Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1857-01-02

Passing further south, they came to North /
Carolina, where the Prcsbyterisns Of Neck
lenbure had put forth the FIRST declaration Of
INDEPENDENCE. in anticipation Of that Of the
9TH of July, 1870 The free, liberal notions
of the Hueuenots were deeply implanted in
the feelings Of the people Of South Carolina.
All these colonies rose up in body Of men
ripe and ready to sustain the people of New
England in all those great principles and the
Dries of civil government. They embodied
them in the Declaration of Independence
They together hazarded their lives upon the
high places of the battlefield in common to
assert thom; and they succeeded. When we
came to the formation Of our Constitution Of
government we are told that the people OF the
then States, recently colonies, were slayehold-
ers Yes. sir. so they were. | believe Mas
sachusetts had adopted her constitution, which
the court afterwards said, in its bill of rights
abolished slavery: but at that time they were
hardly conscious Of it. We may say that all
of them, OF all except Massachusetts, If you
please, were Shareholders. What if they
were: SO much the better for my argument
I want TO know what they who actually held
slaves, one and all, did upon that occasion
What they did then, ] take it, was not a war
aimed at the South 1t was not narrow
mean prejudice against the local institutions
Of some particular State. They acted in COM
mon together. What did they do in forming
the Constitution of the United States; and,
after forming it, in exercising the powers
which they created under it; They held
slaves. They understood the evils of slave
~ They understood what the system was.
They were recently out of the great struggle
for independence, and they then said, one and
all, this institution is of that kind it is so
inconsistent with those great principles which
VIC have declared to the world and for which
we have fought and blcd it is so lily adapt
ed to the prosperity of the nation at large
it is so at war with the first principles of lib
orty within us, that we here deliberately say
it shall not go into those parts of the Union
which arc beyond the jurisdiction Of any par
ticular States, and within the jurisdiction Of
the General Government.
| am aware that the ordinance Of 1871 was
adopted before the present Government came
into operation but, after the adoption of the
Constitution, it was Immediately rconactcd,
and established in perpotuity by an act Of
the First Congress. The title by which the
United States held the territory beyond the
Ohio, now making the five States on that side
Of the river. was Of the same tenure precise
ly as that by which they acquired Louisiana
from France. Both rest on the same footing,
Every essential provision was the same in the
two grants; the one from Virginia, and the
other from France. ! shall, therefore, in all
| have to say Of them, treat the conduct of
the United States, in relation to these differ
ent Territories which they possessed, as being
precisely the same, resting on the same prn-
ciples, and identical in character.
What has been the effect, | shall hereaf-
ter show more fully and at large, why the
power Of prohibiting slavery in the Terrific
ries has boon exercised, and repeated and con
tinued by an uubrokcn succession of acts from
that time up to a very recent period--within
the last ten years. Congress enacted them
because the institution of slavery was one
which they considered should cease for, if /
it continued, it would produce a social and
political condition Of society incompatible
with the great principles t,ey had adopted
Now, what has been the progress OF events
What has been the result and the fruit of that /
course, After the first Congress had declar- |
ed the Territories. which they then owned, to
be consecratod to freedom; after they had
fully provided and declared that no slavery
should exist there iorcvcr-as soon as they
ended the Indian difficulties by the treaty of
Granville, and opened up that country for
peaceable Professionalism commenced that
great wave of emigration, that great exodus
of civil life which has astomshcd and COM
manded the admiration of the world. Even
within my recollection, / can remember al
most the very commencement of that great
emigration. The people Of New England
and the East, looking to the West, commence
cd the first emigration, as ] remember, into
Western New York; they went on to the
a Al =, Al
land purchase. The next wave passed on to
Ohio, Then they passed over the great lakes
into Michigan and Illinois and Wisconsin and
Iowa and Minnesota In the mean time, all
along the borders of the Atlantic, from Penn
sylvania, Now York, and New Jersey, and
North Carolina and Virginia, YOU saw the
boating across the Ohio, leaving the now
meteorological institution of slavery, going
with the West to swell the great tide of en-
igration, and add to the success of the great
experiment in the cause Of civil liberty.
We cannot but see in this new phase in
the history of the world. Nothing like it
has ever been Witnessed before. | know there
had been irruptons at times Of men passing
from the north of Europe--the Cloths and
Vandals, the Huns and Scythians--to the
south but they were great hordes of barba-
rians marshalled by ministers and kings
There was no such thing in these tides of en-
igration. There was no Tamerlane, no Chen
gis Khan; there was no Attila Of the Huns.
1t was not an Eruption visiting the wrath Of
God on the degenerate people No, sir it
was the human family led out to possess its
great prtrimony Who could look with in
difference upon an experiment like this;
We saw in it not merely an enlargement Of
our numbers and an increase of population
we admired it, not merely because the forest
was cleared away, and farms houses and dwell
ings, towns and cities, churches and school
houses, were everywhere erected; but as it
spread over the great fertile valleys Of the
West, its praiTies and its fields and its noun
tains, we saw in it an enlargement and expan-
sion Of the great theory of government fur
which our fathers first landed here, which had
been reassertod in the Declaration Of indie
pendence, which had been sustained by the
acts prohibiting the extension Of slavery.
These people carried with them their house
hold gods away to the foot Of the Rocky
Mountains and we saw in it a manifestation
to the world at large Of the great principles
we held dear Every man, especially every
man in New England, realized that the best
of his own blood was beating in their veins