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UNIVERSALIST QUARTERLY

AND

GENERAL REVIEW.

ARTICLE I.

The Logic and the End of The Rebellion.

WRONG has its conditions and methods as well as Right. It exists in its own atmosphere, obeys its own necessities and is ruled by its own instincts. And, so, when a giant barbarism, its offspring and representative, found itself encircled by an advanced and still advancing Christian society, it could meet the exigency of its situation only in the spirit and by the methods of its own nature. Slavery in the United States and in the nineteenth century, pressed on all sides by the accumulȧting forces of an expanding and noble civilization, menaced, as it could but feel, by the peaceful but damaging, conquests which the energies of an enlightened free society were constantly making, could deal with the circumstances which beset it, only in its own ways, and by its own instrumentalities. It could not be influenced by a wisdom higher than it knew, and from the recognition of which it was excluded by the essential conditions of its existence. Having its origin in falsehood, injustice and violence, it felt that it could expand and be strengthened, indeed that it could hold its own, only by such measures as these postulated; that in wrong alone it must live or bear no life. To expect from it a policy of truth, 1

NEW SERIES.

VOL. I.

righteousness and peace, would be as idle as to rely upon the good intentions of Beelzebub for the casting out of devils.

It is not to be overlooked, however, that often what is done. for evil is overruled for good. Whether it be true, as the sage of Concord affirms, that evil is good in the making, it cannot be denied that in the extreme aggressiveness of its nature it becomes self-destructive, and thus is made a most effective instrument for preparing the way for good. By facilitating its own removal it does a work that can be performed so well by no other agency. Myriad-lived and invulnerable as it may seem, it is, nevertheless, a never-wearying suicide. However much of cunning, tact and plausibility it may exhibit, and whatever degree of success may appear at times to attend it, it has no permanent possessions, no indefeasable titles, but is ever working a forfeiture of its own estates. The wisdom of the ancients is nowhere better exemplified than in the well-known apothegm, that "whom the gods intend to destroy they first make mad." In the Grecian mythology, Nemesis, the Goddess of retribution, is said to have been the daughter of Oceanus and Nox, for the alteration of things is aptly represented by the sea, and hidden providence is set forth by the night-and by both that universal but silent-working law in whose economy evil is made its own avenger.

Now, it is manifest that Slavery could not make use of peaceful and honest means for the maintenance of its defences and the prolongation of its power. When it could employ such agencies as these it would cease to be the violent and fraudulent thing that it essentially is. It would be Slavery no longer. When it perceived the gathering danger, it thought to confront or avert it, only by fraud and crime; and it made preparation not for gradual, peaceful abolition, not for the simple continuance of the system of bondage where it already had a foothold, but for its indefinite expansion and perpetuity.

In all its steps towards the rebellion, the slave power was impelled scarcely more by its bad morals than its bad manners. Impatient of control, insolent, and domineering, as well as false and unjust, it was not less willing to ruin for the sake of ruling, than anxious to rule for the sake of ruining. In places

of authority and real power it would have no rival, and it has had none. For forty years it had its own way. Its will was power and its word was law. Let us see what a long term of unchecked prosperity, as it would seem, has done for it. If a true system, it would now be impregnable. When the Louisiana Territory was purchased of France in 1803, in all that part of it which was afterwards formed into the State of Missouri, there were probably not twenty slaveholders. At that time the opinion in the South, as in the North, was general that Slavery was an unprofitable system of labor, and would, after no long period, be removed from all the States. No one could have imagined that this territory was to be held for the interest and advantage of Slavery, and to be finally erected into Slave States; and to no man in the whole country, would such an apprehension have been more alarming than to Mr. Jefferson, the President under whose authority the treaty with France was negotiated.

But in 1820 the slave power, if not really more aggressive, was stronger and bolder than it was in 1803, and when Missouri was ready to come into the Union, it would give its consent on the single condition that she should be a Slave State; and by its intrigues and threats she was at last brought in as such, but against the conscience and judgment of the country. And thirty-five years later, when Kansas was to be subjugated by the slave power, Missouri was made its strong right arm in the unhallowed enterprise. But by a striking example of poetic justice, a most unlooked for guerdon seems to have waited upon these labors. This Missouri, which was so foully used, and has herself behaved so badly, is the first of the Slave States to express her more than readiness to join hands with the loyal government in the sublimest act of many centuriesan act which John Quincy Adams and other sages lived hoping to see but died without the sight-EMANCIPATION. Lo, this very Missouri, that but eight years ago would spread the curse of slavery by fire and slaughter over the fair fields of devoted Kansas, is, even now, redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the power she had so long contemned and the

Genius she had so hatefully insulted, and becomes herself the first fruits in the great harvest of Freedom!

Missouri had not been many years secured to slavery "forever," when this daring and insatiable power sought new conquests; and as early as 1836, intrigues were set on foot for the acquisition of Texas, culminating, ten years later, in a war with Mexico. In addition to the confirmation of the title of the United States to Texas, including the stipulation for five slave States to be carved from her territory, as an issue of the war a permanent lodgment for the institution on the Pacific coast was contemplated. California and Oregon were wanted by Slavery, for they would give it commercial prestige as well as political power on our western coast, and they would secure to it the possession of Utah and New Mexico, and thus it would happen that the movement of Slavery westward from the Mississippi, would not reach the Rocky Mountains, before encountering a similar movement towards the east, and both uniting and forming a grand column, would turn northwards and march in triumph to the uttermost boundaries of the republic.

Such was the comprehensive and audacious programme, and for a time events seemed propitious to its accomplishment—the Texas question was settled, and California came, with peace, as indemnity for the past, and security for Slavery's future. But how the "juggling fiends," in their promises to the slave power, of conquest and dominion, had "paltered with it in a double sense, keeping the word of promise to the ear' only, time was not long in unfolding. Scarcely had the treaty of peace with Mexico been concluded, when California, acting under the protection of that noble and true old man-to whom the country owes a debt of everlasting gratitude for his sagacity and fidelity at a most critical juncture of public affairs— ZACHARY TAYLOR,-presented herself to Congress with a Constitution such as she had seen proper to make for her own Government; and with it, thanks to the patriot-President whose name we have mentioned, and whose firmness kept slavery from ever polluting the waters of the peaceful ocean, after a long struggle, she came into the Union as a free State! Her

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