery ; and the only
minister within their limits who ventured to pro
pose uiiconditional emancipation was banished
from their edifying society.
In 1835, a ruling elder in this Church, Mr.
Stewart of Illinois, in urging some anti-slavery
action upon the General Assembly, said : " In this
Cliurch a man may take a freeborn child, force it
4* F

82 OUR POLITICAL APOSTASY.
away from its parents, to whom God gave it in
charge, saying, ' Bring it up for me,' and sell it as
a beast, or hold it in perpetual bondage, and not
only escape corporal punishment, but really be es
teemed an excellent Christian. Nay, even minis
ters of the Gospel and Doctors of Divinity may
engage in this unholy traffic, and yet sustain their
high and holy calling." " Elders, ministers, and
Doctors of Divinity are, with both hands, engaged
in the practice ! " *
Will it be credited, that, while no one ventured
to call in question the facts here stated, the actors
were neither punished, nor was anything done to
abate these monstrous offences ! On the contrary,
from that day the sentiment of the Church be
came, if possible, more depraved. From a tolera
tion of the system involving these odious crimes,
the Church lapsed into an open defence of slave-
holding, and perverted the Bible in its scandalous
zeal for this great iniquity.
After the division of the General Assembly in
1838, both the Old School and the New remained
faithful to the slave-holders. This is demonstrated
by the fact that, so late as 1850, the New School
" unanimously " declared itself, " before God and
the world," "ready to commune with the Old
School,! at a time when the great body of Old-
School Presbyterians at the South were zealous
for the extension of slavery, demanded of the
* Quoted on the authority of William Goodell, p. 153,
t New York Observer, June 15, 1850,

SLAVERY SUBDUING THE CHURCH. 83
Federal Government its extension as an act of
justice, and defended it as a Bible institution." *
We pass on to the Orthodox Congregational
ist Chueches. Although this denomination has
furnished several brilliant and earnest opponents
of slavery, and although our late political reaction
was greatly stimulated by the influence of both its
clergy and laity, its general tendency has been in
the direction of subserviency and compromise.
Its affinity for the Presbyterian Church, and the
familiar intercourse subsisting between the two
sects, indicate that their feelings have not been
very dissimilar as regards the subject under con
sideration. We had collected considerable docu
mentary evidence showing the guarded and equiv
ocal language in which Congregationalists have
been accustomed to allude to this " delicate sub
ject," but we have not space to admit the cita
tions. The well-known pro-slavery views of Pro
fessor Stuart of Andover, of Dr. Woods, De.
Dana, and others, and the notorious fact that the
Fugitive-Slave Bill had many zealous advocates
among Congregationalists, serve to show that the
influence of this branch of our ecclesiasticism has
been exerted in favor of slavery, rather than
against it.
No denomination has gone farther in the de
fence of slave-holding than the Baptist. In rela-
* GoodeU, p. 161,

84 OUR political apostasy.
tion to the views of Southern Baptists, let the
following sentences testify, extracted from a me
morial of tlie Charleston Baptist Association to
the Legislature of South Carolina, in 1835 : " The
said Association does not consider that the Holy
Scriptures have made the fact of slavery a ques
tion of morals at all. The Divine Author of our
holy religion, in particular, found slavery a part
of the existing institutions of society, with which,
if not sinful, it was not his design to intermeddle,
but to leave them entirely to the control of men.
Adopting it, therefore, as one of the allowed rela
tions of society, he made it the province of his re
ligion only to prescribe the reciprocal duties of the
relation. The question, it is believed, is purely
one of political economy," etc. The Association
proceeds to claim for South Carolina the right to
" regulate the existence and continuance of slav
ery within her territorial limits," and adds : " We
would resist to the utmost every invasion of this
right, come from what quarter and under what
ever pretence it may."
How many ages would it require to procure the
peaceful abolition of slavery, in a State where the
Christian religion is thus invoked to protect it as
one of the natural institutions of society, and
where the churches themselves are pledged to
resist every invasion whatsoever of the alleged
right ? And in what way could " the providence
of God open a door for emancipation," among
such a people, except through the horrors of a

slavery subduing the church. 85
servile insurrection, or by the mandate of Federal
authority ?
In 1833, the Rev. De. Fueman edified the Gov
ernor of South Carolina with an exposition of the
" Views of Baptists " on the peculiar institution,
in which he said : " The right of holding slaves is
clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by
precept and example." The precept and example
of this reverend Doctor certainly coincided, for
when his effects came to be advertised for sale,
on his decease, among the articles enumerated
were " Twenty-seven Negeoes, some of them very
prime." How far the Baptists of the North are responsi
ble for such sentiments will appear by the follow
ing remark, made in 1834, by the late Rev. Lucius
BoLLES, D. D., of Massachusetts, Corresponding
Secretary of the American Baptist Board for For
eign Missions : '' There is a pleasing degree of
union among the multiplying thousands of Bap
tists throughout the land  Our Southern
brethren are generally, both ministers and people,
slave-holders."* Such were the people who, delib
erately fostering the most dreadful condition of
heathenism at home, made a merit of preaching
their pro-slavery religion to the heathen abroad.
We must hasten through these scandalous rec
ords. The prevailing course of the Peotestant
Episcopal Chuech, with respect to slavery, has
* Birney's American Churches.

86 OUR political apostasy.
been indicated by John Jay, Esq. (himself an
Episcopalian), in a pamphlet entitled "Thoughts
on the Duty of the Episcopal Church," &c. " She
has," observes Mr. Jay, " not merely remained a
mute and careless spectator of this great conflict
of truth and justice with hypocrisy and cruelty,
but her very priests and deacons may be seen
ministering at the altar of slavery, — offering their
talents and influence at its unholy shrine, and
openly repeating the awful blasphemy, that the
precepts of our Saviour sanction the system of
American slavery. Her Northern (free State)
clergy, with rare exceptions, whatever they may
feel on the subject, rebuke it neither in public nor
in private ; and her periodicals, far from advancing
the progress of abolition, at times oppose our
societies, impliedly defending slavery, as not in
compatible with Christianity, and occasionally
withholding information useful to the cause of
freedom." *
"In 1836, a clergyman of North Carolina, of
the name of Freeman, preached in presence of his
bishop (Rev. Levi S. Ives, D. D., a native of a free
State) two sermons, on the rights and duties of
slave-holders. In these he essayed to justify, from
the Bible, the slavery of both white men and ne
groes, and insisted that, ' without a new revelation
from Heaven, no man was authorized to pronounce
slavery wrong.' The two sermons were printed in
a pamphlet, prefaced with a letter to Me. Freeman
* Birney's American Churches, pp, 39, 40.

slavery SUBDUING THE CHUECH. 87
from the Bishop of North Carolina, declaring that
he ' had listened taith most unfeigned pleasure ' to
his discourses, and advised their publication as
being ' urgently called for at the present time.' "
The position of the Roman Catholic Chuech
in this country, on the subject of slavery, is no
more honorable than that of the sects we have
mentioned. Its general practice has been to ignore
our national sin at the North, and to sanction the
practice of slaveholding among its members at the
South'. De. 0. A. Beownson — hitherto known as
an apologist for slavery — has recently published
an able argument for immediate emancipation ; *
but we notice that the New York Metropolitan,
which is understood to be the organ of Arch
bishop Hughes, repudiates the sentiments of Mr.
Beownson, and reiterates some of the stalest char
ges that have been made against the Abolitionists.
Among Universalists and Unitarians there has
been, we incline to believe, a stronger anti-slavery
sentiment, and a more general agitation of the
great question, than among the older sects. This
may be due, in part, to the fact that these denomi
nations have few churches located at the South,
and also to the more vital spiritual life which is
apt to distinguish the more recent religious organ
izations. Some of the ablest advocates of emanci-
* Birney, p, 41.
t Brownson's Quarterly Review, Oct., 1861.

88 OUR political apostasy.
pation belong to these sects ; and their various
ecclesiastical bodies have adopted, on different
occasions, resolutions strongly condemnatory of
the sin of slavery. Still, we question whether the
influence of the two denominations, in the aggre
gate, has been hostile to the great sin of the
Republic. We rather fear that, like the older
sects, they have done more to countenance the
pro-slavery policy of the country, than to create a
regenerating public opinion.
As regards the action of the smaller and less
influential sects on the subject, we are not so
accurately informed. The Quakers are popularly
reputed an anti-slavery sect, but it is a debatable
point how far they are entitled to the merit.
In reviewing the attitude of the Churches at
large toward this vitally important issue, the con
clusion is depressing in the extreme. To reflect
that, in the most momentous debate ever raised
in the mind of a Christian nation, the Church
actually arrayed herself on the side of oppression
and barbarism, ignoring the dictates of justice
and suppressing the instincts of piety, turning
her back to the claims of freedom, and making
herself deaf to the cry of the poor and ne^y,
presents a moral and mental anomaly that may
well distress the saint and perplex the philoso
pher. De. Albeet Barnes, a man whose judgment

SLAVERY SUBDUING THE CHURCH, 89
is entitled to respect, said : " There is no power
out of the Church that could sustain slavery an
hour, if it were not sustained in it." This con
fession justifies all that the radical Abolitionists
have charged, in their familiar assertion that the
American Church has become the bulwark of
American slavery. We do not forget, of course,
that there were some faithful witnesses in all the
Churches, duisng those dark days of ecclesiasti
cal infidelity ; or that the pious abhorrence of
slavery which had characterized Hopkins and Ed
wards and Wesley was ever entirely suppressed.
We speak of the general influence and tendency
of the Church, as evinced in its ecclesiastical de
cisions, in the failure of its discipline to take
cognizance of the glaring iniquities of slave-hold
ing, and in its efforts to discourage that free dis
cussion of the subject, which alone could lead to
a peaceful abrogation of the wrong. In aU these
respects, the guilt of the Church stands forth in
fearful prominence, and we know of no consid
eration that can essentially palliate it. We have
reproduced these odious facts with reluctance and
pain, out of no desire to damage the Church, but
because a greater interest than the welfare of the
Church appeared to demand it, — the interest of
our country and of humanity, to which our ecclesi
astical orders have been notoriously unfaithful.
" Just God, and holy !
Is that Church which lends
Strength to the spoiler, Thine? "

VII.
apparent TRIUMPH OF THE DESPOTIC SYSTEM.
The subjugation of the Church may be esteemed
the crowning evidence of the submission of tlie
country to the Despotic System. By gradual
stages at the beginning, by monstrous strides of
aggression in later years, the alien principle now
appeared supreme.
Since the acquisition of Missouri it had scarcely
affected to disguise its purposes. Its native im
pudence sprouted luxuriantly in the broad sun
of Federal patronage. The manners of the plan
tation despot began to be transferred to the floor
of Congress. Virgin States, each of them am
ple enough for an empire, were transferred from
the aboriginal freemen, and laid at the feet of
the hungry despotism. Under the genial lead
ership of Calhoun, and in the name of the
specious sophism of " State Rights," the latent
insubordination of the oligarchy to the supreme
law of the land was proclaimed in South Caro
lina. The endless perpetuity of slavery was an
nounced by Henry Clay. The Church was
cowed into the decision that pronounced slavery

APPARENT triumph OF THE DESPOTIC SYSTEM. 91
a divine institution, and solemnly consecrated its
crimes. Since slavery was to be perpetual, and since
it had become divine, it was time to make it a
national institution. By an act of Congress, ac
cordingly, the entire free North was made a hunt
ing-ground for the recovery of fugitives. The
old Missouri landmark was blotted out, that the
petted system might spread into the Northwest.
The domestic slave-trade, in some of its features
more revolting than the foreign traffic, had been
under the patronage, and within the control, of
the Federal Government, almost from the begin
ning.* Mr. Buchanan was carried into the Presi
dency, sworn and consecrated to the pro-slavery
policy to crown the culminating succession of ex
ecutive baseness. The Supreme Court, as we
have seen, breaking over all legal precedents and
perverting our most glorious traditions, under
took to legalize the tenure of property in man,
in every part of the Republic.
Can it be esteemed surprising that sagacious
men began to inquire — in view of the general
apostasy of the nation — whether God reigns in this
world, or the Devil ? But the wisest men became
reassured. They saw that Divine causes were
operating in the land that must eventuate in
Divine effects,-^ that the laws ordained by Eter
nal Justice, and running through the nature of
* See Goodell, pp. 243-262, Compare Jay's "Inquiry," Part H.
Chap. V.

92 OUR political APOSTASY.
man and the polity of states, cannot be perma
nently resisted, but vindicate themselves even
through the very folly and depravity that would
override them.

PART III.
OUR POLITICAL REGENERATION.

" We have offended, 0 my countrymen !
We have offended very grievously,
And been most tyrannous. From east to west,
A groan of accusation pierces Heaven !
The wretched plead against us ; multitudes.
Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
Our brethren!" COLEKIDGE.
" It is not madness
That I have uttered  For love of grace
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks :
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place ;
While rank corruption, mining all within.
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to Heaven;
Repent what 's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker."
Hamlet.

" 0 Truth! 0 Freedom! how are ye stiU bom
In the rude stable, in the manger nursed !
What humble hands unbar those gates of mom.
Through which the splendors of the new day burst !
" 0 small beginnings, ye are great and strong.
Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain ;
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong.
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain ! "
James Russell Lowell.
" It is not possible for the people of Rome to be slaves, whom the
gods have destined to the command of all nations. Other nations may
endure slavery, but the proper end and business of the Roman people
is liberty," — Ciceko,
"Among our politicians are rnen who regard public life as a charmed
circle into which moral principle must not enter, who know no law
but expediency, who are prepared to kiss the feet of the South for
Southern votes, and who stand ready to echo all the vituperations of
the slave-holder against the active enemies of slavery in the free
States." — Chamnihg.

I.

THE DAWN OF REFORM,

While the despotic principle, with rapacious in
solence, was aggressing upon the heritage of free
dom ; while — emboldened by past success, and
gorged with Federal patronage — it was apparently
in the act of completing the subjugation of the
republic, — a spirit of resistance, grounded in
the moral nature of the best men, and sharpened
by discussion and adversity, — despised at first, but
continually augmenting in power and in fame, —
was rising in the national heart, quickening the
national conscience, and preparing to cope with
the hitherto resistless apostasy.
The germ of this reform spirit may be traced
back to the agitation attending the admission of
Missouri. The popular interest in that transac
tion had been intense. From the floor of Con
gress, where the rival interests were struggling iu
the throes of debate, to the backwoods of Arkan
sas and the Mexican Gulf, on the South, to the
frontiers of Maine and the prairies of Illinois, on
the North, the storm of agitation swept the land.
Many freemen at the North, at that early period,
clearly discerned the purposes of the slave Propa-

96 OUR political regeneration.
ganda; apprehended the momentous issue that
was preparing for the future ; and, as stout
hearted champions of justice, placed their lances
in rest for a life-long encounter with the advan
cing despotism. Reviled and misjudged, perse
cuted and counter-worked, by those who should
have joined hands with them in the great contest,
many of those early opponents of slavery became
the salt of whatever free sentiment survived in
America, — a savor op life to a nation all but
mortally corrupted ; and their record is yet to be
written, their fidelity blazoned, and their princi
ples justified, by a people ransomed through their
long-suffering heroism.
One of the earliest and ablest of those who took
the field, to resist the formidable advance of the
slave power, and to plead for the trampled rights
of its victims, was Benjamin Lundy, who estab
lished a monthly periodical, the Genius of Univer
sal Emancipation, in the year 1821. With the
most self-denying and enlightened zeal, Mr. Lun
dy, in the course of the next ten years, visited
nineteen States of the Union, penetrated into Mex
ico, and performed two voyages to the West In
dies, — having held during the period more than
two hundred public meetings, travelled upwards
of five thousand miles on foot, and sacrificed sev
eral thousand dollars of his own hard earnings.
To his indefatigable research, the North owes the
first disclosure of the Texas plot ; and to_ him be-

the dawn of reform. 97
longs the credit of having armed with authentic
facts, and inspired with salutary alarm, such men
as John Quincy Adams and De. Channing, — the
latter of whom confesses, in his letter to Henry
Clay, his indebtedness to Me. Lundy's labors.
William Lloyd Gaeeison became first known
to the public, while a journeyman printer at New
buryport, Massachusetts, by paragraphs furnished
to the newspaper on which he was employed. In
vited to Boston, in 1827 or 1828, to take tempo
rary charge of the only temperance paper then
published in the country, he extended his fame.
He became first known as an antagonist of slavery,
we believe, while editing the Journal of the Times,
in Vermont.
In 1829, he became associated for a short time
with Benjamin Lundy, at Baltimore, in the publi
cation of the Genius of Universal Emancipation.
This connection led to one of the many remark
able episodes in the history of the Abolition move
ment. It happened that, about the time of Me.
Gaeeison's removal to Baltimore, the ship Francis,
owned by Feancis Todd, of Newburyport, Massa
chusetts, " being at Baltimore for freight, was em
ployed in taking from thence a cargo of slaves for
New Orleans." Mr. Gaeeison made, in his paper,
so severe an allusion to the circumstance, " that
Me. Todd directed a suit to be brought against
him for a libel." Tried by a Maryland court, in
February, 1830, he was convicted in a fine of one
hundred dollars, besides costs, and thrown into

98 our political regeneration.
jail for non-payment of the same. From this con
viction sprung the charge, with which some of his
opponents were wont to stigmatize him in subse
quent years, of his being a " convicted felon."
His treatment roused a strong excitement at the
North, and gave an impulse to the anti-slavery
cause which later events have only accelerated.
Mr. Garrison lay in jail about fifty days, when his
release was effected, chiefly through the generosity
of a New York merchant. Me. Aethue Tappan,
whose name thenceforward, with that of his broth
er, Lewis Tappan, was identified with the cause of
freedom. In January, 1831, Mr. Gaeeison, having dis
solved partnership with Me. Lundy, commenced
the publication of The Liberator in Boston, becom
ing from that time the stanch standard-bearer in
the cause for which he had already suffered.
In an early issue of his new paper he recorded
this memorable declaration : "I am aware that
many object to the severity of my language ; but
is there not cause for severity ? I will be as harsh
as. truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am
in BAENEST ; I will not equivocate ; I will not ex
cuse ; I will not retreat a single inch ; and I will
BE HEAED." How uobly the brave man has re
deemed his pledge may be seen in the influence
which his inflexible genius has exerted during the
past thirty years of American history.
The rise of the Abolition Party demonstrated, as

THE DAWN OF REFORM. 99
nothing else had ever done, the dangerous ascen
dency which slavery had already obtained over the
nation. The voice of Liberty had already become
forgotten. When it swelled again on the air, the
people mistook it for the voice of anarchy. It was
like proclaiming a new Gospel in a land which
had lapsed into Heathenism. The idols were re
stored ; the true God was forgotten. The priests
of Baal had supplanted the holy prophets. The
very principles recognized by the past generation
as " self-evident truths " exasperated their degen
erate children. The avowal of Abolitionism —
which Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison, John Jay, Alexander Hamil
ton, and many of their contemporaries, had gloried
in proclaiming — now served, in 1880, to cover
with odium the most spotless of men. The very
doctrines which had been held by the author of
the Declaration, by most of the framers of the
Constitution, by Presidents of Colleges, by Gov
ernors of States, by Judges in the Federal Courts,
by foreign Ministers, by the early Presidents of the
United States, and by all the Christian denomi
nations, at the close of the last century, only
thirty-five years later subjected men and women
to the violence of mobs, to the destruction of their
property, and to brutal assassination !
What more conclusive evidence could we re
quire of the necessity of a political reformation
than that presented in the outrages with which the
doctrines of liberty were repelled, and in the

100 our political regeneration.
strange torpor with which the community saw its
noblest champions struck down in the exercise of
their inalienable rights ?
De. Channing, who controverted the position of
the Abolitionists, bears generous testimony to the
services they rendered, in that critical hour, to the
cause of free speech and a free press. " I am my
self," he says, " their debtor. I am not sure that
I should this moment write in safety had they
shrunk from the conflict, — had they shut their
lips, imposed silence on their presses, and hid
themselves before their ferocious assailants. I
know not where these outrages would have stopped
had they not met resistance from their first des
tined victims. The newspaper press, with a few
exceptions, uttered no genuine indignant rebuke
of the wrong-doers, but rather countenanced, by
its gentle censures, the reign of Force. The mass
of the people looked supinely on this new tyran
ny, under which a portion of their fellow-citizens
seemed to be sinking. A tone of denunciation was
beginning to proscribe all discussion of slavery;
and had / the spirit of violence, which selected as
sociations as its first objects, succeeded in this
preparatory enterprise, it might have been easily
turned against any and every individual who
might presume to agitate the unwelcome sub
ject  I thank the Abolitionists that, in this
evil day, they were true to the rights which the
multitude were ready to betray." *
* Channing's Works, Vol. II. p, 160.

