Page images
PDF
EPUB

supremacy of each separate State. The Hon. Secretary Seward, "whose bright and patriotic plans and purposes," says Peter Sinclair, Esq., "qualify him to fill a high office of trust, and administer it so as to become in many respects, along with Abraham Lincoln and Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, models for the study of the world."-Seward, when commenting on this clause in his place in the Senate Chamber, in 1860, addressed himself to the representatives and people of the slave States as follows:"In your capital States you are sovereigns on the subject of slavery within your own borders, as we are on the same subject within our borders. It is well and wisely arranged. Use your authority to maintain what system you please. We are not distrustful of the result. If our authority shall be assailed from within or without by any enemy, or for any cause, and we shall have need, we shall expect you to defend us. If you shall be so assailed, in the emergency, no matter what the cause or the pretext, or who the foe, we shall defend your authority as the equivalent of our own!" You are sovereigns," said Seward, " within your own borders on the subject of slavery!" Where there is sovereignty there is the exercise of absolute power in accordance with vested rights acquired or otherwise. But how fearful are the

vested rights of slavery! And how terrible is the sovereignty that makes merchandise of the bodies and souls of men, and traffics in human flesh! And yet, said Seward, "it is well and wisely arranged!" Well

and wisely arranged that four millions should be reduced from persons to things-articles of merchandise-commodities to be bought and sold! Well and wisely arranged that slaves should have no relationships which they can call their own, but, like cattle, be separated at the will of their owners-husbands from wives, parents from children, brothers from sisters, and friends from bosom friends! Well and wisely arranged that they should be robbed of the fruits of their industry, and stripped of all mental, moral, social, and religious culture! Well and wisely arranged that they should be subject to a robbery and tyranny unequalled in the world! Now, the Hon. W. H. Seward, when he uttered the above language, was well acquainted with the character of that system which these slaveholders sought to maintain. He knew full well the injuries which it inflicted, and the untold agonies which it produced, and yet Seward said, “Use your authority in maintaining the above sovereignty." As if he had said, "Go on and multiply the wrongs of the negro slave in connection with this terribly ferocious system of inhuman bondage. Do it in every form in which their humanity may be assailed, and by every character of agency and appliance you may please to use. According to your taste, convenience, or caprice, make your exactions, enforce obedience with the utmost rigour, and make your will supreme; "we are not distrustful of you," says Seward, or of the result." weep, groan, or struggle in the agonies of death, but

Their victims may

[ocr errors]

it is no concern of ours, said the above "philanthropic man so called, the "astute philosopher, metaphysician, and model statesman of America." "You are sovereigns within your own borders," and, therefore, we repudiate all responsibility in the States where those victims of your cruelty and tyranny reside. Such was the Honourable William H. Seward in 1860, when he made a bid for the Presidency. What a wonderful model for the study of the world.

The

Our

Another clause in the law of compact made provision for equal rights and privileges to all the separate states of the Union, both in regard to the protection of each State sovereignty and the general sovereignty of all the States from common danger, and also to a share in the common territory. rights common to each were common to all. Union, therefore, was nothing more nor less than a partnership concern. And to all the articles of our political creed embodied in our law of compact, each State has given its "unfeigned assent and consent." And these possess a binding power on each and all which they are not at liberty to set aside or reject without endangering the existence of the whole. the history of our country we have had repeated infractions of the law of compact by the Northern or Free States so called-in the adoption of the Missouri Compromise, which dispossessed the slave States of their equal rights in the national territory; as well as the personal liberty bill, which brought five of the

In

Free States into conflict with the United States; in the Congressional Fugitive Slave Law; and also in the threats made by the Northern people against the Southerners in regard to the tarriff, and to cherish a war of sections. Against these infractions the Southern States protested, but in vain. And in vain also did they point to the law of compact which had been infringed. Hence their determination to secede. And as there is a brotherhood as well as honour among thieves, it was the duty, and ought to have been the privilege, of Northern States to allow them to secede, and amicably to have wound up the affairs of the "Old Union Concern "-the "existence of which no possible circumstances could justify," said Wm. Lloyd Garrison, or "ought to continue;" and "to preserve which," said General Washington, it required “the prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the United States which would induce them to forget their local politics and prejudices!" As we shall return to this subject, allow me to subscribe myself as usual, Yours for truth as well as liberty,

JOSHUA R. BALME,
American Baptist Clergyman.

32 Sun Street.

THE BLACK PARTNERSHIP CONCERN.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE LIVERPOOL MERCURY.

GENTLEMEN,-Nothing can be more preposterous or absurd than to suppose that the above concern called the Union in America, possesses a basis founded on an enlarged philanthropy, or enlightened forecast; and if it had not-been placed on record, it is scarcely possible to believe that any ruler or statesman should have fallen into so gross a delusion, as to avow, that it could continue amidst the dangers that would imperil its existence, since an impartial administration of justice, or the sinking down of a shaft to the rock called principle, would at any period have sprung a mine to destroy it with its false peace, at once and for ever! In its brief history those dangers have been frequent, from jealousy between the Northern and Southern partners in the acquisition of new states and territory-from the Tariff which led South Carolina to threaten to withdraw from the Union-from the war of 1812 which brought it to the verge of disruption-from the opposition of New England States to that war under the leadership of Massachusets-from "Bleeding Kansas" and John Brown's raid, which led the Richmond Whig to

E

« PreviousContinue »