RESPONSIBILITY OF NORTHERN MEN.

95

We have good reason to believe, also, that the leaders of the Southern Church, as we have already intimated, were stimulated to become active promoters of the rebellion, by virtue of the hold which they believed they still had upon their special friends at the North; supposing, at first, that their secession might be effected peaceably, or, if it came at last to an open clash of arms, that their faith ful "allies" would still stand by them.

The responsibility for the rebellion, so far as the North is concerned, is thus not difficult of adjustment. It rests not upon the abolitionists; the South themselves repudiate this idea. It rests rather upon those, in Church and State, who have countenanced Southern extremists, and who were claimed by them as favoring their views; the "adroitest debaters" in Congressional halls and Church courts, and who upon the stump and through the press were "distinguished as defenders of slavery and the South;" in this manner nourishing and sustaining Southern men up to such

any course to deceive the rebels, nor was he himself deceived as to their designs, On the contrary, in December, 1860, soon after the secession of South Carolina, "General Butler went to Senator Wilson of Massachusetts, an old acquaintance, though long a political opponent, and told him that the Southern leaders meant war, and urged him to join in advising the Governor of their State to prepare the militia of Massachusetts for taking the field." "One thing he considered absolutely certain: there was going to be a war between Loyalty and Treason; between the Slave Power and the Power which had so long protected and fostered it. He found the North anxious, but still incredulous. He went to Governor Andrew, and gave him a full relation of what he had seen and heard at Washington, and advised him to get the militia of the State in readiness to move at a day's notice. He suggested that all the men should be quietly withdrawn from the militia force who were either unable or unwilling to leave the State for the defence of the Capital, and their places supplied with men who could and would. The Governor, though he could scarcely yet believe that war was impending, adopted the suggestion. About one-half the men resigned their places in the militia; the vacancies were quickly filled; and many of the companies, during the winter months, drilled every evening in the week, except Sundays."-Parton's Butler in New Orleans, ch. ii. It was unquestionably owing to General Butler's suggestions, as above related, that so large a number of Massachusetts troops were able to obey the call of the President so promptly, in April, 1861, occasioned by the attack upon Fort Sumter.

a point of preposterous demand for their claims, that at length the masses of the people rose in their sovereign majesty to throw off the incubus, and restore the Government to its true and original status.

NORTHERN RESPONSIBILITY IN ANOTHER LIGHT.

It has often been said that the people of the North had no business to trouble themselves about the question of slavery in any aspect of the case, as the South were alone responsible for the institution. This has been the short argument, many a time, employed against Northern men: "It is none of your business; if it is a sin, the Southern people only are guilty of it; if it is a social evil, or a political matter, it is wholly their concern; therefore, let it alone."

These are radical errors; and yet, so shrewd a man as Dr. Thornwell sustains them. He says:

The responsibility of slavery is not upon the non-slaveholding States. It is not created by their laws, but by the laws of the slaveholding States; and all they do in the case of the fugitive from his master, is to remand him to the jurisdiction of the laws from which he has escaped. They have nothing to do with the justice or injustice of the laws themselves. -Fast-Day Sermon, Nov. 21, 1860.

We have no complaint to make of the opinions of the North considered simply as their opinions. They have a right, so far as human authority is concerned, to think as they please. The South has never asked them to approve of slavery, or to change their own institutions and to introduce it among themselves. The South has been willing to accord to them the most perfect and unrestricted right of private judg ment. But what we do complain of, and what we have a right to complain of, is, that they should not be content with thinking their own thoughts themselves, but should undertake to make the Government think them likewise. So. Pres. Rev., Jan., 1861.

These are erroneous opinions, in any true consideration of the case and most flagrantly so in view of the changes

SLAVERY MAY BE EXAMINED AT THE NORTH. 97

which have occurred, within a recent period in our history, in Southern sentiment, upon the social, moral, and political status of slavery.

SLAVERY MAY BE EXAMINED AT THE NORTH.

