The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-11-06
THE SLAVERY C0ETR0vERsY-THE ONLY
WAY TO SETTLE IT.


ner, and William Il. Seward, to falsify the
truth of history by charging the South with
aggressions upon the North in the matter of
Slavery. Never, until now, when the desperate
fortunes of Willard Fillmore demand of his
followers In the South desperate measures, has
any Southern man dared to echo the stale SLAM
ders OF Northern fanatics. From that source
the mendacious statement has come so often and
been so frequently refuted, that we long ago
ceased to give it any thought. Now, that pre-
tended friends of the South have taken up the
song, and accused the South of bad faith and a
reckless disturbance of the peace of the coun-
try, it may be well to recur to arguments often
before submitted, and never yet answered.
From whatever sourcesuch charges may come,
they are false and Gbellous. The South has
never asked more than to be let alone; and,
from the beginning, has continually put up the
appeal, hands off, to the North. Contented with
their institutions and contented with the Govern
ment, Southern men have never desired any
thing more than the peaceable and quiet pos
session of their property, with the privilege of
passing with that property through the States,
and OF settling with it in any of the unoccupied
territories belonging to the General Government.
Whenever there has been any contest between
the sections, it has not been because the South
asked more than this, but because the North
was unwilling to concede so much. 1t was be.
cause the North, through her Representatives
in Congress, attempted to exercise a control
over this subject, which the Constitution of the
United States did not authorize.
The whole history of Slavery agitation may
be appealed to in support of these positions.
With the very organization of the Government
commenced a series of aggressions on the part
of the Northern, and of su omission to injustice
and tta Of fho tl4~,,
Love for our common country, a desire to be
at peace with the men Of the North, and spirit
of irrational, yet noble generosity, led Virginia
to cede to the General Government the broad
domain which she held as her own, and out of
which State after State has been carved, some
of which are this day arrayed in deadly hostility
against her. The same spirit induced the South
to dedicate the whole of the Northwest Territory
to free soil, consenting to the Ordinance Of 1887,
prohibiting Slavery in all the territories then
belonging to the United States.
Richnsondi Va.) Enquirer.
The style and temper in which the Disunion-
lists of the South discuss the Question of Sla-
very, are well illustrated by the extracts from
the Richmond (Va.) Enquirer, printed on our
fourth page, and by an editorial from the same
paper on the Slavery Controversy, part of
which is the text of this article. The writer,
whom we suppose to be the junior editor is
selfconfdent and positive, not extensively read
in the history of Slavery, rather careless in his
statements, and lax in his logic. We have
been amused at times with his assumption that
the subject has never been thoroughly discuss
ed before-that the Southern fathers were very
wellintentoned men, but deficient in philoso.
ply and pluck-that to these latter days is
vouchsafed the revelation that Slavery, so far
from being an evil, is, in every sense of the
word, a good-economical, moral, political
the best gift of Heaven to the master, the slave,
and society.
He has yet to learn great deal and if he
improve coming years, of which, in the ordina.
ry course of nature, many still await him, he will
learn that all that he has written in defence
and support of Slavery, has been presented
more at length, with greater force of argument,
more variety Of illustration, greater display of
scholarship, in the old world and the new, by
speakers and philosophers, who lived and died
before he was born; and if he will consult the
debates of the Congress Of the Confederation,
and of the successive Congresses Of the United
States under the Federal Constitution, to say
nothing of such Revelators as Chancellor Har-
per of South Carolina, and Professor Drew of
Virginia, he will be surprised to learn how lit
tie original matter on the great Question has
been furnished by the Richmond Enquirer.
In the speeches of Jackson of Georgia, and
Smith of South Carolina, in Congress, more
than fifty years ago, he will find more said in
the way Of argument, in support of Slavery,
than his prolific pen has produced since his
connection with the Enquirer; and as to the
danger, the imminent danger, the absolute Ger.
tsinty, of dissolution of the Union, these gen.
tlemen in 1890, Randolph in 1907, when the
slave trade prohibition act was passed, and
Cobb of Georgia, in 1919, during the Missouri
struggle, were just as solemnly convinced as
any modern apostle of Slavery.
There is nothing new under the sun, and,
We fear, in our comments on the foregoing ar
ticle, we too shall illustrate the axiom. The
topics discussed, we have dealt with so often,
that they seem to US almost threadbare.
The Disunionists always commence the dis
cussion of any question concerning Slavery
with misrepresentation. They assume that
the whole controversy is sectional the
North and the South-that the North is all
Anti Slavery, the South all Pro-Slavery-that
the shareholders are all propagandists, the nom
shareholders all Observation-Disclosures they, the
Disunionists, are the South, and whatever is
IN L..
icy, is said or done against the South.
This assumption runs throughout the article
quoted. "Aggressions of the South on the
North, a" of the North on the South" accusing
"the South of bad faith" &c. deceptive
phrases like these do more than argument to
mislead the reader. The burden of the article,
too, is to show that the North has always been
encroaching on the South, and the South has
always been submitting to usurpation and in
Justice.
Let US, then, begin right. The controversy
is not, intrinsically, sectional-is not between
Anti Slavery, the South all Pro-Slavery: the
Shareholders are not all Propagandists, the
| Observation-Disclosures, all Restrictionists the Dis
| unionists are not tie South; the shareholders
are not the South, any more than the Democra
| cy is the North: nor are words spoken or acts
done against the policy of Disunionists or Slave
holders, necessarily words spoken or acts done
against the South, any more than opposition t.
any particular party, or to any particular class
Of capitalists in the free States is opposition t.
/ the North. There are more sections, too. thar
the North and the South there are the middl,
States free and slaveholdnp and the Wester,