Year: 1860

parcels ut my own country-the best of
them rot so wise and great as am sure il
will hereafter he the State least developed
and peri cted among them all is better and
wiser than any foreign state know. l. il
hen In any, and in which, of the States
have named that negro ,qialiy oaends the
white mans pride? Throughout the wide
world whrre is the State where class and
caste are so utterly extingui,hed as they
are In zach and every one of them? LIT
the European immigrant, who avoids the
African as If his skin cxhalod o1n,aninn.
answer. You find him ALWAYS In the State
where labor is ever free. Did Washing
ton, Jefferson and Henry, when they inn
| plore1 you TO relinquSh your system and
accept the one we have adopted, propose to
sink you down to the level of the African,
or was it their desire to cxalt all white men
10 a common political elevation?


But we do not seek to force, or even to
intrude our system on you, We are ex-
cluded justly, wisely and oo0tcntedly from
all political power and responsibility in your
capital States. You are sovereign on the
| subject Of slavery within your own borders.
as we are on the same subject within our
borders. 1t Is well and wisely so arranged.
! Use your authority to maintain what system
you please. We are not di,trusifil Of the
result We have wisely, as we think, ex-
erciSed ours 10 protect and perfect the man
hood Of the members Of the State. The
whole sovereignty upon domestic concerns
within the Union is divided between US by
unmistakable boundaries Yon have your
fifteen distinct parts; we eighteen parts,
equally distinct. Each must be maintained
in order that the whole NAV be preserved.
! If ours shall be assailed within or without,
by any enemy, or for any cause, and we
shall have need, we shall expect You TO de-
fend it. If yours shall be assailed, in the
emergency, no matter what the cause or the
pretext, or who the foe, we shall defend your
sovereignty as the equivalent of our own,
We cannot indeed accept yonr system
of capital or ethics That would be TO sur
render and subvert our own, which we es-
TEEN to be better. Besides, if we could,
what need for any division into States at
all? You are equally at liberty to reject
our system and its ethics, and TO maintain
the superiority of your own by all the
forces of persuasion and argument. We
must, indeed, mutually discuss both systems.
All the world discusses all systems. Es-
pecially must we discuss them since we
have to decide as a nation which of the
two we ought to engraft on the new and fli-
ture States growing up in the great public
domain. Discussion then being unavoid-
able, what could be more wise than to con
duct it with mutual liberation and in fra
ternal spirit?


You complain that Republicans discourse
too boldly and directly, when they express
with confidence their belief that the system
of labor will in the end, be universally ac-
eepted by the capital States, acting for
themselves, and in conformity with their
own Constitutions. while they sanction too
unreservedly books designed TO advocate
emancipation. But surely you can hardly
expect the Federal Government or the po-
litical parties of the nation to maintain a
censorship of the press or of debate. The
theory of our system is that error Of opin-
ion may in all cases safely be tolerated where
reason is left free to combat it. Will it be
claimed that more Of moderation and ten
derness in debate are exhibited on your
side of the great argument than our own !!
We all learned our polemics, as well as
our principles, from a common master.
We arc sure that we do not, on our side,
exceed his lessons and example. Thomas
Jefferson addressed DIR. Price, an English
man, concerning his treatise on emancipa-
ton in America, in this fashion


'Southward of the Chesapeake, your
books will find but few readers concurring
with it in sentiment on the subject of slave
ry. From the mouth TO the head of the
Chesapeake, the bulk of the people will
approve il in theory, and ii will find re-
spectacle minority ready to adopt it in
practice, minority which, for weight and
worth of character. prepondcrates against
the greater number who have not the cour-
age TO divest their families of property
which, however, keeps their conscience
unquiet. Northward of the Chesapeake.
you may find here and there a robber or a
murderer but in no greater nnmebr."
"Tbs (yrginia)
is the next State TO which we may turn our
eyes for the interesting spectacle Of justice
in conflict with avarice and oppressior-q
conflict where the sacred side is gaining
daily new recruits from the infux into of
flee Of young men. grown and growing np.''
~ "Be not then
discouraged. What you have written viii
r do great deal of good; and conld you
still trouble yourself about our welfare. no
man is more able 10 help the laborine
side."


You see. sir that whether we go for or
against slavery anywhere, we must follow
Southern guides. Yon may change your
pilots with the winds or the currents but
we. whose nativity. reckonol under the
North Star, has re drred us somewhat su-
perstiiious. must be excused for constancy
in f,l'owing the guidance of those who
framed The national ship and gave us the
chart for its noble voyage.


A profound respect and friendly regard
for the Vice President Of the United States
has induced me to weigh carefully the tes-
timony he has given on the subject Of the
hostility against the South imputed to the
Republican rarty as derived from the re-
laions of the representatives Of the two
parties at this capital. lie says that he has
saen here In the representatives Of the
lower Southern States a most earnest and
rrsnlute spirit of resistance 10 the Repnb-
lican rarty: that he parci ives n sensible
loss of that spirit nf brotherhood and that
fe-ling cf loyalty. together with that love