Dr. Thorn

These are errors, politically considered. well's argument, in both the articles above quoted, is to show that slavery is national. He says, as before given: "The Constitution covers the whole territory of the Union, and throughout that territory has taken slavery under the protection of law." Admitting for the sake of the argument that this is so, it follows that slavery is a matter for the consideration of the whole people, and their responsibility is involved in every national aspect of the institu tion; to see that its relations to the Constitution are understood aright and are properly maintained. His premises being admitted, the conclusion is inevitable. But without admitting the extreme views which Southern politicians have often advanced in more recent times, which are not sustained by the founders of the Government, and which we presume Dr. Thornwell intends to cover by the sentence just quoted, all statesmen agree that in any true relation of the Constitution to slavery, the institution, in some of its most important bearings, is one of national concern and national responsibility. More especially is this true in the light of Southern claims which are believed to be totally at variance with the Constitution. It was incumbent on every Northern statesman, and upon every Northern citizen, to note whither such sentiments were tending, and to act accordingly. It is perfectly immaterial, however, to the present point, which construction of the Constitution is right, the Northern or the Southern. In either case, slavery is a matter for national consideration. In a purely political light, therefore, Dr.

Thornwell makes a most ill-founded complaint of the people of the non-slaveholding States, in "that they should not be content with thinking their own thoughts themselves."

His position is equally false in morals. The relation which the people of the North sustain to slavery politically, makes its moral status of necessity one of just concern to them. If it is an evil in any sense, if a sin in itself, or if all its evils are merely incidental to the relation, still the inevitable connection of the whole people with it, through the structure of the common Government, fixes upon them the responsibility in no small degree of its moral status and relations, whatever they may be. It is utterly erroneous to say that the people of the non-slaveholding States "have nothing to do with the justice or injustice" of the institution, or even "of the laws themselves" by which it is regulated. If they are concerned with it at all, if they are obliged to return fugitives that escape from slavery to the jurisdiction of the laws from which they have fled, or if they have any other duty to discharge under that instrument which gives the institution any national status whatever, then they have a right to inquire into any thing and every thing which gives it character; and especially into its moral status, for they and the slaves themselves are moral beings. The whole people of the non-slaveholding States may consider every moral element and bearing of the institution, and may approve or condemn, in whole or in part, according to their best judgment, and act as right-eousness demands. Nor can any past settlement of principles concerning it, or any opinion entertained of it, by the fathers, or by anybody else, preclude their right thus to do; for they must act on their own responsibility before God.

But most especially,-if, indeed, there can be any differ

A SUBJECT FOR ALL MANKIND.

66

99

ence, is it their privilege not only, but their right and solemn duty, to compass the whole subject, when the South, well nigh or quite universally, abandoning the opinions concerning it held substantially by the whole country in the early days of the Republic,-by statesmen and divines, have latterly taught that slavery is right and a "blessing," is an "Ordinance of God" and a "school of virtue," " and is vindicated throughout the whole Scriptures. What the people of the North have claimed, is, to examine these pretensions, to see whether the Fathers both of the Church and of the State in this country were right or wrong, and having formed a judgment to act accordingly; and this is the whole they have claimed.

A SUBJECT FOR ALL MANKIND.

Nor is this all. The moment the claim is made that Southern slavery is sanctioned and sanctified by the Word of God, and is on a par with the conjugal and parental relations, the whole subject is thrown open to the discussion of all people in this country not only, but to the entire Christian world to whom the Scriptures are given. Under the modern claims for Southern negro slavery, it is the idlest of all possible objections to say of Christians of even any foreign nation, that "they have nothing to do with the justice or injustice" of the institution. If it is a perfectly Scriptural system, as is claimed, they may inquire into it, as they may into any social system claiming such a sanction; as into polygamy in Utah, or into any of the

'Strange as it may sound to those who are not familiar with the system, Slavery is a school of virtue, and no class of men have furnished sublimer instances of heroic devotion than slaves in their loyalty and love to their masters. We have seen them rejoice at the cradle of the infant, and weep at the bier of the dead; and there are few amongst us, perhaps, who have not drawn their nourishment from their generous breasts."-(Fast-Day Sermon.) Some naturalists tell us that there are certain "irrational animals" who give the same illustrations of “virtue."