DISCUSSION THE TROUBLING ELEMENT.

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form of its consideration, by the most serious minded men, except in the favoring interest of slavery, was stigmatized as "wicked agitation." Nothing but utter silence upon the question, unless in its favor, was pleasing to the class of slavery propagandists. We speak from personal knowledge and extended observation, and declare only what is notorious.

At the very same time, the South was teeming with publications, the newspaper, the sermon, the pamphlet, the quarterly and the octavo volume, put forth by her ablest writers, her Thornwells and Palmers, her Hammonds and Cobbs, her Elliotts and Bledsoes, her Armstrongs and Smylies, statesmen, lawyers, divines, vying with each other to sanctify and glorify the system of Southern bondage as a "blessing," socially, politically, religiously; while, in perfect accord with all this, in the North were found apologists and defenders of the system from the same classes and professions, and through the same means; and yet, many of these Northern men were ready to raise the hue and cry of " agitation" and "abolitionism" if any thing were said against the system, unless it were emasculated of all the pungency and pith which would give it force. In a word, although discussion was feared as a fiend, it could be tolerated, and even applauded, provided it were on the right side.*

*To give an illustration of what some great men thought about discussion on this subject, and how it could be disposed of, we refer to the proposition of a distinguished statesman. In the early part of 1861, soon after the secession of South Carolina, when many men in the Border States were striving to produce a "reconciliation between the North and the South," the Hon. John P. Kennedy, of Baltimore, published a pamphlet, entitled, "The Border States: Their Power and Duty," &c. He gives a series of propositions which the Border States should submit to the two sections, and among them this about discussing the subject of slavery: "Finally, a pledge to be given by the free States to exert their influence, as far as possible, to discourage discussions of slavery in a tone offensive to the interests of the slaveholding States." The alternative, on the failure of the proposed negotiations, is thus

It is a notorious fact, as regards the great body of the people of the United States who were in principle opposed to slavery, that the utmost they did to manifest their opposition was to discuss and determine its merits; and this they felt bound to do, especially in consequence of its more recent and extravagant claims. The measure of their responsibility for the rebellion and the war is thus easily gauged. It is equally notorious, that this discussion, and the conclusions formed concerning the system, were the chief things which gave the concocters of the rebellion mortal offence. Their responsibility is thus just as easily determined. Who, then, are responsible for this heritage of woes? Must the South bear it all? Is the North to bear no share of it?

presented: "But in the adverse event of these stipulations, or satisfactory equivalents for them, being refused, the Border States and their allies of the South who may be disposed to act with them, will be forced to consider the Union impracticable, and to organize a separate Confederacy of the Border States, with the association of such of the Southern and free States as may be willing to accede to the proposed conditions." On a subsequent page he says, the italics being his own: "But let the free States everywhere, and the sober, reflective, and honest men in them, understand, that the old Union is an impossibility unless the agitation of slavery is brought to an end." These extracts are suggestive: (1.) Mr. Kennedy, like some other men in the Border slave States, takes the position that slavery was not the cause of the rebellion, and yet all his proposals for "reconciliation" are made with reference to slavery in some of its bearings; giving thus, unwittingly, the proof that slavery was in reality the cause. (2.) The real difficulty was not that the subject was discussed "in a tone offensive," but that it was discussed at all. Discussion in any form or spirit was "offensive," unless it was in favor of the system. (3.) But the most remarkable thing here is, that so distinguished a gentleman, once a cabinet minister, should at any time have seriously proposed (and he is by no means the only statesman in this category) any State action, in a popular government, "to discourage discussion" on any subject; and especially with the alternative of dissolving the Union, unless his proposed concessions, demanded by the subject upon which discussion was to be precluded, were granted. But the country can well afford, at this later day, to pass over some things of this kind which then took strong hold of many minds; and of Mr. Kennedy this can be said on two grounds. He, like a large portion of his countrymen, has obtained some new ideas since then; and during the present year he has given his powers, with other leading men of Maryland, to the work of entirely removing slavery from that State. Some Border State men make no advance on the subject-unless it be backward.

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WHAT CLASS OF NORTHERN MEN RESPONSIBLE.

