Year: 1862

Fanaficlsm is the bane of harmony. Ii
has disturbed many States and overturned
many governments. 1t Is one of the most diff
cult social evils to deal with. 1t i growth OF
prosperity, and yet gains strength under per-
secution. 1t often appeals to the most gener-
ous prejudices of humanity; it often wears the
garb of religion and morality; it has worder-
ful powers of proselytism it has great capaci-
ties to make wrong look like right, and to deck
errors in the robes of truth. 1t is terrible
apostle Of evil. Discord follows its lead, and
revolution too often is the end of its career.


Unfortunately, among many elements of
good and greatness, fanaticism emigrated to
this country. From time to time, it has played
It's part in marring tha record of civil and re-
ligious liberty in American history. 1t has,
from time to time, sent forth various heretical
dogmas of politics. 1t has asserted a higher
law, xpove the Constitution itself 1t has in
recent memorable words, sought to do in the
name of God what could not be done in the
name of the Constitution.


1t finally found employment fatal to the
peace of the country in political abolition.
The North had rid itself of the incubus OF
slavery. The North was as responsible for
slavery in the South, as the South itself is.
But fanaticism became offended with Southern
slavery; and overlooking home evils and home
reforms, it devoted itself to the discussion of
the evils of African slavery, clamoring against
its criminality and urging its abolition. 1t
disregarded the Constitution, and denounced
its guarantees of the rights of slavery as a
compact of sin and shame. Many of its
teachers openly advocated disunion; and
many more proclaimed an irrepressible con-
fiict between the domestic systems of the
North and the South, arguing that the States
of the Union must become all free or all slave.


These dangerous and revolutionary doc
trines have always been combatted by the
Democratic party. The Democracy has no
apology TO make for Southern slavery. We
regard it as great social evil. But we re-
gard it as a misfortune, not a crime. The
crime is in the presence of the African race
upon the continent. This is crime of the
past, not of the present. And even in the
past, it was less the crime of the South, than
of those who grew rich in the slave trade, and
who now clamor for the abolition of slavery
which they themselves planted. We hold
this country to be the possession of the white
race, and this Government to be instituted by
white men for white men. We commisserate
the condition of the slave; but we are unwil-
ling to violate the Constitution in his behalf,
or to disturb society by emancipating four
millions of an inferior race in land possessed
by superior race. 1t is the sin of history
that the African race is here; once here in
great numbers, the proper condition of the
African was subjection in some form to the
white. Equality was impossible. Nature ha:
made social equality impossible without fatally
shining against her laws, and without socia
equality political equality is impossible. Ma
ture never placed the races together; when
brought together, the servitude of the inferior
is the best condition for both races a necessary
evil resulting from the violation of natura
law in bringing them together.


But fanaticism did not so see it. Fanaticisn
at the North unembarrassed by the presence
of slavery, did not see slavery as necessary
evil, but only as an abstract wrong 1t could
make no allowance for the condition of the
South, and had no federation for the compro
misses of the Constitution, or the safeguards
which it extended to the institutions of the
South


For long time the abolition party was
weak political minority; but it was from the
beginning an energetic and dangerous apostle
of unconstitutional doctrines, and of sectiona
iealousies and distrusts.


ITO he Ccntinusd1