Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1861-01-09
Confessions and Concessions.
THE BITTERNESS oFFEELING BETWEEN THE NORTH
AND THE SOUTH
E.L..o.. ~. Al. -. lr........

tone of the Southern mind Ii is not what we
had been taught to expect. 1t awakens a more
serious consideration of the case between the con-
fctng parties. We have honestly opposed the
South, because we disliked slavery We begin
to perceive more clelrly that our displeasure at
the system has grown insensibly into unkindness
toward the men, An unlOving heart has nised
us. With our good feelings we have lost, in a
measure, our courtesy, candor and good judg-
ment. We have unwisely misinterpreted our
brethren, and severely urged them. They now
turn upon US. They allege injustice, and the
same spirit of oppression which we have charged
upon themselves. Their excitement is profound.
1t is not merely political, but moral. Their pres
ent complaint is not much of our measures, as
our principles and spirit. They proceed, OF course,
from contradiction to resistance. They are re-
solved They no longer calculate the arithme-
teal or political value of the Union. They look
below our legislative enactments, sectional cleo
tons, and other offensive demonstrations, to the
supposed animus that produced them. They are
not for different policy, but different spirit,
because a formal pacifcation could be of little
consequence without a corrected judgment and
restored affection If an irrepressbe conflict of
principles and sentiments is to be carried on they
will leave us, at whatever hazards. The fire OF
the Revolution is rekindling.
In this pressing state of things we have felt our
selves called upon to analyze our feelings to con-
slider our opinions; to review our policy; and
wherein we have erred, to make magnanimous
correction. We would do every thing that be-
comes Christian and patriotic men to avert de
structive catastrophe. Wewould clear our skirts
of our country's blood.
In the spirit of returning charity, reviewing now
the controversy which has been carried on, we
seem TO perceive wherein have been more or
less at fault. We hasten to confess it, and to
make honorable amends. We have done with
accusation. We would put ourselves kindly be-
fore our brethren, and right before our common
arbiter
First We have imagined that concession to
the South would be "to establish slavery as a
national institution; whereas it is already virtu
ally so established by the Constitution, whose
binding obligation we acknowledge. Establish
ment by legislation is not the province of Con-
stituton, but mere assertion of facts and princi-
piles on which legislation may be grounded. In
that only possible sense the Constitution estab-
fishes slavery as a national institution; for it is
national instrument. 1t binds the nation to the
facts and principles which it recognizes and sane
tons as legitimate. The nation is committed by
it to sustain slavery wherever it naturally subsists
or is specially by any State retained or upheld by
law.
The Constitution did not create slavery, but
found it an existing, proyidential fact 1t had
been a fact among the nations ever since the
mon law of all the eirth. The Constitution met
il, and took it in. 1t became an important eie-
meat in our common foundation. The COnsttu-
ton was adOptc1-a national criterOn-by which
legislation, in this respect, might proceed any
where or everywhere throughout the nation, as
well then and thcncelorth as in the time of Moses
and the Prophets, of Christ and the Apostles.
The Constitution stands. 1t engages all the
good faith honor and power of the nation to sus-
f,s,, q e
constituent States choose to maintain it. 1t gives
a solemn national guarantee, without which, as is
well known, we could not have had Constitution
united government at all. Be slavery right
wrong, for life or de nth, the nation is com
mittei to it, or the nation has no common bond
and is not nation.
Accordingly we now perceive more clearly that
the question is not, as we have incOnsiderately
imagined, whether slavery shall have a national
establishment-that is, such an establishment as
national constitution could only give it, recog-
milton and sanction-but whether the States that
retain or uphold it, under such national recog-
milton and sanction, shall enjoy, without let or
hindrance, their chartered rightsy That is the
simple question, from which should not have
turnel away, perplexed and exasperdte1, as we
have been, by political or speculative questions
which are nothing to the purpose, and could
only aggravate offenses. The question is not for
the philosophers or the politicians, but for com
mon sense and common honesty. Any man can
understand it, in its simplicity, and every man
who would be good citizen should settle it for
himself and behave accordingly
Our error has been that we have mixed up this
simple question with speculative and political
questions, which should have been treated in dis
tinction from it and in subsection to it, We have
consequently been betrayed, sometimes uncon-
sciously, into direct or indirect encroachments
upon the chartered rights of our Southern brethren
We have failed, sometimes cOnscientiOusly, to re-
deem our solemn pledges We have helped or
suffered our Legislatures to enact laws, our min
listers to preach, our churches to resolve, our So
cieties to protest cur lecturers to decaim clubs
and coteries to electioneer and dispute, if our
brethren of the South were not entitled to the
same rights of citizenship, or equal charity, cour-
tesy and good fellowship with ourselves and to
claim from US the honest and cheerful fulfillment
of our compact Wehave dgnfed insane persons
who have, in their high places, stigmatized and de-
nOunced them barbarians, or as sinners above
all the jewellers in Jerusalem. We have raised
against them our great weapon-the ballot box
If that were more authoritative than the Con
stitution, or any department of the Government
created under it.. With technical formalities
it is true, but with the erring spirit we have
contributed to put over them, against all protest
and remOnstrance, a Chief Magistrate well under
stood by all parties and by the world to represent
not a common principle, but our one-sded specula-
tons. We secured his election especially on that
account and by that argument. That distinguished
officer may himself stand corrected, and thereby
possibly save the nation, or greatly mitigate its
catastrophe. We trust he WILL and be a blessing
to his common country, at whatever sacrifice OF
sectional partialities. But, otherwise, the con-
fession of our error, can be our only atonement
for il when reparation shall be too late.
We also perceive now greater error in our
treatment of the ethical question of slavery-its
rights or wrongs per Sc. That question is supreme
1t overrides all constitutional political and party
questions 1t should not have been so much
complicated with them, but have been made de
c:sive of them. We should have settled it at the
start, and governed ourselves accordingly. But
when we have not kept it in abeyance, we have
PLAYED fast and loose with it, and have virtually
acted double We have at least affected to regard
slavery as a moral, political and social evil, and
at the same time to justify and support the Con
stitution which sanctions it, We have thus
awakened doubts of our Christian wisdom or in
tegrity, and thereby confused and mised less expe
rienced minds. Unbelieving and reckless enthu
siasts around us have, in this respect, been more
consistent than ourselves; for they began with al
open and uncompromisng denial of the right OF
slavery, and consequently denounced Constitu-
ton, laws, the Bible, the Church, or whatever
else they imagined to give it either speculative
or practical support. We have disclaimed fellow
ship with these men, as false and destructive, vel
have acted with them politically in carrying out
their speculative ideas, and thereby have put our
selves in false or equivocal relations, to greater
confusion of the public mind. We should have
made more exact determinations, and regulated
ourselves by safer method. We are now will
ing to correct our logic and our conduct; to be
more stud0us of the right, and less of the expe
dent; to follow God rather than man.
Secondly: We now perceive that in our uncer.
tain state of mind we have imagined an opposi
ton between the letter and spirit of the Constitu
ton. While that instrument recognizes and
sanctions slavery, we have supposed it, at the
same time, to promise equal rights and liberty
to all, :" and herein have found a seeming apology
for acting inconsistency with the Constitution ana
with ourselves against the South. We stand cor
rected-for the Constitution does not and could
not give such promise without nullifyng itself
an absurlity not to be imagined of the great mel
who framed or the cautious people who adopted
e