States, showing a constant and large aggressions upon the South. The duty of the Government is undoubtedly to protect the property upon the Territories, until people there settled form their own laws. The agitation of the slave question grew originally out of the chagrin of New England, at being deprived of the Slave Trade and its profits. It was prolonged by the mutual irritation that the opposition of Massachusetts to the purchase of Louisiana occasioned. Emancipation made steady progress in all the States, until Abolition forced the Slaveholders upon the defensive. Abolition made little progress, until unscrupulous partisans coquetted with it for party issues. The question of the power of the Government to exclude slavery from the Territories, has been blended with the moral question as to the "sin of slavery." The cry of "Free Soil" was raised in 1848, by Mr. Van Buren, to avenge his non-nomination by the South, at Baltimore. The compromise measures of 1850, were carried by the influence of Henry Clay. Violation of these compromises, by the "Personal Liberty Bills" of the Northern States, soon followed. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in 1854. Attempt, by the Abolition party, to make Kansas a Free State by force, which was resisted by the South. Rise of Republican party, under the lead of Mr. W. H. Seward, and its defeat in 1856. Violent agitation of the slavery question at the North, followed by the invasion of Virginia by John Brown, in 1859, and the circulation of the Helper Book, in 1860. The theory of a "Higher Law" at the North, to justify resistance to the Constitution and laws of Congress, has begotten the Higher Law of Self-preservation at the South, to justify resistance to a dominant party, which embraces the "sin of slavery" among its tenets.. The Southern States have been for nearly sixty years the object of political persecution by the North, which they have borne with patience and returned with kindness. In 1820, the North entered into a compromise, which has been broken. In 1850 they made new agreements, which have since been violated. In 1860 a legal majority elected a President on the "Platform" that "Slavery must be restricted to its present limits." Outraged in our rights, and threatened in our interests, what course is left the South? To fold their arms and await more injury and endure more obloquy? Would this check the aggressions of the North till both North and South were swallowed up in the vortex of ruin? It is clear that the South have no alternative. Far better they should have no alternative. Far better they should have abandoned fhe Confederacy than remain only to engage in bitter feuds that compromise the dignity of the country, and sow the seeds of undying hatred. In 1789, according to our view, the South entered into a civil compact with the North, on certain conditions and guarantees. These have been broken, and the South returns, in her opinion, to her original sovereignty. Even were it otherwise-were it true that the South owed allegiance to the Federal Government-still, she asserts our Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the present practice of Europe justify all people in repudiating a government which assails their rights and sacrifices their best interests. If the Northern States do not acknowledge these truths, then are they false to their origin, and seek to substitute for a government of opinion the tyranny of force. A few general considerations, aud we conclude our narrative. After tracing the course of events recorded in the foregoing pages, the questions naturally ariseWhat has been the result? What have the Abolitionists gained? The answers may be briefly summed up as follows: "With the fairest portions of the earth in their possession, and with the advantage of a long discipline as the cultivators of the soil, their constitutional indolence has converted the most beautiful islands of the sea into howling wastes. It is not too much to say, that if the South should, at this moment, surrender every slave, the wisdom of the entire world, united in solemn council, could not solve the question of their disposal. Freedom would be their doom. Every Southern master knows this truth and feels its power. 1. Touch the negro, and you touch cotton-the mainspring that keeps the machinery of the world in motion. In teaching slaves to entertain wild and dangerous notions of liberty, the Abolitionists have thus jeopardized the commerce of the country and the manufacturing interests of the civilized world. They have likewise destroyed confidence. In short, all the kind relations that have ever existed between the North and the South have been interrupted, and a barrier erected, which, socially, commercially, and politically, has separated the heretofore united interests of the two sections. 2. They have held out a Canadian Utopia, where they have taught the slaves in their ignorance to believe they could enjoy a life of ease and luxury, and having cut them off from a race of kind masters, and separated them from comfortable homes, left the deluded beings, incapable of self-support, upon an uncongenial soil, to live in a state of bestiality and misery, and die cursing the Abolitionists as the authors of their wretchedness. 3. They have led a portion of the people of the North, as well as of the South, and to plant themselves upon the broad principle that that form of government which recognizes the institution of Slavery in the United States, is the best, the condition of the two races, white and black being considered, for the development, progress, and happiness of each. In other words, to regard servitude as a blessing to the negro, and, under proper and philanthropic restrictions, necessary to their preservation and the prosperity of the country. 4. Step by step they have built up a party upon an issue which has led to a dissolution of the Union. They have scattered the seeds of Abolitionism until a majority of the voters of the Free States have become animated by a fixed purpose to prevent the further growth of the slave power. The power of the North has been consolidated, and, for the first time in the history of the country, it is wielded as a sectional weapon against the interests of the South. The Government is now in the hands of men elected by Northern votes, who regard slavery as a curse and a crime, and they will have the means necessary to accomplish their purpose. The utterances that have heretofore come from the rostrum, or from irresponsible associations of individuals, now come from the throne. "Clad with the sanctities of office, with the annointing oil poured upon the monarch's head, the decree has gone forth that the institution of Southern Slavery shall be constrained within assigned limits. Though Nature and Providence should send forth its branches like the banyan tree, to take root in congenial soil, here is a power superior to both, that says it shall wither and die within its own charmed circle." Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, says: "I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of Slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South." "I have always hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist. I have always been an old line Whig. I have always hated it, and I always believed it in a course of ultimate extinction. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether Slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should." "Abolitionism and fanaticism is a blood-hound that never bolts its track when it has once lapped blood. The elevation of their candidate is far from being the consu |