Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1860-03-03

invasions and insurrections; and yet this
total abstaining does not exempt US from
the charge and the denuuciHtiOn.
The question recurs. what will satisfy
them? Simply this: We must not only let
them alone, but we must, somehow, con-
vince them that we do let them alone
This we know by experience, is no easy
task. We have been trying to convince
them from the very beginning of our or
ganizatiOn, but with no success. In all
our platforms and speeches we have con-
stantly protested our purpose to let them
alone; but this has had no tendency TO
convince them Alike UnaVailing to con-
vince them is the fact that they have never
detected "A man of us in an attempt to dis
turb them.
These natural and apparently adequate
means all failing, what will convince them?
This, and this only: cease TO call slavery
7rroHg, and join them in calling it right
And this must be done thoroughly-dOne
in acts us we'll as in scords Silence will
not be toIerated-we must place ourselves
avowedly with them. Douglas new sedi-
ton law must be enacted, and enforced,
snppressing all declarations that slavery
is wrong, whether made in politics, in
presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must
arrest and return their fugitive slaves with
greedy pleasure. We must pull down our
free state constitutions. The whole at.
mosphere must he disinfected from all
tuint of opposition to slavery. before they
will cease to believe that all their troubles
proceed from us.
am quite aware they do not state their
case precisely in this way. Most of them
would probably say to US, ''I-et us alone,
do nothing to us, and say what you please
about slavery" But we do let them alone
have never disturbed them-so that, af-
ter all, it is what we say. which dissatishes
them. They will continue to accuse us of
doing, until we cease saying.
am also aware they have not, as yet,
in terms, demanded the overthrow of our
free-state constitutions. Yet those con-
stitutions declare the wrong of slavery
with more solemn emphasis than do all
other sayings against it; and when all
other sayings shall have been silenced,
the overthrow of these constitutions will
be demanded, and nothing be left to resist
the demand. II is nothing to the contrary
that they do not demand the whole of this
Just now. Demanding what they do, and
for the reason they do, they can voluntari-
" stop nowhere short of this consumma-
ton Holding, as they do, that slavery is
morally right and socially elcvating, they
cannot cease to demand full national
recognition of it, as q legal right and u
social blessing.
| Nor can We justifahly withhold this on
} any ground save our conviction that slave
~ is wrong. If slavery is right, all
/ words, acts, laws and constitutions against
/ it are themselves wrong, and should be
| silenccd and swept away. If II is right,
we cannot justly object to its nationality
its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot
2 "a,
/ largement. All they ask we could readily
grant; if we thought slavery right; all we
ask they could as readily grant, if they
| thought it wrong. Their thinking it
! right, and our thinking it wrong, is the
precise fact upon which depends the whole
controversy. Thinking it right, as. they
do, they are not to blame for desiring IFS
full recognition, as being right; but, think
ing it wrong, as we do, can we yield to
them? Can VIC cast our votes with their
view, and against our own? In view OF
our moral, social and political response
bilities, can VIC do this?
! Wrong rs we think slavery is, we can yet
| afford to let it alone where IT is, because
! that much is due to the necessity arising
from its actual presence in the nation: but
can we, while our votes will prevent it, al
| low it to spread into the national territor-
| les, and to ovcrrun us here in these free
| states?
If our sense of duty forbids this, then let
us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effcc-
lively. Let us be diverted by none OF
those sophistical contrivances whercwith
we are so industriously piled and belabor-
cd-contrivances such as cropping for some
middle ground between the right and the
wrong, vain as the search for n man who
should be neither living man nor IL dead
man-such rs policy of ''don't care on n
| question about which all men do care
! such as Union appeals beseeching true Tn
| ion men TO yield TO disunionists, reversing
the divine rulc, and calling, not the sim
ncrs but the righteous to repentance
! such as invOcatiOns of Washington, imPlor-
ing men to unSay what Washington has
said, and to undo what Washington did.
Neither let lis be slandered from our du-
! ty by false accusations against us, nor
! frightened from it by menaces of destruc-
tiuu of the Union, nor of dungeons to our
selves. Let us have faith that right makes
might; and in that faith, let us to the end,
| dare to do our duty as we understand it.