II.
why the reform was resisted.
Some efforts were made to justify the outrages
of the period by charging upon the Abolitionists
the most nefarious designs. They intended to in
stigate servile insurrections. They wanted the
slaves to murder their masters. They advocated
amalgamation. They were infidels to the Church
of Christ, and traitors to the government of their
country. All these charges are now known to
have been false. Few candid men, having any
thing like extensive information, ever believed
them. They were fabricated in the same base
spirit that animated the mobs they were designed
to excuse, and that perpetrated the crimes they
were designed to shelter from justice. " Who
are the men," wrote De. Channing, " whose of
fences are so aggravated, that they must be de
nied the protection of the laws, and given up to
the worst passions of the multitude ? Are they
profligate in principle and life, teachers of impious
or servile doctrines, the enemies of God and their
race ? I speak not from vague rumor, but from
better means of knowledge, when I say, that a
body of men and women more blameless than

102 OUR political regeneration.
the Abolitionists in their various relations, or
more disposed to adopt a rigid construction of
the Christian precepts, cannot be found among
us. Of their judiciousness and wisdom, I do not
speak, but I believe they yield to no party in
moral worth. Their great crime, and one which
in this land of liberty is to be punished above
all crimes, is this, that they carry the doctrine
of human equality to its full extent, that they
plead vehemently for the oppressed, that they
assail wrong-doing, however sanctioned by opin
ion or intrenched behind wealth and power, that
their zeal for human rights is without measure,
that they associate themselves fervently with the
Christians and philanthropists of other countries
against the worst relic of barbarous times. Such
is the offence against which mobs are arrayed,
and which is counted so flagrant, that a sum
mary justice too indignant to wait for the tardy
progress of tribunals must take the punishment
into its own hands." *
In his essay on " Slavery," Dr. Channing thus
refers to this body of reformers, " everywhere
spoken against " : "As a party, they are singu
larly free from political and religious sectarian
ism, and have been distinguished by the absence
of management, calculation, and worldly wisdom.
That they have ever proposed or desired insur
rection or violence among the slaves, there is no
reason to believe. All their principles repel the
* Channing's Works, Vol. II, p, 162,

WHY THE REFORM WAS RESISTED, 103
supposition. It is a remarkable fact, that though
the South and the North have been leagued to
crush them, though they have been watched by a
million of eyes, and though prejudice has been
prepared to detect the slightest sign of corrupt
communication with the slave, yet this crime has
not been fastened on a single member of this
body." *
The real offence of the Abolitionists consisted,
beyond question, in the soundness of their prin
ciples and the veracity of their statements. Said
the sagacious old Fuller, "I should suspect that
his preaching had no salt in it, if no. galled horse
did wince." The Church leaders and the poli
ticians were the galled horses of that era, and
the pungent truths which the reformers show
ered upon the community were the salt that set
them bounding with indignation.
* Works, Vol. H. p. 124.

III.
the vanguard of LIBERTY.
At the outset, the Abolitionists — themselves
devoted members of different churches and par
ties — counted on being able to enlist the relig
ious and political organizations of the North in
the cause of emancipation. Mr. William Good
ell relates that he accompanied Mr. Gaeeison,
in 1829, in calling upon a number of prominent
ministers in Boston, to secure their co-operation
in the cause, their expectations of important as
sistance from the clergy being at that time very
sanguine. In his address before the Colonization Society,
delivered in the Park Street Church, Boston, on
the 4th of July, 1829, Me. Gaeeison had said : " I
call on the ambassadors of Christ everywhere to
make known this proclamation : ' Thus saith the
Lord God of the Africans, Let this people go,
that they may serve me.' I ask them to 'pro
claim liberty to the captive, and the opening of
the prison to them that are bound.' I call on
the churches of the living God to lead in this
great enterprise." But the ministers withheld
their influence ; the church doors were closed

THE VANGUARD OF LIBERTY. 105
against those apostles of freedom ; and the ec
clesiastical polity of the country, locking hands
with the perverted civil government, endeavored
to resist the progress of the reform.
At that time, the Rev. De. Lyman Beechee,
in the meridian of his fame, and the acknowl
edged leader of New England orthodoxy, was
"the bright particular star" of the Boston pulpit.
Mr. Garrison had been one of those who bowed
to the spell of that preacher's eloquence, and
hailed him as one of the mightiest of God's wit
nesses. "He waited on his favorite divine, and
urged him to give to the new movement the in
calculable aid of his name and countenance. He
was patiently heard. He was allowed to unfold
his plans and array his facts. The reply of the
veteran was : ' Mr. Gaeeison, I have too many
irons in the fire to put in another.' " The ardent
reformer responded: "Doctor, you had better take
them all out and put this one in, if you mean
well either to the religion or to the civil liberty
of our country." *
The illustrious but maligned leader of the Abo
litionists speaks as follows of their position, their
motives, and their aims : " Originally they were
generally members of the various religious bodies,
tenacious of their theological views, full of ven
eration for the organized Church and ministry,
but ignorant of the position in which these stood
to the ' sum of all viUanies.' What would ulti-
* stated on the authority of Wendell PhUlips.
5*

106 OUE POLITICAL REGENERATION.
mately be required of them by a faithful adhe
rence to the cause of the slave, in their church
relations, their political connections, their social
ties, their worldly interest and reputation, they
knew not. Instead of seeking a controversy with
the pulpit and the Church, they confidently looked
to both for efficient aid to their cause. Instead
of suddenly withdrawing from the pro-slavery re
ligious and political organizations with which they
were connected, they lingered long and labored
hard to bring them to repentance. They were
earnest, but well-balanced ; intrepid, but circum
spect ; importunate, but long-suffering. Their con
troversy was neither personal nor sectional; their
object neither to arraign any sect nor to assail
any party primarily. They sought to liberate the
slave by every righteous instrumentality, and noth
ing more. But, to their grief and amazement,
they were gradually led to perceive, by the ter
rible revelations of the hour, that the religious
forces on which they had relied were all arrayed
on the side of the oppressor, that the North was
as hostile to emancipation as the South, that the
spirit of slavery was omnipresent, invading every
sanctuary, infecting every pulpit, controlling every
press, corrupting every household, and blinding
every vision ; that no other alternative was pre
sented to them, except to wage war with 'prin
cipalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in
high places,' and to separate themselves from every
slave-holding alliance ; or else to substitute com-

THE VANGUARD OF LIBERTY. 107
promise for principle, and thus betray the rights
and liberties of the millions in thraldom, at a
fearful cost to their own souls. If some of them
faltered and perished by the way, if others de
serted the cause and became its bitterest enemies,
if others still withdrew from the ranks, their sec
tarian attachment overmastering their love of hu
manity, and leading them basely to misrepresent
and revile their old associates, the main body
proved fearless and incorruptible ; and, through
the American Anti-Slavery Society and its aux
iliaries, have remained steadfast to the present
hour."* Prom the commencement of the Liberator, in
1831, to the establishment of the right of petition,
in 1846, the Abolitionists fought the battle of lib
erty against a degenerate age, with an intrepidity
and persistence, with a fidelity and heroism, that
find no parallel on this continent. Theirs became
a contest, not simply in behalf of the freedom of
the colored race, but also in behalf of the right
of the American people to free speech and a free
press, — a right which, but for their dignified and
resolute resistance, might have been yielded up
at the demand of the Southern despots and their
pliant retainers. At the cost of fourteen years'
effort and suffering, by tireless research, debate,
expostulation, and petition, in the face of igno-
• See an anti-slavery tract entitled " The ' Infidelity ' of Abolition
ism," p. 7.

108 OUR POLITICAL REGENERATION.
ranee and bigotry, of partisan malice and fanat
ical violence, that band of iron men and loyal
women rescued the nation from the clutch of
the slave power, displayed the resistless energy
of truth, and vindicated for all time, let us trust,
the benefit of free inquiry and fair discussion.
Let us notice some of their measures, and a
few of the wrongs they were called to suffer.

IV.
organization and opposition.
In January, 1832, the New England Anti-Slav
ery Society was organized in Boston, and, with
meagre resources, went into operation. The New
York Evangelist espoused the cause, and contrib
uted to augment the discussion. The Genius of
Temperance was already enlisted on the side of
freedom. Both these papers enjoyed an extensive
circulation at that time in most of the States, South
as well as North. In the spring of 1833, by the
liberality of Arthur and Lewis Tappan, merchants
of New York, The Emancipator was commenced.
During the same year, partly through the same
generous instrumentality, large numbers of anti-
slavery tracts were issued, and sent by mail to the
clergy of all denominations, and to prominent men,
throughout the country. By these means, the dis
cussion of slavery became inaugurated in most of
the free States. It roused the people from their
lethargy, and compelled them to take sides. And,
although the majority were alarmed, and followed
the bent of their prejudices, or the beck of their
party and sectarian leaders, instead of candidly

110 our political regeneration.
examining the merits of the cause, many powerful
men were enlisted at that period.*
The doctrine of the Abolitionists, that of imme
diate and unconditional emancipation on the soil,
brought them in collision, not only with the gen
eral prejudice of the time, but with the Coloniza
tion Society in particular.
This Society had been formed about the year
1816, at the suggestion of the Virginia Legislature,
and solely through the agency of slave-holders. Its
object, as defined by its own constitution, was " to
promote and execute a plan for colonizing (with
their consent) the free people of color residing in
our country, in Africa, or such other place as Con
gress shall deem most expedient."! The grand aim
of the Society, as disclosed by its subsequent pro
ceedings, was to induce the General and State gov
ernments to provide means for the removal of the
free Negroes from their midst, thereby reducing
the chances of servile insurrections ; and at the
same time to furnish a plausible occasion for the
humane sentiment of the country to vent itself
without damage to the system of slavery. It was
a device every way worthy of the profound craft
of the slave-holding oligarchy ; and it imposed
upon thousands of people at the North, who flat
tered themselves that they were doing something
to mitigate the sufferings of the colored race,

* Goodell, pp, 392, 393.
t See Constitution of the Society, Art, 11,

ORGANIZATION AND OPPOSITION. Ill
whereas they were really contributing to perpet
uate their wrongs.*
The Abolitionists boldly exposed the fraudulent
pretences with which the claims of the Coloniza
tion Society were advocated at the North, having
received in their own persons, from members of
that Society, abundant evidence of its hostility to
any scheme of emancipation. And their views
were ultimately confirmed in a celebrated speech
of Heney Clay, himself one of the authors of the
colonization scheme, in which he announced his
conviction that slavery must be perpetual, though
the African race would perish under the system.
That startling declaration of Me. Clay opened the
eyes of many Northern people. They saw that,
if the great Kentuckian had given utterance to the
real sentiment of the South, there was no alterna
tive between radical Abolitionism and the endleSs
perpetuity of that dreadful system which was to
extinguish the black race and engulf the white.
On the 2d of October, 1833, a New York City
Anti-Slavery Society was formed, the event being
signalized " by demonstrations of tumult and vio
lence." The meeting had been called at Clinton
Hall, but, inasmuch as a counter notice, signed
by " Many Southrons," called a meeting at the
same time and place, the Abolitionists assembled
at Chatham Street Chapel. " Their opposers, find-
* Goodell, pp. 342 - 352, See also " An Inquiry into the Character
and Tendency of the American Colonization and American Anti-
Slavery Societies."

112 OUR POLITICAL REGENERATION.
ing Clinton Hall closed, adjourned to Tammany
Hall, and made speeches and adopted resolutions
against them." Learning, at length, where the
Abolitionists were assembled, they adjourned by
acclamation, and poured into the Chatham Street
Chapel with the avowed purpose of " routing " its
peaceful occupants. The meeting had already ad
journed, but most of the attendants were still in
the house. The rioters called for several Abo
litionists by name, and the words, " Ten thousand
dollars for Arthur Tappan ! " were shouted by the
mob. No personal violence, however, was done.
The mob-meeting at Tammany Hall had been
"organized by prominent citizens, addressed by
popular public speakers," and it was commended
by the city press. " By the same class of citizens a
colonization meeting was promptly called 
The Mayor of the city presided. The orators
dwelt on the reckless agitations of the Abolition
ists. Not a word of disapprobation of the late
outrage against them was uttered. Theodore
FRELINGHUYSEN, United States Senator from New
Jersey, charged them with ' seeking to dissolve the
Union.' Chancellor Walworth was in attend
ance, from Albany, to declare their efforts ' uncon
stitutional,' and to denounce them as ' reckless
incendiaries.' David B. Ogden, Esq., declared
' the doctrine of immediate emancipation a direct
and palpable nullification of the Constitution.'
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN further declared, that 'nine
tenths of the horrors of slavery are imaginary,'

organization and opposition. 113
and ' the crusade of abolition ' he regarded as
' the poetry of philanthropy.' " *
Still, the reform grew. In December, 1833, a
National Anti-Slavery Convention, represented by
delegates from ten States, met at Philadelphia.
" Beriah Green, President of Oneida Institute,
was chosen President of the Convention, and Lew
is Tappan and John G. Whittier, Secretaries.
The members united in signing a declaration of
their sentiments, objects, and measures, prepared
in committee, from a draft by Mr. Garrison. This
Convention organized the American Anti-Slavery
Society  The Executive Committee was lo
cated in New York City, the seat of the Society's
operations, which were now prosecuted with vigor.
The Emancipator, under the editorial charge of
William Goodell, one of the Executive Com
mittee, became the organ of the Society. Tracts,
pamphlets, and books were published and circu
lated, a large number of lecturing agents were
employed, conventions were held," and auxiliary
societies organized throughout the free States. f
In this way was carried forward the great re
form which first broke the despotism of the slave
power at the North, and which has inspired and
equipped all subsequent movements tending to our
political regeneration.
* Goodell, pp. 395, 396. t Ibid,, pp. 396, 397.

the opposition BY MOBS.
The progress of the work roused a resistance
every way characteristic of the gigantic evil that
was to be overthrown. " An attempt to hold an
anti-slavery meeting in the city of New York, on
the 4th of July, 1834, was made the occasion of
a frightful and protracted riot. The meeting was
broken up, and for several successive days and
evenings the city was in possession of the rioters,
who assaulted private dwellings and places of pub
lic worship, and attempted personal violence upon
Abolitionists. Similar scenes were enacted in Phil
adelphia, a few weeks afterwards. Extensive dam
ages were done to the private dwellings and public
buildings of the unoffending colored people, who
had been cruelly maligned, and wantonly held up
to public odium, at a Colonization meeting a short
time previous. During these riots, which were
of several days' recurrence, many of the colored
people were wounded, and some of them lost their
lives. These early examples of lawlessness — no
toriously countenanced, as they were, by men of
wealth and influence, excited by eloquent orators,
and palliated afterwards by the public press — fur-

the OPPOSITION BY MOBS, 115
nished precedents for similar outrages throughout
the free States for a series of years."
We can but glance at two or three of these dis
graceful events. At Canaan, New Hampshire, on
the lOtli of August, 1835, an academy was de
molished by a mob, because colored youth were
admitted to its privileges.
At Boston, on the 21st of October, the Female
Anti-Slavery Society was dispersed while the Pres
ident was at prayer. The mob engaged in this
chivalrous enterprise was composed of five thou
sand " gentlemen of property and standing," as
they were described by the city press. Finding
Me. Garrison in the street, they seized him, and
dragged him some distance with a rope around
his body. The Mayor of the city, hardly daring
to cross the wishes of this mob of " gentlemen,"
lodged Mr. Garrison in the jail for protection.
Soon after, at the " earnest entreaty " of the city
authorities, he left Boston for a brief season. Like
certain reformers of old, he " had filled Jerusalem
with his doctrine," and the Sanhedrim of Boston
were driven to their wits' end to know what to do
with him.
At Utica, New York, on the same day, " a mem
ber of Congress " headed a committee of " twenty-
five prominent citizens " who proceeded to break
up " a meeting convened to form a New York
State Anti-Slavery Society, and threw down the
press of a Democratic journal, which had espoused
the anti-slavery cause. By invitation of Hon.

116 our political regeneration.
Gerrit Smith, who, on that occasion, identified
himself with them, the Abolitionists repaired to
his residence at Peterboro', twenty-five miles dis
tant," where they completed their organization.
The trinity of outrages which disgraced the mem
orable day was completed at Montpelier, Vermont,
by a demonstration of mob violence against the
Rev. Samuel J. May, resulting in the breaking
up of a meeting which he had called in that town.
In December, 1836, the Southern students at
Yale College, New Haven, broke up an anti-slavery
meeting convened in that city. "At Alton, IU.,
November 7th, 1837, the press of the Alton Ob
server was destroyed by a mob, and the editor.
Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, shot dead, receiving four
balls in his breast. The murderers were not
brought to justice."
In Philadelphia, on the 17th of May, 1838,
Pennsylvania Hall was burned by a mob, because
it had been opened to the obnoxious reformers.
At Cincinnati, September 5th, 1841, the printing-
press of the Philanthropist, edited by James G.
Birney (formerly a slave-holder in Kentucky),
was destroyed, for the third time, by a ferocious
mob.* Well might De. Channing — one of the most
candid spectators of these events — declare, " that
our history contains no page more disgraceful to us
as freemen, than that which records the violences
against the Abolitionists." During all that time,
* Goodell, pp. 404-407.

THE OPPOSITION BY MOBS. 117
people were being told that men at the North had
no concern with slavery, — that the "fanatics"
were meddling with a foreign interest ; whereas it
was a notorious fact, that the despotic system had
so far encroached upon the North, and so deplor
ably corrupted Northern society, that it had be
come about as dangerous to rebuke it in Boston or
New York, in Philadelphia or Cincinnati, as it
would have been in Charleston or New Orleans.
The lash of the slave-holder was virtually bran
dished in the face of every man who dared to say
that slavery is a sin.

VI.
SUBSERVIENCY OF THE NORTH.
We have witnessed the first resolute effort to
break the authority of the Despotic System at the
North. We have seen, in the fanatical resistance
that was opposed to that peaceful effort, how the
cause of the slave's emancipation became identi
fied with the right of a free people to discuss and
publish their honest convictions. The advent of
Abolitionism revealed the fact, that the Southern
despotism had not only subjugated the liberties of
the negro, but also encroached to an ominous
extent on the prerogatives of the white man.
Hence it happened that many discerning persons,
who regarded the idea of immediate emancipation
as visionary and impracticable, hailed and honored
the Abolitionists, nevertheless, as timely and bold
asserters of the right of the American citizen to
free discussion and a free press.
The alarm and rage which the progress of the
reform elicited at the South may be readily appre
hended. The system of slavery can be protected
only by suppressing discussion. Allow inquiry,
research, reflection, and the odious depravity of
the system stands revealed, — convicted of being

subserviency of the NORTH. 119
SO bad that no consideration can palliate or excuse
it. If conscience be quickened, if the sense of
justice be allowed to speak, if light fall upon the
great wrong, it must disappear. Conscious of
these facts, the slave-holders saw in the reviving
discussion of the subject at the North the omen
of their coming ruin. In the West Indies, too,
the process of emancipation, transpiring under the
most satisfactory auspices, had already vindicated
the most radical plans of reform, and it held out a
perpetual invitation to the United States to seek
both safety and honor in an act of national
justice. Besides, the agitation of the question was liable
to penetrate to the slaves, and stimulate servile
insurrections. The affair at Southampton, in Vir
ginia, in 1831, headed by Nat Turner, and the
discovery of the slave plot at Charleston a few
years earlier, had shown the South that their
social system was built over a powder-magazine,
and that every family drew breath amid the most
awful possibilities.
With the blind wilfulness characteristic of des
potism, the slave-holders refused to see that their
danger and prospective ruin were the necessary
corollaries of their system, — not to be averted by
arbitrary efforts to suppress discussion in free
States, but to be accepted as the retributive ele
ment inseparable from wanton oppression. Their
attitude toward the reform was at least natural,
and the measures they resorted to may be fairly
viewed as the simple dictates of their instinct.

120 OUR POLITICAL REGENERATION,
The conduct of their abettors at the North was
less excusable. The opposition in the free States
was dictated by commercial interest, by partisan
prejudice, and by sectarian selfishness. Many of
the merchants in the large cities enjoyed a lucra
tive trade with the South, and were virtually
under bonds to ignore the abominations of slav
ery. Both the great political parties of the day
were in the power of the South, and bound to
do its bidding. This the leaders of those parties
well knew, but the masses of the people who sup
ported them were not admitted to the political
secrets of the time. The Churches had their
Southern connections, and the interests of de
nominational unity required them to acquiesce in
the public opinion that indorsed the slave system.
Thus the whole North was bound to the South
by commercial, political, and ecclesiastical ties ;
and hence a great majority of the Northern people,
in the first great issue raised by the Abolition
ists, espoused the cause of despotism.

