433 
 
 J 
 

 
THE 
 
 IT 
 
BAO-PiN. 
 
 FOR 
 
 THE DOUGH-FACES. 
 
 BY ONE OF THEM. 
 
 ,Lft 
 
 BURLINGTON, VERMONT. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY C. GOODRICH. 
 1854. 
 
 
Entered according to act of Congress in the year K-54 by 
 
 CHAUNCEY GOODRICH, 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District of Vermont 
 
^r 
 
 THE BAKE-PAN. 
 
 " See how bis bright Whip, brandished round his head, 
 
 Flickers like streamer in the Northern skies ; 
 See how his Ass on earth with nimble tread 
 
 Half-flying rides, in air half-riding flies. 
 Sparkles like flint the caddy s hoof and burns 
 
 Seeming to leave a smoke upon the plain ; 
 IJ is bitted mouth the foam impatient churns : 
 
 Sweeps his broad tail behind him like a train." 
 
 SOUTH on PETTIT & Co 
 
 The climate north of Mason and Dixmi s line is extremely 
 cold. It makes no pretensions to more than thr^e months of 
 summer and then the sun only shows its pale face occasionally 
 from between the clouds. The natural consequence is, that 
 many of the inhabitants of these hyperborean regions I am 
 sorry to say that, in some States, a majority of them are pale- 
 blooded, chicken-livered, and dou^h- faced, or what in vulgar 
 parlance is termed slack-baked. Iti many instances, the face, 
 especially, which is unprotected from the effect of the humid and 
 relaxing qualities of the atmosphere, remains permanently of 
 such consistency that it can be readily moulded, like a loaf of 
 unbaked bread, to any shape to suit the wearer, or others who 
 may know how to obtain leave to experiment upon it. In a 
 suitable temperature, and in the absence of excess of moisture, 
 most of these faces, doubtless, are capable of assuming the qual 
 ities of good pie-crust, that is, they would break before they 
 would bend. It is known, however, to housewives and pastry 
 cooks, that certain kinds of dough melt, instead of becoming 
 hardened by heat. They are of the nature of wax ; and it is 
 very difficult to make this kind of pastry retain the forms with 
 which it comes out of the moulds. This is the kind of pastry 
 
 1 
 
 M2191G6 
 
out of which the "dough -faces "par excellence are moulded. 
 Thank heaven this sort of dough bears an exceedingly small 
 proportion in the community, as in the kitchen, to the other kind. 
 The faces composed of this latter material, however pale and 
 soft, may be brought to a good color, and become fixed, by arti 
 ficial temperature, by being, as it were, rebaked. The waxy 
 kind I would advise all people to let alone, except those for 
 whose interest it is to try shapes upon them. Kind reader, is it 
 not devoutly to be wished that all the dough-faces were brought 
 to a good healthy brown, or blush, at least, except the few which 
 are liquifiable by heat before the requisite temperature is at 
 tained? 
 
 It is probably remembered by the oldest inhabitant, and per 
 haps some others, that anciently, before the days of stoves and 
 other modern progress, there was to be found in most kitchens, 
 a piece of furniture or utensil commonly called a bake-pan, or 
 Dutch oven. This article was extremely convenient for getting 
 up extempore bread, especially where coals were plenty, as they 
 were every where in those days. The coals were placed un 
 der the bottom of the vessel which bestrode them upon its three 
 short legs, and also upon the broad bason-shaped cover, so that 
 it not only gave a quick bake, but the top or face of the loaf 
 could readily be brought to any desired consistency and color. 
 
 The cheerly old bake-pan has, I think, quite disappeared from 
 Northern kitchens. But in the patriarchal and oriental South, 
 which is not subject to change, not nnder the inconvenient and 
 expensive laws of progress, where towns and villages and plant 
 ations might be supposed from their appearance to have been 
 merely submerged, but not washed away or buried by Noah s 
 flood, where the maid-servant still "grinds at the mill," that is, 
 rubs the corn between two flat stones for her master s hominy, 
 where the kitchen is not in the house and the oven is on a stump, 
 in the unchanging South, these ancient bake-pans are still in 
 great repute and great plenty. 
 
 Now the South, the " Sunny South/ is very fond of color, and 
 also of hardfeaturedness, as manly and chivalrous, hence it has 
 great contempt and a sort of pity for a dough-face, as implying 
 both softness and paleness, and these again a lack of firmness, 
 or uumanliuess. The South, therefore, very generously (the 
 
5 
 
 South is famed for its knightly (nightly) qualities,) and compas 
 sionately offers to furnish any number of the aforesaid Dutch 
 ovens sufficient for a rebake of the whole dough-face population, 
 with the exception of the waxy species, of which she wishes to 
 make some further use before they are melted down. I doubt 
 not we shall have occasion shortly to be grateful for rhis con 
 descending and patronizing offer of our elder, brother. Nothing 
 could be more timely, and nothing could be more convenient for 
 the purpose than the good old bake-pan. Its size is just suffi 
 cient for a single face, so that each can be done to a turn, and 
 the requisite ruddy complexion be brought out by managing 
 properly the coals upon the cover. Nothing was more common 
 anciently than to do the " minister s face 5 in them ; how firm 
 and crisp and warm-colored it came out, it is delightful to re 
 member. But inasmuch as fuel has become scarce in these ri 
 gorous latitudes, and our ancient hearths with their generous 
 fires have disappeared, (since which, by the way, doughiness of 
 face has alarmingly increased) the South kindly consents, not 
 only to furnish bake-pans but coals to match. Certainly the 
 South is very disinterested, so far as to disregard one s own in 
 terest is disinterestedness, thus to come up to the help of an in 
 efficient climate to set our faces for us. If any gentleman dough 
 face is conscious of being " slack-baked," let him place his 
 head in the pan. I think he will find the Southern coals suffi 
 ciently warming ; and if they do riot set the crust and bring out 
 the color, it must be because he is not a red-blooded animal, or 
 else his face is of the waxy species. Or if the Southern coals 
 do not bring the oven up to the requisite temperature, there are 
 plenty of fire-brands on the North side of the line, or what was 
 a line, which can be put under it. I, for one, confess to having 
 been, until recently, rather pale, if not soft, and certainly, on try 
 ing the bake-pan, I found the heat so intolerable, and the in 
 dignation so burning, that I have been unable to bear it except 
 a few minutes at a time, and yet the effect has been such that 
 my friends hardly know me, and wonder how I have become 
 so changed. 
 
 That we may not crack the pan or scorch the pastry, let us 
 "fire up" gradually by placing the oven over a shovelful of 
 
Virginia embers. Virginia is not very far South, and will be 
 North shortly, Mr. Examiner. 
 
 The following is from the Richmond (Va.) Examiner : 
 
 " The South has for years been overrun with hordes of illiterate, 
 unprincipled graduates of the Yankee free schools, (those hot beds of 
 self-conceit and ignorance.) who have by dint of unblushing impudence, 
 established themselves as schoolmasters in our midst These creatures, 
 with rare exceptions, have not deserved the protection of our laws. 
 They bear, neither in person nor in mind, a very strong resemblance to 
 human beings. So odious are some of these " itinerant ignoramuses " 
 to the people of the South ; so full of abolitionism and concealed in 
 cendiarism are many of this class; so full of guile, fraud and deceit, 
 that the deliberate shooting of one of them down, in the act of poison 
 ing tli minds of our slaves or our children, we think, if regarded as 
 homicide at all. should always be deemed perfectly justifiable ; ami we 
 imagine that, the propriety of sh .oting an abolition schoolmaster, ivlien 
 caught tampering icith our slaves, has never been questioned by any in 
 telligent Southern man. This ive take to be the unwritten law of the 
 South. We repeat, that the shooting of itinerant abolition schoolmast 
 ers is frequently a creditable and laudable act, entitling a respectable 
 Southern man to, at least a scat in the Legislature, or a place in the 
 Common Council. Let all Yankee schoolmasters who propose invad 
 ing the South, endowed with a strong nasal t^ang, a long scriptural 
 name. and Webster s lexicographic book of abominations, seek some more 
 congenial land, where their lives will be more secure than in the vile an.l 
 (i homicidal Slave States." We shall be glad if the ravings of the Ab 
 olition press about the Ward acquittal, shall have this effect." 
 
 What is the temperature of that, Mr. Dough-face? What is 
 it by your thermometers, ye teachers of Northern Schools, ye, of 
 the faculty of Northern Colleges who graduate such ignoram 
 uses? What do you think of it, ye fathers who spent your mon 
 ey to educate your sous into fools and knaves; ye mothers who 
 have borne things having so little "resemblance to human be- 
 
 O C5 
 
 ings?" If one of " these creatures " should speak to a Negro 
 What for ? unless he is an abolitionist. And if he presume to 
 rebuke in his function of Yankee schoolmaster one of the 
 children of the "dominant race," of the "genuine aristocracy, 
 would not any Ward who, in either case, should " shoot down" 
 the base bom menial be wvrthy of Southern promotion ? Pray 
 
Mr. Examiner, how many of your distinguished men, since the 
 world began, have not been educated either in these same schools 
 at the North, or by these same schoolmasters at home ? Since 
 you will no longer come here, and certainly none but the igno 
 ramuses you speak of will, hereafter, go there, what proportion 
 of the "dominant race will bye and bye be able to read and 
 write, since, even now, a not much larger proportion of yoivcan 
 do so than of the (but yesterday) savages of the Sandwich Is 
 lands. However, that is an accomplishment quite undesirable 
 for the "crackers" and " poor white trash" because they are to 
 be managed as entirely as the Negroes, only in a different way 
 the "genuine aristocracy" has need of their votes. And what 
 if a Southern gentleman cannot read? Would not an old Ro 
 man Senator have been ashamed to be a man of learning? Lis 
 ten, Dough faces, and feel of your cheeks, for here comes the 
 answer in the form of a few coals for the cover. 
 
 From the Richmond Enquirer : 
 
 " The relations between the North and the South are very analo 
 gous to those which subsisted between Greece and the Roman Empire 
 after the subjugation of Achaia by the Consul Mummius. The dig- 
 nity and energy of the Roman character, conspicuous in war and in 
 politics, were not easily tamed and adjusted to the arts of industry 
 and literature. The degenerate and pli;iut Greeks, oa the contrary, 
 excelled in the handicraft and polite professions. We learn from the 
 vigorous invective of Juvenal, that they were the most useful and ca 
 pable of servants, whether as pimps or professors of rhetoric. Obse 
 quious, dexterous and ready, the versatile Greeks monopolized the bu 
 siness of teaching, publishing, and manufacturing in the Roman Em 
 pireallowing their masters ample leisure for the service of the State 
 in the Senate, or in the field. The people of the Northern States of 
 this confederacy exhibit the same aptitude for the arts of industry 
 They excel as clerks, mechanics, and tradesmen, and they have mono 
 polized the business of teaching, publishing, and peddling ;} 
 
 Pimps! yes, pimps! that is the word, fellow dough-faces, 
 no ! no longer fellow doughfaces, mine, thanks to the bake-pan, is 
 thoroughly crusted over. We are also,, it seems, very "obsequi 
 ous, dexterous and ready " Greek slaves in many other respects, 
 especially in handicraft trades, peddling and teaching so far as 
 
8 
 
 illiterate ignoramuses" can teach. Thank you, Master ! for 
 slaves are fond of praise if they have been well trained, forthe- 
 reason that what is rare is reckoned valuable. However, I need 
 not remind you that it spoils them, just as it does hunting-dogs. 
 Keep the lash in sight, I advise you, or what with the manage 
 ment of African slaves including the " poor white trash " at the 
 South, and Greek slaves at the North, their common " masters n 
 the -genuine aristocracy" will hardly have left "ample leisure 
 for the service of the State, in the Senate or in the field." How 
 is the temperature inside, brother doughface? do your cheeks 
 begin to tingle ? Keep cool Sir, you are not yet much warmer 
 than new milk. 
 
 These same " masters" of ours notwithstanding their "Ro 
 man energy," are a little afraid at times, such "useful" "crea 
 tures" we are, they would rather not part with us that we may 
 bye and bye get up a Northern servile insurrectional^ declare 
 ourselves independent. However,if we should succeed, "degener 
 ate Greeks " as we are, against the " energy " and " ample leis 
 ure" of our "masters " to look after us if we should succeed 
 in running away they have another fugitive slave law in pickle 
 for us. They are still to have "complete control over our des 
 tiny;" whether this " control" is to be for our " master s " benefit 
 or our own does not appear. Probably it will be only a disin 
 terested looking after our welfare if they should have " ample 
 leisure" at that time for it seems, that like other born slaves r 
 we shall not be competent to take care of ourselves. 
 
 For listen again to the Richmond Enquirer. After saying 
 that the all-pervading element of slavery would, in case of sep 
 aration, hold the South together, it thus prophetically discours- 
 eth. 
 
 "But the Northern States would be bound together by no such prin 
 ciple of Union, and in the absence of the necessary centralizing ten 
 dency, diverse and antagonistic interests would scatter them asunder, 
 and perchance drive them into hostile conflict. At any rate the South 
 ern States, moving under the influence of one will and pursuing a 
 single policy, would find it no difficult task to play off the Northern 
 States one against the other, and thus acquire complete control over 
 their destinies. ( You see we are to be managed in or out of the Un 
 ion.) It is obvious to the reflecting mind, that if the Northern States 
 
were cut loose from the South (like a ship without a rudi/ er) they 
 would be broken up into as many petty communities, or eKse be over 
 whelmed in social anar -hy. The latter alternative would perhaps be 
 their more probable fate." 
 
 Alas! unhappy North ! behind us is the lash of our "mas 
 ters," the stern Roman Senators," very Catos they are at 
 the whip ; before us the precipice on whose rocks we are to be 
 dashed in pieces ! ! We are like a herd of wretched deer which 
 the merciless wolf-hunt is driving towards the gulf. 
 
 But even if we should, by the displeasure of heaven for our 
 contumacy, escape the double danger of recapture, or cutting 
 each other s throats ; a destiny still more dire awaits us. Starv 
 ation ! like a death s head next stares us in the face ! and that 
 horrid fate will inevitably be ours, unless our former " masters " 
 of mere pity should continue to feed us, and their bowels of 
 compassion should still be moved to send us the weekly allow 
 ance of "a peck of corn." Behold our doom ! brother dough 
 faces. And as we look at it who of us will not look paler than 
 ever, and slink back, if we have dared to dream of freedom, into 
 our proper function of "pimps" and " peddlers"? 
 
 " If by some convulsion of nature the Slave States could be sun 
 ken beneath the level of the waters, it would involve millions of the 
 inhabitants of the North in bankruptcy, and ruin, and unutterable mis 
 eries. 
 
 Your lordly merchant and fattened manufacturer, your omnibus 
 men and porters, might all with truth exclaim 
 
 Othello s occupation s gone. 
 
 Your cities, now your pride and strength, would dwindle into towns ; 
 your crowded harbors grow empty and wild ; and thousands who now 
 live in contentment and comfort would begfo^ bread (the peck of corn 
 a week.) 
 
 Reverse the picture, and suppose the free States were blotted from 
 creation. Why, sir, the fact wou d be felt only by our railroad con 
 ductors, captains of steamboats, and a few politicians with national as 
 pirations." (Mr. Brooks of S. Carolina in the House of Representa 
 tives, March 15, 1854) 
 
 Now I take it that if, after successful insurrection, the South 
 should cut our acquaintance (should we escape cutting each oth 
 ers throats) as of course the South would, it would be ihe same 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 thing for us as if the South should be "sunken beneath the level 
 of the waters." 
 
 Presum pious, traitorous North ! hasten to make your submis 
 sion, lest you have cause to remember the fate of your great pro 
 totype, the first arch-rebel, when he exclaimed 
 
 " Me miserable ! which way shall I fly ? 
 Infinite wrath ! and infinite despair !" 
 
 But even so, though we humble ourselves and cease to talk 
 of insurrection, we are still in a very bad way. We are not 
 merely in danger of anarchy, famine or self-destruction if we 
 lose the protection of our " masters," but notwithstanding their 
 guidance and patronage and example, our morals, alas ! are al 
 ready "not fit to be spoken of" in modest ears. And what we 
 are coming to in that direction unless we immediately get mis 
 sionaries from the land of the u blessed institution " does not 
 yet appear, except, that our population seems likely to gain, even 
 faster than hitherto, upon that of the South. But here comes a 
 rebuke for our sins the sin of out-populating the South, espe 
 cially which may do us good if we make the right use of it. 
 
