The preceding blank I may call a waiting page, wherein the accusation and argument of the North should have been stated. So in Mr. Sterne's Tristam there is a thinking page, where the thread of the discourse is suddenly broken, and the reader left to his own meditations on what the writer would not, or could not, express: which page, if I remember well, says more and better than many another written by him. I wish the waiting one above were not in the same relation with mine. As the North, however, has said nothing on any of the forementioned points, I can write nothing, of course and professing myself ready to report whenever she will speak on the subject, I must stop for the present, and close proceedings; which I confess I am loath to do, and deeply regret, that, after such preparations, the trial has so unexpectedly come to an end even before beginning. Thus the foregoing pages must go for nothing, or the exordium is the whole composition, as it is not followed by that which it was designed to precede. And if any have had the patience to read so far, it is not improbable they will here exclaim : "Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus ! " which exclamation, though uttered against me, I could very well turn to my credit; as if what precedes had given them reason to expect something afterward which might have interested them. But, to give honor to truth, which should ever reign above all things, with all due deference to their penetration and judgment, I would respectfully assure them that any such anticipations would have been frustrated. Could George Washington, and his associates in founding this Union, be now recalled to life, and assembled together, I imagine a Bostonian might ask them this question: "Do you approve of slavery?" To which Washington, after looking at his companions, who nod assent, and wish him to speak for all, would give answer: "Yes, we do." And so did we in the beginning, when States entered and were received into the Union, in which slaves were accounted part of citizens' property. We knew it well. Had we said nothing anywhere upon this matter, yet the fact of guaranteeing to the Confederate States and their citizens the right of property, should be enough for you to conclude that we approved of Slavery. If we had thought of condemning or abolishing it, we should have made of it an express mention; that is, if the slaveholders had consented to it. For they had a perfect right to refuse entering the Union, if that condition had been required of them, as they would have to withdraw from it whenever the same condition should be offered to them, if they did not like it. Perhaps I should have said that in such case no confederation at all would have been formed, almost all the States then met being slaveholding. This is a complete answer to your question, which you might have spared to ask, we having so long ago anticipated, and in so solemn a manner answered it. Read the Declaration of Independence, which is the basis, and then the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, which are the building raised up and developed on that foundation. BOST.-But Slavery is unchristian, inhuman, barbarous, not becoming a civilized people; and every trace of it should be cancelled from the face of the earth. WASH.-All this may be so; but not by the Constitution. We thought ourselves Christians, humane, and civilized enough; at least not much below the standard of those who are reputed to be so; but Religion we expressly excluded from having any part in the government; and as for those other things you mention, we meant not to touch, nor interfere with, them, leaving everybody perfectly free in regard to conscience, opinions, and sentiments of any kind, provided they were not used to destroy our institutions or endanger the peace of the community. Any such attempt we provided how should be repressed; and if we had not, it should be repressed notwithstanding. The power of doing it is necessarily implied, and may be as lawfully used as any express one, by those who at the time of the occurrence hold the reins of the government; for their duty is to enforce as well as to execute her laws. We did not set up for reformers to correct what we thought defective in Religion, Morals, or Society: we left things as we found them; our only purpose (and that purpose we have clearly expressed) being to establish a government, in which to every citizen should be secured the peaceful enjoyment of his political rights of Freedom, Life, and Property. BOST.-And we intend to maintain what you did, cost what it will. But, leaving all things as you ordained them, we would only distinguish property, and reduce it to its proper bounds, separating from it that portion which consists in men. This canker of Slavery takes away from us even the enjoyment of our free institutions; it makes us feel ashamed to call ourselves a free community. Some of us even thought that you disapproved of Slavery, and that, in our endeavors to abolish it, we were carrying out your intentions. WASH.-You surprise and astonish us! We ourselves were not ashamed of Slavery; and yet we called ourselves free, and gloried in the appellation. It is we who declared ourselves Independent. The distinction which you would introduce into property does not come from aught we did, nor from the Constitution. This is the Instrument, and the only one, which you must resort to in all doubts and controversies wherein your political rights, or those of your fellow citizens, may be involved. It is good enough to answer ordinary purposes and solve all questions thereupon: it certainly solves the present against your distinction, for it makes none. And before you attempt to make any in this, or any other subject, that may refer to the fundamental principles on which we planted and organized the government, you must first renounce our paternity, and destroy the Constitution which we signed and bequeathed to you, in order that you should preserve it inviolate. Not a few of your party have indeed renounced us and the Constitution both, long since: they have called this Instrument and the Union a lie, an imposture, and worse; and have gloried in it. Some one has said that "there is a Higher Law than the Constitution ;” as if, whatever is done, even in spite of the Constitution, to abolish Slavery from within the United States were justified by that Law. To this we simply say, that there is no Higher Law than Justice, and it is on Justice the Constitution is founded. But, this Law being so high, it is not impossible these people cannot see it distinctly; or, perhaps, while mounting to reach and apply it, they become giddy or leave Reason behind them. To prove this, a simple consideration is sufficient. If they act in this matter as citizens of the United States, as they profess to do, they cannot even think of abolishing Slavery within the Union, because its citizens are bound to respect the Constitution and obey its provisions, including whatever there is in it which relates to Slavery. Otherwise they must give up all claims to being called reasonable; for, to pretend to act by the Constitution, or borrow from it the means and the power to destroy it, is more absurd than language can express. If they act, not as citizens of the United States, but as men who think themselves authorized by the general Law of mankind; certainly, they may, then, lay the Constitution aside; but equally certain it is that, in order to execute that Law in any State of the Confederacy, they must commence by making themselves strangers to her. In other words, they must get out of the Union first. It is only thus they can place themselves, so to speak, on free ground; and only then might they undertake to treat with the slaveholders as men with men, no more as citizens with fellow citizens. But, so long as they stay in the Union, and call themselves citizens of the United States, |