VII.
THE OPPOSITION BY STATES.
Since riots and mobs, countenanced by the
civil authorities, had proved inadequate to sub
due the discussion or arrest the reform, it was
proposed to invoke the majesty of the State and
Federal Governments. In the Literary and Theo
logical Review for December, 1835, published in
the city of New York, the position was elaborately
argued, that the " radicals," meaning the Abo
litionists, were ''justly liable to the highest civil
penalties and ecclesiastical censures." This sen
timent received no rebuke from any of the par
trons of the " Review," nor even from the organs
of the rival theological party.
In the very spirit of this sentiment, a grand
jury of the County of Oneida, just previous to
the riot at Utica, made a presentment, in which
they declared, that those who form Abolition so
cieties are guilty of sedition, that they ought to
be punished, and that it is the duty of all citi
zens loyal to the Constitution to destroy their
publications wherever found.
In the same year, the Hon. William Sullivan
issued a pamphlet in Boston, iji which the fol-
6

122 OUE POLITICAL REGENERATION.
lowing extraordinary desire is expressed : " It is
to be hoped and expected that Massachusetts wiU
enact laws, declaring the printing, publishing, and
circulating papers and pamphlets on slavery, and
also the holding of meetings to discuss slavery
and abolition, to be public indictable offences, and
provide for the punishment thereof in such man
ner as will more effectually prevent such offen
ces." *
The South was not backward in stimulating
such sentiments and measures in the free States.
The temper of the South, estimated by the legis
lative and ecclesiastical memorials of the period,
was exceedingly vindictive and ferocious. The
native malignity of slavery gushed forth in official
acts, reeking with the barbarity of feudal times.
The venom of the popular hatred toward the
Abolitionists exceeded the darkest annals of Ital
ian rancor, when Italy was most seditious and
most depraved. The Southern Church shared
the diabolical spirit, and many of her clergy emu
lated the vindictive passion of the Boegias toward
their rivals, in their frantic opposition to the idea
of emancipation, and their besotted devotion to
chattel slavery.
As far back as December, 1831, the Legislature
of Georgia, with the approval of Governor Lump
kin, passed an act offering five thousand dollars to
whoever might arrest and bring to trial, under the
* Goodell, pp. 409, 410.

THE opposition BY STATES. 128
laws of that State, the editor or publisher of The
Liberator. By the laws of Georgia, Mr. Gaerison
would have suffered death. But he was not a
citizen of that State, and could have been taken
there for trial only by an act of felonious abduc
tion, — an act which the Georgia Legislature thus
invited and offered to reward. Yet the State of
Massachusetts took no notice of the dastardly prop
osition to kidnap one of her citizens ; so base had
become the sentiment of that once noble Common
wealth. The example of Georgia was followed at
New Orleans, by the offer of twenty thousand dol
lars for the seizure of Arthur Tappan. Similar
advertisements, specifying prominent Abolitionists,
and offering large rewards for their abduction,
were extensively circulated by " our Southern
brethren " !
With an impudence that posterity will find it
hard to credit, the Southern State Legislatures
adopted resolutions calling upon the free State
governments to enact penal laws against Abo
lition societies, and against all efforts to discuss
the subject of slavery. But it must astonish the
coming age yet more to learn that the Governors
of Massachusetts and New York — one a Whig,
the other a Democrat — were both disposed to fa
vor these despotic measures.
In the Legislature of Rhode Island, in February,
1836, a bill was actually reported in conformity to
the demands of the South.
Governor Gayle, of Alabama, went so far as

124 our political regeneration.
to demand of Goveenoe Marcy, of New York, the
delivery of R. G. Williams, publishing agent of
the American Anti-Slavery Society, that he might
be tried by the laws of Alabama — a State within
whose territory he had never been — for having
issued in The Emancipator a sentiment hostile to
slavery. Goveenoe Majbcy declined complying
with this extraordinary requisition, but was fa
vorable to the enactment of laws in New York for
the punishment of such offences !
In Ohio, in 1838, Governor Vance, on requi
sition of Governor Claek, of Kentucky, did de
liver up one of its citizens to be tried in the latter
State, on an indictment for assisting in the escape
of slaves. The person thus arrested — John B.
Mahan, a local minister in the Methodist Episco
pal Church — had not been in Kentucky for nine
teen years ! Yet " he was torn from his family,
hurried to Kentucky, and shut up in jail, with
out allowing him time to procure a writ of habeas
corpus, or summon evidence in his defence. He
was tried at the Circuit Court of Kentucky, in
Marion County, the 18th of November. It was
admitted by the Attorney for the Commonwealth
that the prisoner was a citizen of Ohio, and not in
Kentucky at the time of the alleged offence ; yet
he made an effort to procure his conviction. The
jury returned a verdict of not guilty." * Yet it
had continually been said, by those who would
suppress agitation, that we at the North have
» Goodell, pp. 410 - 415, 440.

THE opposition BY STATES. 125
nothing to do with slavery ! Nothing to do with
it ! when, before the date even of the Fugitive
Slave Bill, innocent men were liable to be arrest
ed, or kidnapped, by its emissaries, and dragged
before the dubious justice embodied in a Southern
court !

VIII.
THE opposition BY THE FEDEEAL POWER.
While' the States were agitating the question of
suppressing the slavery discussion by statutes, the
Federal government — faithful to that uniform pol
icy which had acquired the character of an instinct
— arrayed itself on the side of despotism. " The
occasion for exerting this influence was presented
by the excitement growing out of the transmission^
of anti-slavery publications through the United
States mails. Some of these publications were
gratuitously sent, — not to any portion of the col
ored people, either the free or the enslaved, — but
to prominenf^citizens, statesmen, clergymen, mer
chants, planters, and professional gentlemen at the
South, whose names and residences were known at
the North. There could be no reasonable pretence
that this measure could excite an insurrection of
the slaves. General Duff Green, editor of Tlie
Washington Telegraph, — one of the most violent
opposers of the Abolitionists, — admitted that there
was little or no danger of this ; and that the real
ground of apprehension was, that the publications
would ' operate upon the consciences and fears of
slave-holders themselves, from the insinuation of

THE OPPOSITION BY THE FEDERAL POWER. 127
their dangerous heresies into our schools, our pul
pits, and our domestic circles.' ' It is only,' said
he, ' by alarming the consciences of the weak and
feeble, and by diffusing among our own people a
morbid sensibility on the subject of slavery, that
Abolitionists can accomplish their object.' "
On the 29th of July, 1835, a riotous mob broke
into the post-office at Charleston, South Carolina,
violated the United States mail, and destroyed cer
tain anti-slavery publications found there. From
an editorial allusion to the outrage in the Courier,
it seems that " arrangements had previously been
made at the post-office in the city to arrest the
circulation of incendiary matter, until instructions
could be received from the Post-Office Department
at Washington." It would have appeared most
expedient, in any law-abiding community, to have
waited for the " instructions " before violating the
mail. But the people of Charleston were evi
dently assured that any act they might perpetrate
in the interest of slavery, however illegal, would
be favorably construed at Washington. The event
showed that they were not mistaken. In reply to
the application for instructions, the Postmaster-
General, Amos Kendall, said he was satisfied that
he " had no legal authority to exclude newspapers
from the mail, nor to prohibit their carriage or
delivery on account of their character or ten
dency, real or supposed." The anti-slavery papers,
then, were clearly entitled to be transmitted
through the mails. What then ? Me. Kendall

128 our political regeneration.
continues : " But I am not prepared to direct you
to forward or deliver the papers of which you
speak ! " " By no act or direction of mine, official
or private, could I be induced to aid, knowingly,
in giving circulation to papers of this description,"
— although he had just confessed that he had no
legal authority for excluding them from the mails.
" We owe an obligation to the laws," Me. Kendall
proceeds to admit, " but a higher one to the com
munities in which we live ; and if the former be
permitted to destroy the latter, it is patriotism to
disregard them." That is to say, if a law of the
United States, which that official was sworn to see
executed, threatened to endanger the immunities
of slavery, he advised that " a higher obligation "
required that it be disregarded ! Thus we find the
" higher law " actually invoked, in the interest of
slavery, against a law of the United States.
Encouraged by the example of the postmaster
at Charleston, and by the avowed decision of the
Postmaster-General to wink at all similar outrages,
other postmasters. North as well as South, lawlessly
excluded anti-slavery writings from the mails.
To crown the formidable coalition against the
cause of Preedom, President Jackson, in his an
nual message (December, 1835), called " the spe
cial attention of Congress to the subject," and
recommended the passage of a penal law against
the circulation of anti-slavery publications in the
Southern States.

IX.

final struggle and triumphant assertion of
freedom in the north.

The most gloomy presages ushered in the winter
of 1835-36. It was generally expected that the
action recommended by the South to the Northern
Legislatures, and by the President to Congress,
would be adopted. No remonstrance was uttered,
no sign of alarm was expressed, on the part of the
Northern community, except by the proscribed and
feeble party who were apparently marked for de
struction. They, conscious that everything was at
stake, girded themselves for a final effort.
The Executive Committee of the American Anti-
Slavery Society at New York drew up a solemn
protest, involving a thorough review of the charges
preferred in the President's Message, and addressed
to the Chief Magistrate. In that paper they repelled
the charge of insurrectionary designs. " They in
vited investigation by a Committee of Congress,
and offered to submit to their inspection all their
publications, all their correspondence, and all their
accounts, — promising to attest them, and to an
swer every question under oath." * The Presi-
* Goodell, p. 417.
6* I

130 OUR political regeneration.
dent never noticed this remonstrance; but it is
probable that the firm and dignified tone in which
it was expressed had its due effect upon the Execu
tive mind. Neither Jackson nor any of his suc
cessors, it is believed, ever repeated the charges
contained in his Message, and so boldly met in
that protest.
In February, 1836, a Convention met at Provi
dence, for the purpose of forming a Rhode Island
Anti-Slavery Society, in response to " a call of
respectable citizens in all parts of the State. It
was numerously attended, well sustained, and did
much to revive the spirit of Roger Williams in
that part of New England."
The most imposing conflict of the season took
place in Massachusetts. A joint committee of
both branches of the Legislature, with Senator
LuNT Chairman, had been appointed to consider
the Southern demands. A request of the Aboli
tionists to enjoy the customary hearing before this
committee had received no attention, and it was
believed that the committee would report without
listening to their defence. " The Anti-Slavery
Committee at Boston were at length unexpect
edly notified that an audience would be given
them the very next day, March 4th, 1836. They
hastily rallied, selected their advocates, and pre
pared for their defence. The interview was held
in the Representatives' Hall, neither of the houses
being in session, but most of the members of both
houses and many prominent citizens being pres-

TRIUMPHANT ASSERTION OF FREEDOM. 131
ent. After remarks by Rev. Samuel J. May and
Ellis Gray Loring, Esq., they were followed by
Peofessoe Charles Follen, who, in the course of
his remarks, aUuded to the recent outrages against
Abolitionists, observing that any legislative enacl>
ments or censures against the already persecuted
party would tend to encourage their assailants
and increase their persecutions. Taking offence
at this remark, the Chairman, Me. Lunt, silenced
Peofessoe Follen, and abruptly terminated the
interview ; whereupon the Abolitionists took prompt
measures for issuing their suppressed defence in a
pamphlet form, which, comprising above forty
pages, was prepared for the press in the two fol
lowing days. A Boston editor, Benjamin F. Hal-
let, Esq., gave some account of the proceedings,
and said the Abolitionists were entitled to a fair
hearing. The Legislature directed their committee
to allow a completion of the defence, which was
accordingly notified for Monday P. M., the Sth
instant. The adjacent country was by this time
roused, and the Hall of the Representatives was
crowded. Peofessoe Follen concluded his speech,
and was followed by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq.,
William Lloyd Garrison, and William Goodell,
— the latter of whom, instead of making any fur
ther defence of Abolitionists, or proving that their
publications were not insurrectionary, proceeded
to charge upon the Southern States, who had
made these demands, a conspiracy against the lib
erties of the free North. This opened an entire

132 OUR political regeneration.
new field. Great uneasiness was manifested by
the committee ; but the speaker — though repeat
edly interrupted by the Chairman — succeeded in
quoting the language of Governor McDufpie's
message, and in characterizing the Southern docu
ments lying on the table of the committee before
him as being fetters for Northern freemen. He
had commenced making the inquiry, 'Mr. Chair
man, are you prepared to attempt putting them
on ? ' but the sentence was only half finished when
the stentorian voice of the Chairman interrupted
him : ' Sit down, sir ! ' — He sat down. The Leg
islative Committee presently began to move from
their seats, but the audience sat petrified with sup
pressed feeling. The late Dr. William E. Chan
ning was seated among the Abolitionists, though
not in form or in sentiment fully identified with
them. On such an occasion he could not be ab
sent, and his presence was felt. His countenance
seemed to express what words could not have
uttered ; more eloquent in silence than even he
could have been in speech. The Legislative Com
mittee themselves lingered, as in vague expecta
tion. Then rose a respectable merchant of Boston,
Mr. Bond, unaccustomed, as he said, to public
speaking, and begged the committee to wait a few
minutes. It was growing dark, and the hall was
unlighted, but they sat down. Mr. Bond briefly
reminded them that freedom of speech and of the
press could never be surrendered by the sons of
the Pilgrims. He was followed by another volun-

triumphant assertion of freedom. 133
teer. Dr. Beadfoed, from old Plymouth Rock."
The committee finally rose, and, with the audience,
slowly retired from the room. " A low murmur
of voices," sounding through the dim hall, indi
cated the awakened sympathies of the assembly,
and, "like the distant roar of the sea, told of
power. Three days afterward, the printed plea
of the Abolitionists was on the desk of each mem
ber of the Legislature, in the hands of the Gov
ernor, and in process of circulation through the
Commonwealth. Me. Lunt and his committee
delayed their Report till near the close of the ses
sion, several weeks later. It was a stale repetition
of trite declamation on the subject, but recom
mending no distinct action by the Legislature." *
Similar attempts in other Northern legislatures
to enact laws prohibiting the discussion of slavery
likewise failed. The tide was beginning to be
effectually turned.
The proposition of Peesident Jackson to Con
gress for a prohibitory law was referred to a
select committee, of which John C. Calhoun was
Chairman. That committee submitted a Report,
February 4, 1836, in which it was maintained that
the measure suggested by the President would
involve a violation of the Constitution, and an
infringement of the liberties of the people, as
well as a remote danger to slavery itself. The
Report then proceeded to recommend that the
States be authorized to prohibit the circulation
* Goodell (himself a prominent actor in the scene), pp. 418-420.

134 OUR political regeneration.
of such publications as may be " calculated to
disturb their security " ; and that the Federal
postmasters be forbidden to deliver any publica
tions touching the subject of slavery in those
States that may prohibit their circulation. A bill,
drafted by the committee, in accordance with its
own recommendation, was defeated on the final
vote. Here ended the efforts of the slave-holders to
instal their despotism over the mails. But the
opponents of their project did not rest till they
had secured the passage of an act, at the same
session, under the signature of the President, pro
hibiting any such arbitrary measure, in future,
by severe penalties. The triumph of the friends
of freedom was graced by the confession of Me.
Calhoun, at the same session, that the efforts of
the Abolitionists were of a moral and peaceful
nature, and not, in his judgment, designed to
provoke violence and insurrection.*
As the tide of reform could not be arrested
either by mobs or prescriptive legislation, the
final expedient of despotism was to crush the
right of petition, and close the door of Congress
to the great discussion. The right of Congress
to abolish slavery in the Federal District and
Territories, and to prohibit the domestic slave-
trade, was extensively held ; and the Abolition
ists had persistently petitioned both houses to
* Goodell, pp. 421, 422.

triumphant assertion of freedom. 135
exercise their constitutional powers over these
evils. In order to exclude these dangerous in
fluences, the slave power in Congress procured
the adoption of a series of measures, known as
the " gag-laws," which continued binding from
May, 1836, to December, 1845. The efforts of
John Quincy Adams to restore the right of peti
tion deserve special mention. They constitute
the crowning glory of his public life, as their
success signalized the final triumph of the prin
ciple of freedom, in the North, over the ignoble
coalition formed to overthrow it.

X.

new political organizations. — the republican
PARTY.
Decisive issue having been thus taken with
the Southern despotism, and the right to discuss
the evils of slavery being thus triumphantly sus
tained, the organization of new political parties
— in order to give expression at the polls to
the new convictions springing up at the North
— became an inevitable consequence. The Lib
erty party, the Free-Soil party, and the Repub
lican party, represent the successive stages of
political action that were developed in the pro
gress of the great reform inaugurated by the
Abolitionists. Meantime the original anti-slavery organizations
became divided, and extensively modified, under
the action of an irresistible individualism in some
of the leaders, and as new exigencies appeared
to call for new measures. Those iron bodies
which had so gallantly sustained the hostility of
a degenerate nation became prolific in issues,
in controversies, and in dissent ; and were in
some danger of surrendering to faction part of
the honors they had extorted from tyranny.

new political organizations. 137
In 1844, the American Anti-Slavery Society,
under the intrepid guidance of Me. Gaeeison
and the caustic eloquence of Wendell Phillips,
proclaimed the new watchword, " No union with
SLAVE-HOLDEES," and denounced the Federal Con
stitution as " a covenant with death and an agree
ment with hell." This new position cost the
Society many of its members ; and it is believed
that a large majority of the Abolitionists still
hold that the Constitution is essentially a cove
nant with freedom, and that it is perverted when
so construed as to sanction any interest of des
potism. The sentiment which animated the first reform
ers, in their vigorous assault upon the slave
power, became deteriorated as it spread among
the multitudes of the North, till the feeling which
had originally demanded the immediate abolition
of slavery became content with prohibiting its
extension. The anti-slavery sentiment, thus de
teriorated, obtained a rapid ascendency over the
free States. The entire vote of the Liberty party
at the Presidential election of 1840 amounted to
something less than 7,000. Four years later, the
candidates of that party received upwards of
60,000 votes ; although it was well understood,
that on neither occasion did the nominees of
the party receive the votes of more than a frac
tion of the nominal Abolitionists in the United
States, — some hundreds of them avoiding the
polls from conscientious scruples, and the ma-

138 OUR POLITICAL REGENERATION.
jority, influenced by old political ties, giving their
support to the Whig and Democratic candidates.
When, in 1848, the Buffalo Platform appeared,
minus the Abolition plank, it became at once
evident that it would conciliate an augmented
anti-slavery vote. The vote of the Free-Soil
party that year, and of the Republican party
in 1856, revealed an auspicious growth of the
diluted anti-slavery sentiment which the North
was prepared to express ; and in 1860 two mil
lions of Electors, in the face of the frantic threat
of Disunion, solemnly decided that slavery should
never again be extended under the flag of the
nation.

XI.

CONSIDERATIONS.

Whether the Republican Party, in securing
this decisive ascendency over the Northern mind,
was obliged to take a lower moral position than
the radical Abolitionists, — refusing to regard slav
ery as a crime per se, like murder or theft, but
treating it as a social and political error, a
source of practical evils deplorable and self-de
structive, and a clear violation of those enlight
ened principles embodied in our form of govern
ment, — we do not propose to inquire. Whether,
instead of advocating immediate and unconditional
emancipation, it was wise in conceding to the
South the common interpretation of the Consti
tution, under which slavery in the States is be
lieved to be protected, we shall not here discuss.
And whether, in going no further than to insist
that the Federal Government should be divorced
from the slave-holding propaganda, that slavery
should be restricted to its present limits, and
that its actual extinction should be left to the
process of time, under the subduing force of
moral and economical agencies, the party made
the strongest possible appeal to the judgment and

140 OUR POLITICAL REGENERATION.
conscience of the American people, is not the
question for present examination.
In consenting to such a disposal of the sub
ject, there is no doubt that a large proportion
of that party made some compromise between
their principles and the exigency of the time.
It seemed the only ground on which the North
could cordially unite, and the Republic be de
livered from the pro-slavery dynasty. It was not
what the more earnest and enlightened members
of the party wanted, we believe, but it seemed
to comprise all that could be secured by un
doubted constitutional means.
Hence the party were content to accept it as
the best result attainable, under all the circum
stances, — trusting that a new administration con
scientiously devoted to the welfare of the whole
nation, and of necessity hostile to the sectional
purposes of slavery, might introduce a Federal
policy, which, uniting with all the better ten
dencies of the Republic, should peacefully abol
ish the great crime of the land.
Still, it was placing the subject, at best, where
the fathers had left it; and ignoring the dread
ful LESSON which THEIR TOLERATION OP SLAVEEY
HAD TAUGHT, and wliich the nation, one would
have supposed, should have laid to heart. It was
BELYING UPON THB SAME FALLACIOUS GUAEANTIES
WHICH HAD DECEIVED THE POUNDEES OF THE GOV
ERNMENT, AND ALLOWING SLAVERY ANOTHER CHANCE
TO SUBJUGATE THE REPUBLIC. The architects of

CONSIDERATIONS. 141
the Union had erected a barrier to the progress
of slavery, which the exulting despotism had tri
umphantly scaled, and the highest political wisdom
of the country, enlightened by the experience of
eighty years, could devise no better security for
freedom than to rebuild the very wall which
slavery, with not one tenth of its present vigor,
had been able to batter down.
The question will rise in the thoughtful mind,
whether — had the South been content to abide
the decision of the American people in 1860 —
the instincts of slavery, so long active in the
government, might not have been too potent for
the integrity of the new administration, — aided
by the advantage it still retained in both houses
of Congress, — and whether the fair hopes built
upon Me. Lincoln's elevation to the Presidency,
might not have withered in the distant result.
Possibly our fond assurance might have proved
our snare. Possibly Providence was more merci
ful to the land than it seemed, in releasing the
wild-fire of rebellion. Possibly the Divine Omnis
cience perceived that the only road to national
emancipation and permanent security led through
the searching ordeal of civil war.