 " The wise old common law carried into practice the .Divine institu 
 tion and produced the finest race of matrons and maidens the world 
 has ever seen ; but the Northern law givers prefer the law which was 
 the offspring of the corruptions of heathen and imperial Home ; they 
 divide the household into separate interests ; the domestic hearth is 
 no longer a common property to the family. The consequences are 
 what they ivere in Rome what they are in Italy and Germany and 
 Prance, where the illegitimate births are 1 in 15." (The Union, Past 
 and Future &c. By a Virginian, p. 40. 
 
 How is that, daughters of New England? for I suppose the 
 peccadilloes of your mothers, at least of the married ones, are 
 not reckoned, as they cannot well be come at. "The illegiti 
 mate births are 1 in 15 " ha ! No wonder our Northern girls 
 notwithstanding the effect of the climate upon the faces of the 
 men are such blushing beauties. "1 in 15"! ! Hence the 
 origin of the saying " he is a wise child who knows his own 
 father." This pithy adage mnst have originated on the north 
 side of "the line" that was ; of course it can have no place on 
 the other. "1 in 15" ! How is that in the Faderland, Mem- 
 
11 
 
 herr } Rather cool ! for people who compel one third of their 
 population to herd together like beasts without any law at all 
 and exclude them wholly from the " Divine institution " ; men 
 who sell the members of the " domestic hearth" (as they some 
 times condescendingly call them) not excepting their own chil 
 dren ! ! "Divide the household into separate interests " do we? 
 
 But where people enjoy the " inalienable right of non-interven 
 tion " and of course arrange their "domestic institutions" to 
 suit themselves, untrammelled by the " law-givers," there the 
 househ-old can have no separate interests ; their families to 
 use the word in the sense in which "heathen and imperial 
 Rome 7 used it to designate precisely the same thing, a house 
 hold including slaves their families are a unit ; they have no 
 "separate interests," not even when a father is sold for the rice- 
 swamps of Georgia, the mother to pick cotton on the Red River, 
 and the child for the New Orleans market. There, " the do 
 mestic hearth is a common property to the family " Let us 
 contemplate, brother dough-faces, calmly do not yet get crusty 
 the u Roman dignity" and the instructive example of our 
 " masters " we are but degenerate Greeks it may do us good. 
 
 If we dissolve the Union and by miracle escape the inevita 
 ble dangers and destruction which are to be the certain conse 
 quence of such fool-hardiness, though we may be permitted to 
 lay aside our function of pimps and peddlers for the South, an 
 equally disgraceful one to which we are now indentured that 
 of slave-catching for them is not to be discontinued. For, 
 hear Mr. Langdon Cheves in the Nashville Convention, who 
 was urging upon the South immediate secession. 
 
 " The South can hardly overrate its strength when it shall be united. 
 Unite and you will scatter your enemies (the North) as the the autumn 
 winds do the fallen leaves. Unite, and your slave property shall be 
 protected to the very border of Mason and Dixon s line. Unite, and 
 the freesoilers shall, at their peril, be a police to prevent the escape of 
 your slaves." 
 
 Alas ! helpless and hopeless dough-faces, what are we to gain 
 by the dissolution of the Union ? This being set to chase fel 
 low-chattels, the white slaves after the black ones, the Greeks 
 after the Africans, this does bring some color into the palest 
 
12 
 
 pastry; but there is plainly no remedy ; whether we "dissolve 
 the Union "or the South "secedes," it is all the same to us ; we 
 are to he " at our peril" a "police to prevent the escape of 
 slaves " that is our destiny. 
 
 There has heen of late years a good deal of discussion in 
 some quarters, in regard to the proper relation of labor to capital, 
 in regard to the just distribution of the common product, what 
 proportion of the product of labor ought to belong to the labor 
 ers. Quite a nut to crack this has been, quite a Gordian knot 
 for the political economists. But such is the effect of "ample 
 leisure" for reflection the South, the chivalrous South, steps 
 forward and with the sword of Alexander, cuts us that knot 
 with norfrtct easo and laughs in our faces for at tempting to unite 
 it. How much ought to belong to the laborers? nothing ought 
 to hrtloiiij t<> th Mii. Give them, no wages at all make slaves or 
 seifs of thj !, t:J give them subsistence, a pe knf corn a week 
 give them masters, that is what they ought to have. Listen 
 again to ih:J Richmond (Va.) Examiner. But this is intended 
 especially for our cousins from beyond sea, except in so far as 
 we aborigines (one in fifteen of us being illegitimates) resemble 
 them and I ^ve need of the same kind of guardianship. Let 
 them walk up and try a bake-pan a piece there are enough for 
 us all. 
 
 Speaking of foreign immigrants (by the way. what could have 
 been the character of the " migration" from which the Exam 
 iner is descended) the Examiner says : 
 
 " The mass of them are sensual, grovelling, low-minded agrarians 
 European writers describe a large class of 
 
 population throughout England and the continent as being distinguish 
 ed by restless, wandering habits (just like those of the first settlers of 
 Virginia) and by a peculiar conformation of the skull and face. Ani 
 mal and sensual nature largely predominates with them over the moral 
 and intellectual. It is they who commit crimes, fill prisons and adorn 
 the gallows. They ran away from liberty. 
 
 Had they feudal lords or misters like Russians. Hungarians and Turks 
 to fun ioh them homes, and subsistence, not one of them would quit. 
 
 In a few years the blasphemous reformers 
 
 will curse heaven that it did not bless the North with African slavery, 
 
 the only antidote to a crowded, motley, foreign and native population. 
 
 * When Owen and his compeers (the people 
 
13 
 
 of New England and tbe North) cite an instance in history of any 
 considerable civilized nation, the mass of whose people continued pros- 
 perous and contented for three centuries, without domestic slavery, or 
 some similar institution, (but with them the masses are contented and 
 happy, as witness France before the revolution and the rest of modern 
 Europe) it will be time enough to call on us" who have a happy, qui 
 et, contented society" (only we require a northern police, acting under 
 peril, " to prevent its escape") to imitate their institutions." 
 
 What say you, strangers, you of the " peculiar conformation 
 of the skull and face" (not dough faces ) you who are partial to 
 stone residences and to dancing jigs upon nothing 1 Was it 
 "liberty" you t; ran away from ? did you "quit" because you had 
 no masters? was it masters you came for? I can guide you 
 all in the way you should go. Stain your skins a little yellow 
 ish never mind the hair, straight will do ; especially you of the 
 
 "faderland" have curl enough in yours and start for Rich 
 mond inquire for the State where Washington lived (you have 
 heard of him, he was one of your run away-from-liberty fellows) 
 
 on arrival report yourselves "fugitives from freedom "and 
 
 send for an auctioneer. 
 
 Herein is explained too why it is that we " natives;" have be 
 come such ts degenerate Grreeks." Why it is that we can no 
 longer do without a master. We are in the third century of a 
 foolish attempt to keep up a prosperous civilization without sla 
 very. Perhaps the few slaves that some of us had, for a time y 
 was the salt that preserved us hitherto, and that now it is losing 
 its savor, and we are about to "curse heaven" in our putrefac 
 tion presently to follow. 
 
 It is easy to understand why men who think " feudal lords * 
 or other " masters " for the people so necessary to preserve civi 
 lized nations from the sin of cursing heaven, arid the masses 
 from discontent, should, by a natural sympathy and "fellow-feel 
 ing," be drawn lovingly towards those of the same pious and phi 
 lanthropic political principles. Hence we need riot stare, or be as 
 tonished, be " amazed," as the "distinguished Senator from Mich- 
 gan " would say, at the merely seeming inconsistency and inap- 
 propriateness, when we find, in leading papers of Southern 
 democracy such language as the following : 
 
 It is the uniform testimony- of intelligent writers that the Russian 
 
14 
 
 peasantry or people are more content, enjoy a larger measure of social 
 and domestic comfort, and are more attached to their institutions than 
 the same class under any other Government in Europe. * * * 
 Why, then, have we become the enthusiastic partizans of France, 
 (France has no serfs like Russia, or feudal lords, just now. The 
 French peasantry, people, " canaille," though " well contented." and 
 well enough off, not more than one in ten of them having died of star 
 vation, yet, being " tampered with " by anti-feudal abolitionists, did 
 one day, eat up, devour and quite make an end of, at one " fell swoop." 
 or soup, their feudal lords, root and branch, not even leaving enough 
 for seed and a bloody supper they had of it) and England (England 
 though partial enough to some kinds of slavery, and the very pink of 
 aristocracy, yet abolishes t; African slavery,") in their struggles with 
 Russia? * * * What principle shall dictate the policy of 
 this Government under such circumstances ? Shall we, like the dinting 
 fanatic, obey the impulse of a morbid philanthropy, or shall we steer 
 our course by the maxims of State ? Shall we feel more concern for 
 the effete empire of the barbarous Turk than for our own interests ? 
 Shall we yield to the influnce of England and France and passively 
 foil a victim to their intrigues, or shall we throw out the hand of friend 
 ship to Russia and thus abate their aspiring pretensions and counter 
 act their ominous alliance? 
 
 Oh ! "throw out the hand of friendship to Russia" by all 
 means, and perhaps Austria would be happy to join. So you 
 shall be in a promising way to kill two birds with one stone. 
 In the first place, you will have a power which will be at least 
 willing to attempt to exercise itself according to the following 
 direc ions of the (worthy captain) Richmond (Va.) Examiner. 
 
 " This power should be so exercised as to crush out, really and tru 
 ly, the Freesoil and Anti-slavery fanaticism. There should be no 
 peace or truce allowed the insiduous enemy. " CRUSH IT OUT [" should 
 be the shibboleth and watchword." 
 
 (Be careful that you don t crush out more of it than you will 
 know what to do with.) And in the second place, you may re 
 alize the darling wish of your hearts and clutch Cuba if you 
 are strong enough. 
 
 We of the North are in a pretty promising way, after all. 
 Our anti slavery is to be " crushed out " of us if not otherwise, 
 by "throwing out the hand of friendship to Russia" where- 
 uponj of course; the low of slavery will take its placej the South 
 
15 
 
 t 
 
 will be kind enough to breed, or beget, the slaves for us; so, if 
 we piously pray in that direction, shall we escape the "predes 
 tinate " sin of " cursing heaven " for the want of slavery. 
 
 Alas ! if we should not live to see that happy day ! for we 
 are in danger of another kind of crushing. Not to have our an 
 ti-slavery and other impurities crushed out of us ; but to be our 
 selves crushed, quite trodden into pulp. But then our blood 
 will stain no vulgar feet. Listen with what queenly dignity 
 (alias, " solemn swell ") by the mouth of her Moumjoy herald 
 and favorite trumpeter, the Richmond Enquirer our "well 
 born " mistress "from her elevated pedestal" passes sentence 
 upon us , which she will herself " condescend " to execute. 
 
 " Virginia, in this confederacy, is the impersonation of the well born, 
 well educated, well bred aristocrat. She looks down from her elevated 
 pedestal upon her parvenu, ignorant, mendacious, Yankee vilifiers as 
 coolly and calmly as a marble statue. Occasionally, in Congress, or in 
 the nominating conventions of the Democratic party, she condescends, 
 when her interests demand it, to recognize the existence of her adversa 
 ries, at the very moment she crushes them." 
 
 Hearest thou ? dough-face. There is a specimen of the " well 
 bred" for you but let us not be angry, for very pity. 
 
 O, Virginia ! eldest and, by nature, fairest sister of the family! 
 once patrician indeed ; now decayed and shrunk to the " shabby 
 genteel !" and fallen to the mock heroic ! Mother of Washing 
 ton, of Marshall, of Madison mother of the Declaration of In 
 dependence mother of the Constitution, except its fau ts; now 
 self-doomed to give birth only to scrub politicians and flunky 
 editors and to be the br d r, but I will not speak it. Let me 
 rather walk backwards and cover thy shame ! 
 
 O, Slavery ! Pandora s box! "eldest-born of Sin !" surely, 
 there are still "envious deities" who rejoice at human imperfec 
 tions and purpose human ills. Without this blot ! this shame ! 
 this blight ! this curse ! this firebrand of discord ! how happy, 
 beyond earthly fortune, were these States ! 
 
 As Mr. Madison asserted in the Federal Convention, "that 
 the difference of interest in the United States, lay not between 
 the large and small, but the Northern and Southern States ;" so 
 has it proved and ever will prove, and the ground of this differ- 
 
16 
 
 ence is "African Shivery." It is Slavery and only Slavery, 
 " Goblin damn d," 
 
 " That dares to advance 
 Its miscreated front athwart our way ;" 
 
 a way otherwise unimpeded, an:l path open, towards honor, re 
 nown, arid more than human prosperity. Slavery, in our fath 
 ers time, meek, humble, self-apologetical, ashamed of its own 
 blackness, asking leave to die, (" If left to herselfj she (Georgia) 
 may probably put a stop to the evil." Madison papers, p. 1393) 
 now tosses high its Gorgon head with air imperial and demands 
 of the North and commands, obedience " at our peril." 
 
 Slavery, the right to enslave and make property of MEN, is to 
 be declared, nay has been declared from the American Capitol, 
 one of the inherent and inalienable rights of freemen; an essen 
 tial element in the national organization ; is to be transfused 
 for there was no inherent drop of it there into the Constitution 
 of the United States, and to become its very heart s blood. The 
 National Government is to become a great slavery " propagan 
 da," and grand missionary society for the diffusion of this new 
 gospel of freedom. We are to stand up with shameless, brazen 
 front and strumpet voice, and proclaim this in the ears of man 
 kind. This, sometime, "peculiar institution" is to be " pecu 
 liar 77 no longer, but is to be the grand machine of freedom the 
 South is to work it and the North, " at its peril" is to stand sen 
 try over it. Such, dough-faces, is the Southern platform, and, 
 " at your peril" you have got to march on to it. 
 
 Well, even this were not much if, besides being of Southern 
 origin, it were accompanied only with Southern insults and 
 backed only by Southern apologists and Southern threats. 
 These Southern coals, after all. are not very hot. They can 
 only bring up the hake-pan to the temperature of a pretty de 
 cided and healthy indignation. They are not sufficient to stamp 
 a permanent " red in the face." 1 know not how it is that we have 
 not so deep a feeling of shame, and sentiment of reprobation, 
 when a Southern man defends or ignores the injustice of slavery, 
 as when a Northern man does the same. The moral degrada 
 tion which follows familiarity and contact with, arid the habit- 
 
17 
 
 ual practice of any vice whatever, though it does not diminish 
 the guilt or lighten the responsibility of those who thus demor 
 alize themselves, does yet, somehow, in relation to the feelings, 
 if not in the estimation of men, extenuate the enormity of their 
 conduct, and they are not, for some reason, judged as severely 
 as are those fresh from the regions of virtue, who do the same 
 tilings. When told that the habitual thief has stolen, nobody 
 cares except the loser ; but if a man of unblemished character 
 is convicted of larceny, the whole community is moved. AH 
 the world expects the common drunkard to be found in the gut 
 ter the pirate to be bloody-minded the strumpet to be un 
 chaste. The world, therefore, is indifferent, or feels just enough 
 to make it a pleasurable excitement. So, when we read that 
 gentlemen at the South, not unfrequently sell their own child 
 ren, we smile, (though perhaps a little on the wrong side of the 
 mouth) as jf it were a pretty good joke. But if any creature in 
 human form in Massachusetts or Vermont, were known to have 
 sold his own child into slavery, would not one wide shriek of 
 horror arise to heaven at so infamous a crime ! We, somehow, 
 naturally expect, arid are, therefore, the less excited at all sorts 
 of flunkey insolence from men whose rights originated in piracy, 
 and are maintained by niching the labor of slaves extorted by 
 the lash. 
 
