Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-05-27

sLAVRRY 80
FELLOW CITIZENS My heart responds
warmly to the feeling which induces
your kind reception. / could not forego
the opportunity offered by an invitation
to be present on this occasion to meet so
many earnest men IN the cause of our
| country, and unite in your efforts to car
~ on the struggle and crown it with sue
cess.
The reaction against free Government
in the United States and in this age, bears
upon its front the marks OF insanity The
father of the conspiracy, of which the con-
vulsion which now fills thescountry with
suffering and dismay, is the offspring,
| wore on his face, asiwas remarked by ma
ny observers, when his last words and dy-
ing impreeations against the principles
of our Constitution were read m the SEN
ate, the CHASTITY aspect of monomaniac.
His conspiracy prolonged through 80
years CESSATION had even then a vitality
to make itself painfully felt, and now the
monstrous birth is stamped with his
phrenzied features.
But neither the mysterious workings of
Oath-bound societies, nor the public agi-
tation contrived by intrigue, in Congress,
in State Legislatures and election canvas
ses, to engender partizan fury, prepared
the country to expect and meet the shock
it has received. The progress of the Gov
ernment had been so easy, prosperous
and glorious; it had attained such high
rank with States of greatest strength and
renown that scarcely any sound mind
supposed it possible that an assassin at
tempt would be made to close its career
by sudden blow, as if its life we're as
frail as that of an individual. There is
no parallel in the history of the world of
similar assault on a vast benifcent,
beloved popular Government, without
even an alleged act of oppression on its
part to provoke it, and whilst it was ac-
tually administered and its advantages
enjoyed by the very men who aimed the
stroke for its destruction.
But whilst prosperity made us insensi-
BILE to the danger, the wise and patriotic
men who founded the Government, saw in
slavery mine by which phrenzy and self
ish ambition might lay their work in
ruin. The slavery of one race they felt
was not compatible with the freedom of
another. They hoped the superior race.
influenced by the benign tendencies of
the Government they managed and en-
joyed, would ultimately extend the bles-
siag of liberty to a deped6ant people and
effectually remove their disabilities on
new scene of useful and independent ex-
ertion. These considerations induced the
sages on founding the Republic not to
disturb that poisonous element which
they believed the vigor of the Constitu-
tion would work out of the system in
time. They lived to see their fond hopes
proved delusionS. The noxious plant of
barbarous African growth, taking root in
the accumulations of avarice, worked by
the energy of a great race outstripped all
the sweet shoots of humanizing culture
given to our constitution by the beneyo-
lent philosophy of our forefathers. In
plain truth, slavery has propogated in its
region in prodigious strength all that is
evil in the nature of our countrymen, and
stifed all the virtues in which our glori-
Gus Government had its origin. How
strikingly this is demonstrated by the
fact, that while there was not a man IN
the South, who contributed to establish
the free institutions among US, who did
not denounce Slavery as a curse from
which the country must somehow be re-
deemed, now there is not one of that
slave breeding and governing class who
does not proclaim it as the all essential
blessing for which life itself must be sac
rifced
The process by which this melancholy
change has been accomplished is illustrated
by the drunkard's career. This unhappy
class of reprobates once felt that decency,
sobriety, industry and purity were the true
sources of happiness. ButloDg Indulgence
in intoxicating draughts renders existence
SHfn q
CANT feeling wild hiIarity or sensual indo
lence then become their Oaly good. Negro
Slavery is that black opium drug in the
South which excites it into delirious phren-
zy or sinks it into that sad lethSrgy, both
alike fatal to its prosperity. 1t psmpers
every vice and impairs every virtue.
And can State prosper under system
working such disqualification The pic
tuGe now presented in the land of slaves
tells the same story which is to be found
in the annals of every slave empire. ALI
Asia,has been corrupted by slavery. Afri-
ca, its birth place, has ever been a desert.
The glorious ancient republics persisted
under its influence, after reaching the high
est point of civilization by the hardy Vir-
tues of free people. and modern Europe
only redeemed herself from the common
fate by the extinction of the feudal system
that originated serfdom- z-s -
Reverence for the hopeful idea of our
fathers that the inherent virture of the Con-
stitution would extinRuish slavery induced
all who felt that its permanence would be
destructive, TO acquiesce in a passive re-
sistauce to its extension, although that re-
sistance had proved unavailing TO its FIRST
encroachments west of the Mississippi. It
was hoped that the passion for expansion
would be aIIayed by the surrender of Mis-
souri, and the acquisition of Texas and
that the compromise line established in
1920 ard re-apprOved in 1850 as the north
eru boundary of slavery, would be respect
ed. But having secured the President,
both branches of Congress and tho Supreme
Court, the slave power resolved to break
all eompacts and strike for the empire of
the continent, Kansas was taken by force
aud a slave government was designed to
L 1 = l.. Z.