Year: 1862

FROM DroWnsonS quarterly isS'iS" ioi


Slavery is now the question the W. ole
question before the American people, and
it depends on the disposition We make of
that question whether we are or are not
to continue to be nation We cannot
blink it if we would 1t enters yitally in
to struggle of the nation for life, and we
again come up, or all other efforts will be
idle, and all our sacrifices OF men and
monev Will be worse than lost.


The Southern Confederacy against which
the United States are now hurting their
armed forces, rests on slavery as its cor
ner stone, and derives from it the very
reason of its existence Grant, even If
you insist upon 1t, that the whole object
of that illegal and dangerous Contederacy
is not the preservation or extension of sla-
very, still the objects of that Confederacy,
the ends for which it has been formed, de-
mand the continuance of slavery. The
preservation and extension of slavery NAV
not be the ends the rebels have in view,
but slavery is the indispensable means to
that end


Is is useless to multiply words about it
There can be no permanent Union OF free
dom with slavery, no national unity and
integrity with slavery in one half of the
states and freedom in the other. We have
tried the experiment for the best part Of
century, and it has failed, utterly failed.
Freedom has made all conceivable sacrii
ces to slavery Compromise after compro
misesh been consented to. We have
suppressed the utterance of our noblest
convictions, done all that we could to sti
lie the irrepressable instincts of Immunity,
lest, by some word or deed, we might en-
danger the safety Of the Union, and the
result has been, contempt on the part
of the South for the Union saving North,
and the present rebellion. \ new trial of
the experiment can succeed nc better, for,
the people of the loyal states, if they would
retain the slightest approach to self-respect
cannot possibly make any greater conces-
sions, or do more than they have already
done to render practicable and permanent
that union. The experiment has failed, as
fail it always viii and always must 1t is
not constitutional government, it is not
repubicanism, as some of onr European
friends pretend, that has failed but the
attempted Union Of freedom and slavery
of two essentially hostile and repellant
system in the same State


We cannot then, we repeat blink the
question Of Slavery if we would 1t meets
on the very threshold Of the controyer-
sy, in which the nation is engaged, and


hey who petition Congress to put down
the rebellion and let tie negro question
alone and they who imagine that the pres
ent rebellion can be suppressed and extin-
guished without disposing Of the negro
question, at once and forever, only show,
if not their lack of loyalty, that they thus
far comprehend simply nothing Of the ter
rIble question which now involves the life
or death OF the nation Why, the saver
question is the whole question, that with
out which there never would or could have
been any question at al. To refuse t.
agitate the question of slavery Is simply
to refuse to agltate any question at all
really important in the present crisis
The whole question of extinsuishing the
rebellion, of restoring the unity and integ-
r:ty Of the nation, and of sustaining our
national life securing future glory, turns
on tho slave question. You may, as we
have sal ), beat the rebel armies gain vic
tories by land and by sea yon may even
gain an armlStlce or Il truce; but to sup
pose that you can re-establish peace, and
be really nation, unless you go further,
and remove the cause and handspring OF
the rebellion is sheer folly, absolute lltu-
ity The old Union with freedom and
slavery under one and the same constitu-
tional government has faiied Slavery,
not Freedom, has broken it, we would fain
hope forever You cannot restore it, if
you would, and you should not if you
could. No man is worthy of the name of
statesman, who does not assume this as
fixed fact, aud take it as a starting point
in all discussions having reference to our
present difficulties and their final settle
ment.