 But when men baptised in the uncontaminated waters of free 
 dom, and reared on honest bread, with a sophistry worthy of the 
 " father of lies," attempt to make the " peculiar " shame a na 
 tional infamy ; would inoculate the stinking ulcer of the extrem 
 ity fit only for excision upon the " unsmirched " face of our 
 beautiful mother : would sell us and her to this unutterable de 
 gradation then, let shame prepare to blush indeed, and indig 
 nation turn to bitter wrath. Truly, here are coals hot enough. 
 Try them, my countryman, and if they do not bring thee to thy 
 color, thou hast a swine s face and art no man. 
 
 An approved, because successful, method of bringing to the 
 ground any structure, however firm its base or massive its walls, 
 is to undermine the corner-stone. Now the foundation stones of 
 our whole national superstructure, as all the world knows, and 
 as every man is conscious the moment he thinks of it, are the 
 3 
 
18 
 
 principles of the Declaration of Independence. 1 do not know that, 
 until now, more than one American citizen, and he. thank heav 
 en, was not a Northern man has dared, in open day, to put 
 forth his impious hand to touch these sacred foundations. Many 
 there have been, who, conscious, with instinctive perception, 
 that slavery cannot stand there, have attempted, burrowing 
 mole -like, to eap them unseen. It was reserved for a scrub- 
 politician of the West, and lick-spittle of the South, to offer this 
 impudence to the North. "The distinguished Senator from 
 Michigan," very politely informed him that he is an ass;-which 
 is past disputing not, however, for his attack upon the Decla- 
 tion of Independence, because the " distinguished Senator s " 
 own course is but a burrowing beneath it. But he is too old a 
 gambler to show his hand, like his asinine partner. Here is his 
 (the ass ,) trump-card : look at it ! freemen of the north side of 
 " the line : that was. 
 
 " It is alleged that all men are created equal, and the Declaration of 
 Independence is referred to, to sustain that position. * * * It is 
 not true in fact : it is not true in law 5 it is not true physically, mental 
 ly, or morally, that all men are created equal. (Who ever asserted 
 any such thing to be true, my man ?) * If Mr. Jefferson had 
 
 said in his Declaration of Independence that all men constituting por 
 tions of the body-politic, ought to be equal, ought to have equal political 
 rights, (not all men" mark, but "portions of the body -politic" that 
 is. one State to legislate if it choose, that all its inhabitants shall be 
 equal before the law. equally defended in their ;; inalienable rights : " 
 another State to legislate that one half its inhabitants shall be the 
 slaves i f the other half such is this marts notion of equality.) there 
 would have been something like propriety and wisdom in it. (But to 
 assert that all men are equal, and ought to be equal, in that they are 
 equally endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,among 
 which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that was devoid 
 of all " propriety and wisdom" ; for why? it is no longer the Southern 
 doctrine.) I cannot believe that Mr. Jefferson ever intend 
 
 ed to give the meaning or force which is attempted now to be applied 
 to this language (by whom, except by yourself, pitiful sophist ?) when 
 he said ; " we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
 created equal." 1 hold it to be a self-evident lie." ( Pettit of Indiana, 
 in the Senate on the Nebraska Bill, Feb y. 20,1854. Append, to the 
 Cong. Globe p. 214.") 
 
19 
 
 Well, sir, Mr. Jefferson probably was not, just then, thinking 
 of the verbal tricks of small lawyers ; but if he meant what, 
 even under the appropriate definition given of you by the "dis 
 tinguished Senator from Michigan," you very well know he did 
 mean, then your Nebraska sophism requires that his meaning 
 should be distorted in order that it may be ridiculed. Perhaps, 
 sir, you may have occasion to remember the adage in regard to 
 playing with edged tools. It would have been more prudent, I 
 think, to ignore the existence of the Declaration of Independence, 
 as did the less asinine politicians around you, for instance, the 
 "distinguished Senator from Michigan." Will the people of In 
 diana find and believe that you have so annihilated the princi 
 ples of the Declaration of Independence that as a logical and 
 natural consequence, there can be no objection to blotting out 
 the line of freedom ? Will that be their finding" when you come 
 before their tribunal ? 
 
 But the friends and defenders of the " unalienable rights " with 
 which " all men " are equally endowed by their Creator, must 
 feel less of anger than contempt towards so small an enemy, 
 were it not that he is to be considered as the Index of the thoughts, 
 wishes, and purposes,of others, who, until they have first felt the 
 way, are too prudent lo do more, in their own persons, than 
 to imply and insinuate the same things. Let us leave him to be 
 dealt with by the people of Indiana, while we listen to a few 
 more of the northern camp-followers of the army of infamy, 
 and then come to the renegade captains of this invasion of the 
 territory of freedom, this attack upon the most sacred rights, and 
 insulting defiance of the deepest feelings, of mankind. 
 
 Listen, freemen, if you dare call yourselves freemen, where 
 such language is used. 
 
 c: They (the people of the territories) know what product of the soilis 
 the best and most profitable to them ; ichat hind of labor will yield 
 the greatest revenue whether free or slave labor. Then why not let 
 them aet upon and choose them ? Why not let them pass such laws 
 as their own welfare may require ? and what state in the Union will 
 deny them the right? Can Massachusetts? No ; for she was the first 
 herself to resist the oppressive laics of England. Can any one of the 
 New England States ? No ; for they have equally felt and resisted 
 oppression. Can Pennsylvania? No ; for she too has risen up in op- 
 
20 
 
 position to oppressive laws. (Bridges of Pa., Append. Cong. Globe 
 p. 354.) 
 
 Is not that language admirable ! my countrymen, in the 
 mouth of a northern legislator ? Could a New England 
 farmer speculate more coolly on the question whether oxen or 
 horses, considering the character of his farm, would make the 
 most profitable team for him ? Could any Christian man, any 
 honest man, or respectable devil even, suspect there was invol 
 ved here the question whether or not MEN, "in the image of 
 God," and the children of God, should be degraded to beasts, 
 driven like oxen under the lash or the goad, bought and sold 
 like other animals, propagated for the market by promiscuous 
 intercourse of the sexes, the owners playing "pimp" (thank 
 you for the word, Mr. Enquirer) for the likeliest males, and oth. 
 wise improving the merchantable qualities of the " stock," as 
 we breed j>wine ? this ! this ? yes this ! ! f my countrymen, as 
 it might or might not be deemed the more profitable to work 
 MEN or horses ! And then the logic of this admirable, would 
 to heaven I could say unique extract ! ! Did not Massachu 
 setts refuse to submit to the smallest encroachments upon her 
 natural and inalienable rights and liberties, to any form of in 
 justice ? Did not New England refuse to be enslaved ? Did 
 not Pennsylvania fight for freedom, even for the freedom of a 
 negro born of a fugitive slave upon her soil ? (See Prigg vs. 
 State of Pennsylvania.) How then can these States, since it is 
 their duty, with others, to give organization and birth to embryo 
 States how can they -deny them the right" to have incorpo 
 rated, among their organic laws, one which shall permit them 
 if they shall deem it most PROFITABLE loioork men, whom 
 they have plundered of the very right TO be men MEN instead of 
 horses in their fields, to the extent of one-quarter, one-half, or 
 two-thirds, as the case may be, of their inhabitants ? Can Mas 
 sachusetts be guilty of such inconsistency ? Can the " Cradle 
 of Liberty" inflict such flagrant outrage upon the just rights of 
 freemen ? Can Massachusetts so oppress her brethren ? Can 
 Massachusetts deprive, it may be her own children, of the right 
 to employ the most profitable labor \ of that necessary " inci- 
 
21 
 
 dent " of self-government, the " inalienable right " to buy, and 
 sell, and propagate for market, their fellow men. 
 
 Land of Morris and of Franklin ! was this man the product 
 of thy soil ? and does he breathe in thy atmosphere? Alas! 
 alas ! from more than fifty northern mouths, speaking for twelve 
 free States proceeded this same " smoke of the pit," filling with 
 stench the nostrils of all honest men, and " smelling to heav 
 en ! ! " 
 
 We need not stop to listen to any more of the liege-men of 
 this dynasty of shame. When we have heard one we have 
 heard them all. They one and all follow the cue of the leaders, 
 except that some of them have not been sufficiently trained, and 
 though on the scent of the same game, are apt to bark up the wrong 
 tree. They blurt out about the right of the people of the territories 
 to employ such labor as they shall deem most profitable that the 
 Declaration of Independence is a humbug &c.. &c., whereas 
 their more cautious, and as they reckon themselves, crafty cap 
 tains, are careful to use such fine phrases as " non-intervention " 
 " the great principle of self-government " " regulate their 
 domestic concerns in their own way " ; and plenty more of the 
 same sort. One would suppose, to hear these pious patriots, that 
 the fundamental principles of our/ree institutions had been un 
 dermined, that the Declaration of Independence had really be 
 come obsolete, and that they were aspiring to the glory of being 
 called " Restorers of their country." Listen to the "distinguish 
 ed Senator from Michigan." 
 
 " I have been amazed at the subtle arguments, politico-metaphysic 
 al indeed, which have been presented against the enjoyment of one of 
 the most sacred rights which God has given to man." 
 
 " There is one barrier so plain that it cannot be overpassed through 
 ignorance, and ought not to be through design. And that is the inter 
 nal, domestic affairs of these EMBRYO STATES. We know we cannot 
 touch their domestic hearths, nor their domestic altars, their family 
 and social relations, their wives nor their children, their man servants 
 nor their maid-servants, without a gross violation of the inalienable 
 rights of man. There is no human intellect, however mighty it may 
 be, which can render this plea of tyranny acceptable to the American 
 people." Again, in answer to a question where the people of the ter 
 ritories get the right to legislate for themselves, he says: "they get it 
 
22 
 
 from Almighty God." (Cass, on the Nebraska Bill, Append, to Cong. 
 Globe pp. 277. 279.) 
 
 Now, freemen of the North, considering the occasion, the pur 
 pose, the meaning of these fair words, the conclusion implied 
 here, is it not admirable? admirable ! ! admirable logic ! ! ! 
 
 But hearken also to "the other shape," the great Senator from 
 Illinois: 
 
 - The principle that we propose to carry into effect is this. That 
 Congress shall neither legislate slavery into any Territories or States 
 nor out of the same ; but the people shall be left free to regulate their 
 domestic concerns in their own way, subject only to the constitution of 
 the United States. 
 
 In order to carry this principle into practical operation, it becomes 
 necessary to remove whatever legal obstacles might be found in the 
 way of its free exercise. It is only for the purpose of carrying out 
 this great fundamental principle, of ;c?f -government that the bill ren 
 ders the eighth section of the Missouri Act inoperative and void." 
 (Douglas on the Nebraska Bill.) 
 
 Do not be alarmed, dear dough-faces, there is nothing meant 
 except to give you leave to " regulate your domestic concerns in 
 your own waif- -" to carry out this great fund amenta! principle 
 of self-government," this < non-intervention" principle; and as 
 "a mere incident of it 1 to :: render the eighth section of the 
 Missouri Act inoperative and void" Can any American free 
 man complain of such a principle ? For suppose, dear dough 
 faces, that instead of being organized into free States, as you are, 
 and doing your own work as you do, you were inhabitants of a 
 territory and no\v about to make your organic laws : if you chose 
 to ordain that every third man of your people, with all their 
 posterity, should be the property, do the work, pay the taxes, be 
 " bound in all cases, what by the will of the rest of you ; 
 
 would it not be your right? I demand of you to answer me as 
 honest men and American freemen (do not dodge the issue) 
 would it not be your right, and according to "the principles of 
 the Revolution"*! and toll me, does not your old " Missouri com 
 promise line" abridge that right, that " great fundamental priii- 
 ciple of self-government" I does it not involve, for all on the 
 north side of it, the same principle of " oppression" against which 
 
23 
 
 our fathers contended, and for which they laid down their lives / 
 When we reflect that under the language of these men, much 
 of it sacred to freedom, and associated in the minds of those for 
 whose ears it is intended, with free life and liberty; there lies con 
 cealed, or at least, attempted to be concealed, 
 
 " A universe of death ; 
 
 Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds 
 Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, 
 Abominable, unutterable," 
 
 to wit: the more than Oircean horrors of MEN transformed to 
 beasts, the horrors of slave-scourging, slave-breeding and slave- 
 selling when we remember that this is what these fair words 
 mean, and that they were uttered by American senators in the 
 American Senate. I say it is infamous sophistry ! I say in the 
 face of Christendom, infamous ! arid if I should say in the 
 name of Christendom, infamous ! from every quarter of Chris 
 tendom would come back the damning echo infamous! 
 
 This is "Non-intervention"! freemen of the North, "non-in 
 tervention" ! a word intended for those of us who have the soft 
 est kind of dough-faces, "non-intervention" ! It reminds one of 
 the " Veiled Prophet" of eastern story, whom his followers took 
 for a god. But when at length his enemies had stript off the 
 silver screen, there was found under it a " gorgon dire," a " gob 
 lin damned, 1 a face too hideous for human eyes. So under this 
 flimsy screen of non- intervention, transparent to all except to 
 the purblind, and to the ostriches who have stuck their own 
 heads under it, there is what 
 
 ;: seems woman to the waist and fair, (announced as 
 
 the goddess of Liberty) 
 But ending foul in many a scaly fold. 
 Voluminous and vast ; a serpent arm d 
 With mortal sting ; about her middle round 
 A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing bark, 
 With wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and ring 
 A hideous peal." 
 
 Such is this fair creature," Non-intervention, "raised" at the 
 South, honored and worshiped there the " great Diana" of these 
 
24 
 
 li Ephesians" not degenerate Greeks now condescendingly 
 offered to the co-embraces of the North, and lovingly taken to 
 the bosoms of " the distinguished Senators."- 
 
 But The South washes its hands of this business. "Sir, 
 the South did not introduce this question here." (See Nebraska 
 debates, all the way through that wide chapparal). The South 
 has not obliterated "the line" that was. The faith-keeping 
 South has not "removed its neighbor s land-mark." The inno 
 cent South has not "murdered sleep." Oh! no ! ! 
 
 " Thou cans t not say, I did it : never shake 
 
 Thy gory locks at me." 
 
 But let us look a little at what preceded the t: bloody deed." 
 
 " Sirrah, a word with you. Attend lliese men 
 Our pleasure? 
 
 They are. my lord, without the palace gates 
 Bring them before us 
 To be thus is nothing, 
 
 But to be safely thus : 
 
 ***** 
 
 Was it not yesterday we spoke together ? 
 It was, so please your highness. 
 
 Well then, now 
 
 Have you considered of my speeches ? Know 
 That it was he, in the times past, which held you 
 So under fortune ; which, you thought had been 
 Our innocent self; this I made good to you 
 In our last conference ; 
 
 " We are men, my liege. 
 Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men : 
 As hounds and grey-hounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, 
 Shoughs. water-rugs, and demi-wolves are cleped 
 All by the name of dogs." 
 
 It is with a feeling of humiliation and shame, riot to speak of 
 less passive emotions, that I find myself under the necessity of 
 inquiring of American Senators, and for an audience of Ameri 
 can freemen what are the true principles which should preside 
 over the organization of embryo States ? Should the State be 
 a community and commonwealth, in so far as to protect all its 
 inhabitants in common in the exercise of certain " inalienable 
 
25 
 
 rights," such as, " life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? 
 Should the ends of the organization be to give this protection 
 to all, to " establish justice " and " promote the general welfare "; 
 or should the organization be such as to secure these ends for a 
 part only, while for the rest it gives no protection to these rights; 
 andybr them t promotes injustice^ tyranny, robbery, oppression ? 
 As I said, I am ashamed to ask these questions. Let what fol 
 lows be my apology. 
 
 The "distinguished Senator from Michigan" says : 
 
 I concede, as I have said, from the peculiar, and in some measure, 
 undefined relations between these communities (the territories) and 
 the general Government, as a matter of necessity, Congress must in 
 terfere to organise governments." 
 
 That is, it is the duty of Congress to give form and organiza 
 tion to these " embryo States." Yet if Congress should so inter 
 fere with their "internal domestic affairs," should ordain for 
 them such organic laws, as to forbid the exercise, in relation to 
 a part of their people, of this same injustice in every conceiva 
 ble form, even to selling their wives and children, nay even to 
 breeding their children for market as the most "profitable " pro 
 duct of the soil; the Senator says 
 
 " There is no human intellect, however mighty it may be, which can 
 render this plea of tyranny acceptable to the American people." 
 
