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toward the grand result of extinguishing slave property, and was one of the record issues of the late election.
This policy must be considered as approved also.
Not that every man who voted for the successful nominee meant to affirm that a trustee for several coequal parties has a right, in law or reason, to exclude the property of some and admit that of others of the parties for whom he holds; but so is the record.
The South seems inclined to accept the judgment.
She holds the property that is to be shut out of the territories — that is to be restricted, cribbed, and confined more and more until it is finally extinguished.
Everywhere in the South, the people are beginning to look out for the means of self-defense.
Could it be expected that she would be indifferent to such events as have occurred?--that she would stand idle, and see measures concerted and carried forward for the annihilation of her property in slaves?
Several States propose to retire from the confederacy; and that justly alarms us. We come together to consider what may be done to prevent it; and we are bound, in fidelity to ourselves and others, to take the measure of the whole magnitude of the danger.
The
Judge proceeded to set forth that the questions raised among our fathers by the introduction of Slavery had been wisely settled:
If the Anglo-Saxon loves liberty above all other men, he is not indifferent to gain and thrift, and is remarkable for his capacity of adaptation, whereby he takes advantage of any circumstances in which he finds himself placed.
And, accordingly, by the time the colonists were prepared to throw off the British yoke, and to assume among the Powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitled them, it had been discovered that the unwelcome workers, against whose introduction such earnest protests had been made, could be turned to profitable account in the Southern States--that the African constitution was well adapted to labor in latitudes which alone could produce some of the great staples of life — and that the North, which could not employ them profitably, would be benefited by such employment as the South could afford.
Considerations of humanity also, as well as the rights of private property, entered into the discussions of that day. What was best for an inferior race, thrust unwillingly upon a superior?
That both should be free?
or that the inferior should serve the superior, and the superior be bound by the law of the relation to protect the inferior?
That was a great question; and, like all the questions of that day, it was wisely settled.
The Northern States abolished their Slavery; and so gratified their innate love of freedom — but they did it gradually, and so did not wound their love of gain.
They sold out Slavery to the South; and they received a full equivalent, not only in the price paid down, but in the manufacturing and commercial prosperity which grew up from the productions of slave labor.
When the Constitution came to be formed, some of the Northern States still held slaves; but several had abolished the institution, and it must have been apparent that natural causes would force it ultimately altogether upon the South.
The love of liberty was as intense as ever, and as strong at the South as at the North; and the love of gain was common also to both sections.
Here were two master passions to be adjusted, under circumstances of the gravest delicacy.
They were adjusted, in the only manner possible.
Concessions and compromises — consideration for each others' feelings and interests — sacrifices of prejudices, forbearance, and moderation — these were the means by which the “more perfect Union” was formed.
And what a work it was!
If the Union had never brought us a single blessing, the Constitution of the United States would still have been a magnificent monument to the unselfish patriotism of its founders.
Not an alliance merely, but a close and perfect Union, between people equally ambitious, equally devoted to freedom, equally bent to bettering their condition, but separated by State lines and jealous of State rights--one section seeks its prosperity under institutions which were to make every man a freeman — the other under institutions which tolerated negro Slavery.
Had the Constitution failed to work out the beneficent results intended, here was an instance of human efforts to do good, which would forever have challenged the admiration of mankind.
But it did not fail, thank God!
it has made us a great and prosperous nation, and the admiration of the world for the motives of the founders, is swallowed up in wonder at the success of their work.
But all this the “irrepressible conflict” ignores.
The passion for liberty has burned out all memories of the compromise and the compact in these Northern communities, which, under the false name of Liberty bills, obstruct the execution of the bargain.
What part of the purposes of the founders are the ‘underground railroads’ intended to promote?
Whence came these excessive sensibilities, that cannot bear a few slaves in a remote territory until the white people establish a Constitution?
What does that editor or preacher know of the Union, and of the men who made it, who habitually reviles and misrepresents the Southern people,
