Charles E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe compiled from her letters and journals by her son Charles Edward Stowe

[382] us, the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rzqture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was a conjecture with him is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands may be doubted.

The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of theformation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.

In the mean while, during the past year, the Republican administration, with all the unwonted care of organizing an army and navy, and conducting military operations on an immense scale, have proceeded to demonstrate the feasibility of overthrowing slavery by purely constitutional measures. To this end they have instituted a series of movements which have made this year more fruitful in anti-slavery triumphs than any other since the emancipation of the British West Indies. The District of Columbia, as belonging strictly to the national government and to no separate State, has furnished a fruitful subject of remonstrance from British Christians with America. We have abolished slavery there, and thus wiped out the only blot of territorial responsibility on our escutcheon.

By another act, equally grand in principle, and far more important in its results, slavery is forever excluded from the Territories of the United States.