 Think, -American people," consider of the "tyranny" of for 
 bidding any gentleman of Nebraska or of any other territory of 
 the United States, the - tyranny" ! ! of depriving him of the 
 right to set up on his estate a stud of horses? No. An estab 
 lishment for the improvement of short-horns ? No. A piggery? 
 No. A human brothel wherewithal to breed CHILDREN for 
 market 1- Yes ! ! ! Do you say, Sir, that this is "one of the 
 most sacred rights which God has given to man" ? Do you 
 say, sir, of this right, that American freemen " get it of Almighty 
 God"? and that all laws, lines and landmarks,ought to be removed 
 which forbid or impede the exercise of it ? That is precisely 
 the naked thing which you do say, Sir. I will not attempt to 
 characterize it, vsince no human language nor all human lan 
 guages can furnish forth the words. 
 
26 
 
 It will not avail you Sir, to raise the cry of abolitionism! mere 
 abolitionism ! No ; the present writer has never been an abo 
 litionist ; and millions of northern men will respond to his sen 
 timents who have never been abolitionists. But you and your 
 southern allies are making us all abolitionists. Be assured you 
 and they shall have abolitionism to your heart s content. For 
 shame ! never speak more of abolition, it will never more serve 
 your turn, miserable abolitionists of Freedom ! 
 
 But " the Constitution " ! the Constitution of the United States, 
 says this new sect of abolitionists, is the great Charter of free 
 dom ; of freedom to to will not some devil furnish me with 
 nether ink to write it to make slaves of our fellow-men. This 
 interpretation of the Constitution, I suppose they " get from Al 
 mighty God," or if not, He is not permitted to enter any protest 
 against, or to legislate " in derogation of it," at least in the Uni 
 ted States. Indeed how should He with His reputation for un- 
 changeableness ; for have not the people of the territories got from 
 Him the right to setup those establishments for the propagation 
 of children to supply the southern market ? if they deem that 
 sort of stock-raising more profitable than piggeries / 
 
 Our Fathers of the Revolution if for very shame we dare 
 to call ourselves their children when they had determined to 
 resist oppression, in justification of themselves before the tribunal 
 of mankind, made a Declaration of what they conceived to be 
 the natural or inherent rights of man ; and then set forth the vi 
 olation of those rights in regard to themselves, as the sufficient 
 reason why they ought to be absolved from their allegiance to the 
 King of Great Britain. This Declaration as it will probably be 
 new to many reader s, I beg leave to quote : 
 
 " We hold these truths to be self-evident ; that all men are created 
 equal ; that they (all men) are endowed by their Creator with certain 
 inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit 
 of happiness. That to secure these rights (for all men) governments 
 are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent 
 (not the weakness) of the governed." 
 
27 
 
 And among the violations of these rights as set forth in the 
 original draft of the Declaration of Independence, were the fol 
 lowing : 
 
 " He (the King) has waged cruel war against human nature itself; vio 
 lating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a dis 
 tant people who never offended him ; captivating and carrying them 
 into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their 
 transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel 
 powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. De 
 termined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, 
 he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative at 
 tempt (of the colonies) to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce" 
 (Madison Papers p. 24.) 
 
 The reason why this part of the declaration was not retained, 
 Mr. Jefferson informs us. was the following : 
 
 : The clause reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa 
 was struck out in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had 
 never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, (as all the other 
 colonies had) and who on the contrary, still wished to continue it." 
 (Madison Papers, p. 18.) 
 
 Such are the principles which the men of the Revolution pro 
 mulgated : and after fighting for them and winning the power 
 to govern themselves by them, they attempted accordingly, to 
 embody them in a Constitution of Government ; in order, as 
 they say "to form a more perfect union, to establish justice ; 
 insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, pro 
 mote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to 
 ourselves and our posterity." 
 
 Based upon these principles of the inalienable rights "of 
 < c all men," these " great fundamental principles of self govern 
 ment ;" and " in order " to these ends, they formed n national 
 Constitution ; the Constitution of the United Stales. Nov.- the 
 better to understand the true interest and meaning of this Doc 
 ument on the point under consideration if any except wilful 
 misunderstanding be possible let us very briefly examine fur 
 ther what were the opinions and feelings of men in those days, 
 in the Convention that formed the Constitution, on the subject of 
 slavery. 
 
28 
 
 In the first "plan of a Federal Constitution" offered to the 
 Convention (by Mr. Randolph, of Va.) there is no allusion to the 
 existence of slavery expressed or implied. The slave-trade 
 would have been controlled by the power delegated to the new 
 government " to regulate commerce with all nations and among 
 the several States." 
 
 After discussing this and some other plans, during eight or 
 nine weeks, the whole was finally referred to a " Committee of 
 Detail," at the head of which was Mr. Rutledge, of South Car 
 olina. In the Constitution, as reported by him, first appears 
 (Article VII. Sec, 4.) the following : 
 
 " No tax or duty shall be laid by the Legislature on 
 
 nor on the migration or importation of such persons as 
 
 the several States shall think proper to admit ; nor shall such 
 migration or importation be prohibited" When this Section 
 came up in Convention in its turn, it called forth various opin 
 ions. 
 
 " MR. L. MARTIN (Maryland) proposed to vary Article VII. Sec. 
 4.. so as to allow a prohibition or tax on the importation of slaves. In 
 the first place, as five slaves are to be reckoned as three freemen in the 
 appointment of Representatives, such a clause would leave an encour 
 agement to this traffic. In the second place, slaves iceakened one part 
 of the Union, lohich the other parts ivere bound to protect ; the privilege 
 of importing them was, therefore, unreasonable. And in the third 
 place, it was inconsistent ivith the principles of the Revolution, and dis 
 honorable to the American character to have such a feature in the Con 
 stitution." 
 
 MR. ELLSWORTH (Ct.) thought this matter belonged to the States 
 themselves. The old Confederation had not meddled with this point ; 
 he saw no greater necessity for bringing it within the policy of the new 
 one. (The plan of many members at this time was merely to amend 
 the Articles of Confederation.) 
 
 MR. SHERMAN (Ct.) was for leaving the clause as it stands. He ob 
 served that the abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the United 
 States, and that the good sense of the States would, probably, by de 
 grees, complete it. 
 
 COL. MASON ( Va ) " This infernal traffic originated in the avarice 
 of British merchants. The present question concerns not the import 
 ing States alone, but the whole Union. Slavery discourages arts and 
 manufactures produces the most pernicious effects on manners. 
 
29 
 
 Every master of slaves is bo? n a petty tyrant. They bring the judg 
 ment of Heaven upon a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or 
 punished in the next world, they must be in this. As to the States 
 being in possession of the right to import, this was the case with many 
 other rights, now to be properly given up. He held it essential in 
 every point of view, that the General Government should have the pow 
 er to prevent the increase of slavery." 
 
 MR. ELLSWORTH (Ct ) ; Let us not intermeddle. Slavery, in time, 
 will not be a speck in our country" 
 
 Mr. GERRY, (Ms.) " thought we had nothing to do with the conduct of 
 the States as to slaves, (slavery) but ought to be careful not to give any 
 sanction to it." 
 
 MR. DICKINSON (Delaware) " considered it as inadmissable, on every 
 principle of honor and safety, that the importation of slaves should be 
 authorized to the States by the Constitution." 
 
 MR. LANGDON (N. H.) ^ivas strenuous for giving the power to the 
 General Government. He could not, with a good conscience, leave it 
 with the States." 
 
 MR. RANDOLPH (Va ) u could never agree to the clause as it stands. 
 (0, noble Virginian !) He ivould sooner risk the Constitution." 
 
 MR. SHERMAN (Ct.) " was opposed to a tax on slaves imported, as 
 making the matter worse, because it implied they were property " 
 
 " It was argued that, on the contrary, we ought rather to prohibit 
 expressly in our Constitution the further importation of slaves ; and to 
 authorize the General Government, from time to time to make such 
 regulations as should be thought most advantageous for the gradual ab 
 olition of slavery and the emancipation of the slaves which are already 
 in the States. That slavery is inconsistent with the genius of Repub 
 licanism, and has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is 
 supported, (as witness Nebraska debates) as it lessens the sense of the 
 equal rights of mankind and habituates us to tyranny and oppression. 
 (Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention, 1787.) 
 
 Such was the tone of sentiment from all the States with the 
 exception of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina es 
 pecially, which was as obstinate and perverse as she has been 
 ever since. 
 
 MR. BALDWIN (Ga.) " had conceived national objects alone to be be 
 fore the Convention ; not such as, like the present, were of a local na 
 ture. Georgia was decided on this point. If left to herself she may 
 probably put a stop to the evil." 
 
30 
 
 MR. PINCKNEY (South Carolina) " can never receive the plan if it 
 prohibits the slave trade." 
 
 GENERAL PINCKNEY (S. C.) " sliould consider a rejection of the clause 
 as an exclusion of South Carolina from the Union." 
 
 Several members expressing the opinion that it was better to 
 compromise than to reject the clause at the risk of losing the 
 three Southern States, it was committed, with some other things, 
 to a Committee of eleven, who advised that the importation of 
 slaves should be allowed until 1800. The report of the Com 
 mittee of eleven being taken up, 
 
 GENERAL PINCKNEY moved to strike out the words " the year eigh 
 teen hundred," as the year limiting the importation of slaves ; and to 
 insert the words " the year eighteen hundred and eight." 
 
 MR. MADISON. " Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can 
 be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term 
 will be more dishonorable to the American character,, than to say no 
 thing about it in the Constitution." 
 
 GENERAL PINCKNEY S motion having passed in the affirm 
 ative, 
 
 Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS (Pa.) " was for making the clause read at 
 once" the importation of slaves into North Carolina,South Carolina and 
 Georgia, shall not be prohibited " &c. He wished it to be known that 
 this part of the Constitution was a compliance with those States. 
 
 The next question was, whether the slaves to be imported 
 should be taxed. 
 
 MR. SHERMAN <; was against it as acknowledging men to be pro 
 perty." 
 
 MR. MADISON {; thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the 
 idea that there could he property in men." 
 
 This matter of the " migration or importation, of such per 
 sons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to ad 
 mit" being disposed of mark the fastidiousness of the lan 
 guage ; the instinctiveshrinking of the Constitution from the con 
 tamination of the very word slave we hear no more of slavery 
 in the convention until, Article XIV. of the report of the Commit 
 tee of Detail coming up, 
 
 GENERAL PINCKNEY "was not satisfied with it. He seemed to wish 
 some provision should be included in favor of property in slaves." 
 
 Article XV being then taken up 
 
31 
 
 MR. BUTLER and MR. PINCKNHY (S. C.) moved to require "fugitive 
 slaves and servants to be delivered up like criminals." 
 
 MK. WILSON (Pa.) " This would oblige the Executive of the State 
 to do it, at the public expense." 
 
 MR. SHERMAN (Ct.) u saw no more propriety in the public seizing 
 and surrendering a slave or servant than a horse." 
 
 MR. BUTLER withdrew the motion and afterwards presented 
 that clause of the Constitution which has been expanded into 
 the present fugitive slave law. It is as follows : 
 
 " No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws 
 thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law, or reg 
 ulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor ; but shall be 
 delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may 
 be due." (Madison Papers, pp. 1388 to 1396, 1427-8, 1447-8, 1456.) 
 
 The three fifths ratio of representation for slaves has proper 
 ly nothing to do with slavery. The slaves here were consider 
 ed as persons, not as property. It originated in this way. The 
 theory in the Convention was that property ought to be represent 
 ed as well as persons, or rather in preference to persons, (for the 
 English way of thinking still prevailed) especially as they were 
 thinking at the same time of direct taxes, as under the Confed 
 eration. " Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportion 
 ed, &c." The great question then was how to arrive at a just 
 comparative estimate of the property or wealth of the different 
 States. After much debate it was finally concluded that the 
 number of inhabitants was the fairest measure of the wealth of 
 a State. But it was immediately objected by the South that a 
 slave did not produce as much wealth as a free man. How 
 much could he produce then, in comparison with a free man? 
 Some said one quarter, some said one third, some said one half, 
 &c., the South rating him low, and the North rating him high, 
 both thinking of direct taxes and forgetting votes in Congress. 
 Finally it was agreed that three-fifths of the " all other persons " 
 (for the Constitution spewed at the word "slave") should be 
 counted a hard bargain for the South, according to what was 
 expected, but a miserable one for the North as it has turned out. 
 (Madison Papers, pp. 423, 430, 431. Secret Debates, pp. 42-3.) 
 
 The relation of the Constitution to slavery is to be determined 
 wholly from these two clauses, viz : that which empowers Con- 
 
32 
 
 gress to prohibit the migration or importation of certain persons 
 after the year 1808; and that which prohibits the States to dis 
 charge certain persons, escaping into them, from service or labor 
 due by the laws of the State from which they escaped. 
 
 From these two clauses, illustrated by the debates in the Con 
 vention, I think that uvo things are plain beyond all honest 
 doubt. First, that within the tlicn existing States whose law 
 tolerated slavery, the Constitution agreed to leave it exclusively 
 under the " lex loci " or local law, to which its own jurisdiction 
 did riot extend. Second that every where else, wherever it 
 had jurisdiction, it claimed the right which it agreed to waive 
 for twenty years, in relation to certain States then existing 
 (mark the words) to prohibit the importation of slaves. Let us 
 look at this clause again "The migration or importation of 
 such persons as any of the States, now existing, shall think pro 
 per to admit, shall not be prohibited," &c. 
 
 Is it not manifest, from the wording of this clause, that the 
 Constitution had power, at any time after its ratification, to pro 
 hibit the " migration or importation" of slaves into any new State? 
 much more into any territory belonging to the nation, in regard to 
 which it gives power to " make all needful rules and regula 
 tions." How then are slaves to get into a new State or into the 
 Territories, against the will of Congress, if the Constitution gives 
 it power to prohibit their < ; migration " thither from other States, 
 and their " importation " from other countries ? or if any object to 
 this legitimate use of the word migration.* the power of Congress 
 to regulate commerce between the States amounts to the same 
 thing. Certainly here is power enough to prohibit slavery any 
 where and every where outside of such of the old thirteen as are 
 riowslaveholding.But let it be admitted that the Constitution gives 
 no power to prohibit slavery, or at least does not require Con 
 gress to exercise that power, it will not help the pro-slavery 
 argument. The true question is, does it give power to make 
 slavery legal where it is not so ? That is the question. Will 
 "the distinguished Senator from Michigan" who, being a law 
 yer, knows well enough that that is the true question, have the 
 goodness to inform mankind in what Article, Section or clause 
 of the Constitution is to be found the power to legalize slavery, 
 
33 
 
 to initiate it, where it is not? But can it become legal in any 
 territory of the United States if Congress does not legalize it 
 notwithstanding the contemptible were it not for the infa 
 mous purpose of it drivelingly contemptible Nebraska sophis 
 try of legislating neither one way nor the other? The truth is, 
 there never was or can be a stronger anti-slavery document than 
 the Constitution of the United States, in all cases and relations 
 where it has jurisdiction, both in fact and in the intention of its 
 framers. Even the miserable fugitive from labor clause, worthy 
 offspring of South Carolina, is a mere treaty between the States, 
 as such, that in regard to these fugitives from labor, the natural 
 effect of free soil to make free men should not take place. No 
 purpose in those who admitted it, to nationalise slavery can be 
 inferred from it it is a mere inter-State police regulation. Be 
 sides, it was expected that slavery was to be a temporary evil, 
 that soon it "would not be a speck in our country." Hence the 
 fastidiousness of the Constitution in its language. It was not to 
 be contaminated even by contact with the odious words " slave " 
 and " slavery." 
 
