CHAPTER IX.

The Federal Party Reorganize upon the Slavery QuestionContinued War upon the Agricultural States-Opinions of the Southern People as to Slavery-The Missouri Compromise-The Slade Agitation-The Abolitionist, George Thompson-Views of England— Opinions of Jackson, Marcy, Clay, Everett and others -Drawing of the Geographical Line, &c., &c.

"Adverse fortune and ill-judged policy had brought the Federal party to its end. Its leaders saw that all was over. New and living issues must be sought for. Not without wisdom did they select another standpoint and prepare to combat their adversaries in his most vulnerable part. A compact and an unmistakable formula, of which the purport is easily understood, is invaluable as a party war-cry. To restrain slavery, and eventually to destroy it, became their dogma. It gathered irresistible power, because it was in unison with the sentiments of the times."

DRAPER'S CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

"The [Missouri] question is a mere party trick. The leaders of Federalism are taking advantage of the virtuous feeling of the people to effect a division of parties by a geographical line; they expect that this will ensure them, on local principles, the majority they could never obtain on the principles of Federalism."

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

"You are kindling a fire which all the waters of the ocean cannot extinguish; it can be extinguished only in blood."

THOS. W. COBB, IN CONGRESS, 1819.

Down to the year 1819, a period of over thirty years from the adoption of the Constitution there had been no objection to the admission of a State to the Union because of the existence of slavery. Objection had been made to the Louisiana purchase upon other grounds, but not upon that of slavery. Louisiana,

Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee had all been admitted with constitutions recognizing slavery.

Down to this period the existence of slavery in a free Republic had not been held by any large number of people to be repugnant to our theory of government. Nowhere in the Union had it been regarded as violative of moral or Christian law, or opposed to the rights acquired by conquest and capture. No political party, or fraction of a party, had denounced the slaveholding States as unworthy members of the Union' But now, the Federalists, casting about for a new subject upon which they might rally their scattered forces, and upon which they might draw the lines around the agricultural States, seized upon the question of slavery.

The people of the Southern States had inherited their slaves. They had grown up upon the plantations and had passed from father to son by the laws of descent. The ancestors of these slaves had been brought into the Southwest against the wishes of . Oglethorpe. One of the earliest laws of the colony of Georgia was that forbidding the introduction of African slaves-but the greed of traders had broken through all laws until the ships of Old England and of New England had filled the South with a vast number of negroes. Nothing in the history of the world, down to the present century had taught the people of this unhappy section, against whom had been launched the poisonous weapons of a defeated political party, that slavery was a moral wrong or a social evil. They saw it recognized by all the ancient nations, kingdoms and republics; by the Mosaic law; by the Roman empire; by the Gospel of Christ; by all the more modern peoples; by the councils of the Catholic church; by the leaders

of the reformation; by English law and custom; everywhere throughout the world, in all ages and climes. They saw it recognized in the Federal Constitution which permitted the importation of African slaves for twenty years after its ratification.

In nearly every household throughout the South, if there were no other book, might be found the family Bible. That Bible told the reader of Abraham's slaves, bought with his money; of the Angel of the Lord who commanded the fugitive slave, Hagar, to return to her mistress and submit herself; of the tenth commandment of the Decalogue, which spoke of the master's property in man servants and maid servants; and of theosaic laws which recognized and regulated slavery in its severest forms The reader of the New Testament looked in vain for any allusion to slavery by Christ; for any word of censure for an institution then tolerated throughout the world; for any word, on account of it, of condemnation of Caesar, whose empire, according to the historian, Gibbon, then embraced sixty millions of slaves. They read the precepts of Paul, in which he told the slaves to be obedient to their masters, and in which he warned the masters to give unto their slaves that which is just and equal, since they also had a Master in Heaven. The preachers of the Gospel throughout the South, while inculcating lessons of mercy, justice and kindness between the master and slave, could not stultify themselves by denouncing the moral or Christian legality of Slavery. Before them were the writings of churchmen from the earliest ages, and nowhere, down to that period when the wild orgies of the French Revolution had upturned the foundations of society, could be found any denial of the rec

titude of an institution which had been coeval with the ages and coextensive with the habitable globe. Jerome, one of the oracles of the ancient church, writing at a time when the church was at peace and there was no longer occasion to conceal sentiments, commenting on 1 Cor. 7, 21, said : "The condition of a slave cannot "be opposed to the Christian religion." Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, said that slavery could result from iniquity, as in the case when God cursed Canaan, and from purchase, as in the case of the sale of Joseph, and also from capture in war, and that Christ "does not "make free men of servants, but He makes good "servants of bad servants." "How much," adds St. Augustine, "do the wealthy owe to Christ who regu"lates their home." The great Chrisostom, Bishop of Constantinople, the orator of the "Golden Mouth,” writes: "For even as circumcision profiteth nothing, "and uncircumcision hurteth nothing, so even does slavery or liberty, and in order that he [the Apostle "Paul] might teach this yet more plainly, he saith"but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.' "That is serve rather. But why does he command "him that might be free, to remain a slave? Because "he desired to show that slavery does not hurt, but even profits. We are not ignorant, indeed, that some interpret the words, use it rather,' as referring to liberty, saying, if thou mayest be freed, be free.' "But this is very contrary to the meaning of Paul, for "his design being to console the slave by showing that "his condition was no injury, he would not have "ordered him to become free."

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Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, in his book concerning the "pastoral care," lays down this rule to

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the clergy: "Slaves should be admonished in one way "and the masters in another. The slaves, to-wit: that they should always in themselves regard the humility "of their condition: but the masters, that the memory "of their nature, in which they are created equally "with their slaves, must not be forgotten." There is extant a deed of gift by Gregory, conveying one of his slaves to the bishop of Porto, who had charge of a suburban diocese near Rome. The bill of sale recites: "so that you may have and hold him, and preserve "and maintain your right to him, and defend him as your property, and do, by the free right of this donation, as his master, whatsoever you will concerning "him. Against which charter of our munificence, you may know that neither we nor our successors are ever "to come."

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The Apostolic canons; the Clementine constitutions; the Council of Gangra in Asia Minor; the Councils of Agde, Narbonne and Orleans, in France; the Councils of Epone and Macon, in Burgundy; the Council of Toledo, in Spain; the Council of Berghamstead, near Canterbury, in England; the Councils of Aix-le-Chapelle and Worms, in Germany-all recognized slavery, taught obedience to the master, ordered the rendition of fugitive slaves to their owners, and in no instance denied the rightfulness of the institution. Slaves were owned not only by kings, princes and nobles, but by citizens of every class and condition, by churches, monasteries, bishops and the clergy.

Melancthon, Calvin, Luther; and the commentators, Patrick, Lowth, Whitby, Henry, Scott, Clarke and Doddridge; all, construe the language of St. Paul pre