TO PERPETUATE NEGRO SLAVERY.

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appointed and ambitious politicians; a desire for an independent nationality; a wish to found an aristocracy, or a monarchy, or both; a strike for free trade, and to be rid of Northern competition; a vindication of the doctrine of State rights; a jealousy and chagrin at Northern growth and prosperity, in comparison with Southern; or, these and other similar causes all combined; and that slavery, and the Presidential election of 1860, were 66 a mere pretext." We grant the substantial truth of what are here given as auxiliary causes of the rebellion; and yet, it is further true, as we shall see, that it is NEGRO SLAVERY, in its emoluments in the Rebel States, in its fears of encroachment and apprehended dangers, and especially in its modern garb as "divine," and a political and social "good in itself" to all concerned, that underlies all other' causes, and gives the vital and essential force to carry these desires and aspirations into execution in the form of open rebellion.

3

CHAPTER II.

CAUSE OF THE REBELLION.

Ir is among the marvels which our civil war has exhibited, that there should be a difference of opinion concerning the reasons which have prompted the rebellion now in progress against the Government of the United States. But if we may judge from the speeches of public men in Congress, in State Legislatures, upon the stump, from the messages of Governors of States, from the resolutions of political bodies, and from the current literature of public journals, all confined, however, to the loyal States, but found in every stage of the contest from the beginning till now,--we see that there is as wide a variance upon this simple point as can be found upon any other question of fact or policy touching the rebellion, or any other matter concerning human interests upon which men are commonly divided. Upon discovering this, one might be led to the conclusion that there are inherent difficulties in the solution of the case. But it is one of the plainest of all things connected with the whole movement, and it is quite remarkable that there should be disagreement upon it, at least among truly loyal men.

SLAVERY THE CAUSE.

As perfectly decisive of the difficulty, if there be any whatever, it is well known that in the Rebel States and among those engaged in the rebellion, there has been but one prime reason assigned for it from first to last, as put forth by their public men and echoed by all their organs

SLAVERY THE CAUSE.

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of public opinion. This is so plainly true, and the reason itself is so plain and so plainly stated, that it would seem a little wonderful, did we not know too well the political corruption which abounds, that all men in the loyal States, including those who sympathize with the rebellion, should not be content to permit the rebel leaders to make their own statement of the case on this point, and to allow that statement to be true. With all the frenzied fury and disregard of truth which they have shown, and the want of sagacity and ordinary good sense which have characterized ten thousand things which they have said and done in the progress of their horrid work, we must certainly allow a sufficient method to their madness to suppose that they at least knew and could tell for what they rebelled. They probably did know; they certainly have told; and they all agree.

In a word, they declare that it was FOR NEGRO SLAVERY that they rebelled: for its security against apprehended peril; for its expansion into free territory, wherever their inclinations and interests might prompt them to carry it; and for its perpetuation. This is what they universally present as the reason for their course, warranting, with certain discriminations, the concise remark we often hear, that "slavery is the cause of the rebellion," and that "slavery is the cause of the war."

But as

Here then we might rest and dismiss the case. this is a controverted point, we shall present the opposite view as held by rebel sympathizers and certain Union men, and then give the conclusive evidence which sustains the position we take, that it was in the interest of slavery alone that the rebellion was undertaken; that "the duty" which devolved upon the South was "plain, of conserving and transmitting the system of slavery, with the freest scope for its natural development and extension."

AN OPPOSITE VIEW.

Among other distinguished witnesses to the position, that to secure greater immunities to slavery was not the cause of the rebellion, is found the Hon. George Robertson, a former Chief-Justice of Kentucky, and a friend of the Union. In a series of elaborate papers on national affairs, published a few months since in the Louisville Journal, he declared that it was not slavery,-"not security for an institution that needed none better than the Constitution,”for which "the leading conspirators" rebelled; but it was because the " South sought independence." He presents seven reasons, formally laid down, for this opinion, concluding thus: "7th and lastly. Some of the leaders, without contradiction or dissent, said in Convention (we presume the Judge refers to that of South Carolina), that they had been hatching independence for more than thirty years, and ridiculed the idea that antislaveryism, in any of its phases, was the cause of their secession." He elsewhere says: "Thus the treacherous and proscriptive concoctors of rebellion initiated this unholy war; and hence some of them truly said in Convention, that the warfare waged by abolitionists against the institution of slavery and the security of slave property, was a God-send' to the advocates of Southern independence."*

We deem it but just to Judge Robertson to give his seven propositions together and in full: "That the leading conspirators South sought independence,-and not security for an institution that needed none better than the Constitution they so long conspired to destroy,-should not be doubted for these among other reasons: 1st They knew that, from time to time, they had obtained every supplemental security which they had asked or desired excepting only the humbug of protection' in Northern Territories, where slavery could never long or usefully exist, and where majorities of the inhabitants would not want it. 2d. They knew that no person claimed for Congress power to abolish or disturb slavery in the States, and that Congressional non-intervention in Territories,-which they had secured as far as useful to the South by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and every where by the finality' of 1850,-was all they wanted or had any right to expect. 3d. They wantonly threw away these

AN OPPOSITE VIEW.

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Our space will not allow us to quote more at large from the Judge; but as we have said he is a Union man, we give a sentence or two among many to show this, and to show his view of slavery as an institution, and that he would not allow it to come into competition with the preservation of the Union: "I am not, nor ever was, pro-slavery in feeling or in principle. I would delight to see all men free. But I know that this is impossible until the different races approximate more nearly to moral equality." Speaking of the "less ambitious masses" in the South, who "rushed inconsiderately into the maelstrom of this shocking rebellion," he says: "They ought to have known better, and set up for themselves. But, had they not been deluded,

securities for the normal expansion of slavery by their suicidal abrogation in 1854 of these pledges of national faith, thereby indicating that their agitations of moot questions of slavery were intended, not for that institution or its incidents, but only for independence and power. 4th. They knew, that, before President Lincoln's inauguration, Congress had organized all the new Territories without any interdiction of slavery, and proposed also an amendment to the Constitution expressly and irrevocably providing against any Congressional interference with slavery in any State; and they knew that the incoming President and party were committed, by their Chicago platform, against all such intervention; and, moreover, knowing that a majority of Congress and of the Supreme Court were on their side, enough of the Southern members of Congress abdicated to give the Republican party a majority, thus showing that they were plotting pretexts for revolt; not for security to slavery, but for independence and a different form of government. 5th. They knew or ought to have known that their peculiar institution would be safer and more peaceful under our National Constitution binding on all the people, North, as well as South, than under a compact' of Confederation by 'sovereign States,' without a semblance of legal obligation on any people or States not parties to it. 6th. They wantonly destroyed the unity and nationality of their Democratic party in 1860, and thereby promoted Mr. Lincoln's election, which they preferred to that of Douglas or Bell, and then made that election a prominent pretext for secession. 7th and lastly. Some of the leaders, without contradiction or dissent, said in Convention that they had been hatching independence for more than thirty years, and ridiculed the idea that antislaveryism, in any of its phases, was the cause of their secession."-Louisville Journal, Oct. 19, 1863. Many persons at the North, and some papers, both secular and religious, embracing those who are loyal and disloyal, have most strenuously maintained that slavery was not the cause of the rebellion; that it was not to render it more secure against supposed aggressions that the States seceded; that this was "a mere pretext." We shall see the fallacy of this position from testimony which cannot be overthrown.