PART IV.
THE REBELLION OP THE BARONS.

" The well-known opinions of the Fathers were all discarded, and it
was recklessly avowed that slavery is a divine institution, — the high
est type of civilization, — a blessing to master and slave alike, — and
the very keystone of our national arch. A generation has grown up
with this teaching, so that it is now ready to say, with Satan,
' Evil, be thou my good ; by thee at least
Divided empire with Heaven's King I hold ;
As man erelong and this new world shall know.' "
Hon. Charles Sumnek.
" To humor the present disposition and temporize, is a certain, abso
lutely certain confirmation of the evil. No nation ever did, or ever
can, recover from slavery by such methods." — Chaules James Fox,
1804. " Slavery is a system made up of every crime that treachery,
cruelty, and murder can invent." — Eev. Rowland Hill.
" Slavery is a complicated system of iniquity." — Gkanville
Sharp.

"Whatever is morally wrong cannot be politically right." — Jef
ferson. " By the law of God, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise
fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor bloodshed, they shall rej'ect with
indignation the wild and guilty fantasy, that man can hold property
in man." — Lord Brougham, 1830.
" While slavery lasts, it must continue, in addition to the actual
amount of suffering and wrong whioh it entails on the enslaved, to
operate with terrible reaction on the dominant class, to blunt the
moral sense, to sap domestic virtue, to degrade independent industry,
to check the onward march of enterprise, to sow the seeds of sus
picion, alarm, and vengeance, in both internal and external inter
course, to distract the national counsels, to threaten the permanence
of the Union, and to leave a brand, a byword, and a j'est upon the
name of Freedom." — Earl of Carlisle, 1851.

THE PLOT OF AARON BURR.
The rebellion, whose complete maturity and
prolific resources appalled the nation during the
revelations of the past winter (1860 - 61) is now
known to be the product of assiduous intrigues,
extending through not less than thirty years.
And this great and criminal enterprise of our
day really connects itself — not unnaturally —
with certain alarming transactions that startled
the quietude of the country as far back as 1807.
The arrest of Colonel Aaron Buee, that year,
on charge of high treason, sent a thrill of amaze
ment through the entire country. The eminent
position of the accused, the turpitude of the al
leged crime, and the probable magnitude to which
the conspiracy had attained, all tended to inspire
a deep and far-reaching sensation. Nor were the
circumstances attending the trial and acquittal
of BuER less surprising than the crime which
had been charged upon him. In the light of
the full-grown conspiracy of the present day, the
memorable plot of 1807 may receive a more com
plete elucidation.
A shining character in every position he had

146 THE EEBELLION OF THE BARONS.
occupied, — a skilful military man, an adroit poli
tician, an accomplished actor in society, — Colo
nel Burr had been separated from the Presi
dency by only a single vote ; and had occupied,
under Me. Jefferson, the second official dignity
in the executive department of the Republic. Un
able to cope with the popularity of Jefpeeson,
Buee became alienated from the Democratic party.
Aware of his changed feelings, a portion of the
Federal party in the State of New York began
to esteem him an available candidate for the office
of Governor. But Gbnbeal Hamilton, a lead
ing Federalist, opposed the nomination of Buee,
and denounced him as a man " dangerous to the
country." For having used this language, Ham
ilton was shot dead in a duel, having accepted
a challenge from Colonel Burr. Whether the
strong expression Hamilton had employed in
allusion to his antagonist was only the utter
ance of partisan or personal antipathy, or whether
it indicated an actual knowledge, or strong sus
picion, of his treasonable purposes, — as many
were afterwards inclined to believe, — cannot now
be ascertained. It appears certain, however, from
what was proved at the trial, and from guarded
disclosures subsequently made, that Burr about
this time was in the habit of making secret over
tures to prominent men, and revealing the vague
outlines of a gigantic scheme of disunion and con
quest, to culminate in a magnificent Southern
Empire. It is not known how far he obtained

THE plot of aaeon BUER. 147
assurances of co-operation, for most of the evi
dence — as we shall presently see — was sup
pressed, and those who declined to participate in
his plans seem to have been restrained from di
vulging them.
The plot was exposed by the following means : —
General William Eaton, of Massachusetts, had
been American Consul at Tunis during our war
with the Barbary States. In an expedition against
Tripoli, which he had been authorized by his gov
ernment to lead, he had won a brilliant reputation
for military genius and personal bravery, and had
honorably terminated our naval war in the Medi
terranean. Genbeal Eaton had returned to Amer
ica, a lauded hero, worthy of the honors he wore.
But, -being a New Englander and a Federalist, he
had received but a cool reception at the seat of
government. Certain sentiments hostile to slav
ery, which he had communicated in letters to his
wife, and which had found their way into the
newspapers, are said to have created a prejudice
against him at the South, and to have influenced
the government in its churlish recognition of his
services. His accounts were disputed and dis
allowed, his integrity aspersed, and the basest
attempts were made to dishonor him in the esti
mation of his country. Triumphantly vindicated
from all the charges, but reduced by the govern
ment he had served to bankruptcy, he had retired
in disgust from the public service.
In this mood he was approached by Colonel

148 THE rebellion of the barons.
BURE, who — judging him by his own standard of
honor, and counting on his willingness to resent
his injuries — proceeded to unfold his scheme.
" He told Eaton that he had already organized a
secret expedition against the Spanish provinces
of Mexico, in which he asked him to join ; and
Eaton, under the impression, as he said, that the
expedition was secretly countenanced by govern
ment — to which the state of Spanish relations
and the Miranda expedition, then on foot, might
well give color — gave him encouragement that he
would. Buee then proceeded to further confiden
ces, such as excited suspicions in Eaton's mind as
to the real character of his intended enterprise.
 Wishing, according to his own account, to
draw Buee out, Eaton encouraged him to go on,
till finally he developed a project for revolution
izing the Western country, separating it from the
Union, and establishing a monarchy, of which he
was to be sovereign ; New Orleans to be his capi
tal ; and his dominion to be further extended by a
force organize^ on the Mississippi, so as to include
a part or the whole of Mexico."
He represented that Genbeal Wilkinson, the
commander-in-chief of the army, and recently ap
pointed Governor of the Louisiana Territory, had
become a party to the enterprise. " There was no
energy in the government to be dreaded," it hav
ing become already paralyzed by party divisions.
" Many enterprising men, who aspired to some
thing beyond the dull pursuits of civil life," were

THE PLOT OP AARON BURR. 149
ready to unite in the undertaking. " The promise
of an immediate distribution of land, with the
mines of Mexico in prospect, would call multi
tudes to his standard. Warming up with the sub
ject, he declared that, if he could only secure the
Marine Corps — the only soldiers stationed at
Washington — and gain over the naval command
ers, Teuxton, Peeble, Decatur, and others, he
would turn Congress neck and heels out of doors,
assassinate the President, seize on the treasury and
navy, and declare himself the protector of an ener
getic government. To which Eaton, according
to his own statement, replied, that one single word,
USURPER, would destroy him, and that, though he
might succeed at Washington in the first instance,
within six weeks after he would have his throat
cut by the Yankee militia."*
General Eaton lost no time in communicating
Burr's designs to the government ; but, not enjoy
ing the favor of the Administration, his important
disclosures appear to have made no considerable
impression, until confirmed by a despatch from
General Wilkinson. In due time. Burr, Blen-
NEEHASSET, and other supposed accomplices, were
arrested, and brought to trial under an indictment
for high treason found by a Grand Jury for the
District of Virginia. Chief Justice Maeshall
presided, holding the court in conjunction with
Geifpin, the District Judge.
Buee was charged first with high treason ; and
* Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. V. pp. 600, 601.

150 the rebellion OP THE BARONS.
second with a high misdemeanor, in attempting
the invasion of Mexico, a Spanish province. The
testimony of Eaton and Wilkinson, it was gener
ally supposed, would convict him ; but theirs com
prised but a fractional part of the testimony in
the hands of the prosecuting attorney. Attempts
were made to destroy the credit of both these wit
nesses, but without success. The acquittal was
secured, however, by what has the appearance of
a stratagem, though perhaps no artifice was in
tended. " The indictment was so drawn up as to
charge him only with treasonable acts or misde
meanors committed by him on Blennerhasset's
Island," in the Ohio River, while the principal
part of the evidence in the hands of the prosecu
tion had respect to acts committed elsewhere.
Owing to this form of the indictment, " almost all
the important testimony was excluded by the court
from coming before the jury." The evidence
of Blenneehassbt was likewise excluded. It is
thought that the jury suspected the court of some
design to shield the accused, judging by the fol
lowing verdict, which was read by Colonel Cae-
eington, their foreman : " We, of the jury, say
that Aaron Buee is not proved guilty under
this indictment, by any evidence submitted to us.
We therefore find him not guilty." To this ver
dict exceptions were taken, for the reason that
it seemed to " censure the court for suppress
ing irrelevant testimony." But, since the jury
"would not agree to alter it, the court decided

the plot of aaeon buee. 151
that the verdict should remain as found, and that
an entry should be made on the record of not
g-uilty." *
The acquittal of Buee is not easily explained by
any facts that have yet been brought to light. The
interest created by the trial was greatly imbittered
by partisan influences. Many of the Federalists,
having taken Buee into favor, and not being dis
posed, perhaps, to censure any conspiracy that
threatened ruin to the Jefferson government, be
came zealous champions of the accused. On the
other hand, the Democratic party, feeling that the
honor of the Administration required a thorough
ventilation of the plot, exerted itself to procure his
con\dction. The progress of the trial gave rise to many ru
mors, which the dispassionate historian will proba
bly disregard, unless subsequent disclosures shall
lend confirmation to some of them. " So extensive
and so powerful was the conspiracy found to be,
and so wide-spread appeared to be the sympathy
of the South with the prisoners, that it was feared
at one time during the trial that, whether the ar
raigned were condemned or acquitted, the enter
prise would in some way be resumed. It was*
currently understood that prominent men at the
South, who were as deeply implicated as Colonel
Buee, and who were in fact the originators of the
* Burr's Trial, Eeported by David Robertson, Esq., Vol. H. pp.' 446,
447.

152 THE rebellion of the barons.
plot, were not arrested because it was not deemed
prudent to proceed further. Among other rumors,
one was that Colonel Burr was about to turn
state's evidence against some of them, to procure
indemnity for himself."

II.
THE IMAGE OF A SOUTHERN EMPIRE. — NULLIFICATION.
Whethbe the South was extensively implicated
in Bure's conspiracy or not, it is certain that the
image of a Southern Empire, which he was proba
bly the first to evoke, never faded from the South
ern imagination. It has remained from that day
a sort of political and social ideal, which time was
to fulfil, and the genius of the South realize, when
ever the nation should decide that her peculiar
interest was no longer to be paramount in the
Union. From the earliest intrigues of the slave
holders for the dismemberment of Mexico to the
late efforts of Walkee to pioneer slavery into Cen
tral America, the rapacious craft of the oligarchy ,
has been aiming at the organization of a vast pol- j
ity on the model of Aaeon Buee's exploded enter
prise. In every epoch of sectional excitement, in every
period of discontent with the Federal Government,
this idea of separation from the Republic, and the ,
establishment of an independent confederacy,* has '
been revived and propagated. In 1818, in the
great struggle on the Missouri question, the disso
lution of the Union was threatened, and probably
7*

154 THE EEBELLION OF THE BAEONS.
meditated. Jefferson and others evidently con
sidered the disastrous event as then impending.
In 1825, when the State of Georgia was brought
in collision with the Federal Government on the
question of making war upon the Indian tribes, the
Southern Confederacy was foreshadowed in lan
guage pregnant with insurrection. " The hour is
come, or is rapidly approaching, when the States
from Virginia to Georgia, from Missouri to Louisi
ana, must CONFEDERATE, and as one man say to the
Union : ' We will no longer submit our constitu
tional rights to bad men in Congress or on judicial
benches,' " (the Supreme Court not having then
espoused the slave-holding interest). " ' The pow
ers necessary to the protection of the confederated
States from enemies without and within, and these
alone, were confided to the United Government.' "
Again, in 1830, when the South had failed to
coerce the Federal Government into a reduction or
abolition of the tariff, South Carolina, under the
direction of Mr. Calhoun, then Vice-President,
ran up the seditious banner of Nullification, " for
bade all levy of imposts under the regulations of
the tariff, and refused to recognize the appeal
which might be made to the Federal courts, declar
ing that South Carolina ' acknowledges no tribu
nal upon earth above her authority.' " About the
tima of the passage of this decree, Mr. Calhoun
gave expression to that fruitful sentence which
has developed, in the genial atmosphere of the
South, into the practical doctrine of Secession :

nullification. 155
" The Constitution is a compact to which the
States were parties in their sovereign capacity;
now, whenever a compact is entered into by par
ties which acknowledge no tribunal above their au
thority to decide in the last resort, each of them
has a right to judge for itself in relation to the
nature, extent, and obligations of the instrument."
The practical comment of the Palmetto State
upon these doctrines of her Legislature and her
favorite chief, was to fill her towns with the clamor
of military preparation, and fling out her seditious
ensigns. Blue cockades and palmetto buttons
were displayed. A red flag was unfurled, with a
lone black star in the centre. The Federal ban
ner was exhibited with the stars downward. Med
als were struck, bearing the inscription, " John
C. Calhoun, First President of the Southern Con
federacy I "
To avert the threatened insurrection, General
Jackson strengthened the military posts in the
rebellious State, and stationed a naval force off
Charleston. In talking over the aspect of affairs,
he said to General Dale : " If this thing goes on,
our country will be like a bag of meal with both
ends open. Pick it up in the middle or endwise,
and it will run out. I must tie the bag, and save
the country." When questioned, on his death
bed, as to what he would have done with Calhoun
and the NuUifiers in case they had persisted, he
promptly answered : " Hung them, sir, as high
as Haman. They should have been a terror to

156 the rebellion of the baeons.
traitors to all time, and posterity would have pro
nounced it the best act of my life."
Posterity must indeed regret, that, instead of
the vigorous measures which the President seemed
inclined to adopt, a spirit of timidity and compro
mise was exhibited toward the insurgents. The
pusillanimous attitude of the Federal Government,
at that time quailing before a rebellious State, bore
appropriate fruit, thirty years later, in the treason
able act of Secession, and in the piratical seizure
of the property of the nation.

III.
PECULIAE SOCIAL SYSTEM OF THE SOUTH. — THE
REBELLION THE LOGICAL RESULT.
These disunion tendencies have been awakened
and stimulated, as no man can reasonably doubt,
by that despotic principle which has always been
supreme at the South, and of which slavery is the
popular manifestation. That principle had already
become so potent, in the days of the Revolution,
that South Carolina had been induced only by
laborious efforts to adopt the Declaration of In
dependence, and had not been restrained, in the
struggle that ensued, from tendering her submis
sion to the British crown.* The same principle
had been so far dominant in the Southern mind,
in the days of the Constitutional Convention, that
Me. Rutledge, of South Carolina, had said, while
opposing a tax on the importation of slaves : " The
true question at present is, whether Southern
States shall or shall not be parties to the Union."
And Me. Pinckney had foUowed with the odious
sentiment, that South Carolina would never re
ceive the Constitution if it prohibited the slave-
trade.f ** Hon. Charles Sumner's Address at Cooper Institute, Nov. 27, 1861. ¦
Compare Hildreth's History, Vol. III. p. 280.
t Elliott's Debates, Vol. V. p. 457.

158 THE EEBELLION OF THE BARONS.
As far back as March, 1776, John Adams had
declared, — writing to General Gates, •— " All our
misfortunes arise from a single source, the resist
ance of the Southern Colonies to republican gov
ernment." And he adds, that " popular principles
and axioms are abhorrent to the inclinations of
the Baeons of the South." *
Facts have come to light during only the past
year which conclusively show that the idea of dis
membering the Union had been for a long time
the settled purpose of the Southern leaders, and
that, too, without respect to the conduct of the
North, — the alleged grievances being only pre
texts to cover this all-pervading policy of rebellion,
and gloss the odious atrocity of treason.
In a confidential letter written by Jackson, in
1833, and only recently made public, he says, in
allusion to the Nullification movement : " The
Tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and a
Southeen Confedeeacy the real object. The next
pretext will be the negro or slavery ques
tion." The statement of Jackson is most emphatically
confirmed by the confessions made in the Rebel
Convention of South Carolina. Mr. Packeb re
minds his fellow-traitors, that " Secession is no
spasmodic effort that has come suddenly upon us.
It has been gradually culminating for a long series
of years." Me. Inglis said: "Most of us have
had this subject under consideration for the last
* John Adams's Works, Vol. I. p. 207.

PECULIAR social SYSTEM OF THE SOUTH. 159
twenty years." Me. Keitt ardently declared : " I
have been engaged in this movement ever since
I entered political life." Me. Rhett confessed:
" It is nothing produced by Me. Lincoln's elec
tion, or the non-execution of the Fugitive Slave
Law. It is a matter which has been gathering
head for thirty years."
The real ground of Southern discontent, the
true spring of the movement for dissolution, has
been candidly admitted by De. Smythe, of Charles
ton : " It is not the election of a Republican Presi
dent, nor the non-execution of the Fugitive Slave
Law. The real difficulty lies far back of these
things. It consists in the atheistic. Red Repub
lican doctrine of the Declaration of Independence ;
and until this is trampled under foot, there can
be no peace." * Here we have the ultimatum of
despotism ; the entire abrogation of liberty as the
condition of peace !
It may be readily seen how the growth of this
conspiracy resulted inevitably from the social
system of the South. As the devotion of those
communities to slavery became confirmed by com
mercial cupidity and the interests of political am
bition, — as a degenerate sentiment began to rally
in defence of slavery, as a lawful and permanent
institution, — as the moral sense became coerced
into an acceptance of the system, and the popu
lar passions enlisted in its perpetuity, — it re-
* Quoted from memory.

160 the EEBELLION OF THE BAEONS.
suited of necessity that the entire South should
assume an attitude of vigilance, of suspicion, and
of hostility toward whatever influences appeared
to endanger her precarious possessions. The in
compatibility of the slave system with the most
obvious principles of a republican government
could hardly fail to have been detected, at an
early day, by the wakeful guardians of the slave
power. The very form, the paramount ideas, of
the Federal Government, — to say nothing of
the well-known opinions of most of its framers,
— were seen to be hostile to slavery. It was
felt from the first, that, under such a govern
ment, slavery could hope only for a precarious
toleration ; and that, if the people were ever to
demand a general enforcement of its principles,
the incongruous system must be swept from the
land. It subsisted, thus far, by the sufferance
of the nation, rather than by any legitimate au
thority that could be justly claimed for its sup
port. All legitimate authority was against it,
because the common law, the national law, na
ture, and conscience were against it. It was a
licentious robber, bolted within one of the apart
ments of the house, defying the magistrate, it is
true, but fearfully exposed to the slumbering jus
tice which he was authorized to execute. Who
could tell when that righteous Christian sentiment
which abhors slavery as the foulest of wrongs,
omnipotent already in other countries, might at
tain so great an ascendency in this, as to demand

PECULUE SOCIAL SYSTEM OF THE SOUTH. 161
the abolition of the gigantic iniquity ? What per
manent safety could be found for the slave sys
tem, except by sundering the States that nourished
it from the dangerous contagion of a free nation,
and casting off the authority of the Constitution,
whose avowed object it is to establish justice and
secure the blessings of liberty ?
Moreover, though the American people had
hitherto been induced to favor slavery, by a series
of astonishing concessions to its illegal demands,
the irrepressible tendency of free society had
brought the slave system into condemnation. De
fer to slavery as tamely as men would, — apologize,
intrigue, and vote for it as they might, — they could
not change those laws of the Almighty which
bring blessings upon free labor, and all the glo
ries of civilization to free States, while they in
fuse curses into the profits of tyranny, and sink
the empire that espouses it into barbarism. It
had become plain that no craft could tamper with
the equity of Providence, however shamefully de
praved might become the government. That
dread equity had drawn a black judicial line be
tween the free and slave States, displaying on
one side thrift, refinement, intelligence, order,
and the tender charities that spring from Chris
tian culture, and disclosing on the other, indi
gence, brutality, ignorance, incipient anarchy, and
heathen cruelty.
A contrast so vivid, in which God had appar
ently impressed his approval of freedom and his

162 THE REBELLION OF THE BAEONS.
detestation of tyranny, was not to be withstood
without imminent peril of the eventful judgment
of man's awakened conscience and reason. The
preservation of slavery required that it should
be rescued from the condemnatibn of such a
contrast; shielded from the competition of free
labor; furnished with clear constitutional sanc
tions, and invested with the spoils of Mexico
and Cuba, with whatever additional lands might
be cloven out of the Western Hemisphere to feed
its rapacious lust.
Hence all the fierce impulses of the Southern
blood leaped in the line of Disunion. A besotted
devotion to the slave system, and a fanatical hatred
of the liberal principles embodied in the Republic,
became paramount passions. Secret machinations
to undermine the government, and a growing jeal
ousy and antipathy toward the free States, became
characteristic of the Southern politicians and peo
ple. Adopting the fervid rhetoric of one of their
orators, we may say, that " the lone star of their
empire attracted their political needle to the trop
ics," there to develop a social system grounded on
the everlasting subjugation of the African.
To that infatuated people — lured by the bale
ful phantom their cruelty and pride have evoked
— it has seemed a small thing to become alien
ated from the principles and hopes of the Republic ;
to conspire for thirty years against the life of the
nation that honored them with its confidence, and
to maintain whose authority they had registered

PECULIAR SOCIAL SYSTEM OF THE SOUTH. 163
their oaths in heaven ; to stand before the bar of
mankind as the architects of a new nationality,
based upon the worst form of oppression the world
ever saw, and to become transfixed by the judg
ment of posterity as the most odious enemies of
their race. Such is the fearful madness with which
God humiliates the haughtiness of the wicked,
while justice is arming its ministers to cut them
off from the land.