 But according to the heaven- descended ("get it from Almigh 
 ty God") interpretation of this new "divine-right" sect of Aboli 
 tionists of freedom, the meaning of the framers of the Consti 
 tution and of the Constitution itself, may be logically and cor 
 rectly paraphrased thus: Whereas, we hold it to be self-evi 
 dent that all men are created equal, in that they are all equally 
 endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, such 
 as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; and that to secure 
 these rights, governments are, or should be, instituted among 
 men ; and whereas, the present King of Great Britain has 
 grossly violated these rights, among other methods, by waging 
 cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred 
 rights of life and liberty by a piratical warfare, the shame even 
 of infidels, for the purpose of capturing and carrying men into 
 slavery ; and being determined to keep open a market where 
 men may be bought and sold, has vetoed, by shameful prostitu 
 tion of his prerogative, the frequent legislative attempts of these 
 Colonies to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce ; and 
 whereas, We, the people of the United States having, by our 
 
 5 
 
34 
 
 treasure and our blood, asserted these fundamental principles 
 and successfully resisted these violations of them, do now enact 
 this our Constitution of national government in order to estab 
 lish justice, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings 
 of liberty to ourselves and our posterity; therefore, it shall 
 and may be lawful, and a "great fundamental principle of self- 
 government," in all new communities or " embryo States "or 
 ganized by and under this our national government, in any of 
 the territories of the same, for the people of the said " embryo 
 States " to declare, have, hold and treat as slaves, with all their 
 posterity forever, such and so many of the inhabitants thereof 
 as they, in the arrangement of their "internal domestic affairs," 
 shall deem for their interest and profit. And it shall and may 
 be lawful for the said people to " keep open markets where men 
 may be bought and sold," and in all other respects to possess the 
 said slaves, their wives and children as property o all intents 
 and purposes, and to use the same for any purpose " profitable " 
 to themselves, unrestrained by any " politico-metaphysical" con 
 sideration of the inalienable rights " with which " all men " have 
 been " endowed by their Creator." 
 
 There, brother dough-faces, is a fac- simile of the Nebraska 
 logic. Is it not admirable ? and intended specially for northern 
 latitudes. Is it not complimentary to our understandings ? 
 Well ! we have had a "great Expounder of the Constitution " 
 he is dead. Peace to his spirit, if the Ex-Gov. will let it 
 alone. And now, so rapidly has it fallen into dilapidation, 
 we have a great Restorer of the Constitution. The Nebraska 
 captain if the brother too near the throne does not dim his 
 honors is henceforth the lord of constitutional logic. Like all 
 great orators too, he has the power of adapting himself to his 
 audience. For is not his logic well suited to the comprehension 
 of men who could be made to believe that the simple under 
 standing between the States, expressed by the Constitution, that 
 if a slave should stray from the one to the other and the owner 
 should come to look for him, as he might for his horse or his 
 cows, he should be permitted to take him away who I say ? 
 could be made to believe that this agreement is capable of being 
 transmuted into the infamous fugitive slave law, which makes 
 
35 
 
 us, according to the threat of AT. Cheves, and before the disso 
 lution of the Union, a " police at our peril, to prevent the escape 
 of southern slaves" ; and, more damning infamy still, makes the 
 national government the perpetual head of this interesting po 
 lice department, backed by the whole power of the United 
 States ? Now why should not we, who have consented to be 
 lieve that all this is in the Constitution, be supposed equally 
 ready to believe that the right ! yes, backed by the " divine 
 right ! " got from the Almighty" ! to cultivate brothel produce 
 in Nebraska for southern consumption ; and to "keep open a mar 
 ket there where men may be bought and sold," yes, and women 
 and children besides, is also in the Constitution ? Arid to all 
 this is not the blotting out of the Missouri compromise line 
 advocated by arguments so insulting that no man would reply 
 to them except by a blow a legitimate and logical conclusion ? 
 if we will not resent a kick, ought not we to be expected to 
 quietly permit ourselves to be spit upon ? yes, spit upon ; 
 certainly we are expected to submit quietly to that. For 
 what is the answer of these abolitionists of freedom to the 
 protest of outraged humanity, of indignant honesty, of in 
 sulted honor ? Why, says that degenerated descendant of the 
 beast that bore Balaam according to the pedigree given him by 
 "the distinguished Senator from Michigan" that wisdom from 
 the Wabash ! worthy spokesman ! there is no occasion for emo 
 tion. I have ascertained for your comfort, poor fanatics ! that 
 the principles of the Declaration of Independence are a " a self- 
 evident lie." 
 
 But the opponents of the Nebraska bill, says the great captain 
 of the abolitionists of freedom, speaking "from that bad emi 
 nence." 
 
 " Do not meet the issue boldly and fairly and controvert the sound 
 ness of this great principle of popular sovereignty in obedience to the 
 Constitution. They know full well that this was the principle upon 
 which the colonies separated from the crown of Great Britain " &c. 
 It is apparent that the Declaration of Independence had its origin in 
 the violation of that great fundamental principle which secured to the 
 people of the colonies the right to regulate their own domestic affairs 
 in their own way. Abolitionism (he is speaking, simple reader, of 
 
36 
 
 the abolitionism which would diminish slavery and the infinite oppres 
 sions inseparable from it, not of that of his own sect, the abolitionists 
 of freedom as you might suppose) proposes to destroy the right, and 
 extinguish the principle, for which our forefathers waged a seven years, 
 bloody war," &c., &c., to the end of the chapter. (See Douglas on 
 Nebraska.) 
 
 The gentleman seems fond of principle ; especially of fun 
 damental principles ; and particularly of great fundamental 
 principles. What, then, is the great fundamental principle of 
 "The Bill"? Why, to institute slavery under the Constitu 
 tion \ "in obedience to the Constitution"! the great, and vener 
 able, and long established principle that "might makes right"! ! 
 "To this complexion must it come at last," turn it in what light 
 you please. And yet he dares to appeal to the Declaration of 
 Independence and to the assertion of the "forefathers" of the 
 right to resist oppression, as implying, for the children, the 
 right to inflict oppression ten thousand-fold more severe than 
 that which their fathers resisted. The fathers rebelled because 
 theirgovernment interfered with their domestic affairs by thrusting 
 slaves upon them ; therefore the children have the inherent right 
 of all freemen to institute slavery. This man has dared to use 
 the language of the men of the Revolution and impudently to 
 ask us to believe that it means the same thing as it did in their 
 mouths, when applied to his own infamous purpose ! ! dough 
 faces ? yes, and putty-brains ! ! if this logic deludes us. Cer 
 tainly he takes us for cravens not only, fit to be spit upon, but 
 idiots also or he is himself one. 
 
 But besides " the great fundamental principle of self -govern 
 ment" which of course is amply sufficient, there are other small 
 reasons, comparatively small, not essential, but useful to fill up 
 the chinks of the argument, of themselves pretty good reasons, 
 why the Missouri Compromise line should be blotted out. 
 
 Pirst. The whole territory north of that line is wholly una- 
 dapted to slavery and nobody expects any slaves will ever go 
 there. 
 
 Messrs. D., C. & Co., have merely taken it into their heads to 
 enact an abstraction so fond are they of principle, especially 
 of a fundamental principle ; for instance^ that all freemen have 
 
37 
 
 an inherent and inalienable right " from Almighty God," if they 
 choose to exercise it, to have and to hold slaves. But then no 
 body thinks of exercising it in such a northern region as Ne 
 braska -, any more than it was thought of in Europe formerly, 
 when slavery was common in some other parts of the world. 
 Nobody thinks of setting up any slave-breeding establishment 
 there, any more than they do in Virginia. That is one reason 
 for Wotting out the line, to which, certainly even "the ignorant 
 and fanatical masses of the North " cannot object. There is a 
 sugar-plum for you, ye three thousand intermeddling parsons of 
 New England, so go to your studies and be quiet. 
 
 Second. Slavery is not what it was when the Constitution 
 was formed. 
 
 When MARTIN thought it "dishonorable to the American 
 character to have such a feature in the Constitution"; 
 
 When MASON " held it essential in every point of view that 
 the General Government should have the power to prevent the 
 increase of slavery " ; 
 
 When GERRY thought they "ought to be careful not to give 
 any sanction to it" ; 
 
 When Mr. DICKINSON thought that " on every principle of 
 honor and safety" the States ought not to be permitted to import 
 slaves; 
 
 When Mr. LANGDON "could not with a good conscience leave 
 it with the States" ; 
 
 When EDMUND RANDOLPH " would sooner risk the Consti 
 tution " ; 
 
 When Mr. SHERMAN would not have slaves taxed because "it 
 implied they were property " ; 
 
 When Mr. MADISON " thought it wrong to admit in the Con 
 stitution the idea that there could be property in man ; and 
 called slavery " the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by 
 man over man "; 
 
 When PATRICK HENRY "detested it deplored it with all the 
 pity of humanity " ; 
 
 When the Committee that presented the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence, JOHN ADAMS. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, ROGER SHER 
 MAN, ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, THOMAS JEFFERSON, thought it 
 
38 
 
 one of the worst crimes of the British King, that he was " de 
 termined to keep open a market where men may be bought and 
 sold " ; 
 
 When JEFFERSON " trembled for his Country as often as he 
 remembered that God is just " " thought however, only a few 
 could be found who would deny that Slavery ought to be abol 
 ished, just as we find here and there only, a robber or a mur 
 derer " ; 
 
 When JAY thought slavery was an "iniquity which the gov 
 ernment should seek in every way to abolish " ; that "till Amer 
 ica comes into this measure, her prayers to heaven will be im 
 pious" ; 
 
 When JOHN ADAMS thought that " consenting to slavery was 
 a sacrilegious breach of trust" ; 
 
 When HAMILTON petitioned for those " who, free by the laws 
 of God, are held in slavery by the laws of the State " ; 
 
 When FRANKLIN petitioned Congress " that it would be 
 pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy 
 men, who, alone in this land of Freedom, are degraded into per 
 petual bondage"; 
 
 When GOUVERNEUR MORRIS pronounced domestic slavery a 
 "nefarious institution, the curse of heaven" ; 
 
 When WASHINGTON said " that it was among his first wishes 
 to see some plan adopted by which slavery may be abolished by 
 law"; 
 
 Slavery, I say, is not what it was when such men held 
 such opinions. Those old times of revolution were rough 
 and harsh. Slave-owners were even tyrannical sometimes, ac 
 cording to Mason and Jefferson. The slaves were not always 
 properly cared for. They had not, at that time, found out the 
 use of blood-hounds to help hunt up the poor creatures when 
 they strayed away, so that they might not starve in the 
 swamps. 
 
 And then they had not discovered the modern method of 
 shortening their term of service the commutation for ten years 
 system by finding out that it was more " profitable to use 
 them up in that time and buy fresh ones, than to compel them 
 to live longer. 
 
39 
 
 Now, such, in seventy-five years, has been the advance of civ 
 ilization and philanthropy, Slavery has become a grand missiona 
 ry System, (see Nebraska debates) by the operation of which, poor 
 pagans, brought from dark heathendom to this land of " gospel 
 light and liberty" are worked over into pretty fair average 
 Christians some of them quite as good as their masters and 
 O, admirable economy ! beautiful plan for killing two birds with 
 one stone ! they are made to pay the expense of their own con 
 version. This wondrous invention, except that unluckily it is 
 not new enough to be patentable, might be monopolized and 
 sold to the numerous other missionary societies for enough to 
 enrich the whole South. What a vast amount of cash, and how 
 many valuable lives, wasted in various missionary enterprises, 
 might be saved to Christendom by sending for the benighted 
 idolaters, buying them of their native princes, making property 
 of them, so that they could be properly controlled, and then com 
 pelling them to " work out their own salvation 1 ! What mis 
 erable financiers, for instance, were the managers of that waste 
 ful corporation which planned and executed the Christianiza- 
 tion of the Sandwich Islands by most self-consuming thirty 
 years hard work on the part of their agents, and sheer money 
 out of pocket ; whereas, all the work might have been made to 
 come out of the Sandwich Islanders" themselves, and they, the 
 corporators, meantime, might have been putting money into their 
 pockets. Hence the Southern lack of contribution to such pro 
 jects of converting the the heathen where they are. The South 
 " understands her own interests better. The South takes home 
 the heathen, and gives them the quid pro quo, gospel for 
 work, according to the commandment "Freely you have re 
 ceived ; (that is, you don t pay anything for the work) freely 
 give." And behold ! dear reader, what the South " gives "the 
 free gratis gospel, which these heathen, who are working out 
 their own salvation, get, in exchange for their free gratis work. 
 
 Specimen of a Catechism for slaves in the Southern Episco 
 palian^ Charleston, S. C. : 
 
 u Who keeps the snakes and all bad things from hurting you? 
 
 God does. 
 
 Who gave you a master and a mistress ? 
 
 God gave them to me. 
 
 Who says that you must obey them ? 
 
40 
 
 God says that I must. 
 
 What book tells you these things ? 
 
 The Bible. 
 
 How does God do all his work f 
 
 He always does it right. 
 
 Does God love to work ? 
 
 Yes, God is always at work. 
 
 Do the good angels work f 
 
 Yes, they do what God tells them. 
 
 Do they love to work ? 
 
 Yes, they love to please God. 
 
 What does God say about your work ? 
 
 He that will not work shall not eat. 
 
 What makes you lazyl 
 
 My wicked heart." 
 
 What " Northern fanatic," now, will say that this is not a fair 
 trade? head-work for hand-work. And the teachings this 
 South Carolina gospel how admirably adapted to the very cir 
 cumstances of the recipients ! Such advantage has the South 
 by having the heathen at her doors. And look what a monthly 
 saving she makes by it. 
 
 Donations to one of the great missionary charities for Feb 
 ruary, 1854. 
 
 NORTH. 
 Maine, 
 
 New Hampshire, 
 Vermont, 
 Massachusetts, 
 Connecticut, 
 Rhode Island, 
 New York, 
 New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, 
 Ohio, 
 Indiana, 
 Illinois, 
 Michigan, 
 Wisconsin, 
 Iowa, 
 
 $1,154,27 
 
 1,346,45 
 
 998,36 
 
 7,085,92 
 
 2,297,93 
 
 1,420,25 
 
 15,318,52 
 
 442,00 
 
 681,46 
 
 1,361,15 
 
 178,61 
 
 781,28 
 
 645,34 
 
 253,00 
 
 34,00 
 
 SOUTH. 
 
 Delaware, $320,00 
 
 Dist. of Colurnbia,336,79 
 
 Virginia, 
 
 Georgia, 
 
 South Carolina, 
 
 Missouri, 
 
 Tennessee, 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 Louisiana, 
 
 151,00 
 32,50 
 
 215,92 
 25,00 
 34,00 
 15,00 
 20,00 
 
 Slave States, $1,150,21 
 Other slave States wanting. 
 
 Free States, $33,898,60 
 
41 
 
 Thus it appears that the South is " wise and prudent " the 
 South has " ample leisure " to study such things. There is but 
 one point that any body except a fanatic can complain of; and 
 that is, that when she has christianized these people according 
 to contract and got her pay for it, she does not let them go 
 again, but keeps them ut work still. However, it must be ad 
 mitted that no amount of labor of the body can be more than 
 a fair equivalent for the salvation of the soul ! Now gentlemen, 
 clergymen, and other men, who have taken ignorant umbrage at 
 the Nebraska bill, all that "the bill" does, all that Congress 
 does, since " as a matter of necessity, Congress must interfere to 
 organize "somehow these "embryo States," is to legalize, when 
 requested to do so, in uncertain territories, this great, happy 
 combination, at the same time labor-saving and soul-saving in 
 stitution of slavery, " in obedience to the Constitution," and in 
 accordance with the " great fundamental principle of self-gov 
 ernment ;" and " as a mere incident of it " that is, in order that 
 all mankind may partake of the benefits of it be free to make 
 slaves to " render the eighth Section of the Missouri act inop 
 erative and void" Certainly, brethren of the clergy, you have 
 wholly misunderstood the purpose of this pious institution, or 
 you never would have so berated "the bill." 
 
 Third. The arguments of the champions of the Nebraska bill 
 remind one of a bill of indictment for assault and battery, which 
 sets forth that the said C. D. did feloniously, unlawfully, wil 
 fully and of malice aforethought, threaten, traduce, quarrel with, 
 abuse, assault, beat, strike, cut, stab, wound, and evil-treat the 
 said A. B. &c. 
 
