The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-04-21

OF my lnveStlgatlOnS, nave arrlVeu at the COLI
clusion that they are wholly without reason or
probability to support them.
For, in the first place, a constitutional major
ity of the people Of the Union have the right to
elect President; the Constitution defines who
may be President; and if the man chosen by
the constitutional majority Of the people is eli
| gible, there can be no possible objection to his
| Inauguration. Whoever raises his hand against
the Inauguration of President legally chosen,
and eligible, is traitor, and all good law
abiding people, North and South, will sustain
the Government in bringing him to condign
punishment. State Rights will sustain no man
in resisting the installation of legally elected
President. So far from it, the honest champion
of the reserved rights of the States will be
equally tenacious of the powers granted to the
! Federal Government
But this idea of resisting the Inauguration of
Republican President, which was prevalent
in the South in 1885, and was threatened even
by the Governor Of Virginia, is no longer
dreamed of except by few mad-caps in the
extreme South. On sober second thoughts, the
wise men of the South, of the dominant party,
have concluded to abide by the Constitution,
and make no effort at resistance until their con-
stitutonal rights are invaded. The Opposition
in the South, composed of old conservative
| Wings and Americans, have never threatened
resistance to the constituted authorities on any
such ISSUE They will stand by the Government
until the rights of the States are encroached
upon by the Federal power.
And here is the point. What will the Re-
pubGcans do? VIII they trench upon the
rights of the States
So far as know the sentiments of prominent
Republicans, or of the masses, know of no
such purpose, and l therefore feel authorized
to say that no such encroachment is eontem-
plated.
What, then, will the Republican party do
with its power? l answer, first, it will prevent
the extension Of Slavery into new Territories.
To effect this object, it may be necessary to
legislate Slavery out of them; or the result
may be attained by the exercise of the moral
influence of the Government For number of
years past, this Influence and patronage have
been sufficient to make the Territories, as a
general rule, Pro-Slavery in feeling and politi-
cal bias; and, for my part, think it will be
much easier to make them Anti-Slavery than
Pro-Slavery, for the reason that Freedom is in
itself more reasonable, beautiful and COM
mendable, than Slavery. But, in any event,
| the Republicans claim it to be the right and
duty of the Federal Government to exclude
Slavery from the public domain, by act of Con-
gress, or by moral influence, operating upon
and controlling Territorial legislation.
In the second place, while the Republican
party, as the States Rights party, will studious-
ly refrain from trenching upon the reserved
rights of the States, it will feel bound to WELD
the patronage and influence of the Federal
Government for the promotion of sound morals,
and the dissemination Of enlightened views of
public policy among the people, North and
South A Republican Administration will give
no aid to the modern ProSlavery heresy in the
South, but will endeavor to discountenance and
| n hv ocrip a 20 +,o
lightened, liberal, and philanthropic views of
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. This
the champions of Slavery and Disunion may
count on; and well they may, for it is destined
to produce revolution in public sentiment at
no distant day.
The freesoil tendency in all the border slave
States is conspicuously manifest even now. In
Missouri, it has broken out in vigorous political
action. 1t was but the other day that your city
newspapers chronicled splendid free-soil vic
tory in st. Louis not the first, though the
largest of its kind All over Missouri, this free
soil sentiment is more or less prevalent and
out-spoken. 1t is difused through Kentucky,
Western Virginia, Maryland and Delaware; and
the triumph of the Republican party in the
Presidential contest will be the signal for the
grandest outburst of the pent-up hopes and as
pirations of the people in these States, of which
our history furnishes any example. The people
of the South yearn for Freedom. They are
kept spell-bound and terror-stricken by the
eternal hue and cry of danger TO the State, kept
| up by few interested agitators. These dema-
gogues keep up perpetual reign of terror at
the South, so that no man can hope for public
| favor, or even for private respect, who refuses
| to join In it. The people look to the State
| Governments, and they find these agitators in
| power; and turning to the Federal Government,
they find the same men or their creatures ready
to crush every aspiration for Liberty
The Inauguration of a Republican President
will reverse all this. He will stretch out the
arm of Federal influence to protect and en-
courage Freedom, and to build up party of
Freedom in every Southern State, similar to
that which exhibits such healthy growth in
Missouri. Who can doubt what the effect will
be? If Freedom is irrepressble, with all the
weights which now Cypress it, what will it not
be when those weights are removed, and their
influence thrown into the opposite scale?
L may be too sanguine, but i am willing to
hazard the prediction that before the end of
the first Republican Presidential term, the party
will carry the day in every one of the border
slave States. | am equally confident that a
Pro-Slavery party will never again enter the
field for the Presidency after four years of Re
publican rule.
What, then? Are we to have no more parties?
10 IHo mlilcIiHluIh dI manu- OF, am not so
hopeful that. l cannot doubt that we shall
have parties; but the issue between them will
no longer be Freedom or Slavery They will
both protest allegiance to Freedom, and will
only dispute about the best mode of removing
Slavery.
Such are my views of the future. | have no
fears OF a dissolution of the Union. The South
ern people, sustained by the Federal Govern
ment will not permit a handful of discontinued
rule-or-ruin fre-eaters to dissolve the Union.
Neither will they be permitted to revive that
greatest crime which nation ever embarked
in-the slave trade. The laws, which brand it
as piracy and punish it with death, will neither
be repealed, nor suffered to sleep as they now
are. The whole Union is interested in putting
an end to this infamous traffic, which threatens
| to deuge the South with African barbarism.
drive out the white population, and Africanize
| the continent.
| Sir, we have been falsely styled Black Re
publicans. 1t is a miserable trick of dema
| gogues to misrepresent and render us odious
| While we opposed to the enslavement of
| black men, we have wish to augment the
number among us by foreign importations,
whether free or slave. We know that black men
are tropical in origin and adaptation, and we
desire to inaugurate policy which will restore
the black race to the tropical regions. If any
| party deservesthe name of Black it is that which
advocates the perpetuation of black Slavery in
these States, and which, not satisfied with the
stock on hand, is now importing more from AZ
RIGA. The Republican party, when it attains
power, as it is destined to do at an early day,
will put stop to this iniquity, and it could do