Daily American organ. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1856, 1855-08-18

For whoever lives 10 see the battle fought, will
see one more example added 10 the multitudes
which already crowd the annals of mankind, that
they who boast themselves when they grid their
harness on, are apt emo gl to wall when they come
to put il OF.
So far then you perceive that according 70 the
liked and unanimous conviction Of the fifteen
Commonwealth you propose TO conquer, your
whole North, II il were united as one man, could
no more do that deed than il could make a world ;
and that unless il utterly LOST 10 every glor-
GUS inspiration of the past, and every sacred i'm
pulse Of struggling for birth In all true hearts, the
North would no more think Of such an attempt
upon such pretezts as you array--eyen IL those
pretexts were all true aud real-than IL would
think of parricide followed by self-murder. But,
sir beg you TO consider what 1 shall add 10 show
that those pretexts are neither true nor real
The very foundation of your discourse, as YOU
distinctly state, is the grand principle universal
you assert in the law Of slavery, that man. ere.
ated in the image of God, is Invested Of his human
character, and declared to be mere chattel Now
Mr.. Sumner, you cannot fail to be aware that both
parts Of this statement are absolutely untrue, and
by consequence your whole plea for our conquest
is based on double, perfdious bubble. There is
not single slave State in this Union whose laws
divest the slave of his human character. There is
not single one whose laws declare slave to be
mere chattel. No doubt many of the rights which,
believe with you to be inherent in human nature,
are wholly incompatible with any state of slavery
No doubt If slavery exists at ALL the right of pro-
perty thus recognised by the local law may be made
analogous to the right one has to chattel, Just as
it may be to the right one has to reality. But you
have far too much sense and knowledge not to
know, that these are widely different truths from
the abominable untruths upon which your whole
discourse proceeds.
Do you not perfectly understand that every
slave State in this Union shapes its entire slave
code, upon the grand truths that slave is not
mere chattel, and that his human character ID not
Invested? Do younot know that, by the univer-
sal law of slavery, the slave is held to innumerabe
accountabilities, overriding all claim of his master
and that he is protected not as a chatte but al
man, at the peril and forfeit even of his masters
life And yet, upon precisely opposite allega-
tons, you construct an argument whose logical Is
sue is the subverson of our national Union !; and
upon that argument you construct code of NOR
als, whose highest obligation is civil war /! Sir,
whatever may be my opinion Of the fairness of
such reasoning, Ieasy perceive its diaectic skill
But for your sweeping, allegations your argument
had nothing on which to rest for If the relation
OF master and slave be once admitted to be gene
really relation OF power and subsection analo-
gous to those of ruler and subject, guardian and
ward, parent and child, then it demands far higher
powers than yours, to show that as mere relation
it has any moral quality at all and then your
duty of murder on account Of II comes straight
way to an end.
Slavery, Mr. Sumner, is not thing, which, even
in its fundamental nature, much less in its more
revolving aspects, have any purpose to defend
But tits not, either in its nature or its manifesto
tons, the thing you pronounce it to be; and this
you could hardly fail to know. How, then can
avoid saying that the pretexts on which you coun-
sci such insane proceedings, are neither true nor
real?
What you say on the two vital objections, as you
call them, to what you style the Anti-Savery En-
tcrprise is not equal to the level of your ordinary
thoughts The distinction Of race as an obstacle to
ndiscriminateabotion, and the sanction of Chris
tds to the institution of slavery as plea for its
liberation, do unquestionaby require to be put
aside more thoroughly than you have succeede in
doing, before the terrible necessity of adopting
your principles and following your counsel can be
said to be obligatory on the conscience OF the
North. | will venture to suggest somewhat on
both topics, which seems to have escaped your
notice.