, 1865-03-10

1t was q g0Od thing Tor America 'nat the
negroes should remain ia 1t and increase
and multiply, and that it was IL better
thing FIR the negro that he should be o
slave than "a free man. The North, IN
the other hand, has maintained rs siren
uouSIy that slavery WAS an illumination,
an outrage, and a crime; but that, all
things considered, 1t was a very bad thing
for America that the negro race had ever
been introduced into il; and that if slavery
were an evil, free blacks were evils almost,
If not quite, as fragrant. Social prejudice
set UP and still insists on Ibis preposter-
Gus claim. The result is that throughout
the North, the negro IS Systematically
repressed and deprived of social position
and political privilege by the tyranny Of
custom and the namtless operation OF So
ciai laws. In some Of the States in the
West neither negro slavery nor negroes
are allowed to exist and in Illinois, if
not in Indiana, it is a penal offence for q
coIoured man to cross their borders and
presume that he has any right to dwell
among his white SuperiorS. The negroes
of the North feel this social excommuni-
cation more acuteIy than the negroes OF
the South feel the oppression of slavery.
II the South the white man does not
hate The negro, nor the negro the white
man; while IN the North The love felt Ivy
antl-s'nvcry agltaturS and Others for the
negro Is purely theoretical and political,
and not in The slightest degree social;
while the OPT ion entertained hy the ne
groeS of heir WtIc '~fieuds." who talk
50 much aad 10 50 iut.e III their behalf,
IS Of the KIM winch most men entertain
towa,d< pa be hyNoc isy. Mr., Lincoln
onretpIl a deputaJipu ct ucgroeS that The
best hing they and their race could do
would be to betake themselves out of The
country, to 90 back to Africa, or drift
down into Central America. Mr.. Douglas,
speaking for his race, declares that they
Will do nothing of the kind that they
will not be ''improred off the face of the
earIh," like the red Indians; that they
have found Ii home in America, aud that
they will keep it; and that their true
place is among friendly, and not among
hostile, white people. Possibly, and very
probably, the result Of Nurthern love for
emancipation and Of dislike for the negro
may be, if the South should achieve or
help to achieve its Independence Ivy the
aid ofthe colonred people, that the North
crn negroes will gradually, if not coIlec-
lively, migrate to the South, attracted by
the superior cnngenialiiy of The climate.
III the North their natural increase is not
so great as in the South; in fact, if their
numbers were not augmented by fu9itives
from slavery, they would die out as a
people in a certain caIcuIahIe length Of
time, as may be discovered from the fact
that the annual number of deaths among
them is greater than that of the births.
The South hold the d~octriue that the
Federal Government had neither the right
nor the power to. abolish slavery, hut that
the only agency which could fleet The
purpose was The lawful and Constitutional
legislation Of the States in which the in
siitution existed. Mr.. Lincoln, for mill
tary reasons and for State necessity,
abolished slavery by proclamation and by
stroke of the pen as the Pope would
abolish Iheresy by an enryclical letter.
But slavery remained unaffected by his
fuIminaiions and only persisted in dis
tricts where his armies were able to PEN