Delaware State journal and statesman., 1863-01-20

|
ment OF their purpose.
The gradual Increase of population, under the law
Of the Almighty that community based upon free
labor will outstrip society founded upon unpaid toll
transferred the political power from the South and
her politicians We're not slow to recognize that in the
future they would be deprived Of the engrossment
Of the administration Of the Government and the
emouments OF official patronage.
This-the glory Of the Constitution-the working
out Of the blessings it designed to secure-the
establishment of great States-the extension Of free
nstitutionsthe development Of the resources Of the
country-was made the occasion for the agreement
of the class in comprising the destruction of the
Republic
Unfortunately, an instrument was at hand sulii.
GENTLY potent to array the other against the Govern
ment. This engine OF mischief African slavery.
Without it the rebellion could never have been con
summated
BY charging that the North was unfriendy to the
continuance of domestic institution, in which
many We're pecuniarly interested, the conspirators
induced the belief that the triumph of the free States
was the prelude to its destruction.
BY representing that the political power ehad de-
parted from the South, they exhibited her as in
state Of political bondage and that thenceorth not
only their national, but domestic policy, would be
subject to the control OF northern majority. BY
stignatizlng the dominant party, by which they in
tended the northern people, alnalgamatonists,
they impressed the multitude with the conviction
of the white man and invested with all the rights
and privileges Of the citizen
Emissaries We're sent to the loyal slave States to
their cooperation and for the first time in the
Legislative halls of the State OF Delaware, was heard
plea for treason.
Equally proof against appeals to her prejudice as
a slave State and to the suggestion OF interest the
future manufacturer for the new Confederacy, she
sood firm in her devotion to the Union, and her
to the invitation Of secession, is the presence of
four Regiments of her patriotic sons, armed in de-
fence Of the Republic.
1t will be perceived that these alleged causes of
dissolution purely speculative.
Even the Fugitive Slave Law the fertile source of
elimination, had, in the main, been faithfully exc
cuted. To prove this, the testimony of President
Buchanan in his last message is ample.
That the sentiment of the Northern people is OPP
posed to slavery is true, it otherwise it would
be the condemnation of their own free institutions
That private individuals, they would take part
in the capture of fugitive, is also true Even in
the South negro-catcher is held in low repute
The fact that despite Of this settled Northern sent
ment, the fugitive slave law O. was executed in every
contested case" evnces a law-abiding character,
which, it is submitted the South would have done
well to have initiated.
So of Personal Liberty Bills. For the most part
these were ancient statutes, passed long before the
enactment which it alleged they Were designed
to obstruct and had lain buried in the mass of obso-
lete and imperative legislation. As practical mea-
sures they were mainly useless Their significance
rested in the fact that they were evidence of ieal
GUS vigilance the rights of treemen
If they justly liable to the charge of uncon-
stitutonality the Supreme Court of the United
States open and it could not be averred that the
Judges hostile to slavery.
The failure to subject them to this test argues
either that the conspirators had confidence in
their iegaliy or that they preferred them to remain
as materials OF agitation, to accomplish purpose
far different from the faithful execution of the Fugi-
tive Slave Law -
But it is also remarkable that the States most OBJ
noxious to censue for their enactment and those most
violent in their denunciatons were States into which
fugitive rarely entered and from which one almost
as rarely escaped Out OF slave population Of l79S
loyal Delaware, in the decade between 1850 and
1860, lost twelve, one to hundred and fifty, while
South Carolina, with aggregate of 1854 1884, in the
same period lost but twentythTee, one to seventeen
thousand five hundred and one.
So the arraignment Of the Northern Press. That |
1t contained articles too often intemperate in the
condemnation of slavery and calculated to irrtate
the Southern people is admitted but it is equally true
that their own organs the less bIameful.
They abounded in disquisitions laudatory OF their
peculiar institutions, vtuperative of Northern Gus
toms and stigmatic OF Northern labor
All this was the necessary result of that liberty Of
speech lnseparabe from free government
With this however, the Government of the United
States had nothing to do BY no act of omission or
commission had it interered with the rights of the
South The citadel Of slavery was never so strongly
fortified as at the commencement of the rebellion
The root of the evil not the fear OF abolition.
The dissolution of the Union removed one of the
safeguards of slavery.
IT. in the progress of events, the nations of the
earth shall, in the development of the aptitude of
other soils, free themselves from dependence on the
great staple of the South and it, in working out the
salvation OF the Republic slavery shall be crushed
between the upper and the neither mill stome il will
he tha talllt ni thnsa ..L.