 They mean to cover the whole ground, no matter how incon 
 sistent one part of the declaration is with another. Sometimes 
 slavery is a blessed thing, worthy to be taken to the bosom of 
 all Christian communities and especially adapted to the internal 
 domestic relations of freemen. Sometimes it is not as bad as 
 represented ; sometimes, though we do not approve it, we think 
 those who choose, have a right to adopt it, government ought 
 not to interfere to prevent freemen enslaving their neighbors if 
 they wish, they are the judges of what kind of labor will be 
 
 most profitable ; sometimes-, if slavery be wrong, it is no worse 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 for us than for others, we are justified by the example of all na 
 tions, slavery has existed from time immemorial, &c. All which 
 being interpreted means we do not approve of wrong, though 
 we do not dislike it as much as some people, and are willing to 
 assist others to practice it ; or there have been rascals in all 
 ages, and we have the same right to be such, as those who have 
 gone before us. 
 
 Fourth. " We have a happy, quiet, contented society" (no runaways, 
 no Nat Turners) while "it is a notorious fact,that, throughout the little 
 corner of Europe that has tried this foolish experiment (of trying to do 
 without feudal lords and serfs, or domestic slavery in some form, dear 
 dough-faces.) the class on whom the experiment was tried are ten 
 times worse off than any slaves whatever." { Richmond (Va) Exam 
 iner.) 
 
 If now it were as true as it is, on the contrary, a fla 
 grant lie, that you had succeeded in making men contented with 
 the condition and character of beasts ; that you had succeeded 
 in divesting men, capable of the aims and ends of MAN, of their 
 entire humanity would it be possible to bring a more damning 
 accusation against slavery than this? this same infamous apol 
 ogy for it? True it is that slavery aims at that consummation, 
 and is to be judged accordingly. Does not all the world know 
 what kind of mental discipline, by the aid of your South Caro 
 lina Catechisms, you hold to be " essential to the very existence" 
 of slavery ? 
 
 But slaves are better off " quotha " than the class on whom 
 the " foolish experiment " of freedom has been tried, who " run 
 away from liberty." 
 
 You do well to compare them with men who are still drench 
 ed with the dregs, and blighted by the ineradicable curse, en 
 tailed on them by the institutions you laud so highly. Yet ? even 
 so, is not Hope, at least, left in the bottom of the Cup of these 
 men ? Have they not left, at least, the liberty " to run away 
 from liberty ?" and how many, do you think, of the tens of thou 
 sands of now independent American citizens, who have so "run 
 away," would be glad to return to what you call "liberty " / / 
 Are your slaves as well off as the agricultural laborers of New 
 
43 
 
 England ? but who shall dare to insult the sons of New Eng 
 land farmers by such an infamous comparison ? However, our 
 foolish experiment" is not yet quite three centuries old ! 
 
 Fifth. Slavery was forced upon us, thrust into our " internal 
 domestic affairs " against our entreaties to the contrary. Cer 
 tainly, that is cool for the descendants of men who thrust into 
 the Constitution a clause forbidding Congress ever to prohibit 
 the slave-trade, and who insisted upon its remaining, with the 
 threat of secession from the Union. (See Madison Papers, pp. 
 1389, 1393,) and who, when that would not be submitted to, en- 
 treated and obtained the grace of non-prohibition for twenty 
 years. It is also tolerably cool, not to say impudent, for these 
 same descendants now to assert (see speech of Gen. Butler, of 
 S. C. in the Senate,) that a compulsion to buy more slaves for 
 twenty years was forced upon their fathers by the votes of the 
 North, because the North (weakly and basely I grant, for 
 Virginia would not yield, nor Delaware) yielded the point to 
 threats of secession, and entreaties, because " South Carolina 
 and Georgia cannot do without slaves " yielded as she al 
 ways has since, and never will again. 
 
 Sixth. There will be none the more slaves because they are 
 permitted to go into the territories and they will be much better 
 off than to confine them where they are. So, being prompted 
 by the gods, says " the distinguished Senator from Michigan." 
 Amen ! piously responds all slavedom ! There is another su 
 gar plum for you, philanthropic dough-faces of the softest con 
 sistency ! Which being broken, the motto reads thus : "Slave 
 ry must have room, we must give it vent, it must spread or per 
 ish." Precisely so, gentlemen, who, " as a mere incident," " as 
 a mere incident" ! ! have " rendered the eighth Section of the 
 Missouri act inoperative and void." That is, have pulled down 
 the fence for slavery to go wherever it may choose. Because 
 why? it is much more profitable to sell tnem, than to emanci 
 pate any dangerous excess of slave population. " There will 
 be none the more slaves." " Tell that to the marines," and " to 
 the distinguished Senator from Michigan." 
 
 Would there have been as many slaves as there are now if, at 
 the time of the formation of the Constitution, there had been in- 
 
44 
 
 serted in it, as there probably might have been, a clause for the 
 gradual abolition of slavery in all the States except the three, in 
 compliance with which Gouverneur Morris " wished it to ba 
 known" that a certain other Article was inserted ? The differ 
 ence is, where the shoe pinches is, that if slavery is circumscrib 
 ed, you must get rid of your slaves at any rate, and in the oth 
 er case you can exchange them for cash. It is extremely de 
 sirable therefore, besides increasing your political power, " to 
 keep open a market where men may be bought and sold." Pre 
 cisely so, gentlemen, voila, at last, the genuine cat let out of the 
 bag ! that is the very animal which lay rolled up in the fine 
 flour of " the great fundamental principle" " which our fathers 
 contended for in a seven years bloody war" ! You know as 
 well as anybody, yes, better than any body, you who think 
 yourselves concealed behind the flimsy curtain of " Sir, the 
 South did not introduce this question here," that if slavery is 
 shut up, the fate awaits it which is said to happen to certain 
 weeds ; which are so noisome that, if there are many together, 
 they presently stink themselves to death. You have yourselves 
 brought this intolerable curse upon yourselves, knowing as your 
 own records abundantly show, that offences, whether against the 
 law of moral or of political righteousness and this is both 
 necessarily involve the ruin of the offender. When it was eas 
 ily in your power, by the exercise of a little manly energy 
 which alas ! slavery takes quite away and substitutes for it bru 
 tal ferocity to put away the evil from you as the North did, 
 you refused even at the entreaties and warnings of your own 
 fathers to do so ; and now you think it a most unheard-of cruel 
 ty if you may not thrust upon those who were wiser, the just 
 consequences to yourselves of your own obstinate folly. You 
 need talk no more to us of the British King inflicting this mis 
 erable cancer upon your vitals ; of northern votes forcing it up 
 on you. If the King " determined to keep open a market where 
 men should be bought and sold "; did he compel you to buy 
 them ? If a few northern wretches carried slaves to you, was 
 it not because you tempted them by the offer of high prices ? 
 Was it northern votes which forced South Carolina to insist on 
 making the Constitution a perpetual charter for the slave-trade, 
 
45 
 
 or for twenty years at the very least? South Carolina! who was 
 bom and bred and " raised" in slavery, and loves it as a buzzard 
 loves carrion. South Carolina ! which has always been a fire 
 brand in the Union and will yet consume it. Yes, you must 
 have drains and cess-pools for this filth of yours to flow into. 
 You must, moreover, CRUSH OUT northern fanaticism and take 
 entire control of the government, in such wise that, if there is 
 dissolution of the Union, the North must secede and leave you 
 to be "The United States of America." That you well under 
 stand and so do we. Hence the Nebraska-Kansas bill hence 
 the " mere incident of it ;" the " mere incident of it "// hence 
 Texas hence a second and a third slice of Mexico hence Cu 
 ban forays and Spanish quarrels. More, more, your cry is still 
 for more. You must have States, you must have votes in the 
 Senate ; since you can never hope for a majority of slave-hold 
 ing votes in the House, and dough-faces, there may, at some fu 
 ture time, prove an uncertain crop. Do you ask why the South 
 is not as much entitled to control the Government as the North? 
 In regard to all other subjects you have the same right as the 
 North, in proportion to your population ; but in regard to your 
 " peculiar custom" you have not and never can acquire any 
 right whatever, beyond the limits of your own police-jurisdic 
 tion (and there you have only the right of the strongest). Be 
 cause Freedom is the rule, by the law of Nature ; Slavery is the 
 exception, by the law of Force. By the same laws, Freedom is 
 universal, Slavery is local. Freedom is general ; Slavery is par 
 ticular. And these things are so because, while Freedom is 
 morally and politically right and a virtue ; Slavery is morally 
 and politically wrong and a crime; or, as the Frenchman said, 
 which may be a stronger way to put it to authors of South 
 Carolina Catechisms and the "no religion and humanity" party 
 "it is worse than a crime ; it is a blunder." 
 
 Men of the North, listen to the rally-notes of the old slavery- 
 trumpet, still true to her nature, still foremost in the ranks of 
 this shame. 
 
 From the Southern Standard published at Charleston, South 
 Carolina. 
 
 " A general rupture iu Europe would force upon us the undisputed 
 
46 
 
 sway of the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies, with all their rich 
 and mighty productions. Guided by our genius and enterprise, a new 
 world would rise there, as it did before under the genius of Columbus. 
 With Cuba and St. Domingo we could control the productions of the 
 tropics and with them the commerce of the world and with that the 
 power of the world. Our true policy is to look to Brazil as the next 
 great Slave power and as the Government that is to direct or license 
 the development of the country drained by the Amazon. Instead of 
 courting England, we should look to Brazil and the West Indies. The 
 time will come when a treaty of commerce and alliance with Brazil will 
 give us the control over the Gulf of Mexico and its border countries, 
 together with the Islands, and the consequence of this will place Afri 
 can slavery beyond the reach of fanaticism at home or abroad. These 
 two great slave-powers now hold more undeveloped territory than any 
 other two Governments, and they ought to guard and strengthen their 
 mutual interests by acting together in strict harmony and concert. 
 Considering our vast resources and the mighty commerce that is about 
 to expand on the bosom of the two countries, if we act together by 
 treaty we can not only preserve domestic servitude, but we can defy the 
 power of the world. With firmness and judgment ive can open up the 
 African SLAVE EMIGRATION again, to people the noble region of the trop 
 ics.. We can boldly defend this upon the most enlarged si stem of phi 
 lanthropy. 
 
 * * * The time is coming when we will boldly de 
 
 fend this emigration before the world. The hypocritical cant and 
 whining morality of the latter-day saints will die away before the maj 
 esty of commerce and the power of those vast productions which are 
 to spring from the cultivation and full development of the mighty 
 tropical regions in our own hemisphere. If it be a mercy to give the 
 grain-growing sections of America to the poor and hungry of Europe, 
 why not open up the tropics to the poor African 1 
 
 We have been too long governed by psalm-singing school-masters from 
 the North. It is time to think for ourselves. The folly commenced 
 in our own Government uniting with Great Britain to declare slave- 
 importation piracy. * And we have ever since 
 by a joint fleet with Great Britain on the coast of Africa been strug 
 gling to enforce this miserable blunder. * * * If the 
 slave-holding race in these States are but true to themselves, they have 
 a great destiny before them." 
 
 Bake-Pan ? say rather an Oven, broad as the cope of heaven ! 
 for is not this enough to blister the face of all Christendom ? 
 
47 
 
 Yes, you must have room but, for your "hypocritical cant" of 
 philanthropy to the slave to enclose him is, by the very laws 
 of population, to insure his freedom. 
 
 Go then, infest the swamps of the Amazon and the Orinoco, 
 fit localities ; and we will take care that the line of freedom shall 
 follow you. But for the Islands ask leave of Christendom, and 
 the North. 
 
 Room, out of pure philanthropy to the slave, you must have; 
 but if he makes room by "migration" to the North, heaven and 
 earth are to be moved until you crowd him back again ; and if 
 your "police at their peril" do not forthwith run him down and 
 restore him, at once re-echoes the original South Carolina howl 
 of secession " making night hideous" and frighting the late 
 doughy North " from its propriety." Look you, " brothers of the 
 whip," in Article IY Section 2 of the Constitution are several 
 clauses, one of which enacts that " The citizens of each State 
 shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens, 
 in the several States"; another enacts that fugitives from service 
 or labor shall be delivered np on claim &c. Now would it not 
 be "a wonder in heaven" and on earth, to see the armies of the 
 United States marching with bristling bayonets, to rescue from 
 your dungeons or from being sold into slavery, men as fully en 
 titled under the Constitution, " to all privileges and immunities 
 of citizens 1 as the tallest of your "dominant race"? and would 
 it not be a still greater wonder to see you obeying in good faith 
 the above recited first clause of Section 2 of article IV of the 
 Constitution ? 
 
 Would it not be well that you should cease from the most 
 outrageous violations of sacred personal rights, and immunities 
 of both black men and white (imprisoning and enslaving the 
 one; and lynching and shooting the other with impunity) 
 guarantied by the Constitution ; before you rant and rave so 
 alarmingly at what you call being cheated out of what you call 
 your property ? yes, cheated you are, out of your property your 
 "internal domestic affairs" interfered with the members of 
 your family, your very children seduced to leave you. True, 
 they soon become homesick, pine for the plantations ; but they 
 cannot get back, they are too poor to go, arid besides, the fana 
 tics wont let them. Allow me respectfully to suggest to the 
 
48 
 
 South the South is benevolent in home charities, if not in for 
 eign the formation of Fugitives (from freedom) Aid Societies, 
 the generous purpose of which shall be to furnish pecuniary as 
 sistance to poor people desirous to escape from freedom. Send 
 on your agents to every northern city ; they shall neither be 
 lynched nor otherwise shot, as a warning to others. The fugi 
 tives from freedom, with such aid and advice, can escape from 
 the fanatics who are starving them, as they did from their mas 
 ters who gave them a peck of corn a week. So, by the showing 
 of the South itself, shall their fugitives from labor hasten home, 
 at much less expense to their owners than by the present meth 
 od so, in a way satisfactory to all parties, shall the fugitive 
 slave law become a dead letter so shall the Union be saved. 
 
 Seventh. "The South is excluded from the territories." The 
 South is robbed of her share of what was acquired by the com 
 mon blood and treasure. What injustice ! inflicted too, upon the 
 North as well as the South ! For, can Massachusetts go into 
 the territories ? Can New York ? Can any Northern State ? 
 No. Then why should Virginia or even South Carolina herself, 
 who is a slave-driver "by right divine " wherever she is 1 Mr. 
 Smith and all his neighbors may go into the territories from any 
 one or every one of the northern States ; but can they carry with 
 them the peculiar legislation of the State or States from which 
 they migrated ? So the Hon. R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia, or 
 the Hon. Gen. Butler of South Carolina, may go into the terri 
 tories with as many people as choose to follow them ; but why 
 should they be permitted to take their lex loci, or custom of the 
 vicinage, with them, any more than the Smiths ? No village 
 lawyer in the United States, speaking as such, would risk his 
 reputation by asserting that they have any such right. Nothing 
 but a politician is equal to such an absurdity. Congress legis 
 lates for the territories directly or indirectly ; and cannot, with 
 out violating the Constitution, divest itself of that function. 
 Has Congress power by the Constitution to initiate and insti 
 tute slavery de novo ? That is the question, Mr. Douglas. Do 
 not avoid the real issue. Do not blink the principle, Sir, nor 
 cover your eyes with a Non-intervention, but walk up and look 
 it in the face. Is that in the Constitution Sir 1 Yea or No ? 
 
49 
 
 The great Expounder is dead, Sir ; and you are the great Re 
 storer ! is that in the Constitution ? Well Sir. if that is not in 
 the Constitution and if (by absurd supposition, for not to do what 
 it commands, is as much a violation of the Constitution as to do 
 what it prohibits) Congress is not the rightful legislator for the 
 territories, but the people of the territories have the right, uncon 
 trolled by any negative, " to regulate their own domestic concerns 
 in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the Uni 
 ted States," " in obedience to the Constitution," where do these 
 people get the right to initiate and institute slavery de novo ? 
 " They get it from Almighty God " ! ! ! because, says the Con 
 stitution, " The powers not delegated to the United States by 
 the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved 
 to the States respectively, or to the people} 1 Ah ! I knew you 
 would come to that, Sir. "The distinguished Senator from 
 Michigan " has happily expressedit, in bis usual terse and lacon 
 ic manner you could do no better than to adopt his language. 
 The freemen then of the territories of the United States have 
 the "inalienable right" to institute slavery therein^ and to in 
 corporate it as one of the elements of the organization of those 
 "embryo States" and " they get it from Almighty God " ! ! That 
 you have asserted a thousand times in the Senate of the United 
 States ! ! done up in " the great fundamental principle of self- 
 government," and wrapt in your napkin of " Non-intervention. , 
 I only wished you to say it in so many words, that was all 
 Sir ; I shall not insult the people of the North by discussing that 
 point. The principles of the Declaration of Independence are 
 good enough for them and what they believe to come from Al 
 mighty God ; the commentaries of its asinine Expounder and 
 your opinion, to the contrary notwithstanding. These princi 
 ples they are not likely to exchange at his and your bidding, 
 or the principle of the pirate ! the principle of the highway 
 man ! 
 
