you seek to bring an inferior race in a condition of equality, socially and politically with our own people. Sir, the question of slavery moves not the people of Georgia one-half as the fact that you insult their rights as a community."

Mr. Lincoln: "Will the Southern people be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them?"

Mr. Toombs: "Sir, I have no hesitation in saying a very large portion of the people of Georgia, whom I represent, prefer to remain in the Union with their Constitutional rights. But you say try the right. I agree. But how? By our judg. ment? No, not until the last resort. What then? By yours? No, not until the same time. How then try it? The South has always said by the Supreme Court.... But you deny us that privilege."

Mr. Lincoln: "We must not only let them alone but we must convince them that we do let them alone." (A sad commentary on the acts of the new party).

Mr. Toombs: "The law of nature, the law of justice would say--and it is expounded by the publicists-that equal rights in the common property shall be enjoyed. Even in a monarchy the king cannot prevent the subjects from enjoying equality in the disposition of public property."

Mr. Lincoln: "I am aware they have not as yet in terms demanded an overhthrow of the free State Constitutions. When all other sayings against it shall have been silenced the overthrow of the free State Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing will be left to resist their demands."

Mr. Toombs: "Take them (his five demands) in detail and show that they are not warranted by the Constitution, by the safety of our people, by the principles of eternal justice." "Senators, I have little care to dispute remedies with you unless you propose to redress my wrongs. If you propose that I will listen with respectful deference."

Mr. Lincoln: "The Northern people must first cease to call slavery wrong and join in calling it right."

Mr. Toombs: "But when the objectors to my remedies pro

pose no adequate ones of their own, I know what they mean. They mean submission. But still I will argue it with them."

Mr. Lincoln: "Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in pulpits, or in private."

Mr. Toombs: "The Constitution of the United States now requires and gives Congress express powers to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the laws of nations. When the honorable and distinguished Senator (Mr. Douglas) from Illinois, last year introduced a bill for the purpose of punishing those offending under that clause of the Constitution, Mr. Lincoln, in his speech declared that it was a sedition bill; his press and party hooted at it. So far from recognizing the bill as intended to carry out the Constitution of the United States it received their jeers and gibes."

Mr. Lincoln: "The North must pull down their free Constitutions."

Mr. Toombs: "Sir, they have stood by vour Constitution: they have stood by all its requirements; they have performed all its duties, unselfishly, uncalculatingly, disinterestedly."

Mr. Lincoln: "The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all opposition to slavery.”

Mr. Toombs: "You say Congress has the right to pass rules and regulations concerning the territories and other property of the United States. Does that exclude those whose money and blood paid for it? Does 'dispose of' mean to rob the rightful owners?"

Mr. Lincoln: "The North must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure."

Mr. Toombs: "By the text and letter of the Constitution you agreed to give them up. You have broken your oaths."

The Constitution: "No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, in consequence of any law, or regulation therein, shall be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim

of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." Art. 4, Sec. 2.)

Alexander Hamilton: "The Federal Constitution therefore decided with great propriety on the case of our slaves, when it views them as in the mixed character of persons and property. This is in fact their true character bestowed on them by the laws under which we live." (The Federalist No. 53, Davidson's Edition, p. 379). The Constitution of every slave State so regarded it. All the Northern States so regarded it, for more than a full century. The framers of the Constitution so regarded it. The New England slavers so regarded it. The Northern merchants so regarded it. The New England slave markets for many years so regarded it. The entire history of the South, from the settlement of Jamestown to the termination of the war, in one unbroken affirmation declared it. Yet against all this testimony, and more, is opposed the word of Lincoln. When the result is considered one is almost persuaded, even against his will, that this world is controlled by fate. He acquired such control of affairs, such political influence that he successfully charged the Constitution-loving South with that highest of political crimes, treason, even though the charge was false; and upon that false charge inaugurated a war that completely exhausted the resources of one section, and drained-billions of treasure from the other, while it approximately claimed a million of lives, infinitely more valuable than all the billions in treasure, spent in its successful execution.

THE SOUTH AND THE CONSTITUTION SUB

ORDINATED TO AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL

PLATFORM AND THE GOVERNMENT

TO AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL POLICY.

When the Revolutionary War had been fought to a successful finish there existed in this country thirteen free and independent sovereignties. They were first independent States by their own declarations. Afterwards they were independent States by virtue of the acknowledgment of Great Britain.

During the War of the Revolution they had united for their mutual protection under a compact known as the Confederation. This Confederation embraced a territory of wide extent, in which both the climate and the products varied. As some States owned larger extent of territory than others, rivalries and conflicts of interest soon developed. These threatened the stability of the Union.

It was now that Virginia, the Old Dominion, in the royal spirit of patriotism and good will to the Union, ceded to the United States her vast extent of territory north of the Ohio. Out of that territory five great States and a part of another have since been formed. This gift of Virginia laid the basis for the predominance of the Northern Section, and was the cause of increased strife rather than pacification.

In 1820 the South, in the spirit of sacrifice, gave to the North exclusive control of all the Louisiana Purchase lying north of 36 degrees, 30, not included in the State of Missouri. She well knew the Constitution did not demand this sacrifice, but it was made to preserve the Union of the States. Little did she dream then that she was laying the basis for an offensive aggression that would finally threaten her own destruction.

This line, continued, embraced the territory acquired from

Texas.

Add to these all the land both north and south of that line all the territory obtained from Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and we see the North in control of at least. three-fourths of all the territory added to the public domain since 1776.

Nor was this all. The South had been burdened by discriminating duties on imports in favor of the North. The manufacturing section was built up at the expense of the South, the agricultural section. With more territory, more money and more varied employment the North offered greater inducements for imigrants. As the population and wealth of the North increased her demands for new advantages increased. These demands finally disregarded all Constitutional limits. Political greed is individual greed on a larger scale. With delusive phrases, commiserating the poor black man, far better off than nine-tenths of the Northern poor, they did not hesitate to attack every Constitutional clause in the way of their ambition. This accounts for their violent opposition to the Supreme Court decision to which we have referred in the chapters immediately preceding this.

To accomplish their purposes they invented three strange constitutions, known as "The Higher Law," "The Common Law," and "The Unwritten Constitution," placing each above the written. About these so-called Constitutions we shall have little to say at present, as we shall devote a chapter to them and numerous other irrelevant excuses for violating that matchless document, formulated in 1787. All other so-called Constitutions were the product of the rankest sectionalism.

The force of that sectionalism was felt in the John Brown raid; in the increased number of insurrections in the Southern States; and in the disquiet and uneasiness in all the South's demestic institutoins. But it was felt most when it laid its bloody hands on the common Constitution, the Bond of the States in Union, and pulled from its lofty eminence the third great Department of our Government and subordinated it in rank to a party platform. And this was done in the name of the Union