Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1861-03-05
From the Southern Presbyterian Review.
TcoNCLUDED.l

be an obligation to labor for the benefit of the mas
ter without the contract or consent OF the SER
want" Moral Philos ILL., C. 81
Now is such an obligation recognized in the Con-
stitution of the United Statess Are there persons
spoken of in it. who are held to service by claim
SO sacred that the Government allows them, howeV-
err anxious they may be to do to dissolve it neither
by stratagem nor force? If they run away, they
must be remanded to those who are entitled to their
labor If they escape to territory whose local
laws would otherwise protect them. lfthey appeal
to force, the whole power of the Union may be
brought to crush them. Can any man say that
the Constitution does not here recognize right
to the labor and service of men, of persons,
which springs from stpulations Of their own, is
entirely independent of their own consent an d
which can never be annuled by any efforts. whether
clandestine open, their part This is slduSry
it is the very essence and core of the institution.
That upon which the right Of property terminates
in the slave, is his service or labor. II is not his
SOUL not his person. not his moral and intellectual
nature-it is his labor. This is the thing which is
bought and sold IN the market and it is in conse-
quence of the right to regulate control and direct
this that the person comes under an obligation to
obey The ideas of a right on one side. and duty on
the other show that the slave, this relation, is
truly a persaR as his master The Constitution,
therefore does not recognize and protect sayery in
every moral and ethical feature of il The thing
which, under that name, has commanded the appro-
baton of mankind, is the very thing. among others
analogous to it. included in the third clause of the
second section Of the fourth chapter of the Constitu
tion. We see no way of getting roInd this argq-
ment It ia idle say thai slaves are not referred
tot is equally idle to say that the right to their la
Dor is not respected and guarded. Let this right be
acknowledged in the Territories, and we not
disposed to wiring changes upon words. Let the
Government permit the South TO carry her persons
held to service without their consent into the terri
tories and let the right to their labor be protected
and there would be no quarrel about slavery; lt 10
unworthy of statesmen, in matter of this sort to
bubble about legal technioalltes That the law of
slayeholdng States classes slaves among chattels,
and speaks OF them as marketable commodities,
does not imply that, morally and officially, they are
not persons nor that the property is in them rather
than in their toll These same laws treat them in
other respects persons, and speak Of their ser
vice as obedience OF duty. The meaning of chattel
is relative, and is to bs restFot.d to the relation
which it implies
We are happy to find that the Supreme Court of
the United States has fully confirmed the interpreta-
ton which We have given to this clause of the Con>
Stitution. In the case of Prigg Us. the Common
wealth of Pennsylvania it was asserted By every
Judge upon the Bench that the design of the provi
sion to secure to the citizens of the slavehold-
ing States the complete right and title of ownership
in their slaves property, in every State in the
Union into which they might escape from the State
where they were held in servitude" These are the
very words of Mr.. Justice Story, in delivering the
full recognition of this right and title was indispen-
sable to the security of this species of property in
all the slaveholding States and, indeed was vital
to the preservation Of the domestic interests and in
situations that it not be doubted that it cOnsttu
ted fundamental article, without the adoption of
which the Union could not have Leep formed; I
Again; eve have said that the clause contains a
positive and unqualified recognition of the right of
the owner in the slave"t Chief Justice fancy held
that, "by the national compact this right of prop
Ct,to
of the Union''S Judge Thompson said' the Conlti-
tuition 'airms, in the most unequiyoeal manner the
right of the master to the service of his slave,
cordng to the laws of the State under which he isl
held.'l Judge Wayne affirmed that all the Judges
concurred I'm the declaration that the provision in
the Constitution was a compromise between the
slaVeolding and non>slaveholdng States, to secure
to the former fugitive slaves as proherty.HN "The
paramount authority of this clause in the Constitu-
tion says Judge Daniel .to guarantee to the owner
the right Of property in his slave and the absolute
nulity of any State power, directly or indirectly,
openly or poverty aimed to impair that right or to
Obstpuct its enjoyment admit, nay insist qpon to
the fullest extent."E'
If now, the Constitution recognizes slaves pro-
perty, that IS persons whose labor and service
the master has a right. then, upon what principle
shall Congress undertake to abolish this light upon
a territory, of which it is the local Legislature? 1t
will not permit tie slave to cancel it, because the
service is due. Upon what ground can itself inter-
pose between man and his dues? Congress is as
much the agent Of the slayeholdng as it Is of the
nOp-slayehoiding States; and, as equally bound to
protect both, and TO hold the scales of justice even
between them 1t must guard the property of the one
with the same care with which it guards the pro-
perty of the other.