 Eighth. The enemies of "the bill" and of " the mere inci 
 dent of it" the blotting out of the line of freedom avoid the 
 true issue. They come here prating of morality, their mouths 
 full of "sickly sentimentalism," on a matter wholly political 
 They have stirred up the clergy, and awakened fanaticism and 
 are attempting a Union of Church and State. Such is the cry and 
 
 7 
 
50 
 
 outcry of the South ; to which shouts responsive the whole batch 
 and baking of the wax-dough pastry. " Religion and human 
 ity have nothing to do with this question" (of slavery). (South 
 Carolina in the Federal Convention.) Like sire, like sons ! this 
 ever has been and is, the true text for slavery to preach from. 
 It is pregnant, round, compact, full, appropriate and beautifully 
 consistent. The text from the " missionary system " leads into, 
 troublesome logic ; it had better be let alone. Indeed it was 
 long ago discarded by the knowing ones. South Carolina will 
 perhaps try it again for a few sermons, when she comes ( as she 
 is about to come) to laud the philanthropy of reopening the slave- 
 trade and to " defend it before the world." 
 
 Cry out Church and State ! if you please, gentlemen, no 
 body shall prevent you. But allow me to submit that you are 
 not likely to take much by that motion. The people of the 
 North, let me assure you if you are alarmed for our safety- 
 are much less in danger of being entrapped in that delusive co 
 partnership than you are. For how could you even now de 
 fend your State (of slavery) without the aid of the Church ? 
 Witness the South Carolina Catechism ! We of the North 
 know right well the distinction between Church and State, arid 
 mean to maintain it. But are we therefore, in our political and 
 civil relations, to ignore the moral character of man ? to ignore 
 the existence of an overruling and righteous Providence ? to 
 ignore the spiritual nature of JUSTICE ? to originate all civil 
 and political rights in mere Force ? to legislate for men, as if 
 we were making rules for animals ? Is not all this as luistates- 
 manlike as it is impious ? and when half the continent is 
 moved to its depths, and five thousand ministeisof religicn, ev 
 ery one of whom would sooner cut off his right hand than sub 
 mit to a union between Church and State, raise their voices 
 against an outrageous moral, as well as political enormity, do 
 you think to allay the storm, and smooth the raging waters, by 
 your soft oil of "sickly sentimentalism "poor ignorant fanat 
 ics " nothing but abolitionism " " Church and State " ? Mis 
 erable Abolitionists of Freedom ! Have you never heard that 
 the gods first infatuate those whom they mean to destroy ? 
 
 But this is not less a political, than it is a moral enormity, 
 against which all patriots, as well as ministers of the gospel, 
 
51 
 
 are bound to raise their voices. Among the ends of a true State 
 are the physical and intellectual advancement and improvement 
 of its citizens for I suppose we may include intellectual good, 
 without offending the "no religion and humanity* paity that 
 is to say say, wealth, numbers and intelligence. Now in esti 
 mating the political relations and consequences of slavery in 
 the State, we will leave out all consideration of the slaves as 
 we always have left them out. 
 
 In all political discussions between the North and the South, 
 in regard to the value of the Union, and the relative interests of 
 the two parties, the interests, much more the rights, of the third 
 party in this business, have been as completely ignored as if 
 such third party had no existence. Men of the highest distinc 
 tion, not only South, but North, " honor Ible men," yes, and hon 
 est on common occasions, with their mquhs full of patriotic in 
 dignation at the oppressions of Poland and the wrongs of Hun 
 gary have, in calculating their mutual profit and loss, wholly 
 ignored the existence of a Nation in their midst, in comparison 
 with whose oppressions, the sum of the wrongs of both Poland 
 and Hungary are not a drop in the bucket. T\vo hands of pi 
 rates could not more coolly, and equitably and fairly distribute 
 the common plunder of a captured merchantman. In all this 
 the North has been, one would think, sufficiently abhorrent of 
 "humanity" and regardless of " religion," to satisfy even South 
 Carolina herself. 
 
 But I beg pardon, "religion and humanity have nothing to do 
 with this question ; " and indeed there is not the least necessity 
 to appeal to them. Its political bearings and consequences, its 
 relations to the State, are quite sufficient to settle it ; and those 
 too, determined not theoretically, but by experiment. 
 
 First. In regard to intelligence. What says the census of 
 1850 of the comparative numbers arid proportions of the free na 
 tive inhabitants who cannot read and write in the free and in 
 the slave States. Let us look at a few of the figures. 
 
 Of free adult persons of all colors, natives of the United 
 States, those in several States who cannot read arid write, are 
 in the following proportions : In 
 
 ( Vermont, cannot read and write, 1 in 455 
 
 I North Carolina, " " 1 " 7 
 
52 
 
 ( Massachusetts, " 1 444 
 
 ( Virginia, " 1 n 
 
 ( New Hampshire, " 1 321 
 
 ? Georgia. " " 1 13 
 
 $ Connecticut, 1 255 
 
 I South Carolina, " 1 17 
 
 $ Maine, " 1 254 
 
 I Maryland " " 1 12 
 
 J Rhode Island, " " 1 100 
 
 ? Delaware, " 1 " 8 
 
 This result, contrast we may call it, is sufficiently striking. 
 And the comparison is fair, being between States of essentially 
 the same age, in numbers not much unlike, and nearly equally 
 free from foreign influences. 
 
 There is another cal ious fact comes to light from the Census, 
 in regard to the colorti* people, natives of the United States, in 
 these same free States ; these same free negroes, who, as the 
 South assures mankind, are the most degraded arid miserable 
 wretches on earth, longing to get back to slavery. On compar 
 ison of these same free negroes in the six free States above 
 named, taken together, with the whole free population of the 
 above six slave States, the result is found to be the following : 
 
 Of negroes in six free States who cannot read and write, 
 there is 1 in 12. Of the whole free population in six slave 
 States who cannot read and write, there is 1 in 11. Put that in 
 your pipes and smoke it. ye " well-educated aristocrats." How 
 ever, the true badge of the " well-bred " aristocracy is the whip 
 and not the pen. 
 
 Lo ! the "Roman Masters" we have chosen for ourselves, 
 dough-faces and "degenerate Greeks." more ignorant with all 
 their " ample leisure," than northern negroes ! ! ! 
 
 Lo ! " the impersonation of the well-educated aristocrat " ! 
 But can such statistics give any adequate idea of the incredi 
 ble intellectual condition of the crackers, sandhillers, and other 
 "poor white folks," not only, but of many rich planters, at the 
 South, in comparison with the reading, thinking, intelligent, na 
 tive yeomanry of the North ? Not at all. 
 
 Second. In regard to numbers. Of the original thirteen 
 States, six remain slave States, with an area of more than two 
 hundred thousand square miles. The old free States, now be- 
 
53 
 
 come nine, contain an extent of one hundred and fifty thousand 
 square miles. These six slave States have a finer and. on 
 the whole, more healthful climate, greater variety of produc 
 tions, a richer soil, less waste land, and one quarter more of sur 
 face than the nine free States. In 1790, these slave States had 
 a population of 1,908,000 ; these free States a population of 
 1,848,000. In the meantime the free States have furnished a 
 much larger number of inhabitants for the new States than the 
 slave States, more than enough to counterbalance the excess of 
 foreign immigration into the free States,and yet,in 1850,the pop 
 ulation of these free States was 8,314,714 ; of these same slave 
 States it was 4,539,635. 
 
 Third. In regard to wealth. Compare Virginia with New 
 York. Virginia has a quarter more of surface, a better climate, 
 more valuable productions, a richer soil, better harbors, equal 
 water-power, as valuable mines, a more favorable locality, and 
 by natural position and advantages should be the agricultural, 
 manufacturing and commercial centre of the Union. In 1790, 
 Virginia had free white inhabitants, 442,000 ; New York had 
 314,000. Now Virginia has free white inhabitants. 894,000 ; 
 New York has 3,048,000. The population of Norfolk, the 
 Port of Virginia, having one of the finest harbors on the conti 
 nent, is 14,000 ; that of New York is more than 500,000. The 
 value of land in Virginia is something over eight dollars per 
 acre ; in New York, twenty-nine dollars. The value of live 
 stock in Virginia in 1850 was, in round numbers, thirty-three 
 and a half millions ; in New York seventy-three and a half 
 millions; number of houses in Virginia 166.000; in New York 
 474,000. In commerce, manufactures and mining, the contrast 
 would be still greater. 
 
 Not long since (1832) the Richmond (Va.) Enquirer, which 
 now talks of " degenerate Greeks," "pimps and pedlers," quoted 
 the words of, as it called him, " an eloquent South Carolinian, 
 on his return from the North," as follows : 
 
 " We may shut our eyes and avert our faces, if we please, but there 
 it is, the dark and growing evil at our doors ; and meet the question 
 we must, at no distant day. God only knows what it is the part of 
 wise men to do on this momentous and appalling subject. (Oh ! ex- 
 
54 
 
 tend the " God s institution " by all means, so that even the North will 
 not have to " curse heaven that it was not blessed with African slave 
 ry ! ") Of this I am very sure, that the difference nothing 
 
 short of frightful between all that exists on one side of the Poto 
 mac and all on the other, is owing to that cause alone. The disease is 
 deep-seated it is at the heart s core it is consuming, and has, all 
 along, been consuming our vitals." 
 
 This is tolerably strong. And as it comes from a South Caro 
 linian and is endorsed by the Richmond (Va.) Enquirer, it 
 must be supposed to be pretty reliable. Whereas the North 
 knows nothing of such matters. When Northern men visit the 
 "other side 3 of the Potomac and behold whole regions of natur 
 ally excellent land, and which they would have made into per 
 ennial gardens, reduced to utter desolation and barrenness ; and 
 see the dwellings of the country resembling the house of the 
 sluggard or the hut of the Hottentot ; what right have they to 
 say that slavery makes the " dominant race" incurably improvi 
 dent and indolent, and the subject race irretrievably lazy and in 
 efficient ? They are not capable of forming any correct opin 
 ions on the subject of slavery. However, it is plain enough, 
 from Southern testimony alone, that Virginia has yielded the 
 sceptre which was hers by birth-right and every other natural 
 right and for oh ! name it not. 
 
 A comparison of other States would prove decidedly, if not 
 equally, unfavorable for the South in wealth, as in numbers and 
 intelligence. And these differences are not accidental but as all 
 the world knows and as even the South used to confess and be 
 wail inherent in and inseparable from the system of slavery. 
 The comparison of agricultural products alone, would prove less 
 unfavorable to the South, because all its labor is applied to ag 
 riculture, being competent to nothing else, and that only in the 
 coarsest and most slovenly manner. 
 
 Fourth. But there is another primary consideration, never 
 for a moment to be lost sight of in estimating the well-being of 
 a State. And that is, its power of self-defence, its power of re 
 sistance to enemies, within or without. Need a word be said 
 on this point? does not the Sonth know as well as the rest of 
 the world that, in regard to defence against enemies from with- 
 
55 
 
 out, in regard to physical power, at least in a contest with the 
 North, it is weak as infancy ? Hence its desperate struggles to 
 retain and increase its political power. Is slavery in a State fa 
 vorable to its internal self-defence? And here too, let us have 
 Southern testimony ; because th - North knows nothing of the 
 matter. Read the debates on emancipation in the legislature 
 of Virginia, after the Southampton insurrection ; when the now 
 boastful Virginia shook in her shoes at the very name of Nat 
 Turner, worse than did the King of England at that of Jack 
 Cade. Not, as one gentlemen said, that she was afraid of Nat 
 Turner " No sir ; it was the suspicio?i eternally attached TO 
 THE SLAVE HIMSELF the suspicion that a Nat Turner might 
 be in every family ; that the same bloody deed could be acted 
 over at any time and in any place ; that the materials for it 
 were spread through the land and always ready for a like ex 
 plosion" In this debate can be found heavier accusations 
 against slavery than all the abolitionists of the North can bring. 
 Because the honorable gentlemen spoke from personal observa 
 tion, and just then they spoke feelingly and with a " realizing 
 sense " of its true nature. 
 
 MR. CHANDLER. " But sir, will this evil this curse not increase 1 
 Will not the life, liberty, prosperity, happiness and safety of those who 
 may come after us, be endangered, in a still greater degree, by it ? 
 How then, can we reconcile it to ourselves, to fasten this upon them ? 
 Do we not endanger our very national existence by entailing slavery 
 upon them ?" 
 
 MR. MOORE. " I think that slavery, as it exists among us, may be 
 regarded as the heaviest calamity which has ever befallen any portion 
 of the human race." 
 
 MR. BOLLING, " The time will come and it may be sooner than 
 many are willing to believe when this oppressed and degraded race 
 cannot be held as they now are when a change will be effected by 
 means abhorrent, Mr. Speaker, to you, and to the feelings of every 
 good man." 
 
 MR. BERRY. " Sir, I believe that no cancer on the physical body 
 was ever more certain, steady and fatal in its progress, than is this 
 cancer on the political body of the State of Virginia. It is eating into 
 her very vitals, and shall we admit that the evil is past remedy ?" 
 
56 
 
 Yes, you did admit it. Your mountain brought forth a mouse, 
 and you christened it " Impossible " ! ! Now. however, having 
 emboweled and forgotten Nat Turner, you have opened another 
 stop in your slavery-resounding organ, and it peals another 
 strain. Now South Carolina gives the key-note, Virginia plays 
 second, tbe whole South joins in chorus, and thus runs the An 
 them. It is the birth-right of freemen A great missionary sys 
 tem We will have Cuba It is God s Institution The North 
 will yet curse heaven ; that it did not get the blessing A great 
 destiny is before us To prohibit the slave-trade ; to declare it 
 piracy ; what a miserable blunder " ! ! what a " miserable blun 
 der ! ! ! Oh ! how invariably and unavoidably all cowards 
 brag ; just as little dogs are given to yelping. 
 
 But no quantity of southern bluster, nor any amount of hypocrit 
 ical eulogy of slavery, can make it any the less, in its political 
 relations, a "deadly poison," a "withering blight," a "curse of 
 heaven," an " appalling subject" a "fatal cancer, eating into the 
 very vitals" of the State that tolerates it ; (to use the strong 
 and appropriate language of southern men) or conceal from 
 southern men themselves, the black and portentous future which 
 is to come out of it upon the heads of their children and which, 
 instead of resolving with manly energy to avert, they are only 
 attempting, like other imbecile people, to defer, by means which 
 shall make the ruin more wide-spread and dreadful when it, 
 at length, inevitably comes, Need patriotic men, need manly 
 men, to be told that such an accursed thing is also wicked? 
 
 If there was no God in Heaven, and men were incapable of 
 moral accountability ; if right meant only " profitable" which is 
 the highest conception of some minds ; is this politically accursed 
 poison of slavery an ingredient to be infused into the life-blood 
 of new-born States? are the political consequences, necessarily 
 involved in slavery, an inheritance for us to bequeath to our 
 children ? The South will, as it ever has done, continue to play 
 the sluggard " a little more sleep, a little more slumber" and 
 sacrifice the future to the present ; the good of their children to 
 their own sloth and self-enjoyment; but is there any reason why we 
 should inflict this last of earthly curses upon our children and our 
 future, by permitting the whole national domain to be contamin 
 ated by it ? Even if our children were infatuated enough to 
 
57 
 
 choose this miserable portion, and if they had a right to choose it, 
 which they have not either morally or politically, except the right 
 of the strongest, the right of the robber every man ought to say 
 in the words of Luther Martin, " I hold it sacredly my duty to 
 dash the cup of poison, if possible, from the hand of a State, or an 
 individual, however anxious the one or the other might be to 
 swallow it." (Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Conven 
 tion, 1787.) 
 