IV.
THE RIPENING OF THE TREASON.
Meantime, so long as the Federal Government
could be kept subservient to the extension of
slavery, there was no motive for revolting against
it. Inasmuch as that government was mainly
supported by revenue drawn from the free States,
and in consideration of its ductile fidelity to the
slave policy, it was for the interest of the South
still to acknowledge its authority. So long as the
Federal Union could be made the instrument of
slavery with very little comparative expense to the
South, it was almost as convenient as a Southern
Confederacy, and infinitely more economical.
So long as the master of the house evinced no
symptoms of " a change of heart " in favor of
liberty, there was no other reason for blowing up
the edifice than a vindictive desire to injure some
of the servants. Where, in all the slave-holding
dominion, among all the hypothetical representa
tives of the despotic policy, could have been found
two men more zealous for the interests of slavery
than Presidents Pierce and Buchanan? Surely,
the South might afford to possess its soul in pa
tience ; surely, it could safely venture to postpone

THE RIPENING OF THE TEEASON. 165
the perilous experiment of rebellion. It has been
said by persons apparently familiar with the Plu
tonian economy, that the Devil himself rests con
tent when the ablest of his human parasites are
actively furthering his cause.
But the free States were rousing. Burning
words were being spoken, and deaf ears were
being unstopped. Vital ideas were spreading from
heart to heart, and the ghastly sepulchre of De
mocracy was giving up its dead. There were
rising portents gathering in the Northern sky, that
troubled the astrologers of the South. The emer
gency called for extreme measures. To break the
Missouri contract, and pour slavery into the North
west ; to plant the death-bearing vine on the slopes
of the Pacific ; to nationalize kidnapping by turn
ing the Federal law into a slave code ; and to
legalize the claim of property in man, in all the
States and Territories, became the characteristic
policy of the South. Failing in these measures,
the tocsin of rebellion was to sound, and the black
bird of treason batten on the dismembered nation.
In the struggle that ensued, the malignant
nature of slavery was appallingly disclosed in its
final efforts to maintain its ascendency. On the
floor of Congress, in California, in Kansas, and in
the courts of the slave-hunter, — under the exas
perating conviction that the sceptre was departing
from its control, — it perpetrated atrocities that
amazed mankind. Nor were the most illustrious
of our Senators safe from the bludgeon discipline

166 THE REBELLION OF THE BARONS.
which that despotism would fain have instituted in
the haUs of the Capitol.
The election of 1856, though it resulted in a
new lease of power to the slave oligarchy, gave
sure indications that a new dynasty was at hand.
Such was the temper of the free States, and so
vigorous and resolute had the spirit of liberty be
come, that it was morally certain a new policy
must be initiated at no distant day. The time had
come for the South to translate her treasonable
theories into practical rebellion. The time had
come to destroy the government which was about
to be rescued from prostitution. The time had
come to realize the long-cherished dream of a
Southern Confederacy, to be built out of the
wreck, and enriched by the plunder, of the Fed
eral Union.

FINAL ORGANIZATION OF THE PLOT IN MR. BUCHAN
AN'S CABINET.

Never had a gigantic conspiracy such liberal
opportunity. Never had traitors such tremendous
immunities. The government that was to be dis
organized, the Republic that was to be dismem
bered, were wholly in the power of the Southern
rebels and their Northern abettors.
The Cabinet of Me. Buchanan was honeycombed
by this perfidious conspiracy. The Secretary of
the Treasury was a slave-holder from Georgia ;
the Secretary of the Interior was a slave-holder
from Mississippi ; and the Secretary of War was
a slave-holder from Virginia ; — these men were
all indefatigable in the work of treason. The
Secretary of the Navy was a Northern man ; but
he seems not to have hesitated on that account to
lend his active services to the plot. Among the
four traitor Secretaries, Me. Floyd, of Virginia,
claims the pre-eminence in crime, — the revela
tions of his Department having proved him an
adept in all grades of villany, extending from
grand larceny to high treason. But what shall
be the verdict of posterity on the conduct of the

168 THE EEBELLION OF THE BAEONS.
venerable President, who, during those years of
maturing rebellion, was in the closest official inti
macy with the conspirators ? Was he so far de
mented as not to be aware of the nature of the
enterprise that-occupied the chief care of his Cabi
net ; or was he so irretrievably committed to the
oligarchy that had elevated him, as to deliberately
pledge his high prerogative to the ruin of the na
tion he had sworn to serve ?
As Mr. Lincoln's election became more and
more probable, the conspiracy rapidly matured
under the direction of the recreant functionaries
who were depraving the highest Federal powers to
its service. " Never before in any country was there
a similar crime which embraced so many persons
in the highest places of power, or which took with
in its grasp so large a theatre of human action."
By a series of secret measures concerted and
directed by the Cabinet, almost every available
resource was withdrawn from the government, in
anticipation of its passing under a new administra
tion. In the first place, " the army of the United
States was so far dispersed and exiled that the
commander-in-chief found it difficult, during the
recent anxious winter, to bring together a thou
sand troops for the defence of the national capital,
menaced by the conspirators." A similar dispo
sition was made of the navy, so " that on the 4th
of March, when the new Administration came into
power, there were no ships to enforce the laws,
collect the revenues, or protect the national prop-

THE PLOT IN MR. BUCHANAN'S CABINET. 169
erty in the rebel ports." Out of seventy-two war-
vessels that comprised the American navy, the
judicious Secretary of that Department had left
at home, for the emergency of the rebellion, the
steamer Brooklyn, with twenty-five guns, and the
store-ship Relief, armed with two guns. In the
next place, " the forts on the extensive Southern
coast were so far abandoned by the public force
that the larger part — counting upwards of twelve
hundred cannons, and built at a cost of upwards
of six millions of dollars — became at once an easy
prey to the rebels."
In the progress of these astounding proceedings,
" national arms were transferred from Northern to
Southern arsenals, so as to disarm the free States,
and equip the slave States. This was done on a
large scale. Upwards of one hundred and fifteen
thousand arms of the latest and most improved
pattern were transferred from the Springfield and
Watervliet arsenals to different arsenals in the
slave States, where they have been seized by the
rebels. And a quarter of a million percussion
muskets were sold to various slave States, at two
dollars and a half a musket, when they were worth,
it is said, on an average, twelve dollars. Large
quantities of cannon, mortars, powder, ball, and
shell received the same direction." Finally, " the
national Treasury, which so- recently had been
prosperous beyond example, was disorganized and
plundered to the verge of bankruptcy. Upwards
of six millions are supposed to have been stolen,
s

170 THE EEBELLION OF THE BAEONS.
and much of this treasure doubtless went to help
the work of rebellion." *
Meantime, in the election of 1860, two millions
of American freemen recorded their verdict against
any further toleration of the slave despotism. The
better part of the nation rejoiced in the prospect
of a new political dispensation. Little did they
suspect that their government was already be
trayed to that despotism from whose craft they
fondly trusted they had rescued it ! Little were
they aware that Cabinet Ministers and Senators —
in contempt of their solemn oaths and of every
dictate of honor — had already laid the mine of
treason under a dozen States, and were chuckling
over the prospect of seeing the Union blown into
fragments, as the original seceders in Pandemo
nium hailed -with sardonic rapture the curse that
was to fall upon Eden. By no means could our
people conceive what horrible paradoxes were be
ing exemplified in those last days of the pro-
slavery dynasty, when the very highest organs of
the Republic were ministering death to liberty;
when the vaunting representatives of chivalry glo
ried in betraying their most sacred trusts ; when
the men who sat at the council board of the Chief
Magistrate — esteeming loyalty a farce, and abas
ing truth before craft — were intriguing to super
sede his legally-chosen successor, and to enthrone
a military despotism in the Capitol.
'* Address of Hon. Charles Sumner at Cooper Institute.

VI.
THE DRAMA OF INSURRECTION.
The drama of insurrection — appropriately
opened by South Carolina — rapidly extended to
the other Gulf States. In all those States where
slavery was omnipotent, the rebellion started to its
feet, " like a strong man armed." It mattered not
that those States had been purchased by Federal
treasure, defended by Federal armies, and fostered
by Federal patronage. It mattered not, that, in
their weakness, in their poverty and semi-barbar
ism, the beneficent arms of the Republic had been
cast around them, associating them in the hon
ors and prospects of an illustrious nationality. It
mattered not that, where a Texan refugee, a Mis-
sissippian repudiator, or a hanger of schoolmasters
from Arkansas, would have been held abroad no
better than a freebooter from the Spanish Main,
the indorsement of the great Republic and the
protection of the American flag had covered him
with the immunities of citizenship, and passed him
current round the globe.
With an impudence every way characteristic of
slavery, they asserted the right to abandon, at
their arbitrary pleasure, the Union to which they

172 THE REBELLION OF THE BAEONS.
were so deeply indebted, to appropriate its prop
erty to their own uses, and to throw its great
commercial artery, the Mississippi River, under a
foreign jurisdiction.
In the startling developments of the insurrec
tion, an incredible turpitude of duplicity and
atrocity was unmasked. The crimes that had ma
tured in secret came to be trumpeted from the
house-tops. Men whom the favor of the Republic
had enriched, found the Republic too poor to com
mand their reverence. Men bred to the profession
of arms at the nation's cost, turned their tactics
against the nation's life. Men who had fatted on
the patronage of the government throughout the
long, luxurious day of peace, no sooner saw the
government in danger, than they handed back
their commissions, and stepped over to the rebel
camp! In that most critical hour — when treason
seemed to have undermined every department of
the government — only two eminent officials re
mained faithful to the imperilled Republic. The
Commander-in-Chief, Genbeal Scott, who exerted '
all his energies to protect the capital ; and the
Secretary of State, Genbeal Cass, who is said to
have persuaded the President to maintain the Fed
eral flag at Fort Sumter, merit the unspeakable
praise of having saved the nation, under the mer
ciful providence of God, from falling irretrievably
into the hands of the conspirators.

VII.
THE AGONY OF COMPROMISE.
While the insurrection was making such for
midable progress at the South, the apathy that
pervaded the North was not less remarkable.
During the earliest months of the Rebellion,
our people were mildly debating whether the trai
tors were really in earnest, or whether they were
not playing their favorite game of bluster, for the
purpose of extorting new concessions; whether
they would not presently repent and return, like
the Prodigal ; and whether it was good policy to
coerce them into submission to the laws. Such
blindness to the real issue that had risen — such
insensibility to the actual danger that beset the
national existence — was never witnessed before.
By the time Congress was ready to assemble,
the insurrection was .under fuU head, its defiant
ground boldly taken, and its purposes audaciously
declared. But even yet it was to be fostered and
justified by the depraved Executive, and on no
account resisted or exposed. In the Message of
the President, as if to crown with becoming in
famy a public career devoted to the slave power,
— instead of recognizing the RebeUion in its truly

174 THE REBELLION OF THE BARONS.
atrocious character, and caUing upon Congress to
aid him in subduing it as they valued the nation's
existence, — he proceeded to express open sym
pathy with the insurgents ; to charge upon the
North the responsibility of their acts ; and to
recommend on the part of the free States whole
sale concessions to that aggressive oligarchy al
ready standing armed at the Capitol gate for the
murder of Liberty.
The ensuing proceedings, under the auspices
of the government, that thus caressed its foes and
maligned its friends, were equally inconsistent.
with the crisis, and equally disloyal to the de
mands of the hour. For example, what greater
farce could have been played, to delude a nation
hanging on the brink of ruin, than the Peace
Conference, as it was impertinently named, — a
meeting convened on the motion of the Virginia
rebels, with John Tyler in the chair, — a meet
ing which the North was so far deluded as to
recognize, and to which she sent some of her most
honored citizens ? " The sessions were with closed
doors, but it is now known that throughout the
proceedings, lasting for weeks, nothing was dis
cussed but slavery. And the propositions finally
adopted by the Convention were confined to slav
ery. Forbearing all details, it will be enough to
say that they undertook to give to slavery positive
protection in the Constitution, with new sanction
and immunity, making it — notwithstanding the
determination of our fathers — national instead of

THE AGONY OF COMPEOMISE. 175
sectional ; and even more than this, making it one
of the essential and permanent parts of our Re
publican system  There was another string
of propositions much discussed during the last
winter, which bore the name of the venerable
Senator from whom they came. Me. Ceittenden,
of Kentucky. These also related to slavery, and
nothing else. They were more obnoxious even
than those emanating from the Peace Confer
ence." The aim of these propositions was " to
foist into the Constitution the idea of property
in man ; to protect slavery in all present territory
south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, and
to carry it into all territory hereafter acquired
south of that line ; to give new constitutional
securities to slavery in the national capital, and
in other places within the exclusive Federal juris
diction " ; and to insure the safe transit of slaves
through the free States, thus contaminating every
foot of our soil with the odious sanctions of tyr
anny.* Will the world believe that we were any
longer worthy of liberty, when it is known that
there were men at the North so lost to national
dignity as to petition the Federal Congress to
make that enormous surrender to the arch rebel
and armed enemy of the Republic !
There was still another peace offering tendered
to the defiant rebels ; for the tendency to compro
mise with slavery had become chronic ; and, with
what Edwaed Everett happily terms " a melan-
* Hon. Charles Sumner.

176 THE EEBELLION OF THE BAEONS.
choly assiduity," that craven Congress toiled to
appease the slave-masters. We allude to Me.
Coewin's proposal, which became a legislative act,
" that the Constitution shall not be so amended as
to give Congress the power to abolish or interfere
with slavery in the States."
Thus did the Union humiliate itself before its
enemies, after their character and purposes had
become fully disclosed ! Thus did the Federal
Government, so long subservient to slavery, be
trayed, threatened, and despised, still lick the
wicked hand that was clenched to annihilate it !
Without even affecting to hide the contempt
they felt for the base overtures which had been
made, " the Barons of the South " assembled at
Montgomery, to organize their new government.
Seven States were represented. The action of the
Convention was rapid and decisive. After adopt
ing the Federal Constitution, with a few character
istic modifications, — the rule being to appropriate
everything belonging to their late government that
was available, — it proceeded to organize " the
nucleus of an army and navy," chose a President
and Vice-President, demanded a loan of fifteen
million dollars, levied an export duty on cotton,
declared the Mississippi free, proposed a new tariff
and navigation laws, and claimed a place in the
family of nations as " the Confederate States of
America."

VIII.
THE EIVAL ADMINISTRATIONS INAUGURATED IN THE
DISMEMBERED REPUBLIC.
In his inaugural address, Jefferson Davts dis
creetly avoids unfolding the causes of the Seces
sion movement, but says, explicitly, that " the judg
ment and will of the people are, that connection
with the Northern States is neither practicable nor
desirable " ; and that, " if necessary, we must ob
tain by final arbitrament of the sword the position
we have assumed."
_ We are indebted to the Vice-President, Me.
Stephens, for the frankest exposition of the cardi
nal principle of the new Confederacy. It is such
as we were prepared to expect, from our acquaint
ance with the antecedents of the slave oligarchy.
The principle is, that the supeeioe race must
CONTROL THB INFERIOR; in Other words, that the
strong must own the weak, and that might makes
right. Mr. Stephens, after stating the ideas of
the American Fathers, as embodied in the Declara
tion, — that " all men are created equal, being
endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," —
stigmatizes them as furnishing " a sandy founda-
8* I,

178 the rebellion of the barons.
tion " for society, and declares that the " new
government is founded upon exactly the opposite
ideas. Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone
rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not
equal to the white man ; that slavery — subordina
tion to the superior race — is his natural and
normal condition."
But it is not the subordination of the negro
alone that is contemplated by the rebel govern
ment. We have seen that Henry Clay antici
pated that slavery would survive the negro race ;
and it is clear that the principle on which Southern
society is based, and which is frankly avowed by
Me. Stephens as the corner-stone of the new Con
federacy, would promptly seize the weakest of the
white race, in the absence of the black. In De
Bow's Review, — which is acknowledged to be a
fair organ of Southern opinion, — a writer calls
for "a government based upon the principle of
military subordination." He counsels the rulers
of the South to procure such a modification of the
State constitutions as to " remove the people fur
ther from power," and establish " an hereditary
Senate and Executive."
These views, so consonant with the fundamental
principle of the rebel government, have been acted
upon in all the seceded States, — not only by the
armed despotism which has impelled those States
on the tide of treason, while expelling the loyal
inhabitants from their borders, but in some legisla
tive enactments tending to a monopoly of social
privileges and rights.

the rival administrations. 179
In harmony with this cardinal law of the slave
empire was the secret programme of the ensuing
tragedy. The Capitol and the national archives
were to be seized as early as March ; the Plug-
Uglies of Baltimore were to bring in Mr. Lin-'
coln's head upon a charger, while the daughter
of Discord danced before the embodiment of Des
potism; on the Fourth of July, the insurgents
were to hold high carnival in Independence Hall ;
and the early autumn was to behold them hanging
Abolitionists on Bunker Hill, — while the Christians
nations of Europe, converted by the gospel of the
London Times, were to render homage to King
Cotton by recognizing the gigantic usurpation.
Fortunately for the country, there was an in
visible agency — never absent from human affairs,
but of which bad men make no account — that was
silently thwarting the atrocious plot. Jefferson
Davis and his satellites were born too late by five
hundred years. The providence of God, which
develops out of successive cycles an ever-aug
menting sum of good for man, could not allow a
type of government indigenous to the Middle Ages
to become interpolated into the nobler text of the
nineteenth century ._JWe_Q-5ve our rescue from the
greatest crime ever meditated against civilization
to the simple fact that the Divine order could not
tolerate so violent an anachronism.
A change in the rebel programme may be traced
to "the sudden act of Majoe Andeeson in re-

180 THE EEBELLION OF THE BARONS.
moving from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, and
'¦ the sympathetic response of an aroused people."
In that apparently trivial circumstance, the Re
bellion received its first check. Washington was
saved. The President elect, passing in disguise
f through seditious Baltimore, eluded the assassins,
and reached the capital in safety. There the
veteran Scott, beset by spies and traitors, was
rallying the " forlorn hope " of the nation. There
the retiring chief magistrate, bending under the
I contempt of his country, having prostituted every
official prerogative to further the conspiracy, de
clared himself willing to ride -with the new Presi
dent to his inauguration. There were assembled
excited citizens from aU the loyal States, to wit
ness the national ceremony which all felt was
liable to end in a tragedy.
Never before had Washington presented so
mournful and impressive a scene. " Around that
tall, ungainly figure, which stood upon the steps
of the Capitol above the multitude, more of fear,
anxiety, and hope clustered than above any
former President." He was himself penetrated
by the solemnity of the moment. He had en
tered upon a course " the issues of which were
hidden by the darkest clouds which had ever
hung over his country. He saw the Union dis
membered, full of dissension and full of fear, and
realized that upon him more than upon any other
man rested its future destinies. He saw arrayed

THE EIVAL ADMENISTEATIONS. 181
against his rule a band of rebellious States ; he
saw that during his administration the strength
of the government would be tested, -^ that Provi
dence had called him to preside over the changes
of a great historical epoch, and that the eyes of
the civilized world were upon him. For the first
time in American history, bayonets bristled and
cannon frowned around the Federal Capitol. Fa
miliar faces were seen no more ; friends, whose
presence had lent lustre to many preceding in
augurations, in distant States were ranged in the
malignant attitude of foes; and every ear was
strained to hear whether
' The long, stern swell
Which bids the soldier close '
were coming up on the soft southern breezes.
Seven States had seceded, others were hanging
to the Union by a thread ; — forts, arsenals, mints,
sub-treasuries had been seized ; Forts Sumter and
Pickens were beleaguered; — insurgents were in
possession of nearly every stronghold on the At
lantic, from North Carolina to the Texan frontier ;
and a hostile Congress and President, sitting at
Montgomery, were providing the sinews of war,
and threatening an appeal to the bloody arbitra
ment of the sword."

