States; as new territory was populated it polluted them with its foul embraces, until it now numbers as its victims no less than fifteen States. Emboldened by success it now claims to possess all the free territory; it assaults liberty on its own ground; and, after driving us into foreign war with Mexico, threatening Cuba, and pouring its hordes over the borders of Missouri into Kansas, maddened at its defeat it now violently takes up arms against the Federal Government, and deluges the land with blood. Since the day when Jefferson cried, "Slavery is a curse," a change has come over the party he formed, and who still profess to fight under his banner; and finally Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, one of the most moderate of the Secessionists, the Vice-president of the Confederate States, announces this monstrous doctrine :

"The foundations of our new Government are laid; its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery-subordination to the superior race-is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

It is, then, slavery, and nothing but slavery, which is the hissing head of Southern rebellion. Nothing will content the leaders of this movement but the nationalising of slavery. Their great grievance is that enough has not been given to slavery.

Let us see what has been given. Though the constitution of the United States impliedly consents to the existence of slavery in the original States where it then was, there is not a word to be found in that instrument which in the remotest way implies a right, or confers a power on the Federal Government, to create or permit it elsewhere. Slavery, however, can only exist by positive law, never by implication; and therefore, though the constitution accepts it where it is because it finds it there, it cannot, without express power, carry it where it does not already exist. In the absence of any clause conferring that power expressly, can it be implied from any clause? Quite the contrary. The whole spirit of the constitution is in favour of freedom-its guarantees in favour of slavery are exceptions

to its general character. And in giving these it hides its shame under vague language, and cautiously avoids the use of the words slave or slavery, as if it would taint the instrument by its presence. The spirit, object, and intention of the constitution, is clearly stated in its preamble; and this should always be looked to as the key for its interpretation. Is there here any intimation of an intention to give the Federal Government or the States the power to inflict slavery upon the United States' territories, then free? Here it is:-"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America."

"To establish justice," "to secure the blessings of liberty"— can the establishment of slavery in the territories be other than in absolute contradiction to these words?

But there is stronger evidence than this. In an ordinance, passed in 1784 for the government of the territory of the United States north-west of the river Ohio, it is directly declared that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory;" and this ordinance is declared to constitute articles of compact between the original people and States in the said territory, and for ever remain unalterable, unless by common consent.

Slavery was thus expressly prohibited in the north-west territories in 1784. Many years had not elapsed before it began to raise its head and demand new states and territories, and when, in 1820, Missouri claimed admission as a State, the question arose whether she could come in without a prohibition of slavery. Upon this question the friends of liberty and the friends of slavery fought with determination; but the North was finally induced to compromise with the South, and abandon all its principles, and all the principles of the constitution, for the sake of conciliation with a power already grasping and insatiable. It was a foolish and fatal mistake. It was the mistake which liberty has always made in America. All its

compromises have resulted in strengthening the element which has now for a time broken asunder the Union. Yet England again calls out to us-Compromise. Compromise what? Yield what? The South violently asserts that it will not be satisfied with the constitution, that more guarantees must be given to slavery, that slavery must be nationalised in all the territories, that slaveholders shall have the right to carry their slaves where they will, even into the free States themselves, and that those States shall turn slave-hunters in behalf of Southern masters. Shall we go down on our knees at this crack of the slave-whip, and yield up our birthright of liberty? Never! Honour, justice, duty, forbid that we should at any time yield to such demands; but now, with the knife at our throat, if we yield, we are not fit for liberty-we are traitors and cowards to God and the right.

