The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-08-14
1872
TcoNrIsUED FROM FIRST PAGE. |

less clear. The majority have no moral nght
to abdicate their power; they are responsible
10 themselves, to the world, and to posterity,
for the intelligent, well-considered, and firm ex-
ercise OF IT.
Ia respect, however, to this spprehended or
threatened dissolution ofthe Union by the South,
it is the stslest, the poorest, and the paltriest
pretext of American politics. From whatever
other quarter of the compass q dissolution of
the Union may come, it will never come from
the South; it will never come from States
whose peculiar institution renders them incapa-
bic of separate and Independent existence.
The maintenance of self-sustained power
among the nations of the earth is impossible
with any people weakened, cankered, and de-
mOralized, by Negro Slavery. The two things
cannot co-exist- No example of it can be
found, in the long history of that institution.
The nearest approach to an exception is the
case of Brazil and that is an instance, not of
independence achieved, but of dominions divi-
ded between two branches of a reigning family.
Negro Slavery is essentially colonial institu-
tion; it has always existed in colonies, or, as
In our Southern States, under conditions ena-
bling it to draw protection from the power and
vigor of free communities. The elder Quincy
informs us, that when Mr.. Calhoun spoke, in
1920, of withdrawal of the Southern States
from the Union as a possible event, it was with
a view to a subsequent connection Nth Great
Britain. The same thing was openly proclaim
ed the other day at the Capitol, by one of the
Senators from Kentucky, Mr.. Thompson.
Not only is this threat of q dissolution Of the
Union, by the South, groundless, an idle, and
even ludicrous pretext; it is even more, and
worse Ii is defiance and insult If the four
teen slave States will not submit, who is to sub
NIT? Is the majority to submit? Are the
seventeen free States, with more than twothirds
of the free people of the country, to be dragoon-
ed into obedience? The South refuses all
compromise. The lists are closed. There
must be clear victory for the one side or for
the other. The one party, or the other, must
go 10 the wall. The rule of the majority is re-
publican, and can be submitted to without dis
honor. We submit to it every day of our lives.
The rule of the minority is tyranny, in every
circumstance which can define tyranny, and
nobody but poltroon will succumb to it. The
Government we live under deserves all our
affections and all our support, but only because
1t reflects, or can be made to reflect, the fairly
and constitutionally expressed will of the ma
jorty of the people. Whenever it comes to be
controlled by menaces of revolution and seces-
sion from mnorities, it will represent only those
who can threaten the loudest. That day is,
happily, far distant.
Be the issue of existing collisions of opinion
what it may, it is an inestimable moral advan-
tage to the North, that it stands upon doctrines
common to the whole country when the Con-
stitution was formed. The North has adopted
no new opinions, and proposes no new policy.
When the slave States formed the existing
Union, they did it voluntarily, and with the full
knowledge that the free States abhorred the
institution of Slavery, and would not permit
Its extension. The Ordinance of 1887 is an
lmperishable monument, which attests to pos
terity the opinions of the trainers of the Gov
eminent. 1t is the South, and not the North,
which has seen new lights, and proposes inno-
vations upon the principles of our political
partnership.
1t is said that there is an important differ
ence in the position of the two parties now con-
tending for the Executive power; that the
Southern party, the party whose object is the
extension of Slavery, the party supporting Mr..
Buchanan for the Presidency, has friends and
allies and supporters in all the free States
and that, on the other hand, the Northern par
ty, the party opposed to the extension of Sla-
very, the party supporting Colonel Fremont for
the Presidency, has 10 friends, allies, or sup
porters, in the slave States. 1t is said in short
that the Southern party is national because it
rs enabled to present an electoral ticket i'm all
the States, and that the Northern party is Sec
honai, because, with exceptions not important
1t presents electoral tickets only in the free
States. This statement of the case is specious
and plausible, but will not bear examination.
We have, in the first place, the most indubit-
able facts to satisfy us that very large numbers
of the free people of the South dislike the in
stitution of Slavery. and are opposed to its ex-
tension. Five-and-twenty years ago, it was the
declared opinion of ninety nine in every hun
dred in the slave States, that the institution is
ed lafa ~
was the almost unanimous voice CT Virginia
MIR. Clay, the trusted leader Of Kentucky, main
tanned this view to his dying day. The con-
trary view originally confined to a little
coterie of politicians surrounding Mr.. Calhoun.
1t rs an exhalation from the boys and fens and
swamps of the tide-water region of South Car
DINA. We have with our own eyes seen this
exhalation, dark, murky, and disastrous rise
and spread, until it has obscured the whole
Southern horizon. AS those who saw black
clouds gather in the heavens, and veil the
lumnary of day, would still not doubt its exist
ence, and would still believe that it would
again, in due time, gladden. the earth with its
undiminished and untarnished lustre; so We
who can remember what Southern opinions
were, and with our own eyes have marked the
origin and progress of the cloud which has OBJ
secured them, may have undoubting confidence
that they still exist, and will again assert theil
power.
1t is impossible, in the nature of things, that
within the limits of one single generation of men
the unanimous condemnation of Slavery by the
South should be changed into a unanimous ap
probation oft. All appearances Of present unan
unity IN favor of Slavery are palpably fictitious
They are brought about by reign of terror
which has muzzled the press and silenced free
speech. In most of the slave States, nobody
except at the peril of life, is permitted to speal
ON the subject of Slavery, unless he speak.
M particular way. A member of the Legisla
ure OF Texas, having this summer expressed
the opinion that Congress has the power to pro
hibit Slavery in the Territories, was admonish
ed by a public meeting in Galveston, that the
utterance Of such sentiments would not be tol
Grated in that city. The other day, in Virginia
within less than one hundred miles of the Can
ital of the Union, a Mr.. Underwood was admon
ished that he would no longer be permitted tc
reside in the State, his offence being that he at
tended the Convention in Philadelphia which
nominated Col. Fremont for the Presidency
is perfectly monstrous to talk about the unan
unity of the South under such circumstances
is the unanimity Of Poland, with the Russian
knout brandished over it. 1t is the unanmity o
Austrian Italy, under the administration of Mar
shall Radetsky. 1t is the unanimity of the sub
jects of despotic power the world over. Intelli
gent men will not believe that everybody at tn,
South has fallen in love with an institution
which they all deplored and lamented twenty
five years ago. A change of opinion, so sudder
and universal, with not single new fact to has,
a change of opinion upon, is not within the com
pass of possibilities. 1t needs very little exam
ination to perceive that the present show o
unanimity at the South in favor of Slavery, il
a delusiou and sham, and the result of espion
age, political and social ostracism, and down
right brute violence.