IX.
COMPEOMISE ENDS, AND THE NEW EEA BEGINS.
In this unexampled exigency, the Inaugural
Address of the new President was heard by the
American people with an interest unfelt before.
With all our partiality for the nation's choice,
and with an unshaken confidence in the integrity
; of the man, we cannot admit that the Address
was equal to the occasion, in any sense.
It failed to recognize the true character of the
conspiracy ; it undertook to argue down an armed
rebellion, pervading nearly half the area of the
country ; it asserted that the laws must be exe
cuted in all the States, but disclaimed the inten
tion of resorting to arms unless the rebels first
drew the sword ; and, worse than all, it affirmed
the obligation of the statute for the rendition of
fugitive slaves ; thus holding out another fruit
less concession to that disdainful oligarchy, which
it was obvious nothing could reach but the terrors
of the law they had violated and contemned.
It may be urged, however, in justification of
the pacific tone of the Inaugural Address, that the
conciliatory policy thus intimated was deemed ne-

COMPROMISE ENDS, AND THE NEW ERA BEGINS. 183
cessary to retain the border States from drifting
into the baleful current of Secession ; and that
the President consulted his official dignity by for
bearing to menace the traitors so long as the de
moralized government furnished him no resources
to enforce his authority. The critical ground on
which Mr. Lincoln confessedly stood, as well as
the limitations of our common nature, will doubt
less excuse him at the tribunal of history for
the utterance of words so disproportionate to the
emergency, and for an apparent reliance upon
bland admonitions, which the turpitude of the
Rebellion had rendered obviously impotent.
The pacificating policy ended with the assault
upon Fort Sumter. The civil war, which saga
cious men had long foreseen to be inevitable, was
formally initiated when the national flag was
struck from that fortress.
The two antagonistic systems, whose moral col
lision had formed the drama of our politics, had
now closed in a physical conflict which could re
sult only in the annihilation of one of them.
The Barons of the South had made their delib
erate appeal to the sword, as the champions of a
worse than feudal despotism; and time alone
could declare whether Liberty would find effectual
succor in the degenerate Repubhc.

PART V.
THE PROVIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.

" For Civil War, that it is an evil I dispute not. But that it is the
greatest of evils, that I stoutly deny. It doth indeed appear to the
misj'udging to be a worse calamity than bad government, because its
miseries are collected within a -short space and time, and may easily,
at one view, be taken iu and perceived  When the devil of
Tyranny hath gone into the body politic, he departs not but with
struggles, and foaming, and great convulsions. Shall he, therefore,
vex it forever, lest, in going out, he for a moment tear and rend it? "
— Milton.
" It is impossible for a nation, even while struggling for itself, not to
acquire something for all mankind." — Motley.
" Horrid, atrocious, and impious Slavery covered with her sable
mantle the land of Venezuela, and our atmosphere lowered with the
dark, gloomy clouds of the tempest, threatening a fiery deluge. I
implored the protection of the God of nature, and at His almighty
word the storm was dispelled. The day-star of Liberty arose. Slav
ery broke her chains, and Venezuela was surrounded with new and
grateful sons, who tumed the instruments of her thrall and bondage
into the arms of Freedom. Yes, those who were formerly slaves are
now free ; those who were formerly enemies of our country are now
its defenders. I leave to your sovereign authority the reform or re
peal of all my ordinances, statutes, and decrees. But I implore you
to confirm the complete emancipation of the slaves, as I would beg
my life or the salvation of the Eepublic." — General Bolivar to
the Congress of Venezuela.
"As God lives and reigns, either this nation will abol
ish SLAVERY, OE SLAVERY WILL ABOLISH IT ! " — HON. GekRIT
Smith.

" Then Freedom sternly said: ' I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
When human rights are staked and won.
" ' I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock,
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.
" ' The moor of Marston felt my tread.
Through Jersey snows the march I led.
My voice Magenta's charges sped.
" ' But now, through weary day and night,
I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.
" ' On either side my foe they won :
One guards through love his ghastly throne,
And one through fear to reverence grown.
" ' Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed
By open foes or those afraid
To speed thy coming through my aid ?
" ' Why watch to see who win or fall ? —
I shake the dust against them all,
I leave them to their senseless brawl.'
" ' Nay,' Peace implored : ' yet longer wait ;
The doom is near, the stake is great;
God knoweth if it be too late.
" ' StiU wait and watch; the way prepare
Where I with folded wings of prayer
May follow, weaponless and bare.'
" ' Too late ! ' the stern, sad voice replied,
' Too late ! ' its mournful echo sighed,
In low lament the answer died.
" A rustling as of wings in flight,
An upward gleam of lessening white,
So passed the vision, sound and sight.
" But round me, like a silver bell
Rung down the listening sky to tell
Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.
" ' Still hope and trust,' it sang; ' the rod
Must fall, the wine-press must be trod.
But all is possible with God ! '" John G. Whittier.

GLOOMY ASPECT OF THE STRUGGLE.
The Rebellion that put off its disguise and as
sumed the defiant panoply of war in April last,
extended over an area of 733,144 square miles.
It possessed a coast line of 3,523 miles, and a
shore line of 25,414 miles, with an interior boun
dary line of 7,031 miles in length.* From the im
mense region here indicated, it boasted that it
could enlist and place in the field 600,000 men.
To oppose an insurrection covering such space
of territory, and embracing an armed force among
the largest ever marshalled in war, what resources
did the nation possess ? The Rebellion had, under
the toleration and by the connivance of the late
Administration, scattered the navy of the United
States to the uttermost parts of the globe ; demor
alized and betrayed the army ; stripped the loyal
States of arms to equip those embarked in the in
surrection ; obtained possession of about every
fortress, arsenal, sub-treasury, mint, within the
lines of the conspiracy ; completely plundered
the United States Treasury, and sapped with trea-
* Report of the Secretary of War, December, 1861.

188 the PROVIDENTLA.L ALTERNATIVE.
son all the piUars of the Republic. In short, while
the Rebellion was affluent in every material re
source, — resolute, sanguine, rapacious, vigilant,
indefatigable, — the Union was literally despoiled,
the new government defenceless, apparently vacil
lating, temporizing with its unmeasured fate, em
barrassed in every function, and so completely
girded by sedition and anarchy, that some of the
earliest troops — hastening from a free State to its
rescue — fell victims to rebel treachery in the
streets of Baltimore.
Under these gloomy auspices, the great struggle
commenced. On one side, the oligarchy of Slave
Barons, armed and aggrandized with the stolen
resources of the nation ; on the other, the dis
mantled Republic, with no reliance but a plun
dered government and the patriotic loyalty of the
legitimate heirs of freedom. To the outward -view,
never was a great conflict begun under so great a
disparity of resources.

II.

THE EEBELLION VULNERABLE THROUGH SLAVEEY.
And yet it was evident from the first, to all who
apprehended the real animus of the contest, that
the Rebellion presented one vulnerable point, where
it was easy to strike it a mortal blow. Slavery was
the notorious spring of the Rebellion. The motive
power of the Rebellion was the heart-beat of slav
ery, aspiring to crush the continent in its snaky
embrace. Let the Federal power, in the exercise
of either its civil or military prerogative, launch
one resolute, mortal shaft into the heart of slavery,
and the Rebellion would sink lifeless in a day.
It was observed that the degree to which people
were enamored of slavery described the exact ex
tent of their devotion to the Rebellion. Thus South
Carolina and Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi,
Louisiana and Texas, are the States most ardently
espoused to slavery ; and these, accordingly, were
the chief seats of the great conspiracy. In the
States less interested in slavery — North Carolina,
Tennessee, Virginia — the Rebellion found less en
couragement, and prevailed only by a process of
despotic intimidation and mobocratic violence. In

190 THE PROVIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
those border States — Maryland, Kentucky, and
Missouri — where the popular interest in slavery is
comparatively lukewarm, all efforts to achieve dis
union were defeated, although the slave element
in those States, creating sympathies and animosi
ties favorable to the Rebellion, has faithfuUy suc
cored and abetted the cause to which it bears
affinity. It was observed, also, that the cardinal doctrine
of the Rebellion — the alleged right of a State to
nullify the Federal Constitution and sever its con
nection with the Union — was a logical outgrowth
of that usurpation which slavery involves. The
doctrine " belongs to that brood of assumptions and
perversions of which slavery is the prolific parent.
Wherever slavery prevails, this pretended right is
recognized, and generaUy with an intensity pro
portioned to the prevalence of slavery, — as, for
instance, in South Carolina and Mississippi more
intensely than in Tennessee and Kentucky. It
may be considered a fixed part of the slave-hold
ing system. A pretended right to set aside the
Constitution to the extent of breaking up the gov
ernment, is the natural companion to the pretended
right to set aside human nature to the extent of
making merchandise of men." The doctrine of
Secession is instinct with the lawlessness of slavery.
The system that finds toleration in the crime of
overthrowing the very nature of man could not be
expected to hesitate in overturning a mere form of
government. The greater crime which our nation

THE EEBELLION VULNEEABLE THROUGH SLAVERY. 191
had consented to ignore includes the less which
has startled us from our apathy.
It was notorious that the extension and protec
tion of slavery furnished the sole motive to the
Rebellion. But for the perpetuity of slavery, there
could never have been any incentive to secession,
or any conflict of interest in the nation. Only
let the terrors of our violated federal law fall upon
slavery, the clearly convicted criminal, — only let
it suffer the destruction which its crimes had justly
provoked, — and all the hopes that inspired and
nourished the Rebellion must likewise perish.
The slave system being annihilated, the project
of a Southern Confederacy having slavery for its
corner-stone would be forever dissipated. The one
only impediment to Union would be removed, — the
stone of offence, the element of discord, the arch-
author of sedition, would be swept from the land,
— leaving to the Northern and Southern sections
of the Republic a common interest, a kindred am
bition, and a united career of prosperity and glory.
These considerations were so obvious that they
flashed through the minds of thoughtful men at
the very opening of the drama, and revealed to
them what appeared to be the imperative policy
of the government. God had put the duty of our
rulers before the people in so clear a light that it
seemed no prejudice or casuistry would be able to
hide it. He had so disposed events as to make the
rescue of the nation dependent on the destruction
of slavery ; while he had obviously connected the

192 THE PROVIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
preservation of slavery with the annihilation of the
Union. Surely now there could be no hesitation.
The fate of the slave had become identified with
the fate of the Republic. A decree of national
justice had become the indispensable means of
national redemption. The law of self-preservation
had become the law of liberty.

III.
IMPRACTICABLE POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. — PRO
TECTING SLAVERY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE UNION.
— DESTROYING THE NATION TO SAVE ITS CONSTITU
TION. Will a future generation be able to credit the
amazing fact, that — during the earlier months of
the war — our Government apparently ignored all
these considerations, sedulously affected to over
look the criminality of slavery as the chief agency
and paramount interest of the Rebellion, and at
tempted a fallacious discrimination between the
overt act of treason and the instigating cause and
covert inspiration thereof? Yet such was the
suicidal policy under which our first battalions,
obeying the summons of their country, were led to
the unequal conflict !
It was officially announced, and vehemently af
firmed, that the sole object of the war was to
subdue the Rebellion and maintain the Constitu
tion, — the latter clause being popularly under
stood to include a guaranty of the perpetuity of
slave-holding ! The veteran retainers of the slave
Barons, at the North, were willing to sustain the
government, on the implied condition that the
government should still sustain slavery ; but they

194 THE PROVIDENTLA.L ALTERNATIVE.
stipulated, tenaciously, that the war against the
rebels should not become " an Abolition crusade."
The loyal press, accurately reflecting the policy of
the Administration, proclaimed to the world — as
often as the world gave signs of being incredulous
— that it was by no means the object of the war to
abolish slavery, but simply to put down the Rebel
lion ; although it was perfectly obvious, all the
while, that, if the Rebellion were really subdued,
the ulcer that emitted this virus of treason must
be extracted from the body politic.
Whenever a man ventured to intimate, here and
there, that this pretended distinction between the
Rebellion and slavery was purely factitious, — like
the attempt to discriminate between the hand that
strikes you and the will that dictates the blow, —
he was sharply reminded that this was exclusively
a war for the Union, and that in ^ maintaining the
Union we upheld the "constitutional rights" of
all the citizens, — the term " constitutional rights "
being a delicate expression to indicate the sup
posed right of slave-holders to property in ne
groes !
But this illusive distinction, so irrational in
theory, became absolutely pernicious in practice.
Our generals, while ostensibly marching against
the rebels, still paid fealty to the chief rebel by
sending back fugitive slaves. Genbeal Butlee in
Maryland, and General McClellan in Virginia,
took pains to assure the country that their espousal
to the Union did not qualify the allegiance they
owed to slavery.

DESTROYING THE NATION. 195
But these gentlemen were not insensible to the
admonition of events, and soon ceased to degrade
their military functions to the service of the slave
holders; whereas General Kelley in Western
Virginia, and General Halleck in Missouri, six
months after the opening of the war, were still so
far infatuated — if they were not misrepresented
by the press — as to permit the flag of the Union
to shelter the kidnapper. Such acts involve the
highest moral treason to the cause of the Republic ;
they give virtual " aid and comfort" to the rebels,
because they indicate sympathy for the odious sys
tem which is the spring and motive power of the
insurrection. Wherever they have been commit
ted, the cause of the Union has been weakened
and scandalized ; for if the cause of the Union be
not the cause of liberty, in opposition to that chat
tel slavery which the Rebellion aims to perpetuate,
in the name of God, why are we resisting the
Rebellion ?
But — the " constitutional rights " aforesaid ?
If the -view of the Constitution which we have
advocated in this essay be correct, that phrase
cannot fairly be said to cover any right to prop
erty in men. But, admitting that it does, is it not
enough to reply, that the Constitution contem
plates no such crisis as this ? that it were madness
to preserve a Constitution at the price of sacrificing
the nation to which it belongs ? and that the dic
tates of self-preservation, among sane people, take
precedence of technicalities ? When your life is

196 THE PROATIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
beset by robbers, is that man your friend who,
instead of springing to your rescue and assailing
the assassins with any weapon he can lay his
hands upon, contents himself with getting up a
certificate of your moral character, and proving
that you merit fair treatment ? No more is that
government true to its country's real need when
the life of the nation is beset, if it limit its efforts
to the technicalities of a Constitution, and, so ham
pered, fail to deal upon the enemy an effective
blow. Of what avail is it to sedulously shelter the
Constitution, while the nation expires ? Whereas
if the nation be rescued, though by a violation of
the Constitution, the emergency pleads for the tech
nical illegality, and there is ample opportunity to
restore the law. It is unlawful to inflict violence
upon an unoffending man ; yet, in an emergency
which the law does not foresee, you may snatch
him from fire or water by the hair of his head.
All attempts to ustify the government in protect
ing slavery, by pleading supposed constitutional
sanctions, amount to simple nonsense. If slavery
had not forfeited whatever protection it was wont
to claim under the Constitution, then no pirate
ever forfeited his life to an outraged law.

IV.

THE PROGRAMME OP THE PEESIDENT, AND THE LESSON
OF EVENTS.

These persistent attempts to shelter slavery,
while affecting to destroy the Rebellion of which
slavery is the soul, demonstrate the loathsome
subserviency to which the Republic had bent. It
is claimed that this unnatural policy of the Ad
ministration was the imperative requirement of
public opinion in this country, and we do not feel
authorized to doubt it; for the land had fallen
into a superstition kindred to the worst debase
ment of heathenism ; and, as the crocodile was
sacred to the Egyptians, and the wolf to the Ro
mans, slavery had become sacred to this nation.
Whatever might suffer besides, slavery must be
protected. To conspire against the Union was
wicked ; to propose the abolition of slavery was
impious. On the scale of criminality, the rebels
were comparatively guilty, the Abolitionists super
latively so !
But events qualify all programmes, — especially
such as were arranged on the basis of expedi
ency. When General Butler, at Fortress Mon
roe, found some hundreds of fugitives claiming the

198 THE peovidential alternative.
hospitality of the Republic, the voice of humanity
and the dictates of common sense — backed by a
seasonable admonition from Massachusetts — re
quired a change of policy. Whether the fugitives
were men, and therefore entitled to the protection
of the army ostensibly enlisted for freedom, was a
point which the judicious General blandly waived ;
but, men or property, nobody could deny that
they were " contraband," — being claimed by
rebel masters, — capable of being employed for the
government or against it, and in that character
might be safely sheltered by the American flag.
The sympathetic response to this shrewd decision
which came back to him from all the free States
assured General Butler that the heart of the na
tion was ready to sanction whatever blows might
be inflicted upon slavery, with due regard to the
" constitutional rights " of the slave-masters.
Meantime, the army of the Potomac adhered
to the original policy ; and Congress, sitting in
special session, seemed reluctant to implicate the
Republic in any act of hostility to slavery.
On the eve of the ill-fated march upon Manas
sas, the following general order was issued from
the Department of Washington : —
" Headquarters, Department of Washington,
Washington, D. C, July 17, 1861.
"General Orders, No. 33.]
" Fugitive slaves will under no pretext what
ever be permitted to reside, or be in any way har-

THE PROGRAMME OF THE PRESIDENT. 199
bored, in the quarters and camps of the troops
serving in this Department. Neither will such
slaves be allowed to accompany troops on the
march. Commanders of troops will be held re
sponsible for a strict observance of the order.
" By command of
Brig.-Gen. Mansfield.
"Theo. Talbot, Assist. Adj. -General."
Now, among the fugitives thus officially excluded
from the camp there were doubtless men whose
sagacity, fidelity, and intimate knowledge of the
country would have been of the highest service
to the army, and who might, indeed, have averted
from us, by seasonable information and warning,
the havoc and shame of the dreadful defeat which
followed. But our natural allies were repelled,
contrary to every suggestion of common sense,
and our army led blindfold, as it were, into the
rebel trap, because the government preferred to
peril its devoted volunteers to inflicting any dam
age upon slavery ! Those who believe that God
punishes the perverseness of nations by special
judgments will be confirmed in their conviction
by the example of the great calamity which fell
upon the Republic so suddenly after its -violation
of the ob-vious dictates of justice and consistency.
In the providence of God the defeat at Manas
sas helped the country to a wiser appreciation of
the strength of our enemy, and impressed upon
the government the necessity of striking one blow

200 the providential alternative.
at least where he is most vulnerable. " The prop
osition of emancipation which shook ancient Ath
ens, followed close upon the disaster at Cheronaja ;
and the statesman who moved it afterwards vindi
cated himself by saying that it proceeded not from
him, but from Cheronsea. The act of Congress
punishing the rebels by giving freedom to their
slaves employed against us — familiarly known as
the Confiscation Act — passed the Senate on the
morning after the disaster at Manassas."*
Who can doubt that a more tractable spirit — a
wiser readiness to acknowledge the indications of
the Divine -will — might have averted from the
country that calamitous chastisement ? And if we
owe the Confiscation Act to the salutary reverse at
Manassas, we have to lament that the admonition
administered by that defeat was soon forgotten.
Only two days after the rout of our army, while
Washington lay exposed to capture, and while vol
unteers were pouring from the free States to its
defence, the Attorney-General wrote to the United
States Marshal in Kansas, requiring him (much
against his will) to return fugitive slaves to Mis
souri ; and informing him that a neglect to exe
cute the Fugitive Slave Bill would be regarded by
the President as an " official misdemeanor." This
characteristic act was followed up by the letter of
the President, — dictated probably by the remon
strance of Mr. Holt and others of the border
States, — qualifying the proclamation of Genbeal
* Hon. Charles Sumner.

THE PEOGRAMME OF THE PRESIDENT. 201
Fremont, and thereby quenching the most genuine
enthusiasm for the cause of the Union that had
been inspired since the commencement of the war.
The veil is yet to be removed from the counsels
that procured the removal of the gallant Califor
nian ; but whenever the facts shall be made known,
if they do not show that hostility to slavery cost
him the favor of his government, and his com
mand of the Western Department, the country will
experience an agreeable surprise.

V.

MUST the nation DIE, THAT THE BARONS MAY WIELD
the WHIP?

The course of the government appears yet more
astonishing, when we consider how small a propor
tion of the American people have any pecuniary
interest in the system for which these extraordi
nary sacrifices were made. The whole number of
slave-holders, according to the last census, did not
exceed four hundred thousand, out of whom it is
estimated that not above one hundred thousand
are largely interested in slave property.
And yet for the sake of this petty oligarchy the
immediate welfare of thirty millions of people is
put in jeopardy, besides the prospective welfare of
all their posterity ! The free States have sent into
the camp, for the defence of the Republic, a host
of volunteers outnumbering all the slave-masters,
whether treasonable or loyal ; and should not the
life of every soldier who rallied to the Federal
standard have been as dear to the government as
the interest of a slave-holder? — even a slave-
bolder of a border State, characterized by the
dubious loyalty that inclined him to serve the
Union so long as the Union should serve slavery !