The Missouri Compromise guaranteed to all territory north of 36° 30′ free institutions for ever, while illegally and unconstitutionally all territory south of that latitude was given over to slavery. By one blow slavery was legalised in all the new States below 36° 30'; and here it grew and strengthened, and State after State tainted with it came into the Union, and added to the power of the slave representation in Congress. At last the area was nearly occupied, and Kansas in the free territory was knocking at the door of the Federal Union for admittance. In Kansas, by the solemn terms of the Missouri Compromise, slavery was prohibited. So long as only slave States had demanded admission the South had maintained their agreement, for they had received all the advantage, but now they declared that the compromise was unconstitutional; and, false to all their pledges, repealed it, for the sole purpose of carrying slavery into Kansas. I cannot here enter on the painful and savage scenes that followed. The territory was denied admittance at first, and every effort was made, without regard to law, justice, or decency, to force the accursed institution upon a people who resisted it even to death. Border ruffians from Missouri invaded it, carrying murder and rapine into many a household. Civil fearful outrages were committed. The Administration, pledged to slavery, faltered and betrayed the

Kansas

people—but the battle at last was won by freedom. refused to admit slavery, and she came in as a free State.

It was at this time that the Republican party was formed. The Missouri Compromise having been repealed, it planted itself on the constitution, and asserted as its fundamental principle that slavery should not be extended into any more territory, such an extension being wrong in itself, and in violation of the whole spirit of the constitution, and of the express terms of the ordinance of 1784. The extreme Southern-rights party declared that the Government had no more power to prohibit any one from carrying his slave into the territories than from carrying his ox or his horse; thus claiming that slavery is legalised by the constitution everywhere, and that they had a right to infect all the new territory with slavery. Between these parties Mr. Douglas formed and represented a third, composed of the more moderate Southern men, on a principle called "squatter sovereignty," by which the question as to slavery or freedom was left to the settlers in each territory to decide for themselves. The difficulty in this last case is evident. If slaves can be carried into the territory and held as of right, the institution of slavery is necessarily affixed to it.

Long before the election came on there were symptoms that the Republicans might elect their candidate, and then commenced the hatching of the plot against the Federal Government. The Treasury-which, when Mr. Buchanan came into power, was full to overflowing-was robbed; the arms and munitions of war belonging to the United States were removed from the North, and stored in the Southern arsenals; the navy was despatched to foreign stations, so as to be beyond the immediate reach of the Government; and every preparation was secretly made by the administration and cabinet to take the Government by a coup de main in case of failure in electing the Southern candidate. Violent threats were made in the South of disunion in case of the election of Mr. Lincoln, and every effort was exerted to intimidate the North; but though these produced a great effect on the timid, and made a "Union party" of compromisers, they were generally considered as

mere bluster to attain a political end. When Mr. Lincoln was elected the game was up. The most furious of the Southern politicians fanned the flames of jealousy between State and State, and generally infected the minds even of the more moderate with a groundless terror. The press was gagged; all freedom of opinion and expression was suppressed; to declare one's self in favour of Mr. Lincoln was to expose one's life to imminent danger. Violent outrages were committed on innocent men and women, upon mere suspicion of their entertaining anti-slavery sentiments; and many a person, without trial, or with only the mockery of trial before a vigilance committee, often self-constituted, was hanged up to the first tree, or tarred and feathered, and beaten out of the Southern States.

The North now began to fear that the South would carry out its threats of disunion, and sought in every way to conciliate and compromise. Every politician had a new method of treatment, and the constitution was nearly murdered with patent methods of curing the disease of treason. Had the South really had any grievance, and stated it, it would at once have been remedied. Even had it suffered a sham grievance, I fear that the North would then have been too ready to yield most important principles for the sake of conciliation. The States were willing to repeal their "Personal Liberty Laws," though they considered them constitutional; to promise to carry out the Fugitive Slave Law, though they thought it abominable and illegal; to give new guarantees to slavery in the States; to re-enact a new Missouri compromise-in a word, all kinds of propositions were made to the mad South, which, in the meantime, did nothing but bark and bite, and shake its chain. Committees and conventions constructed every species of compromise for the purposes of conciliation. Virginia offered her mediation. But it was of no use: we did not abase ourselves sufficiently. We would not toss up our hats for slavery and proclaim it as "the corner-stone" of the republic-and

so we went to war.

The war was not begun by the North. The "Venerable Edward Ruffin," of Virginia, fired the first gun at Sumter, and it echoed round the world. While the President and