Year: 1861




and had been forced upon the colonies by
the mother country. Most of the leading
men, both North and South, then looked
upon its existence as ephemeral and con-
templated day, at no great distance, when
it would wholly disappear from our system.
Far-seeing as the founders of this govern
ment We're, they did not estimate rightly
the future of this Institution. Subsequent
developments have fixed the line OF demar-
kation between free and slave institutions.
This line has been established by self-inter-
est, and not by any principle of religion or
philanthropy. The Northern States relieV-
ed themselves from the bnrthen when they
disposed of their slave property to their
southern neighbors and abolished the insti-
tuition, and the Southern States found in the
growing demand for the peculiar produc-
tions of their climate and soil, profitable
field for the employment of this species OF
labor, and they have cherished and main
tained it, until it has become the basis of
their social system as well as the mainspring g
of their wealth. and its productions now
form the staple of the worlds commerce.


From the time this line was formed a
gradual but perceptible change in the tone
of sentiment, both North and South, began
to manifest itself. In the beginning of the
agitation of the slavery question in the free
States, the advocates of anti-slavery senti-
ments found but few sympathizers, and the
abolition lecturers met with but an indiffer-
ent reception at the hands of the people.
The honest instincts of the masses recoiled
from the danger with which these senti-
ments were pregnant, and the fear of the
popular mind has been fearfully verified in
the events that are now transpiring around
US. In the change of popular sentiment on
this subject the politician and the dema-
gogue have had much to do ; but their eff
forts would have been powerless but for the
aid they have received from much more
powerful as we'll as dangerous class. re-
fer to that class of political teachers who
belong to the ministry, and who claim to
speak by authority. In all ages of the
world, the ministers and priests of the pre-
vailiug religion have exercised a most
potent influence over the minds and conduct
of men, and in no country more than our
own, Notwithstanding our boasted indepen-
dence. Their power for good or evil
is greater than any or all others.
They stand as the professels representa-
tiEes of heaven, in attempting to reclaim
world from sin. Clothed with this sacred
robe, as ambassadors from that high court
they claim to pass the judgment of heaven
upon the acts and conduct of their fellow
men and, when this high mission is faith
fully and conscientiously performed by one
capable of understanding the true relation
between man and his maker, when the
Christian religion is applied to the world as
it is, and not as it ought to be, no nObler
spectacle can be presented than that feature
of our social system that is so strikingly
eXemplified in the church circle OF which its
minister and pastor is the center, and no
class of men are entitled to higher regard
than those ministers who faithfully, and in
a spirit of charity, discharge the high duties
of such a station. But unfortunately for us
as a nation, toe many who have thus armed
themselves with this double power for good
or evil, have turned their attention TO poit-
ical reforms, and invoke, in their misguii-
ed zeal, all the fauaticaI elements by which
they are surrounded. Profoundly ignorant
of the political bearings of questions of So
cial and. political economy, they claim 10
judge ali such questions from a moral point.
of view, and to condemn or approve accord
ing to their standard of moral right with
out any regard to the effect of such decision
upon the well-being of society at large, and
without considering the probable result of
their pretended moral reform upon the poit-
cal condition of the country, and their labors
have thrown every wave of sectional COM
motion higher than the last, until the whole
country is convulsed by it.


The slavery agitation in the free States
has naturally produced utraism at the
South, and, as consequence, the country
has become divided~into sectional parties,
separated by geographical lines. Against
these ultraisms, north and south, it is the
duty of the conservative element OF the
whole country to interpose !; and this must
be done at once or disunion is inevitable,
if it be not already accomplished. The
points of difference between the slavehold-
ing and the non-slaveholding States are few,
and even those are more imaginary than
real. We are as much interested in the de-
velopment, growth and prosperity of the
Southern States as they are themselves, be-
cause southern productions have become
necessaries oflife. On the other hand, they
are deeply interested in our prosperity, and
suffer from any cause that retards it. The
Constitution demands that their fugitive
slaves be returned to them. Equity and
common honesty require that they shall


have full and equal rights in all the terrific
ries belonging to the general government
The future condition of the territories, so
far as the extension of slavery is concerned,
will ultimately be determined by the natu-
raj laws that have hitherto controlled that
species of property that is, climate, soil and
productions, so that any question that can
now be made upon it must be more an ab-
straction than a living, vital principle. Why
then is it SO difficult to adjust all differences
between us, and what has caused this fear
ful political commotion, this panic that has
prostrated all the commercial relations of
the entire Union This state of things fol-
lowed Immediately upon. the result of our
late Presidential election, and it would be
difficult I apprehend, to give as a reason for
the present condition of things any other
than the result of that contest. The South
regarded the election of Northern candi-
date by Northern party as the sequence
of anti-slavery agitation, as the solemn YER


dict Of the people in the Free States against
the South and her institutions and the in
stinct of self-preservation is now causing in
the South that character of action which
/ threatens to shake the fabric of our gov
| ernment to its center.


The triumph of the Republican party ia


the late Presidential contest is the oroxi-
/