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[389] advocacy of the measure. Mr. Hamilton, of South Carolina, declared that Haytien independence could not be tolerated in any form; and his colleague, Mr. Hayne, not only deprecated any such recognition, but demanded that our ministers in South America and Mexico, should protest against the independence of Hayti. Mr. Legare, also of the same State, opposed it violently. He was an accomplished scholar; but even the amenities of literary culture had not gained any covert in his breast, where sympathy with black men struggling for elevation could find shelter He said that the memorial originated in a design to revolutionize the South, and convulse the Union. ‘As sure as you live, sir,’ was his prophecy, ‘if this course is permitted to go on, the sun of this Union will go down in blood, and go down to rise no more. I will vote unhesitatingly against nefarious designs like these. They are treason!’ Better things than those surely were to be hoped from Mr. Benton, of Missouri, who prided himself on being considered the ‘illuminated’ Senator. Even he used this language: ‘The peace of eleven States in this Union will not permit the fruits of a successful negro insurrection to be exhibited among them.’ And all this while the sacred form of Liberty lay crushed under the wheels of the Slavery Juggernaut. But the victims of this national idol were not to be forever offered up—these immolations in our Temple dedicated to the Goddess of Liberty were to cease.
United States Publishing Company, 1874.
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