MUST THE NATION DIE ? 208
Where was the equity of requiring the twenty mil
lions of people found in the loyal States to contrib
ute their blood and their treasure to the support
of a government, that perversely exposed itself to
destruction, out of regard to the interest of a petty
squad of slave-masters, most of whom were in
arms for its overthrow?
We venture to affirm that so irritating an in
stance of perversity and infatuation, involving the
peril of such incalculable interests, and so violent
a series of paradoxes, is not to be found on the
pages of history.

VI.
THE WAR DEGRADED IN THE INTEEEST OF SLAVEEY.
We have been often admonished, during the
present eventful year, that the practical states
man cannot conform himself to the theory of
the philosopher, or to the requirements of ab
stract justice. We promptly deny the propo
sition. At least, we insist that, so far as the
theory of the philosopher is based upon the moral
law, and elaborated in consonance with common
sense, it dictates a course which the statesman
will always find practicable and eminently safe.
There is no error of statesmen more common,
or less excusable, than that of consciously vio
lating the law of right, under the temptation of
expediency. All our calamities as a nation have
sprung from this propensity; here is the spring
of all our political depravity ; here sin entered,
and death by sin ; and it by no means confirms
our trust in the wisdom of our present rulers,
to hear them use the old plea of expediency as
an excuse for neglecting justice. Can they flatter
themselves that the Almighty, whose dark judg
ment eclipses the land, is to be any longer mocked
by so lame a pretext for practical infidelity? If

THE WAE DEGRADED. 205
it be God who reigns, and not Satan, then a
nation must expect deliverance in the path of
justice and honesty, not in that of expediency
and craft.
In the beginning, every intelligent and con
scientious person in the North hailed the war as
a great conflict of ideas, which was to mark an
epoch in human affairs, and -with which enlight
ened and humane men might sympathize the
world over. " March at the head of the ideas
of your age," said Louis Napoleon, " and then
these ideas will follow and support you. If you
march behind them, they will drag you on. And
if you march against them, they -wUl certainly
prove your downfall." No man can question that
a war of emancipation would marshal under the
banner of the Union the most potent ideas that
fire the present age, and a spirit that animates
both the better part of the American people and
all other civilized nations, — a moral energy, in
fact, which the process of time and the culture
of society must intensify and augment. " March
at the head of the ideas of your age," had been
the constant cry of wisdom to our rulers since
the opening of this terrible controversy. But the
government had degraded the war into a mere
scramble of political rivalry, the sacrifices and
miseries of which threatened to be indefinitely
prolonged, besides being fruitless. The govern
ment had proclaimed decisively, by its unnatural
poUcy hitherto, that there was no great principle

206 THE PROVIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
at issue between the contending parties, — that,
while the rebels were fighting for a Southern
Confederacy and Slavery, the government was
contending for the Union and Slavery. What
could it matter to mankind whether the Con
federacy or the Union prevailed, if slavery was
to be cherished by both ? Why should the coun
try peril its bravest sons on the battle-field, and
lavish hundreds of millions of treasure to sus
tain Me. Lincoln against Jefferson Davis, if both
were so ardently espoused to slavery as to make
its interest paramount?

VII.

GOD'S ULTIMATUM.

The war had been waged during more than
six months, before a change of policy began to
be indicated at Washington. The loyal States
had sent to the aid of the government an aggre
gate of seven hundred thousand men,* — one of
the largest mUitary forces that was ever enrolled.
The immense army, reviving the image of an
Asiatic host in the plenitude of Oriental em
pire, had been equipped, drilled, and sustained
at an expense of a miUion and a half of money
per day. Many of the noblest of our young
men, in the generous effusion of patriotic enthu
siasm, had laid down their lives to vindicate the
Republic. The loyal millions in the free States
had cheerfully submitted to taxation, to derange
ments of business, to social deprivations and do
mestic anxiety ; and many of them had resigned
-with dignity their dearest hopes for the sake of
restoring the integrity of the Union. Was not
the government obligated to do everything in its
power, to use every instrumentality sanctioned by
the usages of war, to attack its haughty enemy
-* Report of the Secretary of War, December, 1861.

208 THE peovidential alternative.
at every vulnerable point, with a view to bringing
the war to a speedy and auspicious termination ?
Yet, up to that time, it had, with a prodigal
waste of opportunity, not only refused to employ
free colored men and Indians in its service, —
although the rebels had turned upon our West
ern border both Indians and convicts, while they
had regiments of negroes under martial driU, —
but it had obstinately repelled four millions of
allies, because they could not be welcomed with
out overthrowing slavery!
Hence, -with all the resources at command of the
government, with all the loyalty and generosity of
the nation, the cause of the Union still stood on
the defensive, and the great struggle seemed to
stretch into the future, an interminable prospect
of carnage and disaster. The Rebelhon stood un
harmed, its vaunting spirit unrebuked, its diabolic
propensities unchecked; because slavery was the
substance of it, and the government had not felt
authorized to harm slavery !
Secure in the trust that the power of the Union
would not be turned against slavery, the South
boasted that the piratical system was " a tower of
strength" to the rebel cause. It was estimated
that the secure possession of the slave population
would enable the rebels to place six hundred thou
sand men In the field ; and that, in spite of the
numerical superiority of the North, the South
would sustain the practical supremacy, since it
was capable of sending to the camp all its able-

GOD'S ULTIMATUM. 209
bodied freemen, without weakening the industrial
force that must provide the means of subsistence.
The following testimony from a Southern journal
shows how this advantage was appreciated : —
" The Slaves as a Military Element in the
South. — The total white population of the eleven
States now comprising the Confederacy is 6,000,000,
and therefore, to fill up the ranks of the proposed
army (600,000), about ten per cent of the entire
white population will be required. In any other
country than our own such a draft could not be
met ; but the Southern States can furnish that
number of men, and still not leave the material
interests of the country in a suffering condition.
Those who are incapacitated for bearing arms can
oversee the plantations, and the negroes can go on
undisturbed in their usual labors. In the North
the case is different ; the men who join the army
of subjugation are the laborers, the producers, and
the factory operatives. Nearly every man from
that section, especially those from the rural dis
tricts, leaves some branch of industry to suffer
during his absence. The institution of slavery in
the South alone enables her to place in the field a
force much larger in proportion to her white popu
lation than the North, or indeed any country which
is dependent entirely on free labor. The institu
tion is a tower of strength to the South, particu
larly at the present crisis, and our enemies will be
hkely to find that the ' moral cancer,' about which
their orators are so fond of prating, is really one

210 THE PROVIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
of the most effective weapons employed against the
Union by the South. Whatever number of men
may be needed for this war, we are confident our
people stand ready to furnish. We are all enlisted
for the war, and there must be no holding back
until the independence of the South is fully ac
knowledged." *
Thus Providence stiU adhered to the terms in
which the case had been stated at the opening of
the war : You shall not overcome the Rebellion
except you abolish slavery. You shall choose be
tween liberty and the Union, on one hand, and
slavery and anarchy, on the other. If you persist
in maintaining slavery, then no more Union ; for
JUDGMENT WILL I LAY TO THE LINE, AND RIGHTEOUS
NESS. TO THE PLUMMET ; AND YOUR COVENANT WITH
DEATH SHALL BE DISANNULLED, AND YOUE AGEEE-
MENT WITH HELL SHALL NOT STAND.
That this was God's ultimatuni, no man who
recognized a Divine Pro-vidence in human affairs
could longer doubt. Would the government ac
cept salvation on these righteous conditions, or
would it persist in following the illusive dictates
of expediency, and so founder in the storm ?
• Mobile (Ala.) Advertiser.

VIII.
A NEW POLICY IMPERATIVE.
It was consistent neither with the nature of
man nor with the instincts implanted in the Repub
lic permanently to endure so irrational a policy.
The moral sense of the best men and the reason
of the most thoughtful were alike shocked by the
odiously false position which the loyal part of the
nation was thus made to occupy.
The convictions of the better part of our people
began to find expression, just previous to the
meeting of the present Congress, in the eloquent
remonstrances of men like the Hon. Gerrit Smith
and Senator Sumner, and in the changed tone of
members of the Cabinet and officers of the army.
" Nobody can deny," said Mr. Sumner, " that
slavery is the ruling idea of this rebellion. It is
slavery that marshals these hosts, and breathes into
their embattled ranks its own barbarous fire. It
is slavery which stamps its character alike upon
officers and men. It is slavery which inspires all,
from the general to the trumpeter. It is slavery
which speaks in the word of command, and which
sounds in the morning drum-beat. It is slavery
which digs trenches and builds hostile forts. It is

212 THE PEOVIDENTIAL ALTEENATIVE.
slavery which pitches its white tents and stations
its sentries over against the national Capitol. It is
slavery -wliich sharpens the bayonet and casts the
bullet ; which points the cannon and scatters the
shell, blazing, bursting with death. Wherever
this rebellion shows itself, — whatever form it
takes, — whatever thing it does, — whatever it med
itates, — it is moved by slavery ; nay, it is slavery
itself, incarnate, li-ving, acting, ra,ging, robbing,
murdering, according to the essential law of its
being." Slavery may be seen also "in what it has in
flicted upon us. There is not a community, — not
a family, — not an individual, man, woman, or
child, — who does not feel its heavy, bloody hand.
Why these mustering armies ? Why this drum
beat in your peaceful streets ? Why these gath
ering means of war ? Why these swelling taxes ?
Why these unprecedented loans? Why this de
rangement of business ? Why among us the sus
pension of the habeas corpus, and the prostration
of all safeguards of freedom ? Why this constant
solicitude visible in all your faces ? The answer is
clear. Slavery is the author, — the agent, — the
cause. The anxious hours that you pass are
darkened by slavery. The habeas corpus and all
those safeguards of freedom which you adore
have been prostrated by slavery. The business
which you have lost has been filched by slavery.
The milhons of money now amassed by patriotic
offerings are all snatched by slavery. The taxes

A NEW POLICY IMPEEATIVE. 213
now wrung out of your diminished means are all
consumed by slavery  Does any community
mourn gallant men, who, going forth joyous and
proud beneath their country's flag, have been
brought home cold and stiff, with its folds wrapped
about them for a shroud ? Let all who truly
mourn the dead be aroused against slavery. Does
a mother drop tears for a son, in the flower of his
days cut down upon the distant battle-field, which
he moistens with his youthful, generous blood ?
Let her know that slavery dealt the deadly blow,
which took at once his life and her peace.
" You have seen slavery at all times militant
whenever any proposition was brought forward
with regard to it, and more than once threatening
a dissolution of the Union. You have seen slavery
for many years the animating principle of a con
spiracy against the Union, while it matured its
flagitious plans and obtained the mastery of Cab
inet and President. And when the conspiracy had
wickedly ripened, you have seen that it was only
by concessions to slavery that it was encountered,
as by similar concessions it had from the beginning
been encouraged. You now see rebellion every
where throughout the slave States elevating its
bloody crest and threatening the existence of the
national government, and all in the name of
slavery, while it proposes to establish a new gov
ernment whose corner-stone shall be slavery.
Against this rebellion we wage war. It is our
determination, as it is our duty, to crush it ; and

214 THE PEOVIDENTIAL ALTEENATIVE.
this will be done. The region now contested by
the rebels belongs to the United States by every tie
of government and of right. Some of it has been
bought by our money, while all of it — with its
rivers, harbors, and extensive coast — has become
essential to our business in peace and to our de
fence in war. Union is a geographical, economical,
commercial, political, military, and, if I may so
say, even a fluvial necessity. Without union,
peace on this continent is impossible; but life
without peace is impossible also. Only by crush
ing this rebellion can union and peace be restored.
Let this be seen in its reality, and who can hesi
tate ? If this were done instantly, without further
contest, then, besides aU the countless advantages
of every kind obtained by such restoration, two
especial goods -will be accomplished, — one politi
cal, and the other moral as well as political. First,
the pretended right of Secession, with the whole
pestilent extravagance of State sovereignty, which
has supplied the machinery for this rebellion, and
afforded a delusive cover for treason, will be tram
pled out, never again to disturb the majestic unity
of the Republic. And, secondly, the unrighteous
attempt to organize a new Confederacy solely for
the sake of slavery, and with slavery as its corner
stone, will be overthrown. These two pretensions
— one so shocking to our reason and the other so
shocking to our moral nature — will disappear
forever. And with their disappearance will com
mence a new epoch, the beginning of a grander

A NEW POLICY IMPERATIVE. 215
period. But if by any accident the rebellion
should prevail, then just in proportion to its tri
umph, whether through concession on our part or
through successful force on the other part, will
the Union be impaired and peace be impossible.
Therefore, in the name of the Union, and for the
sake of peace, are you summoned to the work.
But how shall the rebellion be crushed ? That is
the question. Men, money, munitions of war, a
well-supplied commissariat, means of transporta
tion, — all these you have in abundance, in some
particulars beyond the rebels. You have, too, the
consciousness of a good cause, which in itself is an
army. And yet thus far — until within a few
days — the advantage has not been on our side.
The explanation is easy. The rebels are combat
ing at home, on their own soil, strengthened and
maddened by slavery, which is to them an ally and
a fanaticism. More thoroughly aroused than our
selves, — more terribly in earnest, — with every
sinew strained to the utmost, — they freely use all
the resources that God and nature put into their
hands, raising against us not only the whole white
population, but enlisting the war-whoop of the
Indians, — cruising upon the sea in pirate ships to
despoil our commerce, and at one swoop confis
cating our property to the extent of hundreds of
mUhons of dollars, while all this time their four
millions of slaves, undisturbed at home, are freely
contributing by their labor to sustain the war,
which without them must soon expire.

216 the providential alternative.
" It remains" for us to encounter the rebellion
calmly and surely by a force superior to its own.
But to this end something more will be needed
than men or money. Our battalions must be
reinforced by ideas, and we must strike directly
at the origin and mainspring of the rebellion.
I do not say now in what way or to what extent ;
but simply that we must strike ; it may be by the
system of a Massachusetts general, — Butlee; it
may be by that of Fremont ; or it may be by the
grander system of John Quincy Adams. Reason
and sentiment both concur in this policy, which
is only according to the most common principles
of human conduct. In no way can we do so much
at so little cost. To the enemy such a blow wiU
be a terror, to good men it will be an encourage
ment, and to foreign nations watching this con
test it will be an earnest of something beyond a
mere carnival of battle. There has been the cry,
' On to Richmond ! ' and still another worse cry,
' On to England ! ' Better than either is the cry,
' On to Freedom ! ' Let this be heard in the voices
of your soldiers, — ay, let it resound in the pur
poses of the government, — and victory must be
ours. By this sign conquer  That men
should still hesitate to strike at slavery, is only
another illustration of human weakness. The Eng
lish Republicans, in their bloody contest with the
crown, hesitated for a long time to fire upon the
king; but under the valiant lead of Cromwell,
surrounded by his well-trained Ironsides, they ban-

A NEW POLICY IMPEEATIVE. 217
ished all such scruple, and you know well the
result. The king was not shot, but his head was
brought to the block.
" The duty which I suggest, if not urgent now,
as a military necessity in just self-defence, will pre
sent itself constantly, on other grounds, as our
armies advance in the slave States or la/nd on their
coasts. If it does not stare us in the face at this
moment, it is because unhappily we are still every
where on the defensive. As we begin to be suc
cessful, it must rise before us for practical de
cision ; and you cannot avoid it. There -wiU be
slaves in your camps, or within your extended
lines, whose condition you must determine. There
will be slaves also claimed by rebels, whose con
tinued chattelhood you wUl scorn to recognize.
The decision of these two cases will settle the
whole great question. Nor can the rebels com
plain. They challenge our armies to enter upon
their territory in the free exercise of all the powers
of war, — according to which, as you well know,
all private interests are subordinated to the pub
lic safety, which for the time becomes the supreme
law above all other laws, and above the Constitu
tion itself. If everywhere under the flag of the
Union, — in its triumphant march, — freedom is
substituted for slavery, this outrageous rebellion
wUl not be the first instance in history where God
has turned the -wickedness of man into a blessing ;
nor wUl the example of Samson stand alone when
10

218 THE PEOVIDENTIAL ALTEENATIVE.
he gathered honey out of the carcass of the dead
and rotten lion 
" Thank God ! our government is strong ; but
thus far all signs denote that it is not strong
enough to save the Union and at the same time
to save slavery. One or the other must suffer,
and just in proportion as you reach forth to pro
tect slavery, do you protect this accursed rebel
lion ; nay, you give to it that aid and comfort
which, under our Constitution, is treason itself.
Perversely and pitifully do you postpone that sure
period of reconciliation, not only between the two
sections, — not only between the men of the North
and the men of the South, — but, more beautiful
stiU, between the slave and his master, without
which that true tranquillity which we all seek
cannot be permanently assured to our country.
Believe it; only through such reconciliation, un
der the sanction of freedom, can you remove all
occasion of contention hereafter ; only in this way
can you cut off the head of this great rebellion,
and at the same time extirpate that principle of
evil, which, if allowed to remain, must shoot forth
in perpetual discord, if not in other rebellions;
only in this way can you command that safe vic
tory — without which this contest will be vain —
which will have among its conquests indemnity
for the past and security for the future, — the
noblest indemnity and the strongest security ever
won, because founded in the redemption of a
race 

A NEW POLICY IMPEEATIVE. 219
"There is a classical story of a mighty hunter
whose life in the Book of Fate had been made to de
pend upon the preservation of a brand which was
burning at his birth. The brand, so full of destiny,
was snatched from the flames and carefully pre
served by his prudent mother. Meanwhile the
hunter became powerful and invulnerable to mor
tal weapons. But at length the mother, indignant
at his cruelty to her own family, flung the brand
upon the flames, and the hunter died. The story
of that hunter, so powerful and invulnerable to
mortal weapons, is now repeated in this rebellion,
and slavery is the fatal brand. Let our govern
ment, which has thus far preserved slavery with
maternal care, simply fling it upon the flames
which itself has madly aroused, and the rebeUion
will die at once." *
* Sumner's Address at Cooper Institute, November 27, 1861.

