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niary means for carrying that measure into effect; and now all the slaves have become freemen.

Charles VIII., King of Denmark, celebrated the anniversary of the birth of the Queen Dowager by abolishing slavery in his dependencies, on the 28th of July, 1847.

In 1862, Russia has consummated the last and grandest act of emancipation of modern times.*

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While Europe has thus practically approved of the leading principle of the American constitution, as founded on justice, and as essential to public welfare, the United States, as represented by the more recent administrations, have practically repudiated and abandoned it. Europe, embarrassed by conservative and monarchical institutions, adopts the preamble to that instru ment, as a just exposition of the true objects for which governments should be established, and accordingly abolishes slavery - while, in this country, in the mean time, slavery, having grown strong, seeks by open rebellion to break up the Union, and to abolish republican democracy.

SLAVERY IN 1862 NOT SLAVERY IN 1788.

However harmless that institution may have been in 1788, it is now believed by many, that, with few but honorable exceptions, the slave-masters of the present day, the privileged class, cannot, or will not, conduct themselves so as to render it longer possible, by peaceable association with them, to preserve "the Union," to "establish justice," "insure domestic tranquillity, the general welfare, the common defence, or the blessings of liberty to ourselves or our posterity." And since the wide-spread but secret conspiracies of traitors in the

To the above examples we must add that of the Dutch West Indies, where the law emancipating the slaves goes into operation in July, 1863.

slave states for the last thirty years; their hatred of the Union, and determination to destroy it; their abhorrence of republican institutions, and of democratic government; their preference for an "oligarchy with slavery for its corner stone," have become known to the people,their causeless rebellion; their seizure of the territory and property of the United States; their siege of Washington; their invasion of States which have refused to join them; their bitter, ineradicable, and universal hatred of the people of the free States, and of all who are loyal to the government, have produced a general conviction that slavery (which alone has caused these results, and by which alone the country has been brought to the verge of ruin) must itself be terminated; and that this "privileged class" must be abol ished; otherwise the unity of the American people must be destroyed, the government overthrown, and constitutional liberty abandoned.

To secure domestic tranquillity is to make it certain by controlling power. It cannot be thus secured while a perpetual uncontrollable cause of civil war exists. The cause, the means, the opportunity of civil war must be removed; the perennial fountain of all our national woes must be destroyed; otherwise "it will be in vain to cry, Peace! peace! There is no peace."

ARE SLAVEHOLDERS ARBITERS OF PEACE AND WAR?

Is the Union so organized that the means of involving the whole country in ruin must be left in the hands of a small privileged class, to be used at their discretion? Must the blessing of peace and good government be dependent upon the sovereign will and pleasure of a handful of treasonable and unprincipled slave-masters?

Has the constitution bound together the peaceable citizen with the insane assassin, so that his murderous knife cannot lawfully be wrenched from his grasp even in self-defence?

If the destruction of slavery be necessary to save the country from defeat, disgrace, and ruin, and if, at the same time, the constitution guarantees the perpetuity of slavery, whether the country is saved or lost, it is time that the friends of the government should awake, and realize their awful destiny. If the objects for which our government was founded can lawfully be secured only so far as they do not interfere with the pretensions of slavery, we must admit that the interests of slave-masters stand first, and the welfare of the people of the United States stands last, under the guarantees of the constitution. If the Union, the constitution, and the laws, like Laocoon and his sons, are to be strangled and crushed, in order that the unrelenting serpent may live in triumph, it is time to determine which of them is most worthy to be saved. Such was not the Union formed by our forefathers. Such is not the Union the people intend to preserve. They mean to uphold a Union, under the constitution, interpreted by common sense; a government able to attain results worthy of a great and free people, and for which it was founded; a republic, representing the sovereign majesty of the whole nation, clothed with ample powers to maintain its supremacy forever. They mean that liberty and union shall be "one and inseparable."

WHY SLAVERY, THOUGH HATED, WAS TOLERATED.

It is true, that indirectly, and for the purpose of a more equal distribution of direct taxes, the framers of the con

stitution tolerated, while they condemned slavery; but they tolerated it because they believed that it would soon disappear. They even refused to allow the charter of their own liberties to be polluted by the mention of the word "slave." Having called the world to witness their heroic and unselfish sacrifices for the vindication of their own inalienable rights, they could pot, consistently with honor or self-respect, transmit to future ages the evidence that some of them had trampled upon the inalienable rights of others.

RECOGNITION OF SLAVERY NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THE PERPE TUITY OF THE REPUBLIC.

Though slavery was thus tolerated by being ignored, we should dishonor the memory of those who organized that government to suppose that they did not intend to bestow upon it the power to maintain its own authority the right to overthrow or remove slavery, or whatever might prove fatal to its permanence, or destroy its usefulness. We should discredit the good sense of the great people who ordained and established it, to deny that they bestowed upon the republic, created by and for themselves, the right, the duty, and the powers of self-defence. For self-defence by the government was only maintaining, through the people's agents, the right of the people to govern themselves.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE OBJECTS AND THE MEANS OF WAR.

We are involved in a war of self-defence.

It is not the object and purpose of our hostilities to lay waste lands, burn bridges, break up railroads, sink ships, blockade harbors, destroy commerce, capture, imprison, wound, or kill citizens; to seize, appro

priate, confiscate, or destroy private property; to interfere with families, or domestic institutions; to remove, employ, liberate, or arm slaves; to accumulate national debt, impose new and burdensome taxes; or to cause thousands of loyal citizens to be slain in battle. But, as means of carrying on the contest, it has become necessary and lawful to lay waste, burn, sink, destroy, blockade, wound, capture, and kill; to accumulate debt, lay taxes, and expose soldiers to the peril of deadly combat. Such are the ordinary results and incidents of war. If, in further prosecuting hostilities, the liberating, employing, or arming of slaves shall be deemed convenient for the more certain, speedy, and effectual overthrow of the enemy, the question will arise, whether the constitution prohibits those measures as acts of legitimate war against rebels, who, having abjured that constitution and having openly in arms defied the government, claim for themselves only the rights of belligerents.

It is fortunate for America that securing the liberties of a great people by giving freedom to four millions of bondmen would be in accordance with the dictates of justice and humanity. If the preservation of the Union required the enslavement of four millions of freemen, very different considerations would be presented.

LIBERAL AND STRICT CONSTRUCTIONISTS.

The friends and defenders of the constitution of the United States of America, ever since its ratification, have expressed widely different opinions regarding the limitation of the powers of government in time of peace, no less than in time of war. Those who have conten led for the most narrow and technical construc

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