The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1862-03-15
Gle Cecil ll)bio.
ELKTON. MARCH Is. 1862.
Special Message of the President.

of the President, on the subject of
slavery, delivered 10 both Houses of
Congress, on Friday week, the 7th
ms ant.
1t will be seen that the President
recommends that Congress render pccu-
MARY aid to any of the Slave States
that propose to adopt measures of grad
ual emancipation, leaving the matter
op ional with those States to accept or
reject such offer, and thus making the
people of the States directly interested
in the "peculiar insti u,ion" the sole
judges of the matter, the same as the
principal or high contracting party in
any other mercantile transaction.
AS far as Cecil county is concerned,
her immediate interest in the mater is
very limited, having but about 800
slaves, which under any circumstances
that can occur must necessarily diminish
in a very short term of years 10 a few
doncstics. Slave proper y in this coun-
ty is both so Improbable and precarious
that no man will invest money in it
Hence it is onl y question of time, and
but very limited period OF time either,
when the institution, by the natural
drain by death, by absconding and by
sending the slaves to a more Southern
latitude, will become extinct in Cecil
This conclusion every one knows and
acknowledges is beyond the power of
man TO prevent. This process has been
going on for years, accelerated as the
plainly visible end is approached. And
to the comparatively few individuals
who own slaves, compared with the great
mass who have no interest in them at all,
this proposition of the President would
seem to offer an inducemcnt that would
be seized by them with cagerncss, as Il
means to get rid of stock rapidly deter
iorating i'll value.
Taking a prac ical and common sense
view of the matter, every man would
arrive at the same conclusion. And
wi h any o,her kind of perlshablc and
unprof able merchandise on hand the
determination would speedily be adopted
and acted upon to sell out to the first
bidder. But we are not sure that this
contraband" stock would receive such
prac ical, business considcra ion of the
owner. The American people appear to
be possessed of every variety of insanity
on the negro question: and use III its
consideration about the same vast
amount of blind prejudice and bigotry,
and the same diminutive quantity of
common sense that Mohammedan does
in discussing the Koran.
But whether Congress acts upon the
suggestion Of the President, or whether
any of the Sta es accept the offer if
made, will not change the grand and
sublime determination of the great and
overwhelming MAORI y of the American
people, which is, in future, to either
reduce slavery to It's legitimate province
-"a newer of wood and drawer of
water "-and thus drag it down from
our Congressional Halls where it has for
so long, in the hands of skillfull dema-
gogues, retarded the progress of the
nation and destroyed its peace, or utter
ly and irretrievabIy destroy it. The
nation must and shall be preserved in
tact, and if the negroes and their mas
ters stand in the way as an opposing
obstacle, they will just as certainly be
! swept from the earth as the aboriginal
Indians were, that better men may sup
ply their places. This country, with
her immutable boundaries fixed by
nature, of lakes, rives and mountains,
cannot be divided into patches with ina
ginary lines, to satisfy the arrogant
no ions and pampered tastes of naughty
aristocra:s.
Message From the President.