Here is where the case pinches, and yet the solution of the question is most easy. We freely concede that a certain part of the people of the North have a portion of this responsibility to bear, but it is not that small and uninfluential class whom Judge Robertson, and other writers who agree with him, would hold up to the public gaze; nor yet that larger number who manifested their dissent by discussion. It is rather that class of men in Church and State,-politicians, editors, divines, and others, who are always influential in forming, controlling, or echoing public opinion,-who have ever been crying out about an infringement of Southern rights, making apologies for the South, courting the smiles of the Southern people, and yielding, step by step, to their extreme demands. So far as provocative action may be charged with responsibility, in yielding to the clamors of Southern passion, and exciting Southern men to demand more and more in concession to slavery, this class may be justly held to a large measure of it.

RESPONSIBILITY AMONG POLITICIANS NORTH.

The "claims of the South" were always in the market. They were put up to the highest bidder in the political contests of the country. They formed the central plank in political platforms. We state nothing more than is known and read of all men, when we say that that party which for many years before the rebellion began had com. monly the control of the General Government, was always the successful competitor; and having once and long ago established with the South its subserviency and fidelity, it held its position undisputed. No slave was ever more obedient to his master. This was seen in its conventions,

in its platforms, in its primary meetings, upon the stump, at elections, in Congress, in the Supreme Court. Certain concessions emboldened Southern politicians to demand what had never been dreamed of by the founders of the Government; but the demand was no sooner made than it was granted, and generally, in latter days, in the name of the supreme organic law; so that, at length, the doctrine of Southern Statesmen, and of nearly the whole Southern people, was precisely that stated by Dr. Thornwell, in his elaborate vindication of the secession of South Carolina: "The Constitution covers the whole territory of the Union, and throughout that territory has taken slavery under the protection of law;" a doctrine, as understood at the South, which would have startled the framers of the Constitution, and which is nevertheless but the echo of the celebrated declaration of President Buchanan about Kansas while it was yet a Territory, that slavery existed there in fact and by the Constitution of the United States, as truly as it existed in Georgia and South Carolina.

RESPONSIBILITY AMONG CHURCHMEN NORTH.

The subserviency of Northern politicians had its counterpart within the Northern Churches, and in those ecclesiastical bodies which extended into all parts of the Union. We do not mean that corruption, bargaining, and sale, for place and profit, occurred in like manner; but the disposition to apologize, extenuate, stifle discussion, and yield to Southern wishes, lest slavery should receive some damage, or somebody or something connected with it, somewhere or somehow, should be in some manner or in some degree hurt, in purse, feeling, or character; all this has been too frequently illustrated in the higher courts of the Church, and defended by religious journals, and makes too

SOUTHSIDE VIEW OF NORTHERN CLERGYMEN. 89

prominent and frequent a figure in our recent religious history, scarcely to need in these pages any recurrence to the facts except in a general statement. And yet it may be well to confirm this view by a bare reference to the influence this course had upon the South, as seen in Southern testimony.

SOUTHSIDE VIEW OF NORTHERN CLERGYMEN.

A man's standing and influence are generally pretty well determined by the estimation in which he is held by his judicious friends. Taking this as a fair criterion of judgment, we have only to turn the eye South to perceive how certain Northern men in the Church were regarded upon those questions which politically and religiously divided the country, and at length terminated in rebellion and war, and thus to see on which side their influence for many years, when these difficulties were culminating, was thrown.

If in taking this Southern observation we are led to give names, it is because we find them presented in the South, and because they are prominent persons and representative men of a large class at the North. If special distinct on is given to individuals, it only shows how highly their services were valued; and if they are now found at last upon the side of the country and its real interests, it only serves to make the lamentation at the loss of their services the more bitter, and to give the sarcasm in which it is expressed a keener point.

The Southern Presbyterian, a religious weekly published at Columbia, South Carolina, is a good authority upon the point in hand. In its issue of February 23, 1861, it refers, as "a sign of the times," to a discussion then going on between Rev. William Matthews, of Georgia, and Rev. Dr. N. L. Rice, then editor of the Presbyterian Expositor,