 ]\inth. But the South has another argument in reserve the 
 grand " ultimate appeal" and knock-down argument, which, 
 since it was first used by South Carolina in the Federal Con 
 vention, to the present hour, has hitherto never been known to 
 fail ; to wit " The South will secede " ! If the North dares to 
 move in the matter of restoring the line of freedom or otherwise 
 to restrain or to repress the advance of the slave-power, in what 
 ever direction it chooses to go ; or to manifest other than the 
 disposition of "degenerate Greeks" the South will secede and 
 leave the North to its own destruction. Oh, chivalroue South ! 
 Oh, brave " migration " from Gascony ! The South will secede, 
 it will ! then, without the aid of fugitive slave laws " shall its 
 property be protected quite up to Mason and Dixon s line, " and 
 the dough-faces " shall be a police at their peril to prevent the 
 escape of its slaves " ! Oh, braver than Hector ! six millions 
 against fifteen ! an enemy in your citadel ! every third man in 
 your population a dog at your throat, so soon as the disbanding 
 of the present dough-face police shall give him courage to seize 
 it ! No wonder the North has behaved like a whipt spaniel with 
 his tail between his legs ! Ah ! self-complacent South ! " well 
 born aristocrats " ! if it should turn out that it was the generous 
 mastiff feigning fear at the yelpings of the village cur ! it may 
 be prudent to remember that even the mastiff does not well bear 
 a bite. 
 
 Such is the argument for the establishment or re-establish 
 ment, as we are expected to believe of the " great fundamental 
 principle of self-government" the principle of governing one s 
 self alias, the principle of enslaving others ! Such is the impreg 
 nable wall of pro-slavery logic, against which the chafed waters 
 of Freedom dash in vain, only to fall back in impotent foam ! 
 
 8 
 
58 
 
 Such is the wall and such the rabble (or stubble) with which it 
 is filled and chinked and carried up to its completion and Crown 
 
 the chevaux defrise of SECESSION. 
 
 Free men of the North, and who being free and rejoicing in 
 your freedom, hold it not less an intolerable shame than a damn 
 ing sin (were it possible to sin politically !) to claim at the same 
 time with this freedom, the inherent right to make slaves of your 
 neighbors ; democrats, after the principles of the Declaration of 
 Independence, after the principles of Jefferson, the author of that 
 Declaration : honest men. who eat bread the product of your own 
 labor ; do our ears bear well the assertion that to interfere with 
 the purposa of men legitimately under our political govern 
 ment and control to interfere with their purpose to institute 
 anew and perpetuate hereditary slavery, with all its unutterable 
 moral, social and political horrors that, to interfere with this 
 purpose is " oppression "/ / and a violation of the " most sacred 
 rights of man" ! ! that, this interference is to act precisely as did 
 the British King in oppressing our fathers of the Revolution ? 
 If the whole slave population of the South should rise against 
 their tyrants, would not the case be perfectly parallel to that of 
 our fathers; except that the slaves have ten thousand-fold more 
 reason for rebellion than our fathers had ? and are we to be told 
 that, if we interfere to prevent the subjection of as many men 
 more to the same horrors of slavery, in regions now free from 
 that unspeakable curse, that we are oppressing ! those who pur 
 pose to do so; that we are violating their most sacred rights ; that 
 we are outraging the principles of die Declaration of Independ 
 ence : that we are repeating the tyranny of the British King ? 
 Yes, freemenof the North, we have been told this we are requir 
 ed, on pain of excommunication, to believe this, and to adopt it 
 into our creed ! ! This has been asserted and reiterated, in the 
 Senate of the United States ! wrapt in fair phrases, stolen from 
 the vocabulary of patriotic and honorable men. In order to 
 this, " as a mere incident" of this, it became necessary to blot 
 out the line of freedom, and to take quite away its land-marks. 
 This, with a legerdelingo of sophistry liable to impose upon the 
 understanding of a Hottentot, is offered to ws, reading and think 
 ing men of the North, and who are neither pirates nor plunder 
 ers ! Are there any dough-faces of the softest sort who can be 
 
59 
 
 taken in by this talk ? Now and then one there may be of Mrs. 
 Partington s family. 
 
 But there is another class of faces, of the other kind of pastry, 
 of which John Randolph sneeringly said" if we had needed 
 more of them, we should have had them, Sir." And was he 
 not right ? and has not the South now, and before now, got "more 
 of them" ? Faces there are both in and out of Congress, which, 
 when all honest and honorable men of all parties, brought up to 
 pass judgment upon this Nebraska measure and the " mere inci 
 dent of it" ! ! this direct attack upon freedom and humanity, 
 upon the rights and interests of the North, upon the welfare and 
 honor of the nation, cry shame ! and infamy ! I say when all 
 honest and honorable men cry shame ! and infamy ! upon this 
 measure, and " the incident of it" these faces, with trie coolest 
 impudence, answer us are you so green? is this a time for 
 school-boy declamation about freedom and honor and humanity; 
 to talk about the Declaration of Independance and such stale, 
 Fourth of July, stuff? will you risk the success of the party, 
 that is, the danger of depriving us of our places and of the hopes 
 of better ones, for such vulgar considerations as these ? Free 
 men of the North, of whatever party, shall we follow such men, 
 for such men there are always, in all parties ? shall we be cajoled 
 of our interests and our honor, by such stinking sophistry? If 
 we are, then are we " degenerate Greeks " indeed ; worthy the 
 function of " pimps " ; worthy to be "a police, at our peril, to pre 
 vent the escape of slaves." 
 
 We have all been guilty together. We have all, for the sake 
 of some present party interest, or party pride, or through dough- 
 faced good nature played into the hands of the ever watchful 
 and crafty slave-power. The democrats have done so ; the 
 whigs have done so ; worst of all, considering their principles, the 
 abolitionists have done so, and are still, more likely than any of 
 t ^e rest of us to continue to do so. For though the great body 
 01 the abolitionists are honest and honorable men, men of the 
 right stamp for the present emergency, it must be confessed that 
 they have had and have foolish leaders. But what political par 
 ty does not become a hot-bed for the stinking mushroom growth 
 of domagogueism? Let us all beware now and hereafter of this 
 
60 
 
 deadly bane of freedom. Let us trust no man who sets himself 
 up as a party leader. Party leaders and party editors, men, I 
 mean, who are ready to sacrifice the good of the country to the 
 interests of their party and their own, are, next after slavery, the 
 heaviest curse of the nation. They are liars by profession, and 
 their employment is to make dupes. They are poisonous weeds 
 that cannot be eradicated from the soil, but let us beware of them. 
 Not that all editors are such, of all parties or of any party. 
 Many editors, indeed, there are human nature were bankrupt 
 else I trust there will be many more, who (though strongly 
 enough partizan on ordinary occasions) scorn all party allegiance 
 that cannot, be retained without such sacrifice of honor and hon 
 esty as the Nebraska leaders demand, that is, to endorse and ped 
 dle in small doses, their atrocious sophistry to lie at second 
 hand to humbug to order. But as there always have been 
 and always will be pirates at sea where plunder is to be had ; for 
 the same reason the black flag is not likely to lack its body-guard 
 of land-lubbers also. 
 
 Let us beware of such men, whether of our own or of any 
 other party. 
 
 But, besides poliiical editors who prefer their party and their 
 pockets to their country, there are, I am sorry io say, a few men 
 connected with the religious press, against whose influence in 
 regard to the present subject, we have need to bo forewarned. 
 These are men against whose integrity with the fewest excep 
 tions, but it requires a charity having all the fifteen genuine 
 qualities to except the Journal of Commerce I have no dispo 
 sition, and indeed no cause, to bring any accusation. They fol 
 low their religion so zealously and so far, in one direction, that 
 they quite forget that it has jurisdiction also towardsother points 
 of the com pass. With such speed have they hastened to obey 
 the King," that they have gone quite out of sight and hearing of 
 the paramount command, calling after them from behind, to 
 "obey God rather." They very honestly and fully adopt the 
 old kingly "divine right" theory, and would have conscien 
 tiously adjudged their grandfathers to the gallows for high trea 
 son. By some mistake in the celestial way-bills, when they 
 came down, they were booked for the U. S. A., instead of being 
 
61 
 
 sent to Austria. But this is not the worst of it. When men 
 willing to obey both "God " and " the King." attempt the repeal 
 of unrighteous laws which they cannot conscientiously obey, 
 these men are sure to throw cold water upon their efforts, as if 
 they were fond, not of discipline and suffering for conscience sake; 
 but of disciplining their consciences, of trying the experiment 
 of how much they can be made to suffer without rebellion. 
 
 That any man who has reason or piety enough to apprehend 
 the Christianity of the New Testament in its true idea, as a sys 
 tem of all- pervading principles, in distinction from a collection 
 of rules of conduct principles, acting not directly from without 
 to alter men or States, but from within, evolving their own rules, 
 and giving aim and purpose, and character and law, to all hu 
 man relations I say, that such a man should believe African 
 Slavery compatible with Christianity is an impossible supposi 
 tion. Of the very few men of whom I have heen speaking, who 
 believe this, or rather who do not see clearly why they should 
 not believe it, it must be supposed that they have an inadequate 
 apprehension of Christianity ; or else the most plenary Charity, 
 lacking not one of its fifteen graces, could find no apology for 
 them. 
 
 For the Southern religious and other editors, and Southern 
 Christians, many of whom (I will not say most, for i trust in Heav 
 en it is not so) do sincerely helieve in this " divine right " rela 
 tion of Slavery to Christianity, I fear the explanation must be 
 different. One cannot read their arguments in defence of their 
 doctrines without supposing that they, many of them at least, 
 corne under the category of those upon whom has been sent 
 " strong delusion," that they may believe their own chosen LIE. 
 I trust however, that Southern sophistry has forever lost its pow 
 er on this side of the late line of freedom, except it be over the 
 Journal of Commerce. 
 
 There is still another class of man of whose influence some 
 few of us have need to be watchful in regard to the question of 
 slavery. There are foreign editors among us. And, unhappi 
 ly for themselves and their former fellow-countrymen, though 
 fleeing from oppression themselves, their pretended love of free 
 dom is but a lust of enslaving others. But let them be assured 
 and those also whani they are leading astray, that the American 
 
62 
 
 people, that American parties, on whatever subjects thev may be 
 divided, will not long tolerate a third foreign party, an Euro 
 pean party, to hold the balance of power between them for its 
 own benefit, and for the benefit of its transmarine dictators. Not 
 at all ! Cousins! you are welcome so long as you behave your 
 selves as guests and conform to the rules of the family. But 
 you must not think to bring here your lex loci, as the South pro 
 poses to go into the territories. 
 
 Let the great body of the foreign population, then, which is 
 especially subject to such influences, beware of demagogues 
 whether foreign or American. They will but cheat you with 
 some present promises to your ultimate ruin. 
 
 Let us all, as one people, beware of our various seducers. Let 
 mere partizans sacrifice their principles if they had any to 
 their interests. We, who are neither office-holders nor office-seek 
 ers, we, the great body politic, can have no political interests sepa- 
 ate from the common good and permanent interests, of our com 
 mon country. 
 
 Let us follow the promptings ot our own principles and feelings 
 and always excepting many office-holders and many more 
 office-seekers there are not, on the north side of the late Mason 
 and Dixon s line, three thousand voters who would not vote right 
 in regard to that line and on most other subjects relating to sla 
 very. But we have all by means of lies and false leaders, played 
 into the hands of the South. 
 
 And now behold the result ! The South not only ridicules 
 our pretensions to moral principle and heaps upon us every most 
 insulting epithet expressive of baseness and cowardice ; but ? 
 suiting the action to the word, puts forth its hand to grasp all 
 political power, and says, restrain me "at your peril." 
 
 Time was, not long since, when the South spoke modestly 
 enough of slavery. It was their misfortune, their weakness, 
 their curse, but inflicted upon them by others. It was, however, 
 their business to manage it, it was their peculiar institution, the 
 North had no right to meddle with their local customs. To all 
 this, the North with one consent, assented. For the abolitionists 
 were less than a handful, and these were cried down, hissed 
 down, put down, knocked down, yes, and shot down. We de 
 fended the national consistency and honor before the world, by 
 
63 
 
 asserting and proving that slavery existed by a mere lex loci 
 coutume du pays, or custom of the vicinage, over which the 
 national government could have no control. We apologized for 
 the South, as for men ready to put away the evil as fast as pos 
 sible, and as doing as well as they could under the circum 
 stances. 
 
 But now, "slavery is neither a moral, social, nor political 
 evil." "It is God s institution." It is a grand missionary scheme 
 by which the heathen are enabled to " work out their own salv 
 ation " by the aid of South Carolina Catechisms on work " 
 all the free territories of the Union are to be opened to this " God s 
 Institution ;" the West India Islands are to be taken possession 
 of, out of pure compassion, and to make homes for the lately 
 neglected children of Africa ; the slave-trade, the prohibition of 
 which and the declaring it piracy was a "miserable blunder," 
 is to be reopened and defended before the world ; The United 
 States of America, a name the sound of which once stirred the 
 hopes and quickened the pulse of freedom in all nations, The 
 United States of America is to become a grand slavery "propa 
 ganda," with a division of labor, the South to do the missionary- 
 ing and the North to do the Police ; and the national banner is 
 no. longer to bear the eagle " towering in pride of place " among 
 the stars, but is to be emblazoned " noir" with a slave-coffle 
 in the centre, and the margin of the shield appropriately adorn 
 ed with wreaths of smoke from the Pit. 
 
 Freemen of the North, shall we permit these schemes to be 
 consummated? Shall we permit our country, now illustrious 
 among all nations, the hope of the oppressed, to become a bye- 
 word, a thing for scorn to point the finger at ? a name for ancient 
 despotism to rejoice at the sound of; and for freedom to hide its 
 head in shame and despair ? 
 
 Shall we permit ourselves to be politically enslaved under a 
 despotism which has shown itself as faithless with its neighbors, 
 as it is tyrannical over its slaves ? Oh ! the Missouri act was no 
 thing but a repealable law of Congress ! yes, but could any King 
 of England have thus removed a land-mark of freedom, though 
 not of record at all, without endangering both his crown and his 
 head? Shall we make true the slanders of English toadies, 
 
64 
 
 that the Saxon race degenerates in America? Let us give the 
 South the benefit of the legal quibble (John Doe Statesmen that 
 they are,) that henceforth we may know that our intercourse 
 with them is to stand upon quibble and not upon HONOR. Has 
 not the South more than justified the very worst accusations of 
 the abolitionists and compelled us, their apologists, to eat our 
 own ivords of soft extenuation ? Shall we put not only our hon 
 or and the honor of our country, but our interests and rights into 
 the hands of the South ? While the people of the North can go 
 into the territories only under the regulations of Congress, which 
 can never u legislate slavery into the territories ;" shall the Sou h 
 take along with it its accursed "lex loci"? which can never ori 
 ginate there, because "it amounts to the creation of a new cus 
 tom which is now impossible." (Blackstone.) Shall the North 
 "degenerate Greeks" yield to the South, "their Roman Mas 
 ters," not only the territories, hut, with them, all control over its 
 own interests of agriculture, of commerce, and of manufac 
 tures? 
 
 Freemen of the North, if we are not ready thus to yield the 
 keeping of our own interests and honor ; if we are not ready to 
 ridicule and renounce the principles of the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence ; if we are not ready to inaugurate the wretched, infa 
 mous, local c^^s/G^1? i ^ilavery, as the national badge and em 
 blazon it on the national banner ; if we are not ready to hear it 
 demanded of Congress to repeal the prohibition of the African 
 slave-trade; if we are not ready to see upon the records of Con 
 gress " Resolved, that to declare the slave-trade piracy, was 
 foolish fanaticism and a miserable blunder ; 5 if we are not 
 ready to become " pimps" and panders to all this, and to con 
 stitute ourselves a perpetual "police at our peril, to prevent the 
 escape of slaves;" men of the North, if we are not ready for 
 all this, let the North now speak; now at length let the North 
 speak, the North it is theslaveholding "Unit" which compels 
 to this geographical designation now at length let the North 
 speak, or hereafter/ore^er hold its peace. 
 
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