IX.
PEOVIDENTLA.L DOOM OF THE BAEONS.
The morning of Tuesday, October 29th, 1861,
dawned upon the most imposing spectacle that
has illustrated the naval history of this continent.
The great expedition — the Armada of our annals
— lifted its anchors at Hampton Roads, and sailed
toward the Gulf, to meet its unknown destiny.
For weeks its destination had been the theme of,
speculation, its success the object of national so
licitude. From the first the magnitude of the
enterprise and the mystery that clothed its vast
proportions had inspired the nation with the con
fident assurance that it was to open a new act in
the tragedy of the Rebellion, and give a perma
nent ascendency to the cause of the Union.
The great expedition swept majestically away
in the splendor of that auspicious morning, and
vanished down the Southern coast. The prayers
and hopes of a loyal people went onward with the
fleet as it traversed those hostile waters. Well
might prayers ascend, and well might hope abound
over fear ; for when the signal gun was fired that
morning from the Wabash, and the proud flag-ship
moved out between the capes, she bore the ark of

PEOVIDENTIAL DOOM OF THE BARONS. 221
a new covenant, the seal of a new civil dispensa
tion. For the earnest of success, the pledge of
victory, was not alone in that imposing line of
battle-ships, with its mighty armament of stern
men, and its frowning batteries gorged with can
non, shot, and shell, but also — and may we not
say pre-eminently ? — in certain instructions from
the War Department charged with the seeds of
liberty. These are the words addressed to the
commanding general : —
" You will, however, in general avaU yourself
of the services of any persons, whether fugitives
from labor or not, who may offer them to the
national government ; you will employ such per
sons in such services as they may be fitted for,
either as ordinary employees, or, if special circum
stances seem to require it, in any other capacity,
•with such organization, in squads, companies, or
otherwise, as you deem most beneficial to the ser
vice. This, however, not to mean a general arm
ing of them for military service. You wUl assure
all loyal masters that Congress will provide just
compensation to them for the loss of the services
of the persons so employed."
These words contain the germ of a new policy,
for they are understood to have received the de
liberate sanction of the President, as well as of the
Secretary of War. They are confirmed by the
sentiments more recently expressed in the Reports
of the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the
Navy. They mark an entire revolution in the

222 THE PROVIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
policy of the Federal Government. Slavery is no
longer to be protected. It is to take its due place
among mundane interests — of the baser sort. It
is to be abandoned to the chances of the war which
it has had the temerity to kindle. Having invoked
a shower of stones, it must abide, in its own glass
house, the natural consequences. General Lane,
of Kansas, had expressed the popular feeling when
he said that it was the duty of the government " to
put down rebellion, and let slavery take care of
itself." The Administration has at length acqui
esced in the popular decision ; and the great expe
dition has launched the new policy upon South
CaroUna. The instructions to General Sherman, though
lacking the positive form of a proclamation of
emancipation, contain most of the elements of such
a paper. " First, martial law is hereby declared ;
for the powers committed to the discretion of the
General are derived from that law, and not from
the late Confiscation Act of Congress. Secondly,
fugitive slaves are not to be surrendered. Thirdly,
all coming within the camp are to be treated as
freemen. Fourthly, they may be employed in
such service as they may be fitted for. Fifthly,
in squads, companies, or otherwise, with the single
limitation that this is not to mean ' a general arm
ing of them for military service.' And, sixthly,
compensation, through Congress, is promised to
loyal masters, — saying nothing of rebel masters.
All this is a little short of a proclamation of email-

peovidential DOOM OF THE BARONS. 223
cipation, — not unlike that of old Caius Maeius,
when he landed on the coast of Etruria, and, ac
cording to Plutaech, proclaimed liberty to the
slaves." The policy here foreshadowed — confirmed as
it has recently been by the President in his Mes
sage, by the Reports of the Secretaries of the War
Department and the Navy, and by the obvious
temper of the Congress now in session — proclaims
the doom of slavery on the American continent.
Nothing, we are confident, can arrest the retribu
tion which has been preparing for so many years,
which so many wrongs have tended to provoke,
and which is demanded alike by the justice of
God, the development of civilization, and the as
piration of every noble heart in every clime of the
globe. The development of the slave-holding despotism
has borne such fruit as no man foresaw who con
sented to tolerate its growth. The effects of the
system have been so palpably retributive, as to
evince a Divine agency working out its destruc
tion, if not the destruction of those leagued with
it. We are too much in the habit of estimating
the evils of slavery with exclusive reference to the
Negro race. Its direct and obvious effects upon the
slaves themselves are doubtless revolting enough ;
but the most terrific effects of the system appear,
not in its results to the Negro, but in its results
to the white man. Slavery may not be an obvious

224 the providential alternative.
injury to every individual slave ; but we maintain
that it is an obvious injury to every individual
master, — to every free family, — to every State, —
and to the very life of the Republic. Forty years
ago, actuated by commercial selfishness and by
our antipathies to the African race, we supposed
that the perpetuity of slavery would damage no
body but the helpless negro. But behold how God
has punished our cruelty, and confounded our
expectations ! The African race in America has
passed through a baptism of fire ; but it has mul
tiplied as the Israelites did under the oppres
sions of Egypt. It has become a more civilized
and mighty race, drawing from its taskmasters
more mental vigor and greater relish for freedom,
from year to year, tUl it has become a terror in
the land, no longer to be trusted, hardly to be
restrained. While God has thus been strengthening the ser
vile race, he has been weakening their oppressors.
While the Negro has been rising toward civiliza
tion, the white man of the South has been sinking
into barbarism. Ignorance and superstition, cruel
ty and vice, violence and anarchy, reign paramount
in the slave-holding States. There never was seen
such a sudden and wholesale relapse of great com
munities into hopeless barbarism. The records of
the social life of those States have been, for some
years, like pages gathered from the annals of the
tenth century. Such violent despotism over pri
vate judgment, — such sanguinary sway of Lynch-

providential doom of the barons. 225
law, — such subjugation of cities to brutal mobs,
and of States to revolutionary anarchy, — such
swaggering pretensions to " honor " and " chiv
alry," united with crimes that only the hangman
can properly punish, — such spectacles, which
make up the every-day life of the South, almost
persuade a man that he is reading a chronicle of
the Middle Ages, and not an American newspaper
reporting contemporaneous events.
As little did we foresee the effect of slavery on
the safety and integrity of the American govern
ment. When it clamored for protection, we never
thought it would aspire to rule. When it aspired
to rule, we never thought it would conspire to
ruin the Republic if it were voted out of power.
But such is the nature of the system, that it makes
everything it ionc^iQs subservient ; and, soon as it
comes to be resisted, breaks every treaty, defies
every consequence, and malignantly stabs the na
tion that has warmed it into power. Itself based
upon injustice, rapine, and cruelty, it is not con
ciliated by fair play, restrained by considerations
of social well-being, or affected by the prospect of
boundless carnage. It is a creature of lust, ag
gression, and violence, and its legitimate influence
is always fatal just in proportion to its power and
opportunity. With the nature and tendencies of slavery so
clearly disclosed as they now are in the state of
Southern society, and in this most wicked rebel
lion, if there is an American freeman who can
10* o

226 THE PEOVIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
apologize for it any longer, it must be a case of
infatuation utterly without parallel. And if this
bloody quarrel, which slavery has ruthlessly pro
voked, is ever settled without rooting the deadly
curse out of the land, we shall bequeath a new
quarrel to our children, and untold calamities to
mankind. We were willing to tolerate slavery from a falla
cious sense of constitutional obligation ; and we
would even violate conscience to keep the faith
our fathers were believed to have bound us by.
But since slavery was not content with being
tolerated, but insisted on being our dictator, —
since she will be our autocrat or owr destroyer, —
and since she has taken down the sword and
summoned us to mortal combat, — away with all
forbearance, and all compromise, and let the
wicked harlot die. She has released us from the
old compact, whatever that may have involved;
and God be thanked for the madness of despot
ism, that has broken the dangerous bond! She
has exasperated every freeman by seventy years
of insolence, — by seventy years of broken faith
and culminating crimes, — and now, by the just
God in heaven, and by the holy instincts of
freedom, let her perish by the sword she has
compelled us to draw !
We have endured everything from slavery that
human nature can endure, because our temper is
forbearing, our manners are pacific, and our pur
suits compatible only with peace. We have con-

PROVIDENTIAL DOOM OF THE BARONS, 227
sented to be a reproach to civUized nations,
because of our complicity in this great wrong.
We have consented to bear more than our just
proportion of the burdens of government, and
have received less than our just share of its
emoluments. We have submitted to have our
citizens mobbed, imprisoned, and hung, for no
crime but that of being born in a free State,
and loving their natural birthright. We have
endured insults and aggressions, fraud and vio
lence, in the halls of Congress, and in our own
free cities. We have given up the weak to the
fangs of the slave-hunter, and seen the mark of
the beast set upon the forehead of our most il
lustrious men. All this has not been enough.
Slavery has demanded more ; and when we re
fused to grant more, she seized her wicked blud
geon, and tried to demolish the fabric of that fair
Union which had sheltered her treasonable head.
Now let her have what she has invoked. Let it
be war to the death. Let the monstrous aggres
sor find no shelter, henceforth, under the flag
she has profaned and betrayed.
We compassionate the Southern people, so hope
lessly involved in the swift-footed vengeance that
must sweep their land. They are not radically
more guilty than ourselves ; only the diabolical
system that has possessed them so long has in
oculated many of them with its own malignity.
We feel like making great allowance for the bad

228 THE PROVIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
schooling those people have suffered from. So
deplorably has slavery enervated their moral prin
ciples and darkened their sense of right, that
they no longer realize either what they do or
what they are. They are the saddest victims of
their own oppression. They are like drunkards
besotted by their cups, and madly clinging to
the terrible vice that has ruined, them. 0, for
their sake, — even more than for our own, — let
us swear eternal hostility to the system that has
perverted a noble people, and turned a fruitful
land into a howling desert!. True, we must bear
the sword against them, — for their salvation and
ours we must still appeal to the God of battles, —
but, as Heaven is our witness, compassion shall
temper the warfare they have provoked ; and our
vengeance fall only upon that -villanous despot
ism which has brought discord between us, and
upon those who deliriously espouse its fate.
Nor need we fear that a war of emancipation
and subjugation — (for this war must involve the
subjugation, if not extirpation, of the Southern
Barons) — will permanently alienate the rebellious
States from the Union. Such apprehensions are
refuted by the experience of other nations. There
are few wounds inflicted by the sword upon the
transitory sentiments of races, which time does
not benignantly heal ; and a quarrel, fought out
with lusty vigor, often ends in cordial friendship.
All this has been repeatedly proved, from the

PROVIDENTIAL DOOM OF THE BARONS. 229
days of the Roman empire downward ; and in
no country more plainly than in Great Britain,
where the most virulent civil wars have left no
darker memento than a few suits of battered
armor laid up at Westminster, or a broken image
on some cathedral shrine.
A weak and vacillating war, irritating without
subduing the South, and leaving the root of its
antipathy undisturbed, would perpetuate our an
imosities, and sow the seeds of interminable con
flicts. But a vigorous and resolute war, with a
regenerating principle at its base, with justice
on its banner, with universal freedom for its aim,
will renew and conciliate the South, while it -vin
dicates the integrity of the nation.
" The sword ! — a name of dread ; yet when
Upon the freeman's thigh 't is bound, —
While for his altar and his hearth,
While for the land that gave him birth.
The war-drums roU, the trumpets sound, —
How sacred is it then !
Whenever for the truth and right
It flashes in the van of fight, —
Whether in some wild mountain pass.
As that where fell Leonidas ;
Or ou some sterile plain and stem, —
A Marston or a Bannockburn ;
Or 'mid fierce crags and bursting rills, —
The Switzer's Alps, gray Tyrol's hills;
Or, as when sunk the Armada's pride.
It gleams above the stormy tide;
Still, still, whene'er the battle's word
Is Liberty, — when men do stand
For Justice and their native land, —
Then Heaven bless the sword! "

280 THE PROVIDENTIAL ALTEENATIVE.
The rebel States are like fields overgrown with
briers, and infested by beasts of prey. It re
quires the stern husbandry of war to clear away
the excrescences, to expel the brutal occupants,
and restore those lands to the uses of civilization.
There is a wild crop of ignorance, and a depraved
herd of desperadoes, cumbering and infesting those
States, that require to be turned under by the
ploughshare of battle, or driven out by the besom
of judgment. The cause of civilization cannot be
longer retarded by the oligarchy of Slave Barons,
who have sinned so deeply against the light of
the age, and conspired so perfidiously against the
glory of their country. Having repudiated the
better attributes of humanity, and impeded Chris
tian development on the continent, they have
forfeited the immunities of humanity, and made
the world their foe. They fall under the Divine
law that exposes the nettle to the hoe, aiid the
wolf to the rifle ; for the law of Providence is,
that noxious and ravenous things shall perish
whenever the expansion of society requires a
new field, and the growth of noble men a wider
career. Let the providential work of renovation go for
ward in the track of an army conscious of its high
mission, ' and dignified by the majesty of great
ideas, till violence shall no more be heard in the
land, nor wasting nor destruction within its bor
ders ; till the myrtle shall supplant the brier, and

PEOVIDENTLA.L DOOM OF THE BAEONS. 231
the rose adorn the desert ; and the South will rise
up, clothed in her right mind, and bless the Fed
eral sword that flashed God's righteous judgment
upon the haughty and cruel ; while gentler hands
build up the bulwarks of society anew, for a per
petual habitation of Honor and Freedom, of Peace
and of Glory.

X.

THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR. — LESSON OF THE
EPOCH.
There is a Greek story of Minos, the magnifi
cent king of Crete, who exacted of the Athenians
an annual tribute of seven youths and seven maid
ens, whom he sacrificed to the Minotaur, a hor
rible monster having the body of a man, the head
of a bull, and the teeth of a lion. Every year, at
the approach of the spring equinox, came a herald
from Crete to demand this tribute ; and the de
voted victims were borne away in a black-sailed
ship, amid the lamentations of the people. But
when Theseus, the young hero, came to Athens,
and saw the beautiful youths and maidens be
ing selected by lot for the odious sacrifice, and
witnessed the shame of their king, his father,
and the sorrow of the city, he generously cast
his fate with the destined victims, slew the Mino
taur, and released the land from that dreadful
scourge. The Greek legend finds an impressive applica
tion in republican America. The king of the
South, whose name is Cotton, has levied tribute
upon the nation for many sorrowful years. He

THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUE. 233
has claimed our fairest and holiest, — our honor,
our freedom, and our religion. In the black-
sailed, evil-boding ship of compromise we have
sent them to the tyrant, and he has cast them into
the den of the Minotaur, the monster man-beast,
slavery. But God has. sent us deliverance in the
guise of calamity. The war is our Theseus, which,
girded by the martial strength of the North, and
gloriously apparelled in the panoply of freedom,
goes forth to slay the Minotaur, and release the
land forever from tyranny and trouble.
Could this humble book gain the ear of a single
man sitting in the Capitol, it would say : —
No longer offend justice or mock our woe by
affecting to wed the Incompatible.
Slavery and freedom can never be married so
long as hell is alien to heaven. Their characters
and tendencies, their aims and desires, are com
pletely hostile. Slave society rests upon robbery,
— for it holds by force what it has no claim to
hold in equity, — asserting that claim of property in
man which is repugnant to natural justice ; free
society rests upon the voluntary industry of the
people, and is guarded by equity. Slave society
tyrannizes over the weak ; free society extends
over the weak the protection of law. Slave soci
ety makes brute force supreme ; free society makes
justice supreme. In slave society a handful of
aristocrats govern the State, and the masses of the
inhabitants are disregarded like cattle; in free

234 THE peovidential alternative.
society, political power is distributed among all
the people, and the most vigorous thinker is the
mightiest man. In slave society, everything is at
the mercy of an unthinking and capricious des
potism, and the tendency of the community is ir
retrievably downward ; but in free society great
questions are settled by discussion, by reflection,
by reason, — every man's interest is safe, because
natural justice is revered, and everything is open
to investigation, and so the community is continu
ally being elevated, and fortified by the private
conscience and public intelligence.
Such are the two hostile interests that have
been subsisting in this Republic, from the begin
ning. Our fathers, with many scruples and
doubts, set them up housekeeping, in the same
edifice, because they supposed that slave society
would soon die a natural death, and they were
scarcely prepared to kill it by violent means.
For seventy years these two types of society
have been developing in the nation, — each ac
cording to its nature, each obedient to its own
instinct. In the exact ratio of tiieir growth has
been - their aggression upon each other. When
the house began to resound with their strife, all
the peace-makers turned out to settle the quarrel.
The more they tried to settle it, the more fiercely
the quarrel raged ; and, step by step, by a series
of ineffectual 'compromises that only irritated what
they were expected to heal, we have journeyed
on to civil war.

LESSON OP THE EPOCH. 235
Suppose you plant Canada thistles on one side
of your garden, and a bed of strawberry plants
on the opposite side, and charge them not to
meddle with each other ! You will soon find that
they will meddle with each other, — not because
they are wilful, but because each must obey the
law of its own nature. Now slave society and
free society have their peculiar instincts, and
each develops agreeably to its own law. They
MUST ENCROACH UPON EACH OTHER ; THEY MUST CON
FLICT ; THEY MUST QUARREL ; — and what God and
Nature have thus made hostile we cannot join
together in harmony. Slave society imbues those
who grow up under its spirit with a despotic and
lawless disposition. Free society imbues people
with a sense of justice, liberaUzes and elevates
the mind, and prepares the heart to feel the
liveliest sympathy for the weak and the oppressed.
Thus, the tendencies of the two systems, by their
legitimate operation, involve collision and strife.
How can we help ourselves ? Can the man who
was nourished at the breast of despotism be other
wise than tyrannical ? Can the offspring, of lib
erty disown his mother, or resist the generous
impulses that spring from his blood ? We must
all have noticed how vain it is to attempt to
override or suppress an hereditary trait ; and
these instincts that are born with us, and fostered
by the society in which we are reared, cannot
be controlled by any aebiteaey edict. We
may as well make up our minds to face the fact,

236 the PEOVIDENTLA.L ALTEENATIVE.
first as last: There will be no peace — at best,
only a short truce — while these belligeebnts
OCCUPY the same HOUSE. May we not have a
public opinion in America that shall recognize
this fact without longer delay?
We have all railed, more or less, at the ultra
men of the South ; but we might as well rail at
the Canada thistles when they manifest a desire to
monopolize the garden. They are obeying the in
stincts of slave society, and our entreaties and ex
postulations — as the event has repeatedly proved
— might as well have been addressed to thistles
as to that class of men.
Suppose a company of Indian Thugs come into
the neighborhood, buy a certain amount of real
estate, and settle among us. It is the profession
of the Thug to murder, and in him the tendency
to murder has the force of an instinct. Murders
are perpetrated, the community is in arms, and
the Thugs are disposed of agreeably to law and
equity. But, however heinous the crime, it was
no greater than was to have been expected, in
view of the habits of the Thugs. So with slave
society. All its habitudes and instincts are aggres
sive and destructive. We are not denying that
individual slave-holders may be very fair men.
Some natures are proof against the worst social
influences. We speak of the system of slavery in
its essence and general effects. And we say that
the most odious developments of Southern society
are the legitimate outgrowths of slavery, — things

lesson of the epoch. 237
which it is idle to protest against so long as we
foster the seed that produces them.
We have complained, also, against the ultra
anti-slavery men. But, candidly and philosophi
cally viewed, what have they done but obey the
instincts of free society? It was just as natural
for free society to develop the Abolitionist party, as
it was for your strawberry bed to throw out " run
ners " toward the Canada thistles. How futile it
is to quarrel with any settled tendency of nature !
How unwise it is to ignore such facts, instead of
accommodating ourselves to them ! We might as
reasonably attempt to resist gravitation, or any
other natural law, as attempt to carry out a peace
policy in violation of these immutable conditions.
Free society fiUs every bosom that is open to its
influences with the love of free institutions, —
with the love of justice, mercy, and manhood ;
and it inspires us, at the same time, with an irre
pressible abhorrence of the injustice, the profligacy,
and the ignorance which are the fruits of slavery.
Under this influence, it is impossible that men
should hold their peace. The full heart will make
its emotions audible in burning words. Almost
involuntarily — almost against a man's will — he
thunders out his hatred of tyranny, and chants
the hymns of Freedom. It is the Holy Spirit of
God that impels his utterance, and timidity and
compromise have no padlocks strong enough to
shut the mouth of a live man, when the trumpet
sounds and the hour has come.

238 THE PROVroENTIAL ALTERNATIVE.
Consider how obvious it is, as a general fact,
that, when a conflict takes place in society between
the good elements and the bad, there can be no
permanent peace until the bad elements are erad
icated. A bad principle in the social system is
like a disease in the human system, — it is a
source of irritation and unrest to the whole body
politic. The patient is in ceaseless pain, apprehen
sion, and depression ; and even when he affects to
rest, he moans, and tosses his limbs about, and
starts as from ghastly dreams. How will you
restore the man to his natural tranquillity, and to
the enjoyment of his existence ? Will you sit at
his bed, and sing a lullaby ? WiU you expatiate
on the blessings of rest? Will you remind him
how commendable it is to be quiet and serene ?
Or will you endeavor to expel the man's disease,
AND INSURE HIM TRANQUILLITY BY FIRST ENDOWING
HIM WITH HEALTH?
That patient is our country. If you would not
mock the misery of a man by affecting to lull him
to rest while his malady rendered rest impossible,
why will you mock the agony of our country, by
singing luUabys, and ignoring the distemper that
brings all the pain ? American society has always
had in its blood one virulent distemper. That
distemper has been the source of all our trouble,
agitation, discord, and danger ; and now it has
assumed an alarming phase. It has broken out
in the ghastly form of teeason. Now, what does
the crisis require, at the hands of reasonable and

LESSON OP THE EPOCH. 239
faithful men ? What can it require, but the rad
ical CURB OF THE PATIENT ? Purify the social
system, and the American Republic will have peace.
This is the inflexible logic of the hour ; wUl they
heed it, to whom God has confided the solemn
issues of the contest.
The great lesson which this eventful epoch is to
teach our people, is devotion to liberty, and hatred
of every influence that would qualify the principle
or abridge the blessing. As our spiritual life has
its fountain in Christ, and as the Church derives
all its -vitality from the Divine Spirit, so our polit
ical life has its spring in liberty, and the strength
of the Republic lives in' the spontaneous enthusi
asm of free men.
Liberty, then, as the inalienable right of every
man, of every race, as the spring of perpetuity and
the crown of glory in the State, should be the song
and joy of the nation, marching to battle, or ex
ulting in victory. Through all the ages to come,
it should usher the citizen to the post of duty in
peaceful days, and fire him with antique heroism
in the hour of danger. Mothers, with loyal fin
gers, should sprinkle their children in its name.
Fair brides should be wedded to the peal of its
auspicious bells. Old men, while reviving the
pageantry of youth, should rehearse its inspiring
story. Statues should rise to its honor in every
vUlage. Banners should blazon its conquests.
Literature should embalm its fame, in the majestic

240 THE PEOVIDENTLiL ALTEENATIVE.
march of historical periods, and in the splendor
of epic verse. And Religion — beholding in Lib
erty her own co-worker — should invest it with
spiritual sanctions, and awe the hearts of men
before it with all the terrors of a righteous
Providence. December 25, 1861.

Cambridge : Stcreolyped and Printed by Welcli, Bigelow, & Co.

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