We have now refuted the postulates upon which
the recent revolution in the Government Is attempt
ed to be justified. We have shown that slavery is
not the creature of local aad municipal law, and
that the Constitution distinctly recognizes the right
Of the BssStar to the labor service of the slave;
that is the right OF property In slaves There IS no
conceivable preext then, for saying th4t the Gov
eminent should resist the circulation OF this klna
of property, more than any other. That question
it must leave TO the providence of God, and to tie
natural and moral laws by which its solution is
conditioned. AL that the Government can do, is to
give fair play to both parties, the gavehoding and
non-sayehoding States Protect the rights % botn
on their common soil and as soon as a sovereign
State energies to which the soil is henceforward to
heleng semit the matter to its absolute discretion.
This is justice-ths is the impartialty which be-
comes the agent of great people, divided by two
such great interests.
That the rights of the South, as Sldceholdiag-for
it is in that relation only that she is politically
different section from the North-and the rights of
she North as non-slaUsh0ding are absolutely equal,
is SO plain proposition, that one wonders at the
pertinecity with which il has been denied. Here
let us expose o sophism whose emily fOFce consists
in play upon words. It is alleged that the equaii-
ty of the section IS not disturbed b the exclusion
of slavery from the territories, because the South
eFn gan nav take with him all that the Northern
man cen take. The plain Engsh OF which IS this:
if the Southern man viii consent 10 become gg a
Northern man, and renoqnce What distinguishes
him as Southern man, he may go into the terrific
ries. But if he insists upon remaining Southern
man, he mnst stay at home. The geography is only
an accident in this matter. The Southern man, p0-
tically, is the stakeholder; the Northern man, poll
- Il,r ic no Of
South are the rights of the South slaveholding;
TIE rights OF the North the rights of the North
as Notwithstanding. This is what makes the real
difference betWixs the two sections. 70 exclude
slaveholdng is, therefore, to exclude the South ~
the tree soil doctrine, therefore, she, South ls ut
terry debarFed from every foot OF the soil, which
belongs OF right as much to her as to her Northern
confederates The Constitution is made 70 treat her
institutions as if they were scandal and reBrQach
1t becomes the patron Of the North, and an enemy,
instead of protection to her
That this is the attitude which the Governments
henceforward to assume, we shall now proceed to
show;
a. In the first place, let it be distinctly under
stood, that DO not charge the great body OF the
Northern people, who have accomplished the reeert
revolution with being aboltonists in the strict and
technical sense. We are willing TO concede that
they have design for thespresent to interfere d.
rectly with slavery in the slaveholding States we
shall give them credit for honest purpose under
Mr.. LlGc9lns administration, to execute as lar as
the hostility Of the STATES will let Them the provi-
sons of the fugitive slave law, Ill this may be ad
mitted but it does not affect the real Issue, nor
mitigate the real danger. We know that there are
various types opinion at the North with reference
70 the moral aspects of slavery, and We have never
appretepded that, under the Constitution as it
stands, there was any likelihood Of an attempt to
by legislation, with our properly % oqF
oYn soil.
(2.) But in the second place, it must likewise be
conceded that the general, almost the universal,
attitude Of the Northern mind is of hostility to
slavery Those who are not prepared to csndemn
ii as sin, nor to NEEDLE with it where it is legally
maiptained, are yet opposed to it, as natural and
political evil which every good man should desire
to see extingushed. Tfey all regard 1t as calam-
ty, an affection, misfortune. They regard it an
sIs Peters, p 5s9 e seg tI5, P: Oil; l0 Peters